Over time, objects witness a lot. They witness both the good situations and the bad in our lives – they’re present for the moments that make us cry, whether in happiness or in despair, and they stay around afterwards to serve as constant reminders of the past. That’s the odd thing, though – an object that is insignificant to one person can mean the world to another; something hundreds of people overlook everyday can cause a great deal of emotion in a single being.

In this case, it’s a bench.

The bench is old and smooth to the touch, made of some type of light coloured wood – beech, perhaps. It was made to seat three but very few people ever end up stopping: it’s on a residential street and most people prefer to go home and sit in their own gardens. It’s slightly wonky because two of its legs rest on the root of a huge oak tree. The tree continues to grow, lifting and cracking the tiles of the pavement as time passes, casting its shade over the bench and some of the surrounding gardens.

The bench is passed by many people – employers, employees, the self-employed, the unemployed, students on the way to various schools, students on the way out of various schools – but there are very few people with emotional attachments to it's smooth, well worn surface.

Kurt Hummel is an exception.

Kurt is a quiet boy; he would much prefer having a tea party to playing with nerf guns and his Power Ranger action figures get married more often than they actually fight evil so naturally, even at the age of 6, he finds it difficult to fit in. The girls in his class are reaching the stage where they think that he is 'yucky' and he gets picked on by frequently by the other boys that he knows. Kurt's best friend is his mother, Elizabeth Hummel, who is sweet and kind, understanding and unconditionally caring. Kurt and Lizzie walk past the bench on their way back from school every day and they often stop to feed the pigeons, giving them funny names and making up stories about them. They affectionately refer to it as ‘Our Bench’ even though it has been there for as long as anyone can remember.

This routine continues until Kurt is seven-and-eight-months (the eight months are very important to him, thank-you-very-much). The afternoon it ends, Lizzie tells her son that she is very, very sick. He perches on the bench, swinging his little legs and fiddling with his red bow tie anxiously. Twice he opens his mouth and no words come out, before he settles with “You’ll be okay, right? You’re always okay.” and she can’t bring herself to answer. They don’t feed the pigeons together again, because Lizzie’s daily hospital appointments don’t allow enough time.

The next time he sits on the bench for any length of time, he’s eight years old. His Daddy’s been working lots now that Lizzie can’t work and he hasn’t been able to convince him to feed the birds on the way back from school, much to the young boy’s annoyance. He doesn’t know why Auntie Mel was there to pick him up from school instead of his parents today, but it looks like she’s been crying and he wants to know why. She collapses onto the bench and pulls him into her lap, desperately holding back sobs. He hugs her tight, trying calm her down as she buries her pale face (so similar to his own) in his chestnut hair. Her cool emerald eyes are tinged with red when she finally looks him in his own glasz ones.

“Your Mummy’s gone, baby.”

He doesn’t understand – where has she gone? Why didn’t she take him with her?

Auntie Mel tells him that Lizzie’s gone to heaven and he asks desperately if she'll come home soon but, of course, she won't. Kurt can't face sitting at the bench again for quite some time.

He next stops and sits there when he’s sixteen – for eight years he’s avoided it like the plague, but now he just really needs his Mum and he feels like maybe, just maybe, the bench where he spent so much time with her will serve to comfort him in some way. He’s known for years that he’s different, but admitting it to other people? He’s terrified about coming out as gay to his Dad. Sure, Burt Hummel is one of the most accepting, supportive, genuine people he has ever met, but still... he can’t lose him too. He sighs and runs his hand through his perfectly styled hair, completely ruining his hairdo. He’ll come out two weeks later, and his Dad will tell him that he’s known since he was three. After that, he’ll visit the bench far more often.

He fills in his application for NYADA there, aged eighteen, shaking hands attempting to pen out his name in his signature swirling calligraphy. Rachel Berry, a friend of his, is filling in her own form beside him. She’s gushing about how perfect Finn Hudson (her boyfriend and his now-stepbrother) is, and he can’t help but think that he won’t ever find somebody.

After a term and a half at NYADA, Kurt visits home out of the blue. He sits on the bench in residential Ohio, watching the sunset paint his surroundings with vibrant golds and burning oranges, and realises that singing and acting aren’t his future, no matter how much he loves them. He returns to New York and finishes his second term before announcing that he will be dropping out of the prestigious school for good. He’s been painting and sketching ever since his visit back home – he doesn’t really know why; he used to draw a little before then but all of a sudden it's as if the art grabs a hold of him until it’s all he wants to do. He wants to paint all day and he wants to do this for a living.

He can’t afford New York anymore, so he moves back in with his father and stepmother in Lima, where the basement is converted into an art studio and Kurt manages to make enough to get by.

The bench becomes his favourite place to people-watch from, and he fills sketchbook after sketchbook with detailed drawings of strangers, friends and landscapes alike.

Sitting on the bench at the age of twenty-five, Kurt Hummel sees Blaine Anderson for the first time.