The hickory chair sat just outside of their house. The chair was brown, brown as the sun weathered hands that rested upon it. This chair was used once. Used twice. Used three times a day. At dawn, at noon, at dusk the old man sat. He kicked back, crossed his dark, worn boots, and looked out. Out away from the patched up house, away from the bustling family inside the house, away from the buzz of human life. Where he looked, he saw contentment. He saw the daily birth of the sun. Saw it peak. Saw it die at the end of each day. He heard the brush of the soft winds on green, fertile fields, the trill of the pesky insects that hovered above, the chirping of the blue jay. He would sit for a long while, humming along to the sweet song of the land. Soaking in the image of his home. Eventually he would leave. Back to the house, back to the chores, and back to the people. This cycle repeated day, after day, after day. 
    When the old man got up, the chair remained. Sturdy yet worn, it sat still. Always watching, always looking out towards the plentiful land. Years went by and the chair stayed. Beaten by rain, by wind, and eventually by dust, the chair held its ground. It did so, for it had no other choice. A chair can not get up, and can not walk away. A chair can only sit, can only wait, even when everything it knows dwindles away. When the drought came and the crops died, when the family sold everything they could, and when the old man had sat in it for the very last time, the chair remained. 
    With no old man to sit in the chair, it stayed. All alone. Isolated. There was no more buzz of the family’s voices, and no more scent of cooking food. The bustle of life was sucked away, leaving the home bleak and desolate. There was no longer a person to sit in the chair, no legs to cross, and no weary hands to rest on the chair’s arms. Without the old man, the chair was empty. The creak of the chair was no longer due to the steady push of the old man’s feet, going back and forth, back and forth. It now was caused by the shrill shriek of the wind, creaking and groaning as the dust filled air pushed against it. 
    Slowly, the dust and the wind laid waste to the once thriving land. The crops dried out and died, withering away into the sun hardened ground. Cracks formed in the earth. Sharp and painful, they grew and branched. Heat radiated from the deep fissures. Weeds and wildflowers blackened and dissolved into a fine ash. The insects followed closely in their stead, unable to survive in the drought-ravaged terrain. The birds, that the old man had thought of so fondly, forgot what it was like to sing the melodies of their songs. Now, they croaked out agonized sounds, voices stolen, like the water from the land. Desolate earth, once green and abundant, was now unsuitable for any form of life. 
    More time went by, as it always seems to do, and like the land, the house started to change too. Uninhabited, the house that sat behind the old chair started to wither. The emptiness echoing through the walls hurt the house and chiseled pieces away. It crumbled slowly, just small pieces at first; a chip of paint, a shard of glass. Soon bigger parts started to fall away; the beam of wood on the roof, the door to the little bedroom. They crumbled down. Crumbled down onto the floors that the family once walked on. Crumbled down until there was nothing left but a pile of gray rubble, and the chair that still sat out on the porch. 
    Through this all, the chair sat, coated in a layer of thick dirt. Unrecognizable to what it once was. Without the touch of the old man, the care of his shaky hands, the chair started to deteriorate. The wood became stained with the dark gloom of the dust, the once shining iron nails turned red with rust, and the creak of the rocking grew louder, more pained with every push. All of the times the old man oiled the hinges, swept off the seat, and sanded the nails were gone. Lost to a far off memory that no one seemed to remember, except for the chair. 
    The chair remained eternally, always observing and always watching. It did so even though there was no one and nothing for it to see. Its vision was clouded with layers of dust, similar to the old, hazy gaze of the man who once sat upon it. Yet it still watched. Waiting, hoping for the return of the family. For the return of the breeze in the crops and the hum of the insects and the chirping of the birds. For the return of the buzz of the family talking, of the caring and loving. The chair was waiting, waiting for someone to sit in it once, twice, three times a day. When the first drop of rain fell onto the drought ravaged earth, the chair knew that it’s wait was almost over.