The stairwell of Sarah’s apartment building smelled like old cabbage, floor cleaner, and the faint scent of wet dog. The walls were painted a dull, peeling mint green, and every step they took caused the wooden stairs to groan loudly under their weight.
By the time they reached the third floor landing, Ethan was already breathing harder than he wanted to admit. He tried to hide it by taking long, slow breaths through his nose, but his heart was hammering against his ribs.
"Sarah! We're here!" Maya called out, pushing open a heavy oak door at the end of the hallway.
A girl with bright orange hair and oversized round glasses popped her head out from what looked like a kitchen filled with half-unpacked cardboard boxes. She was wearing an oversized tie-dye t-shirt and sweatpants.
"Oh thank god," Sarah said, rushing over and instantly grabbing Maya in a short hug. "I thought you guys bailed. The delivery guy for the new futon said he’s coming tomorrow at eight in the morning, and if this monster is still in the living room, he’s just gonna leave the new one on the curb."
She looked over Maya's shoulder at Ethan, who was standing in the doorway trying to look sturdy despite his soaked right shoe squeaking with every tiny adjustment of his feet.
"Hi, I'm Sarah," she said, waving a flour-covered hand. "You must be Ethan. The guy with the truck."
"That's me," Ethan said, giving a polite nod. "The guy with the truck."
"He's also the muscle," Maya added, patting Ethan's shoulder with a bit too much force. "Show him the beast."
Sarah led them into a cramped living room that looked like a bomb had gone off in a thrift store. Books were stacked in shaky towers on the floor, clothes were draped over folding chairs, and sitting right in the center of the room was a massive, brown floral-patterned sofa that looked like it had been manufactured during the Nixon administration.
Ethan walked up to it and gave one of the wooden armrests a firm tug. The sofa didn't move an inch. It felt like it was nailed to the floorboards.
"Told you," Maya said, crossing her arms. "It’s heavy."
"It's not just heavy," Ethan said, bending down to look underneath the cushions. "The steel folding mechanism inside is locked up. We gotta take the cushions off first, then see if we can lift it from the bottom frame."
"I took the loose cushions off already," Sarah said, pointing to a pile near the window. "That's as naked as it gets."
Ethan sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "Alright. Maya, you take the right side, I'll take the left. We gotta lift on three and tilt it sideways so it fits through that narrow doorway."
"Got it," Maya said, stepping around to the other end of the couch. She grabbed the bottom wooden trim, her fingers digging into the old fabric. "Ready when you are."
"One... two... three—UP!"
Ethan grunted, straining his legs as he lifted. The couch rose about six inches off the ground before Maya’s side suddenly dipped.
"Wait, wait! Hold on!" she yelled, her face turning red. "My finger got caught in the spring!"
Ethan immediately dropped his end back down with a heavy THUD that shook the picture frames on the wall. "You okay?"
"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," she said, shaking her hand out and blowing on her knuckle. "Just pinched it on that stupid metal bar on the side. Man, this thing is evil."
"Let me look at it," Sarah said, stepping over a box of records.
"I'm fine, Sarah, it's just a scrape," Maya said, rolling her eyes. She looked at Ethan. "Okay, let's try again, but don't lift so fast this time."
They took a breath, repositioned their hands, and lifted together. This time, they managed to get the behemoth moving, shuffling slowly across the hardwood floor toward the front entrance.
The real nightmare started at the doorway. The couch was about three inches wider than the door frame.
"Tilt it! Tilt it left!" Sarah squeaked from behind them, trying to help by pushing uselessly on the middle of the backrest.
"I am tilting it!" Ethan wheezed, his forearms burning like they were on fire. "Maya, lower your end a bit!"
"If I lower it any more, it's gonna crush my foot!" she yelled back, her teeth grit tightly.
They wrestled with the sofa in the narrow doorway for what felt like ten minutes. Ethan’s shirt was completely soaked with sweat, his fingers were numb from gripping the rough fabric, and at one point, his shoulder jammed painfully against the wooden door jamb.
"Push!" Maya grunted.
Ethan gave one final, desperate shove with his thigh. The couch let out a horrible tearing sound as the bottom corner scraped heavily against the door frame, but it popped through into the hallway, landing with a deafening crash that made the light fixture in the ceiling rattle violently.
Down the hall, a door flew open, and a middle-aged woman in a pink bathrobe stuck her head out, glaring at them with pure hatred. "Some of us work night shifts!" she barked before slamming her door shut again.
Ethan was leaning against the hallway wall, breathing heavily, his hands on his knees. "Well... it's out of the apartment."
Maya collapsed onto the top cushion of the couch, right there in the middle of the hallway carpet, let out a long, exhausted groan, and covered her face with her hands. "I hate this couch so much."
Ethan looked down at her, wiping sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. Despite how miserable he felt, he couldn't help letting out a short, breathless laugh. "We still have three flights of stairs to go, you know."
Maya pulled her hands away from her face, looking up at him with a deadpan glare. "Ethan, if you drop this thing down the stairs and it smashes into a hundred pieces, I will personally pay for the damage."
"Templting," Ethan panted, offering her a hand to pull her up. "Very tempting."
Comments (0)