An Ephemeral Moment

He had told me one time about his travels in some sort of ephemeral place that seemed to shift in form and magnitude each time he spilled forth his stories.

Paddling along a river that was so highly elevated that you could see the peaks of mountains and the goats that sprang from rock to rock along the side of its facade; the very clouds danced around the summit as sharks do around a shipwreck at the bottom of a shallow sea. But no, actually, it was more like he could see the outreaching hand of man streaking across the sky in the hopes of reaching the edge of heaven, a blasphemous form and idea. Or rather…perhaps, no, it couldn’t be; am I that close to heaven? It certainly felt that way. A fleeting moment that leaves a white gash streaking across your very psyche; or perhaps something far more divine than such a human attempt at understanding; the attempt at defining the ephemeral existence of non-existence. How I long to make what I see, what I see. This moment of serene resignation. This particular moment, he was I; for since, then I have changed. Yet I was you, but can I really say that? Can my own experiences be shared with you? I seemed to be able to share it with myself quite comfortably. Yet to say that I shared the incident and its relative insights with myself would be quite a leap for I do not believe that the person who experienced that event was the same person who existed one second before the occurrence nor do I believe that he is the same person that is writing this story right now. Truth be told, he existed only for a brief moment, the creature was as cursory as the moment.

Yet, that doesn’t make my hindsight any less credible. Sure, had I written about it at that exact moment maybe I could have gotten down my thoughts far more lucidly. But then I would have never felt it as I had felt it. I would not now have the same memory of the feeling; since, the very enigmatic impression would have been altered by my foolish decision to scribble away at something that could have been absorbed naturally. To call me selfish would be fair, I am selfish. But let it be known that I am attempting to share it with you. Just as my self that existed then shared it with the self that exists now, I will now share it with you. Or rather, I have already shared it with you haven’t I? Scratch that, no I haven’t.

The calm water caressed my paddle as it dipped into the motherly liquid once again, only to emerge. Pushed out by its own mother in a solemn manner; over and over again. Beneath the serene surface were hundreds of jellyfish, lingering and soothing their bodies within the warm embrace of their homes. The breeze gently swayed the branches of the trees back and forth, making them wave at me and my company. As we paddled forward, the clouds seemed to move aside as a ray of light came reaching down to touch the water to turn it into ichor. The gleaming golden hue blinded me and forced my eyes upwards. There I saw the double gates of color that led me further into a domain where I had not been before. Arching fixtures of light that brought my mind to elementary levels while at the same time, befuddling me with inexplicable awe. I never knew such formations could exist. Yet there they were before my eyes, two rainbows, designed with such care, control, and calculation; the hand of a great artist had painted the sky for me that day. As we passed under the portal, I could no longer see it as I looked up at it from beneath, just as quickly as it had appeared, it had disappeared. Yet, as I looked back after gliding under its belly, I saw that it had once again materialized. It still looked the same; a facade on both sides. Oh! Had I entered or left? Not long did I dwindle upon this query when the chill of my inaptitude knocked invasively upon my physical experience. I quickly asked my companions as to why it had gotten so cold. We had been underneath the thirsty golden tongue not so long ago yet, we were now struck by a bitter and sudden cold. Then a shadow slowly began to creep towards me along the surface of the once golden gore. A point slashed the pleasant cerulean sky, making the azure bleed white globules that formed into beings that drifted off to form new families and communities. I had stopped paddling. How had we gotten so close to the peak of this giant? To have been going on a flat surface this entire time, to meet this epitome of height and grandeur. Truly the world is not flat, nor is it round; it twists, turns, zigs and zags. Without any real communication between any of us, we had all stopped paddling and floated in our plastic containers. Some took pictures, I did not. How can the limited capture the infinite? I simply sat there in my confined plastic mould, my plastic tomb, that was where my old mind died and a new one was born. For, my reluctance to take a picture of the scene was not because I believed my mind to be capable of taking a snapshot. Rather, I trusted that my mind would remember the feeling, the painful peace. Just as we finish documenting one thing, the horizon expands again.

Such a sad thing, you are still not there. Well, neither am I. Perhaps, if we go to the islands off the coast of British Columbia one day, we can experience the ephemeral.