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Once upon a time
 A chair, yes a simple chair…
It lived in a parlor and all those who entered exclaimed, “Oh! What a lovely chair !”
The chair was indeed nice, sympathetic, always well placed…and to be honest a bit vain.
As it was vain, it did all it could to please and get compliments.
Someone would say : “Be nice and welcoming…”and the chair would heartily welcome all who entered.
Another person would say : “Take care not to get dirty, choose your friends”, so the chair would put on a haughty air when a poor person entered… and the poor did not dare sit on the chair.
All the passers-by would give it suggestions:
-“You must be comfortable and nice…”and someone put cushions on it.
-“You must never be dusty…” and someone covered it to protect it from dust.
-“Your colour is not in style…”and someone else painted it purple.
-“You are not graceful, as you are…” and someone improved its appearance.
-“You must be more modern…” and someone equipped it with a motor so it could reclined be laid out, raised and folded.
The poor chair became dizzy, dizzy of being moved around and of listening to people’s comments, “You are is style…you are 10 on 10…everyone marvels when he or she sees you!”
And all this continued until the chair crumbled under all the extra weight.
So a set of sofas was purchased and the poor chair was put in a shed and stored away.
I still haven’t mentioned the feelings of the poor chair. In reality no one is made of wood and iron…And chairs also have a heart and t ears. And chairs also undergo existential crises !
What am I? What’s my purpose? Why did they do that to me? Where did I go wrong? Why was I born? What a life this is! Why don’t people love me?
The fact is that all the decorations (remember the cushions, the cover to protect the chair from dust, the colour, the motor…). It didn’t look like a chair, but like a little monster and even the children who played nearby were afraid of it.
And this situation lasted until an old carpenter…who from afar recognized it as one of his children in spite of all its adornments. He didn’t say a word, he looked at the poor chair, with so much sorrow, so much compassion, so much love… and then carried it on his back all the way to his home.
He cared for it with his hands both as a father and an artist. The old carpenter removed all the chair’s trimmings and started to clean it, to strip it, to sandpaper it, to plane it. The chair fought back, crying, but as the carpenter continued to work on it more and more to restore it it felt something different coming to life within itself and it consented to being transformed…
Finally the grain of the precious wood from which it had been made reappeared and the chair felt at last that it was itself again, in its essence, a simple chair, with no adornment but with a discret shine and much class… and so it was happy to be A CHAIR !
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