Member-only story
Conundrum of the Empty Chair
Story response to a prompt by Louise Peacock
“Why is that chair always empty, Daddy?”
Nema’s father handed his daughter her dinner plate before explaining , “That’s for the prophet Elijah. Just in case he turns up for dinner.”
Nema, already old enough to have realized that her father always answered questions seriously, but not necessarily truthfully, looked to her mother. “Mommy, why—”
“Your father is just kidding, honey. In the Jewish tradition, during Passover, a chair is left empty in case a man named Elijah shows up. We are not Jewish, but your father—” she paused to glare at her husband, “—likes to make things up. Whether they make sense or not. We just have four chairs that came with this set, and there’s only you, me, and Daddy, so that’s why we have an empty chair.”
Nema took a bite of her dinner while she thought about this. “So—”
“Finish chewing before you talk, honey!”
Nema finished chewing, swallowed more showily than usual so that there would be no doubt, and restarted. “So this could be Profert Eljah’s chair, though, right? If he comes?”
Her father started to say something, caught his wife’s pointed expression, and instead said, “Yes, honey, if he shows up, that’s where he…
