by Beth Sherman
Lately, Eric and Katie have been fighting. Eric wants to sell me on Facebook Marketplace. Katie says, no way. I’ve been in her family for like, almost a century. You can’t put a price on comfortability. Actually, Eric claims you can. They’d get $4,300. He’s checked the comps.
He took pictures of me from every angle and close-ups of my rolled arm, button tufted seat, turned mahogany feet, plush green velvet upholstery and posted them online. Six people responded. One’s coming by today.
Eric put a pillow over the faint stain where Abigail once hurled a glass of red wine at a suitor. She refused to marry, defied her parents, spent years curled up on me, writing bad poetry. I’m fond of the Abigail era.
Katie needs more suitors. In my opinion, Eric leaves a lot to be desired. He drinks too much. Doesn’t appreciate how lovely Katie is. Has grown overly fond of a co-worker named Brittany, with whom he shares inappropriate texts. I try not to look, but it’s quite impossible when Eric plops down for hours, mesmerized by his phone.
My fainting couch is historic, Katie is telling him.
Yeah, no one faints anymore, he counters. We could get an extra wide La-Z-Boy queen sleeper that gives you a massage.
When they leave for work, shards of sunlight stream through the blinds. Dust motes float through the air, white fluffy dots that dance and caper. The refrigerator ticks off and on, a friendly hum. I like to study what little I can see of the world.
Many years ago, Eustacia had me placed on the covered verandah and oh, what sights I beheld – emerald lawns, rose gardens, butterflies, heat, once a rainbow after the rain. The Eustacia era was grand as could be.
I doze, lost in a haze of remembering, and when I awake Eric is showing me off like a prize stallion to an older woman named Laura. An artist of some renown, she tells him. A performance artist. Where is Katie?
Laura says she’s going to splatter me with 20 different colors of paint so you won’t be able to see green velvet anymore. Then she’s going to pose on me naked, while the paint is still wet, reading one of those old yellow phone books. A comment on our consumerist, anonymous culture.
Uh huh, says Eric, who’s sharing his Venmo information.
Laura has brought two movers with her from a company called Hunks Hauling Junk. The men pick me up and shove me through the front door, scraping the mahogany on my back. I try not to panic, sense my old self slipping away, like a banana that’s been peeled.
The movers wrap me in blankets, load me onto a truck.
I try to imagine what all that paint will feel like. Slick. Wet. Bright. Wild.
This next unknown chapter. It might be wonderful.
Beth Sherman has had more than 200 stories published in literary journals, including Ghost Parachute, Fictive Dream, Bending Genres and Smokelong Quarterly, where she’s a Submissions Editor. Her work is featured in Best Microfiction 2024 and 2026 and Best Small Fictions 2025. She’s also a multiple Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee. She can be reached on social media @bsherm36.
January House Literary Journal 
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