The Chair

The window slowly creaked upward. I clapped and rubbed my hands together, watching the old dust drift out into the air. Tears began to slip down my tired face, while my mind drifted from the dusty room. He, silently resting in his chair, carefree, old and gray. His years had been talked away. I had listen, sitting beside him in the soft twilight. Wins and loses he spoke of, unfinished things. The love of his life and his betrayal. He remembered old dogs and cars, pickup trucks, and friends long passed. He smiled at times of honor and laughed at the many failures. Looking back from the window, the chair, his thinning gray hair at the top. His favorite chair, in it he sat as he had for years, eyes fixed ahead on the black and white early morning news. Brushing the tears from my face, I took a breath of new mowed lawn. The sound of morning bird song began as I walked back into the room. The room was sparsely furnished. all that was left of a long life. I knelt down before him, looking into his lifeless eyes. I smiled at his stony grin. There was a narrow trail of dried blood, that had leaked from the tiny hole. It had stopped and pooled at the tip of his nose. I looked down at the pillow on the floor, I had used to muffle the sound. Checking my jacket pocket, yes, the gun was there. I pulled a cigarette from my shirt pocket. I reached down and picked up the old metal lighter from the table next to his chair. He had said his dead son had given it to him, long ago, as a gift. I flipped it open and lit my smoke. Snapping it shut, I let it drop in my pocket, next to my gun. I stood, paused, and gave him a quick salute. I turned an left, softly shutting the door behind me.