Day 389

My dad used to say his chair was "real leather, not the cheap cow kind either".
We thought it was just a morbid dad joke and ignored him every time.
That is, until the chair made it known exactly what kind of leather it was.
This only happened after my dad passed away from skin cancer, before that is was fine.
Just a regular chair made of some kind of beige leather and mottled in places.
Dad said it gave the chair character -  "a proper personality" he'd say.

From the day he died the house started changing, though the changes came from the chair.
Flooring became dark and scratched as its wheels dug in and refused to move.
Each hinge screeched in protest and we had to force every door to move as we did that seat.
Some kind of dark blue mould spread like the new violets in our gravel driveway.
As the mould darkened so did the flowers until they began drooping and leaking red.
It was a pollen according to one garden savvy friend but it didn't smell quite right.

You know that faintly metallic taste you get in your mouth in a butcher's shop?
They smelt like that, violets and something salty that we knew but couldn't quite place.
Besides these changes around the house the chair itself began to warp and twist, ageing maybe?
Nothing online made it make sense and no amount of polish and phone calls sorted it out.
Eventually we gave up, decided instead to record the changes and wait for it to fall to pieces.
We didn't have to wait for long, the changes were happening faster and faster.

The arms of the chair grew this strange set of folds that began to resemble actual arms.
It grew hair all over (or was it actually mould?) and I swear I saw teeth by the wheels.
That wasn't even the worst of it... the eyes were.
Far larger than any eyes I'd seen before and bulbous, always leaking this sickly yellow fluid.
They actually followed you around the room sometimes creasing round the edges.
Its like the chair was trying to make expressions.

We were just glad that for the time being it couldn't move.
Discussions had been had about moving it to the garage or dumping it for someone else to have.
I wasn't sure if I wanted it gone after all it didn't seem to want to cause harm - it just was.
Every time I went near it the area above its eyes would slope down, poor creature looked so sad.
I attempted to talk to it by leaving a pen and paper on its seat overnight.
The reply was on my bedside table by morning.

His name had been Joseph and he had been my dad's old room-mate in university.
They wanted to live forever, heard that a soul tied to an object could potentially do that.
It was never meant to go like this but dad had read some ritual for eternal life that demanded blood.
Joseph never stood a chance, at least dad bound him to his favourite chair in return.
It was kind of ironic that the man who had given all he could for immortality had died first.
The irony soon ruined as my search to cure/kill Joseph has yet to bring up anything.

Every morning I find paper by my bedside with a message from him asking for an update.
I moved away from the house a year ago, couldn't stand to see him and not be able to help.
Even after I put him in the middle of a Guy Fawke's bonfire he came out alive.
He hasn't healed though, more a smouldering husk than a former humanoid chair creature.
His eyes are still there though,one popped and dribbling down his surface, the other pure white.
The papers that appear beside my bed are angrier now, he wants an answer that I don't have.