The Couch in 1101

This piece is dedicated to the nostalgia that it brought me while writing it. And to the people who inspired me to write it. 

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That couch has seen it all. 

In apartment 1101 in Zaragon West, there is a little, brown leather couch. It is the same couch that is in every unit in the building. They’re all dusty, old, and made of dark brown, almost-black leather. Our couch has a weird velcro back that sticks to the wall and makes a frightening sound when you try to slide it forward to get to the wall outlets. Its cushions are terribly uneven and squeak uncomfortably when you sit. It has fine leather wrinkles all through the cushions that bunch together, but it doesn’t have any cracks. Those wrinkles tell the story of the world’s most special couch. 

It’s been with us for a year and a half now, and that couch has seen it all. 

The day we moved in, we cloroxed the whole thing and bought a tiny, stiff blue pillow to go with it. We took our first and only roommate picture sitting on that couch; a curly-haired, beautiful blonde girl, a spunky, laughing, fire-cracker girl from Maryland, and me. 

Our couch is too small to sleep on, and too mushy to sit in, but it’s our couch. The middle cushion is my ukulele playing seat, where I sing my lungs out until the yawns refuse to stop interrupting me. From there, when I look out the window, I see the skyscraper of Tower Plaza and the brick wall of our apartment building, and I feel like I’m in a city. From that couch, I have a window into the lives of the silhouette people of Tower Plaza moving around in their silhouette apartments, cooking silhouette food, and watching silhouette TVs on their own silhouette couches. I feel like I’m unalone, even when I am alone, sitting on that couch. 

But that couch has also held in its brown leather arms every person that has ever been important to me. My old best friend and I shared our first glass of wine on that couch - a cheap, dry white from Trader Joe’s sipped out of stolen wine glasses. We clinked our cups and talked about stuff that doesn’t seem to matter anymore but that mattered a lot back then. 

My grandparents from Canada visited me and sat on that couch, examining the pieces of pottery that I made and presented to them with as much pride as a 5-year old presenting macaroni-glue art demanding space on the fridge. They were there for every birthday, every naam-karan, every graduation, every Christmas. And now, they were sharing my couch with me. On that couch, they said for the thousandth time, “We’re so proud of you, beta,” and it meant just as much as the first time they had ever said it. 

That couch has also seen an endless parade of boys between all us roommates, from our first times to our first heart breaks. My first real kiss happened on that couch. My first real fight with a boy, too. My first time watching a movie with a boy’s arm around me, and it was every bit as awkward as the movies never show you. 

That couch held me while I cried over him a few months later, when there was no one else there to hold me. That couch drank in my tears and poured love back into my heart after a long day of pretending I was okay when I wasn’t. 

One night junior year, I told an old sophomore year crush that I had liked him on that couch, after randomly running into him on the street and inviting him over. Except it was more so like he told me and I agreed. I haven’t seen him since then and I don’t know if that couch will ever see him again. 

I’ve spent many 2 AMs on that couch, learning about credit and debits, and a year later, learning about business law. I’ve sold out a TED conference on that couch. I’ve had random friends collapse on that couch and refuse to get up until I kicked them out. I’ve held a rare Dead Poets Society meeting on that couch. I’ve cracked open cold cans with the boys on that couch, and shown my best friends my favorite movies from that couch. I’ve tried to put a broken relationship back together on that couch, and I’ve repented my lack of better judgment the next morning on that couch. I’ve learned that I was offered an interview to my dream internship on that couch, and came back in celebration later that week to toast my offer on that couch. 

That couch is now perfumed in the smell of Indian takeout, from summer nights I spent alone with paneer tikka masala, my brother’s Netflix account, and a blanket. I spent my loneliest moments on that couch. I searched for a therapist on that couch and left another pointless voicemail at another pointless clinic after another pointless night of crying on that couch. I burned pictures of people that had hurt me, in classic overdramatization, on that couch. 

But I also found two new best friends on that couch, my spunky girl from Maryland and my animal-loving, desi girl. We’ve packed a decade’s worth of baking nights, craft nights, sleepovers, Brooklyn 99- and Final Table-binge-watching into a few short weeks on that couch. And spots that were once tear-stained are now covered in glitter and good memories. 

That couch has seen the best of my times and the worst of my times. That couch has truly seen it all.