The Constant Ephemeral

Aaron Knowe sat in a coffee shop. Unconcerned with the world around him and transfixed on the steam that rose from his coffee. Or latte. Maybe it was espresso. Doesn’t really matter. He just sat there watching the steam rise.

The young, female coffee shop employee studied him from across the cafe. To her, he resembled a mythological creature. The dark wood chair was an extension of his lower torso. His upper torso a combination of dark cloth and the wooden bars it pressed against. His forearms formed a triangle of wooden humanity that met at the white cup he clutched in his hands.

Every now and then he’d take a sip. Otherwise, he just stared off into space. Lost in thought, lost in life, who knows? But he just sat there, drinking and blinking, until the coffee was gone.

He lifted the cup and peered down into it. There was nothing there. He was unconcerned and set it back down. Still, he just sat there. Seemingly content, but also seemingly stuck. A half-man, half-chair creature with his forearms stuck to the table, weighed down by an empty cup now too heavy to lift.

Seeing the obvious signs of emptiness, the young coffee shop employee woke from her daze of curiosity and left the matching table and chair where she was sitting. She reluctantly walked across the cafe toward the creature.

Only the pearlesque, translucent glow of two heavily shaded lights and the setting sun peering through the barely open blinds lit the room. Blades of gradiated reddish-orange illuminated her path along the dark tiled floor.

Her thin nose and slender body led her pony-tail, painted with thick blonde strokes and light wisps of burnt umber, across the dim canvas. She asked the creature about the empty cup wrapped in his fingers.

“No thank you. I’m fine right here where I am.”

“But your cup is empty…”

“Doesn’t matter. What matters is that I’m here. Nothing else of any importance.”

“Wow…uhhh…ok…If you do need anything, my name’s Juliet and I’ll be right over there in my little chair, with my cup that actually has coffee in it. Just waiting. Waiting for you if you need anything. Waiting for another customer to come in…”

“Thank you,” he replied. “We shall both be sitting in our respective chairs at our respective tables and with our cups. Yours full. Mine empty. I don’t know about you, but there’s nowhere else I’d rather be. Just being. Just here in this coffee shop. What about you, Juliet?”

“Actually, no offense, but this is the last place in the world I want to be…,”

“Well, where else would you rather be? You’re here. Can you not be anywhere else? What is keeping you here? Are you stuck to the floor? Are you trapped inside this building?”

“No.”

“Then obviously you want to be here. Nobody is making you stay here. You could walk out right now. There’s nothing stopping you, but yourself. So, there’s no way you can tell me you don’t want to be right here, right now. Where else would you rather be?”

“Well, I don’t know…”

A thousand thoughts of where she’d rather be whirled in her mind, fighting to form a logical response, but nothing could make its way out and across her lips to vibrate the air between her mouth and his ear except, “Well, I don’t know.”

“Why don’t you know? Why are you still here if this is the last place you want to be? There are plenty worse places to be. There are places where you’d actually be stuck and couldn’t just leave if you wanted to. But here, you can come and go as you please. You have decided to be here, so why aren’t you happy being right here, right now?”

“Because…I’m only here because I need money and there’s a thousand other places I’d rather be and you don’t want any coffee and I’m stuck here listening to you.”

“But you’re not stuck. You’re not stuck listening to me. I already told you I didn’t need more coffee. Couldn’t you just walk over there to your own chair, table, and cup of coffee instead of standing someplace you supposedly don’t want to be? Couldn’t you just do that instead?”

“Yeah…I guess.”

“Then why not do it?”

“I don’t know.”

“The whole world is out there. Yet, here you stand right here, right now, listening to me and saying you’re not where you want to be. It makes no sense. I’m here because I want to be. I have an empty cup because that’s what I want to have. I’m here because I want to be here. And do you know why I want to be here?”

“Why?…Why do you want to be here so bad?”

“Why is there I want to be?” he said.

“Yes! Why is this where you want to be?”

“Right here? Right now?”

“Yes! Just freaking tell me why you’re so damn happy sitting in a chair, in a coffee shop with an empty coffee cup, and making someone just here because they need money put up with your crap! Just tell me! What’s so damn important about being right here, right now!”

“It’s the only place I can be…”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Well, no other place exists. How could I be in a place that doesn’t exist?”

“What do you mean by that? That makes no sense whatsoever. There’s places everywhere…I don’t get…”

“There are other places for other people, but not for us. There is absolutely no way for us to be anywhere else except right here, right now in this moment as I am talking to you. Other people are in their own right here, right nows and that’s the only place they can be. Each of us, all over the entire known universe, can be nowhere but where we are right here, right now. No matter when, no matter where, it’s always right here, right now and that’s the only place you can be.”

He looked back down at his cup and saw that it was still empty. He beamed.

“Yep, right here, right now…What else could I want?”

“Well, I really don’t think you need any more coffee, so…”

“Maybe you’re right. I’ll just leave you be and head to the next right here, right now.”

“How can you move to the next right here, right now? I thought you just said it was always right here, right now?”

“Hmm…Guess you’re right…It is always right here, right now and I did just say that. Albeit during a time that no longer exists, but I said it nonetheless. So I guess I can’t move on to the next right here, right now, after all. Seems that all I can do is be in it as it moves along with me. Me and my right here, right now…I guess we’re traveling partners for life. I’m stuck with it and it’s stuck with me. Like an internal shadow that’s never cast but just stays right with me all the time. Well, that sounds dark…Not a shadow, but, you know something happier, glittery and stuff…Me and my right here, right now and you and your right here, right now. We’ve become traveling partners for now, journeying together to a time that doesn’t yet exist. Together…Imagine that. Thank you for joining me, Juliet.”

“Uhh…You’re welcome?”

“Well, Juliet, thank you for a lovely cup of coffee.”

He detached his fingers from his empty cup and peeled his forearms from the table. He then detached himself from his chair, stood up slowly, and walked toward the door, carrying his right here, right now with him.

A constant trail of lost existence followed him as he was leaving. It perpetually emanated from him his back, for now illuminated by the last remaining rays of the setting sun, its only remnants indelible traces captured by his brain. They slowly began making their way into its deep recesses.

“We’ll we’re off now,” he said as he was approaching the door. He turned to face her. “My right here, right now are bidding farewell to yours. I hope y’all have a nice evening and a pleasant tomorrow.”

As she stood still watching him, forever stuck in her own right here, right now that will never be again, yet eternally moving toward a time yet to exist, she took a deep breath. She filled her lungs with the singular air of a moment that had already passed and exhaled it into one that had never before existed.

“Right here, right now…,” she said aloud to the passing instant, “…guess we’re stuck with each other.”