I had only intended to fetch a glass of water. A simple errand, driven by the parched desperation that accompanies a fitful night’s sleep. But what I found in the den on that wretched night has since clung to my mind like a cursed algorithm, looping endlessly in grotesque perpetuity.
It was the dead of night, the house swathed in the sort of silence that leaves one straining to hear the phantom chimes of non-existent Discord notifications. My descent down the staircase was cautious, each step cushioned by the thin veneer of carpet laid bare from years of neglect.
The den should have been empty. I should have been greeted only by the cold glow of the television, left on by some act of absentmindedness. But as I drew closer, I became aware of a sound—low, guttural, and punctuated by words strung together like errant memes vomited forth from a corrupted AI.
“Bingus… Bingus… the drip immaculate…”
My father’s voice. But not his voice. No, it was distorted—laced with a mania so profound that I scarcely recognized it. I rounded the corner, throat clenched tight with a horror I could scarcely comprehend.
And there he sat. Skeet Johnson, my father. Perched upon that damned Gorilla Chair as if it were some foul throne of delirium.
Its form was meant to mimic a silverback gorilla, molded in the act of a triumphant roar. But to my eyes, it appeared as a beast of torment, its exaggerated musculature cradling my father in an embrace far too intimate. The arms of the chair wrapped around him like a lover’s desperate grasp, locking him in a ritual of depravity I could not fathom.
“Father?” I croaked, my voice feeble. He scarcely reacted, his eyes glued to some unseen reverie like a YouTube reaction channel feeding on endless, vapid content.
“Caught slippin’, eh, son?” he cackled, the sound unnatural and jagged. “This… this is the true grindset. The ultimate rizz.”
“What are you talking about?” I whispered, clutching my own arms as if to ward off the chill seeping into my bones. “You look… mad.”
“Madness?” he laughed, a laugh so discordant and vile it reminded me of a bass-boosted meme blasted through cheap Bluetooth speakers. “No, son. This is the drip. The forbidden sauce. The way Baby Gronk rizzed up Livvy Dunne, but, like, on a spiritual plane. I’m edging on enlightenment itself.”
I stood there, paralyzed, the raw stench of vape clouds and Taco Bell Baja Blast clinging to the air. His eyes were wild, his pupils swollen to inky chasms that swallowed all traces of reason.
“Father, you’ve lost yourself!” I screamed, though my voice cracked like a low-quality Vine snippet dredged from the depths of some forgotten meme archive.
“I’ve ascended, boy,” he ranted, his hands grasping the gorilla’s foam-muscled arms as though drawing sustenance from them. “The Gorilla Chair, it’s a lifestyle. A state of mind. The primal Goon.”
“No… no, this is madness!” I stumbled backward, desperate to flee. My father’s twisted form remained hunched upon the throne, eyes glazed and mouth agape with a joy so monstrous it twisted my stomach into knots.
“Go on, Skid. Run,” he sneered, his voice already fading into a deranged mumble. “But know this—the Gorilla Chair calls to us all. It’s inevitable.”
I bolted from the den, abandoning my quest for water. Instead, I sought refuge beneath my covers, the darkness of my room a fragile sanctuary against the madness that had overtaken my father.
Even now, weeks later, I hear him at night—rambling from the den, his words incomprehensible yet threaded with that same sickly cadence of obsession. And I fear, deep down, that his prophecy may be true.
For sometimes, in the shadows of my dreams, I can feel it. The cold, terrible lure of the Gorilla Chair.
