Daylon’s understanding is that when the average person looks at a computer chair they see nothing more than a place to sit; most likely while using the electronic device from which its name was derived but he can imagine other use cases as well. To Daylon, his computer chair is a throne as ornate as anything produced in the annals of fiction although an outside observer may just see a beat-up gaming chair with red faux-leather flaking up and down the sides. If sight were purely an analytical process then Daylon would also see his chair as a flaking red monstrosity in need of a rigorous and extensive cleaning. But alas he does not because emotion colors our every perception and this chair has been the centerpiece of Daylon’s daily existence since he got it over ten years ago, back when he was still willing to emerge from his basement apartment and interact with the world outside willingly.
He was just idly browsing through the electronics section of his nearest tech-adjacent store. He wasn’t considering a purchase, he simply found a certain comfort being around PC hardware. He was just finishing comparing the specs on a trio of external hard-drives when he saw it. The way it was positioned… it seemed to be spotlighted like an actress on stage during her big monologue. He knew in that moment that he had to have it. Hadn’t even considered how he was going to get it home considering he had walked but the cost of the taxi was negligible compared to what they wanted for the chair itself. Not that he minded. He didn’t even mind that it was a floor model and didn’t have the original box. He couldn’t take his eyes off it, fumbling blindly for his wallet and debit card when the van the cab company sent finally came to a rolling stop in front of his apartment. He had waited until they were home to finally try it out by sitting down. It seemed somehow profane to have done so at the store and he was glad he waited as it proved to be one of the best days of his life.
It was a perfect moment.
There weren’t many more of those to follow. Life got tough after that. University turned out to be a nightmare. Working in a variety of kitchens to keep himself afloat during his studies was more stress than he could handle. It would be one thing to have gotten a job and really settled into it, become like another piece of equipment. But he couldn’t seem to keep any one position. He would get hired and within a couple weeks be let go again before the probationary period had ended. In the end he was forced to abandon his studies and move back home. He knew he should be ashamed of this according to the movies and shows he’d seen but he couldn’t bring himself to feel anything other than happy. He arrived back home with a backpack full of textbooks, a garbage bag of dirty cloths, his computer and his chair.
There was no singular moment that marked the end of his tenure in the world outside. Like most things in life it happened gradually. We spend so much time living in the present without considering how it will affect the future yet each decision we make in the here and now determines our future, each decision reducing the endless possibilities into first a series of probabilities until culminating in an inevitability. Daylon’s decision to have a courier deliver his groceries did not on the surface seem like a decision that would forever alter the course of his life. Yet it set a precedent that would end in his near total seclusion from the world.
The world outside his apartment shrunk as Daylon grew more enthralled by his computer. The two were linked in an inverse relationship that saw his social-life disintegrate like candy-floss in a puddle. He was not one of those terminally online individuals that call single mother’s “whores” and pepper their speech with racial slurs for the “lols.” He didn’t actually have social media since being social was never an interest to him. Instead he had accounts on Steam, FanFiction.net, Cartographers’ Guild, Neopets, Good Old Games, and Home of the Underdogs. He commented in forums and discussion groups related to his interests but it wasn’t out of a social impulse. For Daylon it was a practical, logical interaction. His posts dealt with the mechanics of things, roleplaying game systems primarily though he also dabbled in DOS and alcohol.
Bartending was a hobby of his, one of the many little interests that seemed to deviate from the impression he gave, though most would call it drinking alone. However, who would expect the one upon the throne to lower themselves to the stature of others? He’d make himself various drinks from the recipes he collected online and enjoy them as he sat and played his games. He was currently addicted to Dwarf Fortress again.
Which is what he is playing when the arm of his chair falls off and he starts to have trouble breathing.
Saying the arm ‘fell’ off is not entirely true. It would be more accurate to say that it snapped off. Though he is unaware of this important distinction at the moment. It’s only as he kneels down and looks for the screw that fell out that he realizes there are no screws to be found. There were only two pieces to the chair, the wheeled base and the rest of it. The arms and the back were all one piece of hard plastic. There would be no fixing it.
While in the process of making his discovery he realizes he is wheezing in a way that is altogether new to him. Each breath he takes makes a whistling hiss that reminds him of a Bergman movie he once watched. The name escapes him but the film was about three sisters, two of which arrived at the house of the third to be there as she passes away. Through the movie the dying sister kept making these terrifying noises as her body failed to take in enough oxygen to stay alive and it was that sound, that exact sound, that Daylon was making now.
Though he thought little of it. His thoughts were entirely filled with sorrow for his chair. He would have to figure out some way of fixing it. Maybe gluing or nailing the arm back on. Though that would mean going out to get the supplies since there weren’t any hardware stores that delivered to his neck of the woods.
It would just have to wait.
Who knew when it he would go outside next?
The opportunity came much sooner than he was expecting, though it may be more accurate to say the obligation. When Daylon’s landlord heard the noises that were coming out of him, she ordered him to go to the hospital on threat of expulsion. He grumbled yet had no choice but to listen.
She was his mother after all.
The waiting room is filled with people. It’s hard enough telling the nurse at the front desk what the matter is but explaining it in front of everybody was going to be a nightmare. He’s thankful when he discovers going to the hospital isn’t like going to those alcoholic meetings his landlord had forced him to attend a few years ago. Nobody in the room expects him to speak. In fact, nobody even notices he exists except for a small child that seems to be bobbing his head along to the rhythm of Daylon’s wheezes.
After sixteen hours of uncomfortable waiting he is finally led to a smaller room where he sits by himself for an hour until a nurse comes by and tells him the doctor will be along shortly. A further two hours is spent half asleep before the doctor strolls into the room, asks Daylon what’s wrong, then immediately tells him to shut up so he can listen to the noises coming out of him. Daylon does as he’s told, spending the time much the same way he had spent his time waiting: thinking about his chair.
The doctor puts his stethoscope on Daylon’s chest then sighs. He seems to find whatever he hears quite distressing. He tells Daylon there’s something wrong with his lung and informs him that they’ll have to schedule an emergency something or other. Daylon nods along as the doctor speaks.
He hadn’t closed his game so he is excited to see how much his dwarfs have accomplished since he left. Sitting down in his chair is relief both physical and spiritual. It’s not as comfortable as it had been before the arm broke off but there was little he could do about—
He was an idiot! He had gone out to the doctors and come back without once even so much as thinking about the hardware store. He had meant to stop on his way back from the hospital but it had taken so long to get in and see the doctor it had totally slipped his mind.
But that was alright, he rationalized. After all, he will have to go back out again once the hospital called with the scheduling. That was a problem for another day. Instead of worrying he gets ready for another marathon gaming session by first checking the forums and replying to any pertinent discussions and then mixing a Mai Tai. Drink in hand, it’s time to get comfortable.
Or at least he tried to get comfortable. The world had different plans it seems as the moment he puts his weight onto the chair it goes lopsided with a loud BANG. He loses his balance and spills his drink all over himself as he falls onto his side.
One of the chair’s wheels had popped off. Though, as he finds to his horror yet again, this description isn’t entirely accurate. It didn’t just pop off in the manner that the wheels were supposed to come out. It had snapped the same way the arm of the chair had, entirely through the plastic. Now, just like with the arm, he would need a strong glue or something similar to get the wheel back on.
Another thing to get at the hardware store whenever his appointment got booked.
When the call finally comes in the doctor apologizes profusely. Daylon will have to leave immediately if he is to make the opening they have available for whatever the examination he is getting is called. Nobody is around to drive him and so he will have to walk to the hospital. It isn’t too far away, ultimately, but he will have to rush.
He may not like going outside but he can rise to an emergency.
Or so he thought right up until the moment the taxi strikes him as he’s crossing the road. One moment he was rushing across the blacktop and the next he was spiraling through the air. Then, with nothing to indicate the passage of time between them, he is suddenly in the hospital.
It took multiple explanations from the doctor for Daylon to understand what had happened. It was hard to focus on the details of the accident, though, as the foot he was missing seemed of more pressing importance at that moment.
Yet despite the severity of his injury, Daylon has not forget about the hardware store. He still has every intention of stopping on his way home. But when it is finally time to be discharged he learns the law requires him to be driven home. This responsibility falls onto Daylon’s father, a man with no time to spare.
Daylon is disappointed but determined that he’ll make it there for sure the next time he has to go out, which is still supposed to be soon since he still has not had the procedure his doctor had ordered. He didn’t understand why they hadn’t just done it while he was at the hospital anyway.
So it is that Daylon is at home again, still wheezing and now minus a foot. His chair is lopsided and keeps threatening to topple over, yet he would be damned if he wasn’t going to sit there and enjoy it. He sips at a Manhattan and reads his fan-fiction. He finishes one chapter at the same time as he drains the Manhattan and so uses the opportunity to mix himself another. Content with his lot in life, such as it is, Daylon settles into his chair and leans back with a contented yawn.
The head of the chair tumbled off. Though, as you may already guess, snapped is a more accurate description. All Daylon did was lean back, the same as he’s done a million times before, yet for some reason this time was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Unlike with the wheel or the arm, the headrest looked like it could easily be taped back on instead of glued. Yet neither he nor his landlord had any duct tape and so it would still require a trip to the store. As with the arm and the wheel, it was frustrating but at least he could still read his stories and play his games.
Or, at least, he could if it weren’t for his landlord’s demands that he bring up his dirty dishes. He spends a few minutes hunting them down and gathering them up from where they’ve collected behind his computer monitor and alongside his bed. He rushes up the stairs and into his landlord’s kitchen, eager to set them down and get back to the next chapter. But, as he sets down the stack of dishes and starts to leave, his landlord has more demands. Namely, a shower. His landlord even shoves a towel into his arms and pushes him into the bathroom.
He hates showers but it was better this than his landlord’s wrath. He avoids looking in the mirror as he takes off his clothes and tosses them into the hamper. Showers were always too hot or too cold no matter how much he fiddled with the knob. Plus the hot water cut out whenever somebody used the water in the kitchen.
Which is exactly what happens the second Daylon steps into the shower. He had gotten the temperature just right as he entered, a feat unheralded in the annuls of his personal history. For one beautiful second it is perfect. Then it suddenly goes as cold as the hand of death. Daylon jumps out in shock but catches his foot on the lip of the tub and falls over backwards. He strikes his head on the toilet then comes to a rest. Bits of shattered porcelain and skull freckle the ground about him.
He is rushed to the hospital with a serious skull fracture and internal bleeding. They are able to save him but Daylon is never quite the same afterwards. He can feel how much slower his thinking is compared to before and he has odd thoughts from time to time. Nothing quite as serious as a neighbor’s dog telling him to shoot the president but odd nonetheless. He would look at a dog and wonder why they didn’t have flippers or he’d wonder why you couldn’t see air but you could see cake. Throughout his recovery, however, one thought stays consistent with the old Daylon. He never stops thinking about his chair and he doesn’t forget that he needs to purchase supplies to fix it.
But when it comes time to check out, it is once again Daylon’s father that picks him up. As with the rest of life, he has no time for anything Daylon is concerned with. Daylon watches wistfully as they pass the store on the drive home.
Daylon’s mother comes out to greet him by the car when they arrive. She kisses his cheeks and hugs him tighter than he likes. He has been gone for so long, she complains, but he shouldn’t worry. They understand that changes have to be made in order to accommodate Daylon and she promises to do so, even elbowing his father to get the old man to agree. They would make changes, she assures him, in fact they already have. This she tells him as she leads him into the house. The biggest change would be no more stairs. Somebody with Daylon’s condition shouldn’t have to worry about so many stairs.
No, indeed, she tells him as she leads him passed the staircase to his apartment, he wouldn’t be staying in the basement any longer but on the main floor. Look, she says as she flings open the door to his new bedroom, we’ve already brought up all of your stuff.
Daylon looks and sees all of his stuff, all of his stuff except for his chair. Where it should be is instead a bright blue, ergonomical gaming chair he’s never seen before. His stomach catches in his throat and his mother takes his silence as pleasant shock and smiles to herself, content in the knowledge she has helped her sickly child. After long seconds his silence morphs into a mewling slurry that furrows his mother’s brow in consternation. With effort he forms the sound into his question. Oh, that ratty old thing, says his mother. Well, it was falling apart. Me and your father both agreed its better to get a new one. She says more but he can no longer hear her for in his ears there is a sudden rushing sound like waves violently crashing across a cliff face. He feels his chest grow heavy as he drops to his knees and begins to weep into the darkness encroaching upon his consciousness.
Discover more from Writing Darkness
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.