the loneliness of a chair

the heaviness of absence

One of the words for loneliness in Urdu is tanhai (تنہائی), and it also means solitude, so it can be used negatively or positively. But it isn't just being alone, it is when absence consumes you as a whole. Like a weighted blanket, suffocating your helpless body against your bed, and all you can do is look at the ceiling and wait, and wait, and wait.

I have been feeling this about chairs lately. Whenever I see a chair outside, it just screams a whole world of loneliness, aalam-e-tanhai (عالم تنہائی). The stillness of the chair, and the objects around it make me feel someone's absence in my bones. I feel it whispering to my ears, begging me to find its owner, that it wants to be warm again, that there is work left undone and words left unsaid, that grief is threatening to haunt its plastic holes and it is scared of dust covering it all up. The vegetables are uncut, the owner probably went to pray or eat but what if he doesn't come back? How will it cover up the loss? Will it just keep waiting, and waiting? That its 4 metal legs can carry the weight of anything, but not the heaviness of absence. I hear it pleading to me in its tanhai, "Afifa please, where's my owner?" It has already heard every conversation, every cry, it has smelled the petrichor and felt the rain on its arm rests. I can see abandonment flood in its scratches and cracks, echoing the soul of the owner. But an echo can never be the real person I suppose. Is it a little ironic how we don't realize the magnitude of someone's presence until they're gone?

I feel like I have many chairs like this, standing uniquely still in the sanctuary of my heart. For the absence of people I've lost, for the places I lost, for the absence of my past self, for the absence of someone I will never be, for the absence of someone I never met. All covered in dust, as a testimony that someone or something is gone. Plastic chairs, there is no way they can be biodegradable.

And when I dream of you, of my past which I'm mourning, I find myself wiping the dusty chairs, despite how dense the layers can be. Despite how suffocating the dust can be to my lungs. Despite it never revealing the true polish of the chair back when it was yours. I want to keep you as a souvenir but never making the effort to maintain it. I want to trace my fingers on the back of your chair and ruminate. I want to grieve on your absence without it being a presence in itself, but is that even possible? I keep hoarding onto something that has no presence in my life anymore. Your chair, the cold seat, does it ever feel devoid of life? That its sunburnt owner will never come back, and the keeper of the chair will never allow someone else to take over it. Does it feel... purposeless?

But this tanhai can be solitude, no? A chair standing in its own way, looking at me, sitting in the backseat of my dad's car. Telling me a story of it being alone and not lonely. Maybe an old man will sit on it in after walking for so long, thanking Allah that he found a place to rest, and then he will leave, and I wouldn't find it as abandonment. In that moment, the 4 legged thing is like a carnation among the leaves, and you can see how the scent follows the man. Then you'll see that grief doesn't have to reside everywhere, that absence can be more about staying than leaving. Maybe there is peace in it.

I have a different feeling about groups of chairs. In open restaurants, they stand confidently, because they reassure you that presence is always possible. Their seats are cold but they are welcome, it defies absence. It is not restricted to the vegetable cutter, to the cashier, to the hoarder, to the tanhai of its own. They are community on their own, and by removing one chair you will not disrupt their unity, their power to tell you that you aren't alone. That even if someone isn't using the chair, it doesn't mean it doesn't have a purpose anymore. It is the essence of life. Absence is something that's missing from your life, but presence is noticing that out of everything, you still remain. You're here. Cold seats can be warmed. Here, no seats stay empty for long, but there is no attachment to it either. I want to keep all your dusty chairs warm now.

love,

Afifa