The Chairs That No One Sits In

You see them on porches and on lawns down by the lakeside, usually arranged in pairs implying a couple who might sit there and look out at the water or the big shade trees. The trouble is you never see anyone sitting in these forlorn chairs though at one time it must have seemed a good place to stop and do nothing for a while. Sometimes there is a little table between the chairs where no one is resting a glass or placing a book facedown. It might be none of my business, but it might be a good idea one day for everyone who placed those vacant chairs on a veranda or a dock to sit down in them for the sake of remembering whatever it was they thought deserved to be viewed from two chairs side by side with a table in between. The clouds are high and massive that day. The woman looks up from her book. The man takes a sip of his drink. Then there is nothing but the sound of their looking, the lapping of lake water, and a call of one bird then another, cries of joy or warning— it passes the time to wonder which.