I got the Ephemera Blues
By Cian Thomas Ennis
Photography by Míde Dineen
“Ah, do not mourn” he said
That we are tired for other loves await us;
Hate on and love through unrepining hours.
Before us lies eternity; our souls
Are love, and a continual farewell”
W.B. Yeats, Ephemera
“No, I don’t really wanna die I only want to die in your eyes”
Silver Jews, How to Rent a Room
The tattered red curtain, its rotors not oiled, only separated slightly to reveal half of our protagonist's face, unshaven but certainly not rugged. His lips, nor eyes gleam to reveal any semblance of involvement in this mortal realm. A stoic expression on his face acts as a premonition to an absolute truth. A truth that does not dance with notions of poetic transcendence. No waltzing is permitted, only the wilting of the tongue. The auditorium is barren and it does not seem that patrons have celebrated the theatrical arts here in some time, yet their former merriment reverberates through the cosmos and hangs in the air like smoke, leaving only the eerie absence of jouissance. There is one soul present in the upper circle, breathing a slight breath by the emergency exit, the green light of the sign glimmering, acting as a halo atop her shagged brown hair, anointing her an earthly angel. Our protagonist smacks his lips, gestures to the room, and a spotlight is placed upon him, providing crucial lighting, for the sweetest of confessions.
“Listen to me children, for a story I must tell about the rebel I met in Vancouver, a town I knew so well. To depart from one’s home and hearth, for the sake of something as trivial as adventure is a completely selfish act, one that I cannot necessarily condemn or condone. We must understand that the selfless and the meek do not achieve the spiritual goals that they desire, and exist simply at the behest of their surroundings, they perish in the dire cold, surrounded by loving faces, resenting that familiarity until their last dying breath. I do not wish to live such a life, thus I embarked from the shack of a city that is Dublin, to explore the sick colonial project of Canada. I traversed the clay, making it over the trench into an impenetrable no man’s land, breathing in the poisonous haze of freedom, and simply attempted to find a respirator. It is in this nebulous that I found moments of eternal beauty, and as I scrambled in the dirt, I looked up to you, your palms providing an abundance of joy, in a gas mask. This ensured I would not suffocate, under the weight of my own ambition. This is my confession to you, and an elegy for the finite nature of Time itself.
Once the novelty of the newness associated with being on the other side of the world seemed to fade, I found myself alone in a world that was constantly in opposition to my marching forward. My shoes continually became stuck in the muck, and difficult decisions were debated on whether or not to leave them behind, yet I continued my striding towards the unattainable in only my stocking feet. One is constantly left waiting, impeded by exterior events, yet still we persist, venturing ever on, into the wild blue yonder, in search of an abstraction that language does not necessarily have the properties to place. I was dragged into the whirlpool, and I felt myself elated at the prospect of drowning.
I met you at a retro themed bar on mainstreet. I arrived fifteen minutes early so that I could sit, and drink, and smoke, and attempt to subdue the Kiergegardian dizziness that dominated my every waking thought. I ordered a drink from a metrosexual barman while the cars sped past behind my back. At times, the conversation in the bar came to halt to take note of a bellowing ambulance racing down the tarmac, another poor soul, out of the frying pan and into the fire. That was until you sat opposite me, the cacophony of sirens was then overpowered by a serene silence. This strange moment seemed to exist as if under a microscope, as if plucked from time and placed on the mantelpiece to be admired. An ornament of worldly fascination.
We drank and laughter followed suit as we talked of the trivial cultural differences that exist between Dublin and Austin, about whether buses should be single or double decker, or whether a bottle of vodka should be called a naggin or a mickey. We were both foreign to the city that had not yet undressed itself before us. I cherished the conversations we had about home. At times it felt as if we were reminiscing about the same place. We were particles being flung about by self-indulgent scientists in the Hadron Collider, simply lucky enough to crash into each other's trajectory. Divine intervention ensured we lay atop a sculpture, kissed, and stared into a black starless night.
Our appointments became the highlight of my days, and I found myself awaiting them in a quiet trepidation. We crawled through the city, carousing in a variety of pubs, music halls, and parks. It was simple and just and antithetical to the farce that I felt I left behind in a desperate, derelict Dublin. It was a dreamscape through which I could project myself from memory to memory as they were being created, recalling them with the clarity that accompanies recency, but dreams always seem to end as soon as it gets to the good bit, and to Texas you would return.
Our last date approached and in an effort to encapsulate the unnamable I felt when I first met you I insisted we return to the original kitsch public house where it first began. I remember it distinctly, you told me stories of Halloween’s of yore, and how your father would stuff the neighbourhood children into the back of his pick up and parade them around the locality. I remember your face as you recalled the purity of such a moment, stirring a vodka white as you talked, and after the story concluded, you looked to your box of smokes, reaching for a cigarette inside. The calm of the come down, after prodding a powerline.
The next day you told me you’d be thinking of me on your flight home, and that while you hurtled through the sky, it was me who’d be on your mind. I hope you knew the feeling was reciprocated, yet I couldn’t manage to verbally provide that assurance, alas another regret in my twenty-two years. In a shamefully Irish fashion, all I could muster within myself was a half smile, and a “see you later”. We embraced, and I briskly turned around and wandered into the woods, disappearing into the dense branches, once again on a ship in an all consuming storm, without a harbour in sight.
What I felt then cannot be succinctly put into words, a term does not exist for such a sensation, but maybe it can be captured in music, if it’s special enough? It would take an entire orchestra to compose such a symphony, and even then the tune would miss the mark. I think I understand it during the times I lie in bed, drifting in an ever changing purgatory, and I see you once again, sitting across from me, your presence easing the edges of a forgotten world.”
