Many thanks to @drmarkkubert on Twitter for the idea for this story. It's definitely getting harder to come up with short story ideas at this pace, and his Tweet "The pillow that never was" twigged a bit of an idea.
This brings me up to 36573 words so far. Enjoy! :)
The Chesterfield had been sitting in the window of the furniture store for years.
It had been placed there when the store opened. The original owner had set it up as a display of some of the new wares that he carried. The fact that it was a blood red velvet Chesterfield meant that it had never appealed to anyone in the vicinity, but it had been too expensive a purchase for him to throw out at the end of the season. Discounting hadn't worked, even giving it as a prize in a charity raffle had backfired. So it sat in the window as a prop for seasonal displays instead.
The displays were pretty good, actually. People would come into town from all corners of the state just to see what was in that shop window. Mannequins, furniture, trees, and even the occassional animal graced that window. The blood red velvet Chesterfield remained the same.
When the original owner of the shop passed away, the business went up for sale. A new owner bought it and was clever enough to see the potential of the Chesterfield, now faded to a pale burgundy. It stayed in the window and the displays became more extravagent. The Chesterfield began to look a little dated compared tot he more modern items that people wanted in their homes, but in the window it still shone as a beacon of tourism and tradition.
Eventually not even the window could keep the furniture business going, and it closed up shop. The space was rented out to a clothing designer, who set up a fantastic store using modern methods of marketing theory, and one very old and faded Chesterfield sitting abandoned in the window. Alisha was the student of not only the best clothing designers she'd found to apprentice with, she'd also studied business, and was prepared to take the world by storm.
Shortly after the first clothing display went up, a passerby stopped in and walked up to the counter.
"Did you notice that the couch is missing a cushion?" he asked.
Alisha looked surprised. "No, I'm sure everything was there when I set up the display yesterday."
The man was adamant. "There's a cushion missing. That Chesterfield has been there for forty years, and it has always had a cushion. It's not there. What did you do with it?"
This was not how Alicia had planed to get attention. She knew that she was currently holding on to a very important piece of town history, put she didn't realise that people were so attached to it that they'd be coming in and giving her heck for any changes that might have happened to it."Let's go take a look," she said, "and you show me where the cushion should be."
They walked to the front of the store, the man apparently very agitated. Alicia sized him up as they walked back; he was an older gentleman, probably about sixty, and he seemed to be very well dressed. But he kept going on about the cushion in such a way that Alicia worried he was going senile. If the cushions were fine, she'd have to find a way to call the police to make sure he got home ok afterwards.
As soon as they walked in front of the sofa, Alicia could see he was right. Something was missing. There was a square of newer, brighter looking velvet in one corner. It was more of a throw pillow size than a cushion, at least as Alicia thought of it, but the fact that it was missing was very apparent.
Trouble is, Alicia couldn't remember having seen a throw pillow there, not when she was looking at the shop to rent when she arrived in town, and not yesterday when she was setting up the display. She didn't remember the brighter patch of velvet either.
The man was still adament. "There should be a pillow there!" he said, pointing at the square.
"Which pillow was it?" Alicia asked, keeping her voice level so it wouldn't sound like she was tlaking down to him.
"I don't know!" The man was now visibly upset. "But there hsould be a pillow there, and there isn't. Put it back! Put it back now!"
Alicia finally managed to reassure him that she didn't know wher ethe pillow was right now, but she'd look for it and get it back there. It took a while, but the man finally accepted it and walked out of the store, muttering.
After locking the front door and turning the sign to "Closed", Alicia proceeded to rip the shop apart, looking for the pillow.
It wasn't in the storage closet, and hadn't gotten mixed in with any of the display materials she'd been trying out in the front window earlier.
There was nothing under the counter. All the stock was moved and checked to make sure the pillow didn't end up under anything, and it wasn't there.
Alicia did find a basement access she didn't realise she had No one had been down here for years by the looks of it. THere were some very old examples of furniture, most of it in really good condition. Alicia was amazed. Besides the opportunities for new window displays, there might be some money in these walls.
There was no small throw pillow, however.
Climbing back into the store, Alicia was surprised to see a small crowd standing outside her window. They were pointing at the Chesterfield and talking amongst themselves.
Alicia unlocked the front door. A couple of hte people came in, looking around at the clothing but also looking at Alicia a bit suspciciously.
"May I help you?" she asked, trying to not sound nervous. She wasn't really keen on becoming the town pariah, the person who had destroyed the sacred Chesterfield she'd somehow inherited.
The woman picked up a shirt, checked the size, and indicated she'd like to buy it. "Also," she said, a little hesitatantly, "how did you fix up the Chesterfield? I mean, how did you fix up that part of it?"
Alicia looked at her, puzzled. "What do you mean?"
The woman dragged her to the front of the store, pointing at the corner with the brighter red corner. "There. That patch looks new. If you can do that with an old sofa, I'd love to find out how I can restore mine."
Alicia rubbed her eyes. The square of bright red was definitely larger than it had been this morning. Instead of a small throw pillow, it now looked like she'd replaced the seat cushion entirely. It was bright red, kind of garish, really. And it looked brand new next to the other cushions that still looked like they'd been sitting in the sun for decades.
She rang through the purchase and locked the door again. She was either losing her mind, or someone had gotten into the store and was playing the most elaborate trick ever. A trick that revived the Chesterfield was probably in her favour, as the few people walking by and seeing her had given her big smiles and a thumbs up for her work. But it was still kind of weird, and she wasn't entirely sure what to make of it yet.
Going home and getting sleep seemed like a good idea, suddenly. Maybe this was all in her head. Maybe she was overtired from the work of opening the store. There had also been stress, so it could be that. Home, hot shower, good night's sleep. That would solve this.
It's not like there was really any way that a piece of furniture could be revertting back to its original state after so many years. Not on its own. No way.
People stared as Alicia walked by. She chalked it up to that panicky look she must be wearing, as she felt like she must be losing her mind. She stopped looking at the people, and focussed on the sidewalk instead. Good old greay concrete. Nothing weird or unusual there.
She got in her house, locked the front door, and headed straight upstairs. The hot water from the shower helped clear her head, and get that nagging out of control feeling banished to the back of her mind where it belonged. Afterwards she wrapped herself in a warm robe, and went into the kitchen to heat up leftovers for dinner. Hot food helped her feel more solid, more a part of reality.
There must be an explanation for what happened this afternoon, and tomorrow she would find it. If it was stress, she'd hire some more staff, she'd cut her hours back, she'd close on Mondays if it helped. She could figure thisout rationally, like any other sane business person would.
She went to bed feeling greatly relieved.
Her dreams were filled by massive throw pillows coming at her from all directions, a blood red Chesterfield running around and tossing them whenever her back was turned. Other early century furniture joined in, and she awoke exhausted form the effort of avoiding them.
Alicia grabbed a coffe on her way into work, and stood and looked at the sofa for a while. It seemed farly uniformly red today. Perhaps it was a bit brighter than she remembered, but that might be her mind playing tricks. There was no indication that there was a pillow missing, and she sighed, a little more relieved than she'd like to admit.
Business picked up a little that day. Everyone remarked on how good the window looked, and how they were so pleased she was taking care of the old Chesterfield. One little old lady had admitted that she had been thinking last week how it was about time for the poor piece of furniture to go, but now that it had been cleaned up and was looking so good, she felt it was going to have a place in the town for a little while longer.
There were others who reminisced on how they'd had first dates at the Christmas window display, or had stopped in after New Year's parties to check out how the window was decorated. By the end of the day Alicia felt like she was the owner of Macy's, and that perhaps doing business here was the best decision she'd ever made.
One her break she went down to tha basement, to select some accent pieces for the window display tomorrow. The stairs seemed dustier, and the room a bit darker, but she made her way downstairs with a light heart and step.
The basement was empty. There were a few pieces of broken furniture in one corner, but nothing else.
Alicia thought about her worn Chesterfield, and her surreal day yesterday. Maybe it was just hte blues after a lot of hard work trying to get the store going. Maybe she really did imagine everything.
On the way back upstairs, she saw something small wedged in under one of the stairs. She pulled it out, coughing as a huge dust cloud was released into the air.
It was a small velvet throw pillow, turned pink and dull with age.
Alicia put it back, smiling, and headed back up to the shop, closing the door securely behind her.
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