Are You an Arm or Chair?

Traditional societies used old trees to make chairs. This round one is called isigqiki in Zulu. I took this pic at a furniture store, at the mall today. I wonder why they would sell something so 'barbaric.'

Basic mathematics. An arm + chair = armchair. It’s not that straight forward. It’s like the chicken and egg riddle. Which is older? We shall never know the answer because nature locked everything in the egg shell. It had to, because of a force more destructive than a volcano and floods. Which is? Human beings.

I don’t know the difference between sofas and armchairs. All I know is that you can sit on the arm of the armchair. This reminds me of Tessa, a colleague and what she did during a fire drill. She didn’t like me. I don’t know why because I sat quietly at lunch while she and her cousins spoke their language. They were born on an island where Canadians and Americans go for scuba diving and suntan, but islanders leave for Canada and America as soon as they turn 18. It’s because of the exchange rate. Dollars they send to their parents are multiplied, when changed into local currency.

Tessa sat on the arm of that armchair because she knew what I didn’t know at the time. Something they regarded as good was happening  around me. When I finally heard what it was, it turned out to be bad, in my book. Tessa wanted to be part of the chair. In retrospect, I don’t blame her. She thought the arm of the chair was part of the whole. It is not. It’s two different things.

The arm is a forced contraption, something that is nailed in with a hammer or a drill. Let’s rewind. Traditional societies all over the world used old trees as chairs. One tree could be cut into two or three chairs depending on how big it was. No arms. Bamboo was popular for making benches, so that the family could sit under the big tree in the yard. No arms.

We’ve nailed all kinds of arms to our chairs. That’s why we fall apart when arms rot or move away from boredom or in search of greener pastures. Besides, arms are for working, for holding babies, farming, swimming, washing ourselves, not to sit idle on a chair.

By: Nonqaba waka Msimang.