Israel Centeno
He had always believed he would have the chance for a third exile, a final one, in Dublin, with the sea as his witness, gazing toward the strait that separates it from England. He had pictured himself in a white house with windows facing east, watching the tide rise and fall with the cold Atlantic wind, a solitary figure by the shore, the damp air settling into his bones like an old promise. The green snot-sea, as Mulligan pointed it out to Daedalus in Ulysses, the vast rolling waters, an expanse of infinite regress, swallowing his gaze as he imagined walking through those streets, crossing over the bridges, stepping into the pubs where voices curled around the dark wood and the smell of old ale. But that was long ago, and now he was here, where the air hung heavy, pressing down on his shoulders with the weight of mornings that brought nothing new. The dream of exile had grown brittle, and he was too tired to pretend otherwise.
The trip to Ireland had become absurd, a fragile fantasy that no longer fit within the dwindling parameters of his life. He no longer had the breath for an airport, for the long corridors, for the artificial light that flattened all faces into the same dull expression of transit. He knew, with a certainty that settled in his chest like damp stone, that he would never again walk down Notting Hill Gate at dusk, never again feel the slick cobblestones beneath his feet as he crossed from park to park, weaving his way through half-empty streets, chasing the faint scent of a perfume he could not name, the whisper of a memory that had lost its edges. If he wanted to return, he would have to do so in a dream, slipping into the loop where time turned back on itself, where the same steps could be retraced with the precision of ritual, where nothing had yet been lost.
He could see it still: the soft glow of a pub’s entrance, the low hum of conversation, the warm spill of bodies pressed against the bar, the way his fingers curled around a pint, the taste of it thick on his tongue. The women were beautiful then, or perhaps it was simply that youth had the power to cast everything in a golden light—faces he could no longer summon clearly, eyes that had looked at him across tables, laughter that had echoed against the low ceilings. They had aged, as he had aged, scattered now into lives that no longer touched his own, but somewhere, in the closed circuit of his mind, they remained fixed in their perfection, waiting in doorways, standing beneath street lamps, flickering back to life whenever he let his thoughts drift toward them.
He caught his own reflection in the mirror and felt a flicker of recognition, a startled moment of confrontation between past and present. The worn face, the deep lines, the skin grown thin, fragile as old parchment—how much longer before it split? He was not hunched over, but he dragged his steps, his weight pressing downward, anchoring him to a body that had grown foreign to him. His breath came heavier, his limbs slower, and even the act of movement felt burdened by reluctance, as if his own bones resisted the effort.
Every night, he whispered the words of Psalm 51 in the dark, the cadence of them familiar, steady, a rhythm he had repeated so often that it no longer required thought. “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your loving-kindness; according to the multitude of your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions.” He recited it not with faith, but with the dull persistence of habit, his heart pulling itself into the shape of repentance though his mind remained unsure. He had always believed God listened, but he no longer knew if God still had patience for men like him. He felt reluctant, unworthy, as if even his regret had become something worn out and useless.
But it was not just his own failures that gnawed at him—it was the weight of what he had done to others. His greatest regret, the one that surfaced unbidden in the restless hours before dawn, was that he had hurt everyone he had ever loved. Every woman, every friend, every person who had truly mattered—he had left them wounded in ways he could not undo. He had spent his life moving forward without looking back, and now that he had stopped, now that there was nowhere left to go, all of it came rushing toward him, the accumulation of every careless act, every word spoken in anger or indifference, every door closed, every hand let go. It hollowed him out, left him with nothing but a weary resignation, a quiet certainty that no absolution would ever be enough.
Lately, he found himself more irritable, his patience thinning with each passing day. Small things set his teeth on edge—the hum of the refrigerator at night, the flickering television from the next room, the distant murmur of neighbors moving through their own lives. He had not always been this way, but something in his mind felt stiff, unyielding, as if parts of him were calcifying, slipping beyond his control. Perhaps it was sclerosis, perhaps something else, some slow erosion of the self that crept in unnoticed until it became impossible to ignore.
He sank into his chair and closed his eyes. If he was lucky, if sleep carried him in the right direction, he would find himself back in London, walking through the rain-slicked streets, the neon reflections stretching in puddles, the low hum of the city pressing against him. He would step into the warm glow of a bar, the scent of old wood and whiskey thick in the air, and for a moment, just a moment, time would collapse, and he would be there again, young and unbroken, untouched by all that would come after.
