There was nothing special about the chair.

Plastic. White once, although Kampala dust had negotiated that down to something between cream and surrender.

It stood in the front row of the community hall, third from the aisle.

But everybody knew it belonged to Mr. Kaggwa.

Nobody had appointed it his chair. There had been no committee resolution. His name was not written on it. Yet for nearly eight years, whenever there was a residents’ meeting, funeral committee, neighbourhood security discussion or argument about the road, Mr. Kaggwa sat there.

Third chair from the aisle. Front row.

His chair.

Mr. Kaggwa had been an important man.

That is not the same thing as saying he was no longer important. Please don’t misunderstand me.

But there had been a time when his importance came with a driver. People called him “Director.” His office had two doors. One for ordinary people and another that led somewhere mysterious.

When he arrived at meetings, people stood.

Then retirement arrived.

Retirement is a very interesting animal.

On Friday afternoon, everybody calls you Director. On Monday morning, your wife asks you why you have left your shoes in the corridor.

Mr. Kaggwa adjusted.

Mostly.

He still chaired several committees. People still consulted him. And at neighbourhood meetings, there was always that chair.

Until one Thursday evening.

Mr. Kaggwa arrived seven minutes late.

A young man was sitting in it.

Not merely sitting. Leaning back. One ankle resting on the opposite knee. Phone in hand.

Mr. Kaggwa stopped.

The young man looked up.

“Good evening, sir.”

Mr. Kaggwa did not answer immediately. He looked at the young man. Then at the chair. Then at the empty chair beside him.

“Good evening.”

He sat down.

But he was not sitting down.

His body was sitting down. The rest of Mr. Kaggwa was still standing beside the other chair asking:

Who is this boy?

Throughout the meeting, he could barely concentrate.

The chairman discussed security.

Mr. Kaggwa looked at the chair.

Someone raised the problem of garbage collection.

The chair.

A woman complained about motorcycles entering the estate too fast.

The chair.

Then the young man shifted his weight and the chair made a small squeaking sound.

Mr. Kaggwa nearly exploded.

After the meeting, he found me outside.

I was sitting under the mango tree. Unlike Mr. Kaggwa, I have never had trouble finding somewhere to sit.

“Rwamiti.”

“Kaggwa.”

“Did you see that?”

“See what?”

“That young man.”

I looked toward the hall.

“There were several young men.”

“The one sitting in my chair.”

“Ah.”

I nodded.

“What did he do?”

“He sat in my chair.”

“Yes. I saw that part.”

Mr. Kaggwa waited.

I waited.

This is one advantage of growing old. You eventually discover that silence can do work that previously required three paragraphs.

“He has no respect,” Kaggwa said.

“For the chair?”

“For me!”

Ah.

Now we were getting somewhere.

I moved slightly and offered him space on the wooden bench.

He looked at it. Perhaps he was checking whether somebody owned it.

Then he sat.

“Kaggwa,” I said, “when did you buy that chair?”

“I didn’t buy it.”

“Did you donate it?”

“No.”

“Was it given to you?”

“No.”

“Does it have your name underneath?”

He stared at me.

“Rwamiti, don’t be stupid.”

That was encouraging.

Whenever a friend calls you stupid, you are usually approaching something interesting.

“So how did it become yours?”

“I always sit there.”

I looked at the mango tree. A bird had been sitting on one branch for quite some time.

I pointed upward.

“That bird has been there since we arrived.”

Kaggwa looked.

“If it stays until December, does it own the branch?”

“Now you’re being ridiculous.”

“Probably.”

We sat quietly.

Inside the hall, people were stacking chairs.

Including his.

A woman picked it up, placed it upside down on another chair and carried both away.

Mr. Kaggwa watched.

Something in his face changed.

I asked him:

“Do you miss being Director?”

He turned toward me.

“What has that got to do with anything?”

“Probably nothing.”

Another silence.

This one lasted longer.

Finally he said:

“Sometimes.”

And there it was.

Not the chair.

The office.

The driver.

The telephone calls.

The people waiting outside.

The introductions.

This is Mr. Kaggwa, our Director.

For thirty-five years, the world had been telling him who he was.

Then one Friday afternoon, it stopped.

Perhaps the chair had continued the conversation.

Third from the aisle. Front row.

Reserved by nobody.

Owned completely.

I said, “Maybe we collect things without noticing.”

“What things?”

“Names. Positions. Chairs. Opinions. Even the way people greet us.”

Kaggwa smiled.

“You have started your philosophy.”

“No. I am waiting for tea.”

He laughed.

Good.

A laughing man is much harder for his ego to defend.

The following month there was another residents’ meeting.

I arrived before Kaggwa.

His chair was empty.

Third from the aisle. Front row.

Then Kaggwa walked in.

He saw it.

I watched him pause.

He could have sat there. Nobody would have objected.

Instead, he walked past it.

He came to the back and sat beside me.

I whispered:

“Your chair is empty.”

He looked toward the front.

“No.”

He smiled.

“A chair is empty.”

The meeting began.

Halfway through, a woman arrived carrying a baby. The only empty chair in the front row was the third one from the aisle.

She sat down.

The baby slept against her chest.

Kaggwa noticed.

For perhaps two seconds, the old Director appeared.

Then he disappeared.

Kaggwa leaned toward me.

“Rwamiti.”

“Yes?”

“I think my chair has found a better owner.”

I shook my head.

“You are relapsing.”

Kaggwa looked at me.

“Rwamiti, you sound like a Dharma teacher talking about attachment.”

“Impossible,” I said. “A Dharma teacher would probably have explained it better.”

He laughed so loudly that the chairman looked toward the back.

And under the noise of that laughter, something very small happened.

Nothing was lost.

Nobody became less important.

Nobody won.

Nobody surrendered.

A chair simply became a chair again.

Perhaps many of the things that trouble us begin this way.

First, there is a chair.

Then there is my chair.

And somewhere between those two sentences, we begin defending something that was never ours.

Uncle Rwamiti