October 8, 2025
There’s a chair in my living room that I’ve never liked. It’s not ugly, not exactly. Just… ominous. It’s upholstered in this suspiciously cheerful yellow, like a lemon trying too hard. It creaks when no one is in it. And Ash, my Monster, refuses to sit there.
“That’s where regret lives,” he says every time I motion toward it.
So this morning, naturally, I woke up in it.
Apparently I fell asleep mid-research last night. My laptop was on the floor, open to an article titled Civil War Slang and Their Most Hilarious Origins. I had drooled a little on the armrest. My spine felt like it had been negotiated by opposing forces. Ash was perched on the bookshelf above me, judging me with the quiet solemnity of a bird who’s seen too many failed routines.
“You snored like you were summoning demons,” he said.
“Good,” I replied. “Maybe they can ghostwrite this new novel.”
Siobhan, mercifully, was nowhere to be seen. Or heard. Or floating with commentary about the stains on my lounge pants. I took this as a win.
I made coffee and microwaved leftover eggs. At some point I added hot sauce. Possibly mouthwash. I was too tired to taste properly.
Ash watched me eat. “You know,” he said, “you could rearrange the furniture. A new layout might trick your face into smiling.”
“Or I could just accept that I live inside a melancholy snow globe.”
“Sure, but in this snow globe, you have the power to move the couch.”
I hate when he’s hopeful. It’s suspicious.
Before I could be convinced, I got distracted. I’d intended to write a few pages but instead I spiraled down a rabbit hole of Civil War taxidermy. Apparently, there was a regiment in Pennsylvania that had a stuffed raccoon as its mascot. They dressed it in a tiny uniform and carried it into battle.
Ash looked over my shoulder. “So… you’re saying the raccoon was the emotional support soldier?”
“Exactly.”
Siobhan popped in halfway through my raccoon research. “If your story doesn’t have a raccoon in uniform, you’re doing history a disservice.”
“I’m not writing Watership Down: Bayonet Edition.”
“Why not?” She vanished through the kitchen wall.
Trying to take control of the day, I attempted to write something—anything.
Ash agreed.
So I wrote a line: “He stared at the yellow chair like it owed him money.”
Was it useful? Probably not.
Did it make me laugh? Absolutely.
Motivated by half a moment of productivity, I made the terrible decision to go to the grocery store. Outside. With people. Ash tucked himself into my coat hood and whispered sardonic musings into my ear while we wandered the produce section.
“Tomatoes should not cost this much unless they come with a side of therapy,” he said.
“You say that every week.”
“Because it’s true every week.”
At the self-checkout, I may have yelled at a bag of Mini Cocoa-Nuts. I was hoping some candy would work a little emotional magic, but it just REFUSED to be scanned.
Back home, Elara was out in front of her door with a jump rope. She waved with both hands. “Feeling better today?”
I considered lying. Then I nodded. “Sure. I bought a lemon I intend to throw at the chair.”
She blinked, nodded once, and said, “I won’t ask.”
Ash whispered, “She’s still watching you.”
I whispered back, “I know.”
After dinner—which was pasta shaped like dinosaurs and not enough sauce—I stared at the chair again.
It creaked.
“I hate that chair,” I told the room.
Ash stretched on the windowsill. “Then get rid of it.”
“But what if I need it?”
“For what?”
“To remember that I have bad taste and worse habits.”
He rolled his eyes. “Your dinner didn’t do that?”
Touché.
I didn’t get rid of the chair. Not yet. But I did move it. Turned it so it faced the corner. Put a book on the seat. Something about wartime ethics and irony.
As the sky changed color, I remembered that I was supposed to go into the office at some point this week. Being on a “sabbatical” has been….well…it’s been. Claire and Joseph have been very accommodating with my recovery. But it is my name on the wall, and on the payroll.
The breath I was holding whispered out in a soft hiss.
“Is there a name for the fear of doing what you are good at?” Ash wondered aloud.
Civil War Fact of the Day: A Pennsylvania regiment had a raccoon mascot dressed in a tiny uniform. It never saw combat, but it boosted morale.