Cozy

The old leather chair by the fireplace was so cozy that I slept in it often. So many times, in fact, that I lost all track of the days.

I was between jobs. The kind of between where food comes out of a can and the heat comes from trees in the neighbourhood parks. If someone came to the door, I wouldn't answer. If the phone rang, I ignored it. But it didn't ring any more since I let that bill slip.

Eventually the cans ran out and the wood got used up, so I had to admit that the world held what I needed--a job. I washed my best clothes in the sink, dried them in the sunshine, and headed to the local hire-front.

I'd passed it on the bus on my way to my old job. It was a storefront on the run-down side of downtown, with a big glass window painted with the slogan "Work Today, Get Paid Today." Luckily, the place was still in business.

I picked the only red plastic chair and sat down. A lady behind a Plexiglas window slid it across and said, "Please register."

I stood and approached the window. A clipboard with a wrinkled piece of paper was covered in the scribbled names of trampled men. I printed my own. The letters looked scattered and jiggly, like I'd trapped my elbow in a washing machine. I hadn't written much in a dog's age.

I sat again in the red chair and leafed through battered magazines. I looked at the pictures mostly, reading wasn't something I fancied. Some of the faces looked familiar; a president here, a movie starlet there, burned-out buildings in wore-torn cities. The news was old but familiar. I could have been reading last week's or last century's events. No matter. Big things only happened to big people. And I was a member of the insignificant micro-people. The ones who society pretends don't exist.

Did I exist? I wasn't sure any more.