💬 A chair by the window that I only sit in on bad days

There's an old cane chair by the window in our front room. It was my father's. Nobody really uses it. On a normal day I don't even look at it. On a bad day I end up there without deciding to. Last time was in August, after a really bad week at work. I sat there for 2 hours with the lights off. Didn't cry or anything dramatic. Just sat and watched the road till it felt smaller. The view is nothing. A paan shop, the electricity pole with 40 wires, the neighbour's water tank. Kids going for tuition, an auto that's parked there every evening, the same dog sleeping under it. I think that's the point. Nothing in it needs anything from me. It just keeps going on its own. Sitting there, my own problem starts to look like one more thing on that road. My mother noticed this before I did. She comes over on Sundays, and once she found me in that chair. She didn't ask anything. Just sat on the sofa behind me with the paper until I got up an hour later. Next Sunday she said, your father used to sit there too when things were bad. I never knew that. So maybe it's not about the chair at all. Maybe it's about him. Anyone else have a spot like this? Doesn't have to be a chair. A step, a balcony, a bike ride, anything. I asked a friend and he said the car, parked, engine off, in the basement. I thought that was sad. Then I thought about my chair and decided I'm not one to talk. Anyway, it's been a good few weeks. The chair's been empty, touch wood.

The paan shop and the pole with 40 wires, that is a view only a real window gives you. My father's chair is a steel folding one on the balcony, and I never sit in it unless something is wrong. I used to think that was odd until my sister said she does the same thing with his old radio.

I do not have a whole chair, just a step on the back staircase where I sit when things pile up. It is oddly uncomfortable, cold concrete and a bad view of the water tank, yet I still end up there instead of my own room.