Loneliness in the Last Row

We’ll Get Used To It

‘Chapeau !’ He muttered from the last row, standing and applauding. Onstage, Niall Whelan —still catching his breath—took one final reverence before vanishing into the wings like smoke.

He is a weirdo on stage, no question about it. Not the kind that makes people uncomfortable, but the kind that makes the hairs on their arms stand up. His presence pulses through the air like static. Even a whisper from him ricochets off the velvet walls of the packed auditorium.

As always, he glares around the hall, hoping to spot two familiar, eager faces among the audience.  

’How did you miss every single performance? How could you not have been proud of him? You selfish pricks!’ he thought bitterly.

But once the curtain falls, he vanishes. Not dramatically, not with flair. He just... slippers out. No cast parties, no lingering fans. He'd scrub off his makeup, ditch the costume, and disappear through the stage door into the back alley, where a cozy café waits him; dim, underrated, and perfect to be out of sight. 

As he enters, the staff gives him that smile. The kind that says, Yeah, we know.

‘Last row free?’ he asks the bartender, taking out a cigarette, tapping it against the counter, then settles it between his lips.

‘As always,’ the young guy responds, leaning over and lights his cigarette. It’s a familiar, silent ritual.

He moves through the café like a ghost. Past limelight, down to a nook tucked away at the far right. A round table, two mismatched Polish chairs, and a halogen bulb that buzzes just slightly; a sanctuary, unofficially and honorary reserved just for him.

He has called it The Last Row.

There, he'd scatter notes across the table like poker cards, lighting cigarette after cigarette until he becomes part of the haze. Soup, maybe a sandwich. Nothing fancy. Just enough to get him to midnight, when he'd shuffle home to his cluttered apartment on the edge of town.

Windows always open, even in October. Curtains drawn thick as blackout stage drapes. The coffee table is a war zone; cups, shot glasses, ashtrays overflowing. Books everywhere, dog-eared, stained with ketchup, coffee, wine, underlined and marked by notes and scribbles, the text has vanished beneath a new story.

That’s where he lives. A comfort zone for  writing, rewriting, drinking, reading, watching and rewatching films, rehearsing the lines until passing out on the couch or bed. 

Look there: now he’s asleep and the cigarette is burning dangerously close to his fingers.

He is a paradox. Offstage? Silent, elusive, withdrawn. Onstage? A live wire, a storm. People admires him, but no one really knows him. He never let them to.

Except one.

The guitarist.

Their youth had been a fever dream. Wild, stupid, passionate. Long nights. Downtown rooftops and damped plateaus. Late dinners that turned into sunrises.

They met on a winter dusk. Guitarist was playing his beat-up guitar on a street corner, and the young actor—then still just a dreamer—sat across from him the whole day, never saying a word. At the end, he emptied his pockets into the open guitar case and turned to go.

‘Hey,’ guitarist called out, voice cracking. ‘Wanna join me to eat something?’

Actor smiled, nodded hesitantly.

‘By the way, I’m Nathan,’ guitarist said while packing up his stuff. 

‘Niall,’ he murmured. 

Diner. Whiskey on the rocks. A trashy nightclub with sticky floors and pounding music. They talked until 3 a.m., as if they were old friends who just hadn’t met yet.

‘What’s your biggest ambition?’ Nathan asked, eyes glassy.

‘Devenir immortel,’ Niall said.

Nathan's eyes widened.

‘Becoming immortal, it…’ Niall described as sipping his shot.

‘Et puis ?’ Nathan answered still shocked by their shared obsession. 

‘Mourir,’ they said at once.

And they both happened to reference the French film Breathless (1960) spontaneously, without prior coordination.

‘La vache !’ Niall laughed, toasting his drink. They both howled, drunk and electric.

Later, when the club emptied, Niall turned to him outside. ‘I know it seems a little awkward, but you wanna come to my place?’

It didn’t. In fact, it seemed like they shared a rich artistic past and had now reunited after all those lost years. 

Nathan immediately said: ‘Hell yeah,’ and that was the beginning.

They were two stray guys, laughing in the dark. Broke, stoned on dreams, watching movies, and rewatching them over and over. Smoking Gauloises, nonstop. He reminds them curled up on that lumpy couch, watching Le Maurice (1987), kissing between scenes. Beer breath and ashes. And love.

They learned French through New wave films and endless repetition of letters between Truffaut and Godard. One line became their gospel: 

« Entre ton intérêt pour les masses et ton narcissisme, il n’y a place pour rien ni pour personne. » (Between your interest for the masses and your narcissisme, there isn’t a place for anything nor for anyone.)

He remembers how Niall copied it onto a torn scrap of newspaper and tucked it into his wallet. Later, he used it to talk about his father, just switched ‘the masses’ to ‘mainstream.’

‘What about your mother?’ Nathan asked reluctantly.  

‘You must’ve heard women are more passionate in love and hate, didn’t you?’ Niall replied.  

Nathan narrowed his eyes. 

‘Well, I guess I’ve been in her shit list already!’

Niall continued, trying to sound casual and unbothered: ‘Whatever! Forget it. How about yours?’

‘Mine?’ Nathan was caught off guard.  

‘Your mom, your dad,’  Niall said.  

‘I never met them. I’m an orphan,’ Nathan answered.  

‘No, I’m not!’ Nathan said kindly to change the mood.

‘You’re not, huh?’ Niall shot back.  

‘Well, the movies adopted me, just like Erice once said.’ Nathan replied.  

‘We’re not.’ Niall’s eyes flashed.  

They dreamed of being a duo; a street gag team. Lovers. Artists. Living on the fringe of permanence.

Yet their lives were becoming more settled, and that’s precisely when trouble, bickering, and disagreements took root among them.

Once, Nathan had a bizarre dream.

They were walking together on Liberty Ave. Suddenly, it started to rain. 

‘I forgot the umbrella, wait here for a sec, I’ll get it,’ Niall said as he walked away.

And Nathan waited. Five minutes passed, hours, months, and years passed. But Niall didn’t come back, and he didn’t end his passive waiting. And time, what a terrifying concept it was. This ‘time’ that passed so slowly, or rather, didn’t pass at all. 

He finally woke up and his opened eyes looked for Niall. But he wasn’t there, so he was scared he might be trapped in another cycle of sleep. But a familiar smell and the faint sound of music from the radio promised the wakefulness.

He quietly followed the smell and song. Niall was lounging on the couch, reading a thin book, while the ash from his cigarette was about to fall, and he’d been completely unaware. Nathan stood over him, took the cigarette from his lips, tapped the ash into a cup on the table, and took a deep puff. Niall tilted up his head, which was resting on the arm of the couch, and smiled warmly, inhaling the smoke into his lungs. He seemed so admirable and yet so vulnerable from that angle. This is the most memorable image that Nathan has in mind. Time has faded and blurred it, but it has never been able to remove it.

They both got cast in a well-known troupe. A permanent address. Nathan considered it as a temporary job, while Niall’s POV was entirely different. Weeks turned to months, and Nathan felt the air getting heavier, not freer. Niall bloomed under the safety of repetition; Nathan withered.

‘I thought we were running,’ Nathan whispered one night, after another full house.

Niall turned to him, slow. ‘What do you mean? It’s not like we’re have to run anymore.’

‘Wow, just like that, our dreams mean nothing to you anymore?’

Niall’s silence was louder than any argument on that very moment. 

‘I can’t make you come with me.’

‘You can’t understand Nate, everything has changed already.’ Niall insisted.

‘You’re damn right. Why I didn’t notice before?!’ 

That’s when the knew: this man would never belong to anyone but theater. And both would remain alone forever, even if an entire world revolved around them.

Their last night, they made love. Not like it was ending, like it had always been ending. They talked until dawn, and held each other as though either might awaken into a world where the other had vanished, the grim visage of their terrors masking reality itself. When Niall finally fell asleep, Nathan watched him for a long time, then gently caressed his golden hair, whispering: ‘I just wished… I could love you a little less. Or a little more.’ Then rose, dressed in the dark, and left.

No notes. No goodbye. Only the weight of choosing their own way.

Last night, Nathan waited outside the theater. As Niall emerged, he tried to block his path to make Niall see him. They jostled. 

Niall’s bag slipped. Papers, books, his wallet all tumbled to the cobblestones.

Nathan knelt instinctively to help. As he did, Niall’s wallet flipped open. The scrap of newspaper peeked out; the trophy of Truffaut’s heartbreaking, and ours, still there.

Niall didn’t look up or complain. Just gathered his things and apologized. And walked on.

‘For what? You still avoid confrontation.’ Nathan thought. 

Nathan didn’t follow. Just shoved his hands in his pockets and walked the other way.

Back in Paris now, Nathan spreads his boundless loneliness on Odéon, The cafés, the streets, the riverbanks, all ghosts of what could have been. Every poster with Niall’s name is a bruise. Every encore applause is a goodbye.

He used to believe in freedom. He was really close to absolute freedom and as a result to absolute happiness. Gradually, he was forgetting Niall and the etherized mood of that damned house.

And yet, on a calm starry night,  he dreamed of Niall again, and his peace was disturbed. Standing still, a halo of light around him. Smiling. Nathan reached out. The image broke in smoke and dust. 

It’s really absurd, Isn’t it? Once, only sleep separated them. Now, only reality can.

That’s it. He came back chasing a distant nostalgia, a lost era, a vague memory, a troubled dream. He came to relive the taste of their love affair, for their late-night conversations, and getting drunk with him. But it didn’t happen. He couldn’t bring himself to break Niall into pieces, the way himself was.

He wanted to be free as the wind,  but now he’s nothing but a gypsy blue, as he saw Niall has also left this city, living in his private impenetrable inner world. What an irony for an actor.

He wished he could gather this half of him, surrounded by longing, from this damned city, street, and house, piece himself together, and leave without looking back this time.

Niall lives in darkness now; not literal, but thick. The kind that settles behind the ribs. He performs under stage lights, but in the hypnotic blackness of the theater, then goes home to a silence that swallows. The coffee is colder. The cigarettes shorter. The Truffaut quote yellower.

On the other side, Paris gleams. Nathan, somewhere out there, still sings.

The light of the city never touches Niall’s windows.

Now, it’s a memory. Burned, bright, and out of reach.

Never mind.

On s’y habituera ! As Rimbaud did, perhaps, if we dare to hope.