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I had a drink with Maude Gonne the other night. I had so many things to ask her, and so little time, it seemed. It's strange chatting with dead people; they're so ephemeral--every second feels like drops of fickle water passing through your fingers. She was quite a beauty in her own way; I saw instantly why Yeats fell so hard for her. There was such strength in her ¼ the way she sat, the way she sipped her Guinness (of course), her poise, a mixture of vulnerability and fragility, but yet--a knowing of something much more than this world rested in her eyes. It was as though this moment and every one that was to come made perfect and ridiculous sense, just as long as you were framed in her gaze...it absorbed me, and I could hardly think of anything at all to say to her. My tongue felt like sandpaper, the roof of my mouth like the top of a dry cave covered in brittle stalactites, my teeth and gums numb as though from a poisonous Novocain--and the alcohol was only making it all worse. I lifted my glass, gazed some more into her eyes, and sighed.

"I know what you're thinking," she finally said to me. A tiny touch of a smile broke over her lips. "Stop being so melodramatic."

I was a little shaken by this. "Just what am I thinking, Maude?" I finally managed to stammer out.

"You see that guy over there...in the corner?" she pointed a finger towards a dingy nook in the barroom. I could barely make out a disheveled shape of a man, wearing a dark suit and wire-frame spectacles, a wee little mustache gracing his upper lip. "Do you know who that is?"

"Nope."

"That's William," she answered, before taking a long sip from her Guinness. When she pulled the glass away, her lips glistened in the faint light.

"William?"

"Yeats," she said matter-of-factly. "He still follows me everywhere."

"That's really--Yeats?" I asked her. I leaned forward to get a better look at him. He did sort of resemble the man I remembered from old photographs and paintings. But he looked so small and tired--beaten down, weary. Sad. Used up. I would have just pegged him for yet another old barfly, some pathetic old drunk.

"He'll talk to you if you want," Maude said to me. "But be ready to get an earful," she sighed.

"Why is he here?" I asked.


"He can't leave me, even in death," she took out a cigarette from a small ornate case. "Or he just won't, anyway. Do you have a light?"


"Yeah," I fumbled around for my lighter and finally found it. I lit her cigarette, trying to keep my hands steady, as suddenly my heart was racing. Yeats? Yeats himself was sitting not six feet away from me? What would I say to him? I couldn't think of a thing. Hell, I could hardly think of a word to say to Maude either. Finally, I turned back to her.


"Maude," I blurted out. "Why didn't you ever return Yeats' affections?"

She rolled her eyes at me. "There would have been no Yeats if I had," she replied, her voice sounding like she had said those words a thousand times. "And there would have been no me either," she continued, taking a long drag from her cigarette.

Suddenly, I knew exactly what to ask Yeats. I turned around to look at him.

"Mr. Yeats?" He didn't look up from his drink. "Uh, Mr. Yeats?" I tried again.

Maude sighed. "William!" she called out, her voice long and deep and sultry from cigarette smoke. It cut through the din of the bar and almost hurt my eardrums. Not because it was loud, but because of its weighted tone _, ancient, exasperated, and accepting. It called his name with a force that only it alone could muster--something about her tongue shaping his name made it into the most perfect sound in the world.

He instantly looked up at her. His eyes were watery and unsteady. I noticed his hands were trembling as well, gently rattling the ice in the drink he was tightly gripping.

"Mr. Yeats?' I continued.

"Yes?" he almost whispered, his voice cracking and hoarse.

"What is¾love?" I asked him. I somehow already knew what his answer would be, but to hear it uttered from his own mouth would be sublime. I waited. I heard Maude sigh once more.

Yeats was silent for several moments then stared at me long and hard. I began to feel uneasy, and couldn't look at him anymore; it was too much to bear. But right as I glanced away, I heard him say:

"Love is...the quarrel of the sparrow in the eaves, the full round moon and the star-laden sky, and the loud song of the ever-singing leaves, had hid away earth's old and weary cry," he said, and then he paused. I looked back at him, and I could see that he was staring now at Maude, with the same quavering and glittering eyes. He continued, "And then you came with those red mournful lips, and with you came the whole of the world's tears, and all the sorrows of her laboring ships, and all the burden of her myriad years..."1

Suddenly, the bartender shouted "LAST CALL!" interrupting and shattering everything. The house lights were suddenly on, and all of the roomþs ghosts cowered beneath this abrupt harshness, and immediately I saw every flaw and crevice and rot on every one of us¼Maude's face was no longer quite as beautiful: it contained so many blemishes, lines, imperfections, and a hollowness all set above a sickly gray tone. Yeats looked even worse, like a wax rendition of a corpse, the surface of him a freakish, brackish, scaly nightmare, something akin to a fossil dredged up from the bottom of the sea.

He looked at me once more, his eyes looming above heavy, dark twin bags. "When you are old and gray and full of sleep," he suddenly croaked at me, his voice sounding nothing like it had just a moment ago, "And nodding by the fire, take down this book, and slowly read, and dream of the soft look, your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep; how many loved your moments of glad grace, and loved your beauty with love false or true, but one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, and loved the sorrows of your changing face..."2

Then he turned away once more, dropping his head to gaze down at his drink, his body slumping into a graceless reverie.

"Will you buy me another drink?" Maude asked me. "I don't feel like leaving just yet."

"Neither do I," I replied. I had a feeling the night had just begun.

---------

Maude ordered another Guinness and enthusiastically downed it in a hurry. Once the lights had come up in the barroom, its inhabitants had almost instantly scurried off like kitchen roaches fleeing under the cabinets. After Maude consumed the last drop of her beer, she slammed the glass down on the bar, got up, and began to walk through the nearly empty tavern, leaving both Yeats and I sitting alone. I quickly stood up and followed her, catching up to her right before the door.

"Where are you going?" I asked her. She turned to face me as she began to push the door open.

"Well, we can't stay here, now, can we?" she replied. "It's closing time."


"But what about Yeats?" I said, gesturing over to the poor man, still slumped over his drink.

"Oh, he'll follow me," she answered. And then she disappeared through the bar's front door. I turned back to look at Yeats, and she was right, he had already teetered up from his stool to stagger after her. He had surprising speed for such a frail-looking man, and he brushed past me on his rush to the exit. He looked desperate, mad...


"Maude," I heard him whisper as he pushed open the door. I followed him outside. The chilly night air of winter shocked me. I was only dressed in a thin coat and sweater. I pulled these frail garments closer to my body and saw that Maude was standing on the corner, puffing on another cigarette, the frost of her breath mixing with the smoke in a translucent cloud that enveloped her face. Yeats saw her too, and stumbled a few yards closer to her, and then stopped, slouching pitifully against the exterior wall of the bar. He watched her with a wanton expression. It was as though the thoughts in his head were crude and festering, swarming uncontrollably inside him like a nest of angered wasps, and nothing he could say or write any longer could make his desire beautiful¼I could sense that he had long ago lost his ability to turn this pain into gold. He was now utterly consumed. I felt these emotions radiate from him like waves from a heat lamp, and pity rose up in my heart for him. I wondered how much longer he could take this, how much longer he could go on with such a burden. But then, where could he go? He was already dead.


"You see how it is," Maude called over to me.


Suddenly, I thought: where was I? How did I get here? It was as though I had simply woke in a crowded bar sitting right between Maude Gonne and Yeats, and it had felt like such a casual thing. But now everything teetered around me in a surreal bend: who was I? How did I get here? Was I dreaming? I didn't know what to make of any of this. Everything did indeed feel like it could end at any moment. But what came next? And what was my name? I didn't even know my own name! I felt a surge of nausea mount up from the pit of my gut, and I gripped at my stomach.


"These questions you have running through your head right now don't really matter," Maude said, beginning to walk towards me. "What actually matters here is that you do the job you are meant to do. Quite straightforward, really." She stopped a few feet in front of me, giving me an impatient look. Yeats remained where he was but followed her movements with his desperate eyes. "You see," she continued. "Yeats and I have not been out of this pub since our deaths. Your arrival was the only reason that it could finally close, the only way we could ever leave."


I shook my head at her. "I don't understand," I replied. I felt like I was about to vomit. My very identity was in question, my whole being felt at stake. I had nothing to grasp onto, nothing to anchor me to anything at all. Maude just gave me another smile.


"Being without ego is quite the shock, I know," she said. "But you'll see, it has its advantages, and you've done well, you're onward to smoother climes soon, I think. As for now, however, you have a little mission. The first is to realize what you are, and also where you are." She pointed up at the bar's neon sign just above our heads. I hadn't noticed it yet, but with my eyes I followed her direction.


The sign was blue and green, and very simple. It flashed on and off, forming the name of the bar into two syllables, first glowing an aqua-blue "BAR" and next glowing a lime green "DO," back and forth, back and forth. Bar-Do. Bar-Do.


"Bar-do," I barely whispered.


"Yes, bardo," Maude replied in a hushed tone. "Do you know what that means?"


I shook my head at her. She laughed. "We're in the bardo," she said. "The place between heaven and earth, a hovering point between being and non-being, a nowhere place, really."


"A nowhere place?" I managed to say.


She nodded her head. "And it doesn't really matter how you got here, point is, you left wherever you were before, and now you're on your way to someplace else. But first you have a small duty to attend to."


Suddenly, it hit me. "Am I¾dead?" I choked out.


"Probably," Maude answered, and then took another casual drag from her cigarette.


I couldn't stop what came next¾I turned away her, leaned forward, and threw up all over the sidewalk. When I finished, I dropped down to the hard cement and sat against the edge of the Bar-Do's outer wall.


Maude crouched down to my eye level and said, "If you just think a little bit about it, my poor dear, it's not that shocking, really. When one is born, they don't know who they are yet, or where they come from, or how they got here¼they only know that they just simply are, and that there is a whole lot to learn. And this¾may be your first lesson¾" She leaned forward and gently kissed my forehead. Her lips were soft, soothing and warm, and I abruptly felt a wash of peace settle right through me. "You have nothing to fear," she whispered, her face inches from mine. "Just help me out," she gestured over towards Yeats, still slumped against the bar's wall, wistfully watching Maude through half-closed eyes.


"Help you out?" I asked her.


"Yes," she answered. "Give him a bit of a nudge."


"A nudge?"


"A push, a shove, a kick, whatever you must do. Distract him. I must have a moment to escape, just one precious chance to slip away," she replied, her voice now touched with slight anger. "You know, it's because of him that we've both been trapped here. Suspended, hanging motionless in mournful ether, choking on poisonous vapors tinged with his obsession. We've grown more and more suffocated, but yet he continues to expel his vile breath, in and out, his need for me strangling us, his heart never letting go, his pain turning from one of the greatest elixirs of creativity that ever was to nothing but a vinegar-tasting venom. He hates me. What he clings - to now is not hope, not heartbreak, not even desire, but simple detestation. But he refuses to recognize that," she said, sighing. "He still believes what he feels is love, and he still has hope that I may yet grow to requite it, even though it has been an eternity already." She shook her head. "Stubborn bastard! And what troubles me most of all is that he refuses to honestly acknowledge everything that I did for him in his life, all of the wealth that I endowed upon him."


"Without you, there would have been no Yeats," I said.


"As I said," she curtly replied.


"But I don't understand," I said. "What can I do? How do you expect me to convince him to move on?" My head swam with a confused rhythmic pulsing.


With her shoe, Maude stubbed out her cigarette and gave me another modest smile. "I have limitless faith in you." She rose up and slowly walked away.


"Maude," Yeats muttered again. He shuffled after her, dragging his body along the wall of the bar. He stumbled right over me, falling with a hollow thud onto the pavement. He lay there in a rumpled heap for a moment then pulled himself up. He looked out into the night in the direction that Maude had gone, but she had already disappeared into the shadows. "Maude!" he cried out again, as he began to crawl down the sidewalk after her, desperation ringing in his voice.


"Yeats!" I shouted, but he didn't seem to hear me. He kept inching along the icy sidewalk on his hands and knees, like a strange writhing insect dressed in an ancient, wrinkled suit. Impulsively, I reached out and grabbed both of his ankles. This finally got his attention, and he abruptly turned around to face me. His eyes met mine, and I could tell this was the first time that he had even fully registered my presence. It struck me that it had probably been ages since he had even recognized the existence of anyone else outside of this terrible vacuum consisting of only him and Maude.


"Let go of me, boy!" he hissed. "Let me go!" He struggled mightily against my clutch, kicking and squirming, and it took all of the strength that I could muster to keep his ankles in my grasp. "Let me free!" he bellowed at me. "Let me free! I must find her! I must go after her!"


"No," was all I said back to him. I suddenly knew just what I had to do. I don't know exactly how I knew, but it was as natural as suddenly recalling an old memory. I let go of his ankles, and with all of my might, I lunged towards him, pinning his torso down with one of my knees. As I held him there below me, his face quickly dissolved from anger to fear and his eyes staring directly and clearly into mine.


"Time drops in decay," I said to him, recalling one of his old poems. "Like a candle burnt out, and the mountains and woods, have their day, have their day¾"3


"No¾" he whispered.


"O sweet everlasting voices be still," I continued. "Go to the guards of the heavenly fold, and bid them wander obeying your will, flame under flame, until time be no more¾"


"No¾I must find her¾let me free¾" he croaked.


"Time drops in decay," I repeated. "Like a candle burnt out, and the mountains and woods, have their day¾"


"No¾" he whispered.

"O sweet everlasting voices be still," I continued. "Go to the guards of the heavenly fold, and bid them wander obeying your will, flame under flame, until time be no more¾"


"No¾I must find her¾let me free¾" he croaked.


"Time drops in decay," I repeated. "Like a candle burnt out, and the mountains and woods, have their day¾"


"No¾let me go, let me free¾"


"O sweet everlasting voices be still¾flame under flame, until time be no more¾"


"No¾"


"Flame under flame, until time be no more¾"


"Let me free," he rasped at me. "I must find her."

"She's gone," I replied. "The candle burnt out, and the day is done."


"No."


"Departed. The two of you, drifting up in a wisp of smoke like residue of a snuffed flame," I said to him.


"She's really left?" he asked, his voice sad and remote.


"Yes, and so have you," I answered. "You're free."


He nodded his head and sighed deeply. "Not forsaken," he softly said.


"No," I replied.


"The river has run its course, though the channel is cut forever," he whispered, and then his eyes dropped away from mine, gazing off at some invisible horizon in his mind. Tranquility settled around him, like dust washed clear by a welcomed rain.


"Maude," he uttered quietly once more, and then he vanished. I suddenly felt so alone, left with nothing beneath me but the ashen cement of the sidewalk, a complete emptiness collapsing me, crushing me down.


"The candle burnt out, and the day is done," I muttered.

A cool rush of wind spiraled up across my back, and I shivered as I slipped away to where everything was dark and still and calm again¾

1 "The Sorrow of Love" from An Anthology of Modern Verse. Ed. A. Methuen. London: Methuen & Co., 1921

2 "When you are Old" from The Rose. W.B. Yeats. 1893

3 "The Moods" from The Wind Among the Reeds. W.B. Yeats. London: Elkin Mathews, 1899.

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