The Shaker chair hung upside down on a flat hook against a tongue and groove wall for years.
Even after the maker died and no angels came to sit on it, it remained empty.
The maker forgot that celestials were weightless and never engaged in human conversation.
One day, a red-haired hand— a man with blood in his veins and animal blood on his boots— lowered the chair, right-side-up, with its legs splayed on the linoleum floor of the pub.
He occupied that chair, this full-bodied man, spitting bits of sideways scripture between shots of whiskey.
“The Devil’s arrived early,” he said to the barkeeper, wiping his hands on the cushion of the chair.
He stayed long past closing time, arguing over where to carve his name into the wood.
John Brown? The man sitting in the chair? Probably not. I don’t know if he’s a ginger. But I know he fits a lot of this. I love this character you’re describing and reaction to the shaker chair. Very lovely.
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