Notes from the Boneyard: Coffee with Seamus

By Mark McCausland

HERE we are for yet another hack piece from brain to paper. This time, from a coffee shop as I sit with Seamus.

We’ve been talking about the rise of AI and the inevitable fall of man. Good chats in the morning. He tells me to write a book, which reminds me of this week’s Boneyard. I tell him to wait a few minutes while I tap at my phone and try and pull something from the ether.

He sits now, scrolling on his socials. No idea, completely oblivious that he has accidentally become the subject of today’s article that you now read. He will realise it around about now when he’s reading it too, over tomorrow’s morning coffee.

I’ve been meeting Seamus for morning coffee for around 20 years or more. In those years, we’ve covered a lot of subjects, but it’s usually about advancing technology, UFOs, the state of the planet, and life’s woes.

We tend to focus on the weirder aspects of existence. It’s our morning ritual. Spew all of it out first thing in the day and get it out of the way. It’s our only outlet for such things because nobody else will tolerate such chat.

We are very different people. He’s a successful businessman. And I’m me. But somehow we connect on a primal level. World gossip mainly. He’s an enigma, Seamus. I’ve never quite worked him out. On the surface he’s a very straight person, but scratch a little deeper and he swims in an ocean of wonder.

He is fuelled by fear and curiosity in equal measure. Very content with his lot in life, but still striving, reaching for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. That thing that eludes us all. Just out of reach. Chasing the dream. Is it the same for everyone? I often wonder.

I envy the man who doesn’t have to think. The ignoramus. I wanna be that person. Sometimes.

Anyway. Seamus is now getting feisty. Fidgety. He’s bored. I’d better get back to talking to him. And perhaps strike a conversation that will inspire a new thread of thought.

And that thought, too, will get tangled and knotted with the rest of them… until nothing makes sense.