The trick is to manipulate the articles in the room in such a way that the chair is fooled, so that instead of arriving at midnight, like it always does, it will come around mid-day, while you are away at work. Arriving, it will pry the door open in a clumsy fashion, the metabolism of its peculiar constitution damaged by the dimly-recognized, but nevertheless distorted similarity to the room in which it normally finds repose.
Just how you reconfigure these articles, of course, is not a crucial matter - whether the window curtains, for instance, are tied in such a way that they partially reveal or totally obscure the fire escape. The throw rug before the bathroom, however, might be moved to the dining hall - this will disorient the chair, and possibly, if you are lucky, cause it to break or splinter its legs. The ashtrays, for their part, might be rearranged, placing one on top of the radio (the chair will hardly expect it in such a ludicrous place) , while another might be tilted at a slight angle by the side of the kitchen sink. Meanwhile, the bedspread could be ruffled, not completely ripped aside and tossed, but snarled, mildly tweaked here and there. It's possible the chair will approach tentatively, believing you're asleep, and this is a vague risk, but it will leave abruptly when it realizes there is no one there after all, especially when the intermittent silence caused by lapses in the traffic outside brings it to sudden lucidity.
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