Seating Arrangement
Rowan Tate
Seating Arrangement
By Rowan Tate
My uncle bought his coffin early. Cedar, brass handles, satin inside. He put it in the living room and used it as a sofa. Guests sat on it, feet up, talking about sports. Children hid toys in it. My aunt stacked laundry inside, clean sheets waiting to be folded.
When people asked, he said: “It keeps me honest.”
When people laughed, he said: “It matches the curtains.” “I’m just breaking it in. “You’ll all want one eventually.”
When he finally climbed inside one afternoon and closed the lid, we thought he was joking.
Hours passed. He was still in there.
The thing is: it wasn’t that he died. It was that he never left the coffin again. And so life continued around him, as if he were still part of it.
The mail arrived. The neighbors borrowed sugar. The cat curled on top.
At Christmas, we just wrapped the whole thing and slid it under the tree.
Rowan Tate is a Romanian creative (poet, essayist, visual artist, songwriter). She reads nonfiction nature books, the backs of shampoo bottles, and sometimes minds.
