The Chair (2 page)

“Interesting,” I answered, hoping she would end it there and say good night.

“This chair though, is
very
handsome; do you know the history of it?” She ran her hand across the fabric looking at it closely. “Am I mistaken or does it have an interesting iridescence about it.”

“Yes actually it does seem to, doesn’t it?” I walked over to it joining in her scrutiny.

 The tall wingback chair seemed to have a slight radiance from something in the fabric. It was tufted with buttons and with ornate upholstery pins along the fronts of both sides of the armrests, nicely polished wooden Queen Anne legs and the cushion was almost as never used, still plump and comfortable.

“My late husband Charles had one very much like it in a red and green plaid pattern. You could find him in it every morning like clockwork with his tea, reading the Evening Standard. Well, time for me to go. I’ve overstayed my welcome and interrupted your evening much too long; I’ll say good night then.” She fumbled for her umbrella and smiled as I opened the door for her.

“Thanks for returning this Liz, have a good night.”

She quickly waved and hurried off to her house as the pelting rain began to come down hard.

Catherine walked over to the window watching her leave. “So you’re Richie now, huh?”

“Oh, she just calls me that once in a while,” I answered, my face turning flush. “She likes to think of me as a son that’s all.”

“Will you please pour me some more wine… Richie?”

“Ha, ha alright you made your point, no more wine for you!”

She walked over, put her arms around me and kissed me. “Can’t take it huh
Richie
?”  

CHAPTER

TWO

T
he next day I arose from sleep feeling refreshed. My two week holiday had barely begun and I was determined to simply get dressed, make a leisurely breakfast and amble about the apartment. Catherine had decided not to stay the night before, as she had an early student that morning at the school and I was left to my own devices on that day.

I remember sitting at the table finishing my breakfast, walking to the front door and picking up the morning paper. I turned around promptly avoiding the morning chill and closed the door behind me glancing at my new chair inviting me to sit and read. I sat down stuffing my pipe with a favorite tobacco and lit it up, opened up the paper to the financial section and began to read. Just as I began immersing myself in an interesting article, the light of the room suddenly appeared to strangely dim. I dropped the paper to my lap and looked around; that feeling was back again, and I began to panic. The paper fell to the floor and I was about to stand up again but I told myself this time not to move.

As I looked around the room, to my astonishment, just as before, it began to fade. Everything had remained in place, nothing had moved in the slightest, but it was all quickly fading from sight, as if it was simply being erased.

The chair, as I sat in it, still appeared as normal, apart from a slightly odd glow about it; but my surrounding apartment, indeed everything else had completely vanished along with the floor beneath my feet and I was now in some sort of cold, empty darkness. There was this feeling of being pulled apart piece by piece and then I must have blacked out. A gentile breeze seemed to be pushing against my face and I couldn’t tell if the chair was moving or sitting still. My heart was again racing as I was trying to get my bearings and any possible point of reference.

This went on for what seemed like an eternity, however, in truth it was probably less than one minute. I felt as if parts of me were now being reassembled in this obscure void, the breeze I had felt was diminishing, the darkness had changed to a somewhat different sensation and I now felt something solid under my feet.

I sat motionless for a moment listening to what sounded like muffled crashing waves on a distant shore. Eventually my eyes began to grow accustomed to where I was now sitting; in a room, a very dark room; I wondered if I was still in my living room.

No. The room I was now in was definitely different; I was no longer in my apartment, but now to my astonishment, I had somehow been transported to another location. All was now quiet except for that crashing like the indistinct sound of breaking waves. I was still sitting in my chair but my feet were now solidly on the floor of a strange room. Slowly standing up I held on to the back of the chair and looked about the space.

There was definitely furniture about the room but only their forms and I could not really see any detail. There must be a light I thought, so I fumbled my way to a wall feeling around till I came to a window covering. Reaching out I grabbed hold of it and pulled it aside exposing a shaft of subdued daylight causing me to squint. When I slowly opened them wider I was amazed.

This room or building was in some sort of cavern and at the mouth of the cavern
was
a beach! I could now see the pounding surf lapping the shore. I pulled the drapes open allowing more light to penetrate the room; then went to another window doing the same, and another. The filtered light was now filling the space, revealing a modestly sized yet strikingly luxurious room; rich red velvet drapes, beautifully upholstered furniture; Persian rugs over a polished wooden floor; brass and wood detailing all round.

My peculiar companion chair was sitting squarely in the middle of the room on a flat round platform no larger than six feet in diameter with a definite compass pattern over the face of it. Next to  it were two similar but smaller platforms on either side of it. A beautifully carved teakwood desk sat on one side of the room with some sort of apparatus built into the desktop.

On the opposite wall there was a very large rectangular glass like display, about eight feet long and four feet tall, framing an indistinct map of something. I walked up to it and looked carefully. It was a map of London England but being very dark and obscure, it was hard to make out any details. Dead center of the screen itself was a small recticle with crosshairs.

Sitting down at the desk, I stared at a brass leaver with an ornamental opal knob at the end. On the desktop adjacent to the lever was a shiny flat polished metal plate with a delicately carved out wooden border that seemed to be inlaid in the desktop. I touched it with no response and was about to grab the lever, passing my hand just over the metal plate. This seemed to suddenly activate the large glass map display on the opposite wall, which lit up with a strange winding noise and then stopped. It was a marvel! The window was some type of screen that had lit up and was now bright and clear and I could easily see the streets mapped out for London now, all detailed with street names and addresses.

The target recticle was over a factory and I could read the name of the street― Thames Pkwy.

Taking hold of the lever, I moved it to the left ever so slightly. The map then moved to the left revealing another set of streets to the east. I moved it slightly to the right and watched as the map seemed to track to the right. All of the streets looked rather current and very detailed.

At first I was completely baffled by the whole thing; then after thinking for some time, somehow, it all began making more sense. The chair must be directed by this machine to wherever the map targeted, probably to the very crosshair position maneuvered to on the map.

Once the target recticle was maneuvered to a location, whoever sat in the chair was then transported there immediately, as I was from my flat. When I sat in the chair it seemed to automatically return to this platform.

I opened the door of the room leading into a rather large cavern and about 25 yards away was the mouth of the cave open to the sea with the waves pounding at its entrance. Just then my head felt a heavy blow and everything went black. Later, when I came to, I found myself tied up and sitting on the floor back in the strange room. As I was returning to my senses, I heard footsteps approaching; they were the quick short steps of a female.

When she came into view her arms were folded. She was wearing a brown leather belt strapped around her waist with a holster at her side holding a strange weapon that I had never seen before.

She had striking chin length ragdoll blonde hair, some of it being pulled back into a short pony tail over the rest; an obvious athletic body, wearing a form fitting black sweater-over which was an earthy suede and lambs wool vest, with a shearling fur border and slim light brown leather riding pants that tucked into her ankle boots.

“Who are you and what are you doing in this room? Where did you get that chair?” She demanded.

“Hold on there sweetheart, one question at a―”

“Don’t call me sweetheart!” she shouted, pulling her weapon and pointing it directly at my head.

The handgun was something of a new design unrecognizable to me. It was manufactured in such a precise way that it did not have a cylinder holding the bullets. It was hefty with a long thick square barrel and was intimidating to say the least.

She kept pacing back and forth with an angry look. “You had better have a good explanation as to where you came about this chair and what you did with the owner!”

“I do have a good explanation for it all, if you’ll just have a little patience, I will explain.”

“Well go ahead,” she blasted again, her eyes full of fury.

If she hadn’t been so irritatingly insistent, she might have looked very attractive even in her angry state.

“My name is Richard Cantwell and I purchased this chair at an estate sale.”

“Right, you simply bought it at an estate that owned this chair for year’s right?”

“Actually, no. They had recently acquired it at an auction. I brought it home and was going to use it as a favorite in my living room, but when I sat down… well it’s obviously not just any chair is it, and here I am; where am I anyway?”

“That chair, Cantwell, or whoever you are, belongs to my father and you somehow managed to take it from him, so you better start talking and tell me where he is,” she glared.

“Hey, untie me; I assure you I don’t know your father or where he is!”

“You’re going to stay just as you are until I get the right answers.” She holstered her weapon, waved her hand over the shiny plate on the desk turning off the map light and stormed out of the room.

Minutes later two men came through the door dressed in some type of black uniform with side arms similar to the woman’s. They roughly grabbed me and stood me in front of her.

“Put him in the tank till we can verify who he really is,” she directed.

I knew then she must be in some type of authority wherever this place was. She was also concerned about her father, whoever he was and I could tell she was going to take no pity on any one responsible for his disappearance.

“You’ve got to believe me, my name
is
Richard Cantwell and I don’t know anything  about whoever this person is that’s missing, I only−”

“We’ll have to see about that and until we do, you’re going to need to stay locked up,” she fumed. She now seemed to have an ever so small hint on her face in possibly half believing of my story. I’ve always been pretty good at reading faces; it’s just one of my abilities that usually never lets me down,” she added.

With that, they dragged me out of the room and into the cavern. There was a large metal door built into the wall of the cave, which opened when one of them passed his hand over another one of those small shiny plates. They seemed to be the method of control, much as an on- off switch of some type, pretty cleaver I thought.

It was an elevator thoughtfully constructed which moved quickly and opened up to a hallway with several heavy wooden doors. One of the men opened a door and motioned for me to enter which I did. After closing the door pressing my ear to the door I could still hear their voices.

“Think he’s in with Anders and Paxton?”

“I dunno he seems genuine enough, but then some can put on a show whenever they need to, you know how that goes.”

“Yeah, I know. It’ll be up to Ara to decide.”

Anders, Paxton, who were they? I had to find out; and Ara, she must have been the one questioning me. What
was
this bizarre place the chair had taken me to? Wherever it was, they were obviously advanced in their development; but how and when did they acquired this knowledge, I also had to know.

I remained in the cell for I don’t know exactly how long, but it was enough time for them to decide I wasn’t the enemy. The Door suddenly swung open with the two guards standing there like robots. This time they had a more pleasant look on their face and I was feeling a little more at ease.

“Follow us Mr. Cantwell,” one of them motioned with his hand as they led the way to the elevator.

“Where is this place and who are you people?”

“Ara will answer all of your questions.”

She was waiting for me when I entered the room again and this time she seemed to have somewhat let down her guard.

“Sorry for the trouble Mr. Cantwell, but we can’t be too careful. Your story appears to check out and you’re probably wondering, being from the outside, what all this is about.” She walked over to a credenza and took out two glasses.

“Join me for a glass of wine in a truce?” She smiled pouring both glasses and handed me one.

I took one sip looking at her. “So you must be Ara?”

“Yes, and you’re Richard Cantwell.” She smiled again taking a sip of wine. “Well Richard Cantwell, to answer the question as to where you are; you’re on an uncharted island in the Pacific Ocean. As to how you got here…” she looked over at the chair. “That’s what brought you here. It’s what the chair was made too do; we call this room the “conduit”. The chair can travel to any place in the world and will automatically return to this room on that center platform with the compass face.”

“My god, that is incredible! If I hadn’t traveled here with it myself I wouldn’t have believed it.”