He sits in the chair he inherited when his father passed. Each morning, each night, the occasional afternoon, he sits. As the youngest with numerous siblings, he can't help wonder why his father's wife gave him the chair. She never said his father wanted him to have it. It was her gift to him. He's often wondered what made her think she had the power to choose how to divide his father's possessions. But she did, at least with respect to the chair. The chair he's sitting in now. Black, leather, cold, complex. The opposite of his father.
He'll close his eyes as often as he breaths and think of what ways he could possibly communicate with his father now. The picture, not a gift from anyone, but one he himself took, is the only way, the only one way, he has to pretend to communicate. Next to that picture are framed photos of the children. His father's grandchildren, the youngest, a son, he never knew. The son, the youngest, never knew his grandfather.
The dark of morning, before the sun begins its ascent, blackens the room, everything the darkness envelops. He can't see around him, but he feels the leather touching every exposed part of his skin. To him it's yet another attempt at communicating. He opens his mouth, begins to speak, stops, and is capable only of a whispered gasp.
The daylight breaks through slowly. He passes on any other thought, keeps his eyes closed, stands with a wobble and curses the silence. Yet briefly he believes his father is alive again.
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