What's it like being a piece of furniture? (A short story)

A new [very] short story of mine: "On being a piece of furniture."
*MAX. VOLUME REQ'D. (Transcript below...)

(You can read some of my recent travelogue "Slow Travels in Unsung Spain" and buy it here...or better still, at most other online retailers. [https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07NJG91W7/] )

The boy ran his slim fingers along the chest of drawers. His eyes passed across the garish green lacquered wood. The world of things. He wanted to be this thing. To have objects put inside him, to stay there.

The boy was entering a different world by being here with an adult thing like this. He didn't know exactly what it was then but he felt something like the statement of time: I, this thing, represent more than what I seem to be. I represent an idea called History. I'm both before you and after your life, when it ends, years away from now. The chest of drawers told him:

“Each day standing here is a triumph; not of the will, but of existence. And of course, I am useful. I am important and I take up my own area that has been claimed for me. People walk past me every hour. Some ignore me, some inspect me, and many adults and little boys or girls like you touch my outer parts or absent-mindedly open my drawers; empty, save for my pleasant aged woody aroma and the thin bone-coloured paper lining on my bases. I hide nothing. I am yours, or not yours yet.

One day I will be someone's. The staff will wrap me in old blankets, tie me up in the back of the shop truck then ship me off to a home in the suburbs where clothes will find themselves inside me: scattered pairs of socks, clean underpants, or even T-shirts with slogans on them.  

Until that day I will be in my place here, near the wide main window. The shop is open until night falls, when the dark throws itself around us all, still waiting.