The Armchair's Eye View

A Short Story

In the heart of a bustling metropolis, nestled amidst the ceaseless symphony of construction and the hum of traffic, was a modest abode. The living room of this old home had endured the ever-growing cacophony of urban life. Here, a television murmured with the melodrama of a soap opera, competing for attention with the laughter of children. Toys and board games were scattered across the floor.  The decades-old sofas stood as sturdy and reliable sentinels; their dark wooden frames weathered by time. The deep brown cushions offered a soft contrast to the ruggedness of the wood.  

The stone floor, cool to the touch, provided respite from the summer heat.  Beneath the glow of the television, stood a colorless TV stand, a true child of its urban habitat. Like the city itself, it was a patchwork of chaos and charm. An ugly tower of documents and postcards had claimed its place among the clutter. Batteries, both used and unused, rolled haphazardly on the shelves, their metallic bodies catching glimmers of light from the TV screen. The set-top box, buried beneath layers of dust, sat nonthreateningly, its original color obscured by the passage of time. Next to it, an antiquated telephone struggled for space, its presence a relic of a bygone era. Handwritten phone numbers adorned the side of the TV stand, hastily scrawled in chalk, with some numbers having made their way onto the wall behind.  But there was an endearing charm to this chaos.  One would never want to see the living room without this monument.

At the room's focal point sat an armchair, its occupant, an elderly woman, gazed upon the scene before her with a quiet contentment.  She sat on the same chair from dawn to dusk, watching anything that appeared in her field of vision.  This was not new to her.  She had grown up being a mere observer of her life and in no way a participant.  To the children playing in the living room, she was an extension of the furniture.  They would often talk about the loose change they had stolen from their parents’ wallets, and other shameful deeds in naughty whispers while she was in the room, without regard to her presence.  “She didn’t really count” in their own words.  

The lady was the last of twelve children.  When she was a child, her parents would often forget her name and her siblings saw her as a noisy little burden.  As they grew up and got married, one by one, she waited for her turn in the spotlight.  But her parents died before she graduated high school, so her brothers decided to take her out of class.  Sadly, she turned out to be “a lousy one” and was fired from every job she was forced into.  Her brothers finally gave up on her and let her stay in their homes.  

Every occasion and family get-together were an opportunity for her siblings to fight and bicker over who was taking her home next.  At first, it made her sad and guilty, but she slowly grew numb to it.   All of them were mean to her, but she had a favorite.  Her brother, the youngest apart from her, was rude in his words, but because he was only a couple of years her senior, he never resorted to physical violence.

So, at every one of these quarrels over her, she would secretly hope for her favorite brother to volunteer.  Often, he didn’t have to since the other siblings would bully him into it. She eventually eased into her life in the brother’s house.  The armchair in the living room reclined into an uncomfortable single bed and so, that was her spot.  She sat there, spent her days watching people walk in and out of the room, and go about their lives.  Her brother’s wife would wake her up in the morning, yelling at her to move her feet as she cleaned the floor.  The wife seldom met eyes with the lady and always spoke to her with a disgusted frown on her face.

Every morning, the brother would make his way to the couch, scratching and yawning.  He would pick up the lukewarm coffee and newspaper left there for him by his wife and sit, trying to look like he hadn’t a care in the world.  His wife would start listing her complaints from inside the kitchen.  The list would start off with a relatively harmless tone but by the end, she would be towering over him in front of the couch bombarding him with her violent disappointment as he sniffed and shifted around.  

After it all cooled down a bit, the brother would slowly get up and move to the couch next to his sister’s armchair.

“Is it so hard to clean up after yourself?  You see how she pesters me all day.  Can’t you consider what I have to put up with?”

Despite the cold reception she received from those around her, the elderly woman harbored a deep well of love and affection for her family. It was evident in the gentle tone of her voice as she called out to her brother’s grandchildren, inviting them to come and sit with her in the armchair. Yet, more often than not, her calls were met with indifference or sharp retorts, as the children carried on with their play, seemingly irritated by her presence.

Undeterred by their dismissals, she continued to reach out to them.  It was hard for her to be angry at them, as the images of their smiling infant faces were fresh in her memory.  She recalled the days when she cradled them in her arms, singing lullabies to soothe their restless cries. Those moments were etched in her mind. But as the years passed, and the children grew, their once-dependence on her faded, replaced by the impatience and indifference of youth.

As she sat looking out the window, she was startled by a sudden knock on the door.  It was her brother’s sons.  As they walked in, the children rushed towards their fathers, eager to share the events of the day.  More than that, of course, they wanted to get their hands on the smartphones that their dads would give them every once in a while.  They begged and pleaded until their fathers gave in.  As all of this happened, not even a greeting went in the direction of the old lady.  

An entire generation had passed her by, and everyone seemed to have unanimously decided that “she didn’t count”.  The old lady had remained a silent spectator and a mere witness to the unfolding drama of life beyond her reach. From her corner, she had observed the world transform before her eyes, each passing era leaving its indelible mark on her surroundings.  In her youth, the world had been neatly encapsulated within the pages of a newspaper, its events and upheavals reduced to ink and paper. She had watched as the television screen became the new window to the world, broadcasting the triumphs and tragedies of humanity into the living room.  But now, the world seemed to have shrunk to fit within the palm of a hand, its complexities distilled into fleeting images. While the rest of her family marched on into the future without stopping to look back, all she could do was sit in her armchair and watch, as she got left behind.

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