The Burning Chair

FICTION The Burning Chair Robert Morgan The brown bungalow in the rainy woods looks as though it might be buried soon in leaves. The air is filled with great leaves floating down, and the trail through the trees is covered. Even the windows have yellow and brown leaves stuck like hands to the glass. Every time a gust hits the trees a new shower pounds the drifts and roof, and another flock of yellow foliage shivers down. There is no smoke coming from the chimney, though there is smoke in the living room where the right arm of an easy chair is on fire. The fire has burned a circle in the cloth of the armchair. The cotton stuffing of the cushion has caught and is smoldering also. The flames are no more than four or five inches high, but they burn steadily, almost like a lamp. They are the only light in the room except for the cigarette in the hand nearby. As the flames advance, sputtering and sending up smoke, the hand pulls back a little. But the man sleeps on, his head slumped on the back of the chair. The phone on the nightstand by the chair rings. Its electric hum fills the smoky room, but the man does not stir. The telephone makes the air throb and shudder, again, five times, and then stops. The cigarette drops out of the sleeping man's hand and falls to the linoleum still smoking. Ash and bits of tobacco are scattered around it, and the tiny button of fire eats into the paint of the linoleum, and then into the tar underneath. A chemical smoke rises from the tiny burn, but after a few minutes the cigarette goes out, and a pock is left in the floor cover. But the flames on the arm of the chair continue, eating deeper into the cotton cushion. The fire flutters and shakes a little as the sleeper moves and brushes his hand through it, but springs up again. The flames are reflected in a bottle on the night table. It is a gin bottle, less than half full, with the top off. There is a glass beside the gin, but it has not been used. Drops around the rim and neck of the botde show it has been drunk from directly. The container is tilted at a dangerous Robert Morgan'spoems and stories have appeared in manypublications, including Appalachian Heritage. He is professor ofEnglish at Cornell University. 42 angle because it rests half on the corner of a magazine. There is a pile of magazines on the table beside it. In fact the whole room is scattered with magazines and newspapers and paperback books. The other chairs hold stacks of Combat and American Rifleman and Field and Stream. Six months of back issues of a daily newspaper are piled on the couch, many opened to the listings of the television schedule. The set itself sits on the floor ten feet in front of the armchair, turned off, its screen the color of wet putty but also mirroring the flames. The wires from the set run along the floor to the jack where the cable has been disconnected. Paperbacks are heaped around the sides of the armchair, and several stacks have toppled and spilled into the middle of the room. A glance at the titles shows the predominant subjects: The Great Schweinfurt Raid, Patton, The Good War, Guadalcanal Diary. Most of the books look old and tattered, as though they have been read many times, or purchased from a used-book exchange. The room smells like old paper, ink and paper, and smoke. The sleeping man stirs but does not move as the fire approaches his hand. His fingers will burn soon if he does not take his arm from the armrest. But just as the smell of burned flesh is added to the smell of burning cloth his hand falls off into his lap. The man wears faded jeans and an old T-shirt. He might at one time have been muscular, but through lack of eating or lack of exercise, he has lost most of his weight, and seems slight of...