Wild sofas aren’t born wild. They become wild with time. They spring up (and eventually die) alongside humans. They have no transcendence. They are destined to be friends of humanity. When it’s hot, humans have sex against, more than on, the sofa. When it’s time for a nap, they lay there soaking up cathodes of information. As dusk falls, they sit back and down a few beers (better if it’s with friends). The junky hounded by the abstinence syndrome seeks relief anywhere it can be found, and the sofa is as good a place as any. William S. Burroughs put it in writing in his book Junky: “I went to the living room and checked the sofa. I stuck my hand down in between the gap between the back and the cushions. A comb, a piece of chalk, a broken pencil, a dime, a nickel. A flash of pain made me weak so I snatched my hand out. Blood was flowing from a deep cut in a finger. A razor-blade I’m sure.” No luck for the junky. But as well as being full of surprises, the sofa is also man’s best friend the Sunday morning after a heavy night out on the town.
And there comes the day when the feathers start to float out, when the synthetic foam starts to nudge through, when we are swallowed up by a hungry sofa, when as we make love we make more noise than the inner patio in Delicatessen, when the rolled-up balls of snot stuck to the underside start to form stalactites (sofa and armchair decadency is frequently connected to sofa-owner decadency.)
That’s when the owner decides that the couch should be freed, so they are exiled to another corner of town. Soon the sofas can fall prey to the white hunter vans, they become victims of fire, they are spirited away by kids and teenagers (used to fill up a space in tree or club-houses)… They have become wild animals, they have felt the stinging rain and the cold wet touch of snow. But you will never hear David Attenborough talk about this wild species to be found in the city. We’d really like to see that documentary… as we lie half-asleep on our comfy new sofas…