Chris's entry:
The Electric Chair
Call me an epicentre of woe. I stand condemned and very soon I will sit, strapped into what remains of my life.
Did I eat a “hearty breakfast”? I did not. I have not eaten much lately. Nothing to eat for. There will be no last-minute reprieve, I gave up that idea long ago. I closed Pandora’s Box too soon, and Hope is lost inside like a sparrow in a chimney, fluttering madly towards an escape that has been shut off.
The Chair has been in my nightmares for weeks now, since they ... passed judgement. I can see it now, from my vantage point as a slagheap of flesh and bone dumped onto a table that is as cold as a mortuary slab. Dead man slumping. The slightest movement of my eyes brings it into vision, its metal frame squeezing the last ounce of joy, light and laughter from me.
“Mr Horton?” The voice is polite, professional. Mr! “They're ready for you now. Is there anything you would like before ...?” The voice tails off, embarrassed. Like? Oh sure! I'd like a game of football please, a sail in a yacht with the wind off the Solent and the spray in my face, a walk across Exmoor in the autumn mist. It ain't gonna happen, is it chum. I say nothing.
Men in gowns surround me, lift me, carry me, lower me, carefully and precisely strap me in with what seems mockingly like loving attention to detail.
The doctor is all loveless smiles. “It will take some getting used to, Mr. Horton. But rest assured, an electric wheelchair is absolutely necessary when motor neurone disease reaches its... this stage, and we are here to give you all the help you need from now on.”
Help? I'm already dead.
Margaret's entry:
It’s the third time today they’ve strapped me in this chair. I wave my arms and howl. Not that I’m upset or angry, you understand. But it’s what they expect me to do. It’s a sort of game we play now.
Actually, there’s quite a good view from up here but I’m not going to let them think I like this, otherwise I’ll be stuck in this chair from morning till night. So, here goes, I shuffle and scream as usual.
Hang about. What’s that? My bum’s stuck to something gooey. Yuk! A bit of leftover lunch-gunge, I presume. They called it shepherd’s pie.
I wonder what’s on the menu tonight. They had rhubarb pie and custard. By the time it’s dished up to me it’ll be a yellow and pink slimy goo with a few lumpy bits for good measure. I can hear that blender thing going at full pelt, squishing it all up. No wonder I bring most of my mush back up again.
Here it comes. Just as I thought. Pale pink sludge in a plastic Superman bowl. I’d better force some of it down. Right, how can I get rid of the rest while they’re not looking? What’s that slinking about under my chair? Percy, the white poodle. He’s waiting for my leftovers. You’re welcome to ’em, mate. Looks like he’s just had a bath. I bet he’d like some nice yellowy-pink streaks in his coat. If I hold the spoon like this…shot! Better do a bit of crying, you know, just to make it look like an accident.
Yeah, that’s better. Straps are being removed now. Over the shoulder we go…oh, sorry…pardon me…I keep trying to tell you that chair gives me indigestion. You did want a nice pukey-pink shirt, didn’t you?
David's entry:
It’s the empty chair more than anything else. I can’t bring myself to sit in it. I should go and clean away her things. They’re just as she left them. The bed neatly made. Cup beside the sink. Walking stick beside the kitchen door. She won’t need them any more.
But it’s the empty chair.
She ruled the household from that chair. From dawn to dusk. From when she carefully lowered herself into it after breakfast, until when she was helped to stand up and made her way to bed after her supper-on-a-tray. She quizzed those that came to visit her. She howled for her afternoon tea. Zapped at the television. Tossed the newspaper onto the floor in her anxiety to find the page she wanted.
Her life was there. And most of her possessions. Anything lost could usually be found secreted somewhere in that chair. Her glasses under the cushion. Her hankie behind the ruffles that hid the sagging springs and fast-escaping wadding. Each night we’d explore and retrieve her belongings. And at night her blessed cat would take up temporary residence, knowing that she’d be back in her throne in the morning.
If she fell asleep, the cat might chance sneaking up and snuggling in beside her. But it was a rare occasion that she didn’t wake up and tell it to shoo. And that’s how we found her. Asleep with what’s-his-name blaring from the television and the cat feigning sleep too.
We could rouse the cat but not her. She was past rousing. And now nobody sits in the chair. Not even the cat. It knows she’s gone and things are different. If the chair could speak…
But it doesn’t need to. Its emptiness says it all.
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