once upon a time there was a modular sofa. nothing special, just simple cubes and rectangles, beige wool. one grey midsummer spring, a young girl (18) came to the big city with a back pack and a pair of doc martens. she slept on that sofa. three cubes long, in the living area of an aunties studio. nine long months. maybe more. but she slept well, she was tired ..two jobs, six days a week. and those boots were heavy. then, in the windy city fall, her own studio with a sliver of a lake view out the kitchen window if you turned your head just so. eight el stops away, but no bother..auntie gave her the sofa. cubes and rectangles one at time in the manual door elevator. nine more months. she moved back up north, not home, but more familiar. a different type of school. a few years pass. one job, a better one. the cubes are reupholstered in dark red ribbed velvet (it was Wisconsin afterall). cubes and rectangles smooshed in to the back seat of the starter marriage's starter car (it was a Dodge afterall). a few more years. a terrific downpour, a misdirected gutter. but three cubes and two rectangles survive. three more jobs, all about the same. no more husband, that's better. she moves south, way down south. something new. and as the snowy plains make way for palm trees, the cubes and rectangles this time carried in a van hauling a car down the highway some 26 hours. five more years. another school, two more jobs. the job is the same, but the weather much better. a boyfriend whose feet hung over the edge of the now shorter modular sofa. but no matter, he moved to California anyway. a new apartment. her first home. eighteen months of renovation. plaster, paint, her handy hammer and level. (it was the Historic District afterall). the sofa is shipped back north for reupholstery once again. nothing special, just simple biege. a durable fabric, for there is a dog now. cubes and rectangles in cardboard boxes one by one up three flights of stairs. but not much time there this time. not a few years or months, but only a few weeks. the girl is leaving for a very long stay in France. no job, much better. another school. the cubes and rectangles will not fit in the maximum two suitcases. but no matter, the young student renter just moved here last year, probably with a back pack of her own and no doubt, at least one pair of heavy boots (it is an art college afterall).