Displaced

Chapter 11

He should have accepted Ivar's offer of help. He realised that now. He should have swallowed his pride, ignored his aching muscles, and simply told Ivar what he wanted to know. Now, Ivar had gone, leaving behind the implication that he might refuse to help even if Sigurd could work up the nerve to ask him.

Sigurd sighed. He should have agreed, and now it was too late.

He looked up at the chair. It had been pulled out slightly from underneath the table to allow him room to climb onto it, and from where he sat on the floor just in front of it, it looked huge; every bit as insurmountable as it had the night before, when he had tried and failed to lift himself into it before Ivar had finally taken pity on him and helped.

At least now, he was alone; at least nobody was watching. Because for all that he wished he had someone to tell him how to do this, he did not want his brother to watch him struggle. He did not want him to enjoy it, because he would enjoy it. How could he not?

Sigurd would, if their positions were reversed.

He looked carefully at the chair, trying to imagine how Ivar did it. To his frustration, he had no idea. It looked impossible. He knew that it was not, because he had seen it done, but he could not imagine how.

That was okay. He could figure it out. He had time, he was not as exhausted as he had been the night before, and he did not have the pressure of knowing that somebody was watching. He could figure it out. After all, Ivar had. And he had been much younger than Sigurd at the time. He refused to be outsmarted by a child.

He reached up with one hand to grip one of the solid wooden arms of the chair. He pressed the other hand firmly into the floor and pushed down, while pulling up with the other hand, hoping to lift himself further without having to put all of his weight on the side of the chair and risk bringing it down on top of him.

He managed to lift himself slightly off the ground, but no further than the night before. Probably less far, if he was being honest. He felt himself instinctively try to use his legs to push himself further off the ground, and made himself stop before the inevitable stab of pain that he knew would come.

Defeated, he allowed himself to sink back down to the ground. "Stupid chair," he muttered to himself under his breath, knowing that it was not the fault of the chair.

It felt impossible. He could not see any way that he could get himself up into the chair without standing up, and sitting down, which of course he could not do.

Maybe he needed to use the table to take some of his weight, instead of the floor. Or maybe he needed to come at the chair from another side. Maybe the problem was the angle he was coming from, perhaps he needed to be closer to the chair, or further away. Maybe he needed to reach further across the chair instead of grabbing the closest side. Or maybe...

Maybe he needed to come at the problem without assuming that he was going to fail...

He gritted his teeth, pulled the chair out a little further to position himself more in front of it, and a little closer. He used both hands this time, and reached through to the back of the chair, so that by the time he began to lift himself, he was already partway there. His weight was spread more evenly between both hands, and in the centre of the chair.

It felt safer; less like the chair might fall. He lifted himself off the ground, then a little further, and then a little further still, until he was almost there. He was facing the back of the chair, and so, at almost the right hight, he began to turn, intending to plant himself in the seat. He was so close that he could almost feel the victory. He had it! He had figured it out without any help from Ivar.