Two chairs sit in the shade. They are empty, filled only by a passing breeze. Green grass stretches behind the two chairs, its verdunt cascade interrupted only by the flitting and darting of butterflies, summer’s darlings.

No one is there to call me darling. I can’t even bring myself to sit in one of the chairs. The occupation of the one only accentuates the vacancy of the other. If I see one empty chair I know I am alone. If I see the two, then perhaps we are both alone, together in loneliness.

Two chairs sit together in the shade. Flowers bloom and stagger to each side, mocking the plain white paint on the metal chairs with their colors, their life. They rejoice in their warm, moist soil and jeer the stolid bricks upon which the chairs must rest.

My heart is a brick, cold and grating in my chest. I breathe but the air turns to sandstorm in my chest. I cough and wheeze, wincing at the pain. But I don’t mind. Pain is the only real way we have of knowing we’re still alive and not a chair, alone.