Edited by Clara Khan

When James Joyce wrote Ulysses, he said:  “I’ve put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that is the only way of insuring one’s immortality.” I want to focus on the first part of this quote. This idea that an author has placed so many mysteries in their work that really it is only themselves who will ever truly know what it means.

To some degree, I think this is the case with all literary work. Yes, we close read, critically analyse and pick it apart as much as possible, but the reality is that only the author will know 100 per cent what their text means. They know the reason for giving characters certain names, the reason for making characters do specific things and the reason for writing the text in the first place. They have an unspoken connection to their stories that we as readers will never experience. Yes, they can tell us what they mean but we will never experience their knowledge. This is a strange concept, but one that we can only embrace as writers.

This is also the case for writers who use writing as a form of therapy. There is a sense of catharsis that can result in writing about something the soul wants to talk about. Putting what you want to say out loud in the written form can be therapeutic and liberating for the author. But again, no matter who reads it, it’s only the author who will have that true connection to the story. We can only take what they have presented to us, study, admire and respect it.

The pieces chosen this week show the writers’ personal connection to their work. There seems to be an experience or observation that these writers have felt and are now expressing in the beautiful form of prose.

The first is a cryptic piece, suggesting a desire to find something new, possibly reaching for new opportunities when the narrator is ready.

I Won’t Tell

I won’t tell you where the place is, as it is blocked, locked away and the key has been chucked away. Inside and outside, as this door is no more and a new door awaits.

I won’t tell you where the place is, as it’s a crab’s shell; internalised, too hard to break away. Gullible to believe that it could have been real, now no more as this door is forever closed.

I won’t tell you where the place is, as it is defensive, neglected by society, and told to move on and forget the pain. It is insane!

Inside and outside are no more as my heart is this way and a new door is outside but I’m not ready to take it yet. I’m not quite there as it is an ending to go through, a life lost.

But only life will tell when I’m ready to go through the new door but I won’t tell you.

© Tavinder Kaur New, 2024

Connect with Tavinder on X:@NewTavinder, Instagram: @Tavinderknew and via her website: wordpress.com/post/tavindernew.wordpress.com

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Next, I’m sharing a somewhat dark short story about a young person’s experience in therapy.

The School Bus

The leather creaked in the psychiatrist’s chair and Dr Simpson sat forward with renewed interest.

“How often do you think about death?”

What a strange question, I thought, staring up at the ceiling.

“Well, it’s just there, isn’t it? Like furniture.”

“Like furniture?”

“Part of reality, part of life. If I’m walking through a forest, am I thinking about trees? Not really. But they’re there.”

Simpson exhaled through pursed lips and tapped his pen.

“Do you think of taking your own life?”

“All the time,” I laughed. “But I’m not going to.”

“Why do you think of taking your life?”

I thought for a moment and then realised. “The world slows down.”

“Can you talk me through an example?”

I sat up on the couch so I could put my feet on the floor.

“Every day at school, I feel like I’m being pushed through the hours before I’ve really had a chance to understand anything. I’m half asleep on the bus in the morning and trying not to think about the homework I haven’t done.

“I think about TV shows and movies I like, wondering when life will turn into something that resembles the plotlines.

“And then I try to remember with the most serious urgency why aluminium chloride displays covalent properties when it is an ionic compound. Maybe I have a test, maybe I don’t. Maybe I like this stuff? I don’t know.”

I scratched the back of my head and where my neck felt sore.

“There is a girl I like. I’ve spoken to her once in the three months I’ve had a crush on her. I have no idea how to tell her I like her, or if I even should. The acne on my chin and neck tells me I shouldn’t think about relationships for another ten years.

“This stuff hurts worse than a failing grade, which means I start to not give a shit about tests and how the personality of the teacher is wrapped up in how I am graded.

“Then I find myself sitting at my desk and the bell rings and it’s so offensive I wish it meant a nuclear bomb was imminent.

“But we all flood out into the hallways to get to the other side of the school, sweating and carrying all of our stuff and rehearsing excuses for why we did poorly on the test we’re about to do.

“I realise I haven’t eaten enough breakfast and I wonder where the two hours have gone since the lazy ten minutes I spent in bed after my alarm.

“I take refuge in memories of the sitcom I watched just after midnight, a time when I could pretend I was about to drift off into a long, revitalising sleep and when I awoke, I’d be married, with a job and grateful that life was done with me.

“Then, after a haze of rushed notes, adults attempting to use words with coffee-breath and complementary squiggles on dry erase boards, fries, chocolate bars, energy drinks, and inconvenient erections, I find myself standing by the side of the road at rush hour with a lung full of diesel fumes from a bus that should’ve been allowed to die in the 90s, wondering what the hell happened.”

I leaned back and let the couch catch me.

“In the quiet of my room in the evenings, I often take a deep breath and hold it and listen to the pressure building in my chest and head. I imagine the rush of events from the day accelerating around and bouncing off the walls, picking up momentum until I want to explode.

“And then I exhale and feel grateful for the sanity in solitude and silence.

“Sometimes it’s not holding my breath,” I continued, hesitant but excited. “Sometimes I imagine wrapping barbed wire around my neck and throwing the other end over a beam and hoisting myself up.”

Simpson scribbled, and without looking up asked, “Have you ever had barbed wire wrapped around your limbs?”

“No, but it’s a fantasy. I imagine the barbs puncturing me with little bursts of pain, releasing pressure and allowing me to feel something. After the unrelenting rush of the day, I only need the thought of pain to anchor me in the present and stop my head from swimming.

“My feet leave the ground, the wire pulls taut, the pressure builds and then the pain fades out as time comes to a stop.”

Simpson stopped writing. “You said death is just there, like furniture. Do you see death everywhere?”

“Yes, but not in a killing or murdering sense, or seeing ghosts and zombies. I see it as a relaxing energy that laces the day, ready to come out of the woodwork when life becomes too much.”

“Do you fantasise about death a lot?”

“You’re twisting my words. I use it more as a tool for meditation and I meditate maybe three times a day. Maybe five.”

“Your meditation has never morphed into planning your own death?”

“I don’t want to die.”

“But you meditate about death every day?”

“That’s not a contradiction.”

“What do you value in life?”

“Rollerblading.”

“You like to rollerblade?”

I felt myself running out of energy to answer these questions. I dug deep.

“Sometimes, about four hours before I need to get up for school, I will sneak out of the house into the quiet of the night. After gliding to the top of the Devil’s Backbone by Graystone National Park, I cut loose and let gravity take me three miles to the bottom.”

“Do you wear protective gear?”

“No, it’s night-time.”

“How fast are you going?”

“Fast enough that I know if I fall I’m probably not getting up again.”

“Does falling concern you?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because soon enough I’ll be on the school bus again, trying to remember what homework I haven’t done as I pick myself up into the rafters.”

© Jack Pemment, 2024

Connect with Jack via their website: https://medium.com/@jackpemment

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If you’d like to see your writing appear in the Write On! Showcase, please submit your short stories, poetry or novel extracts to: pentoprint.org/get-involved/submit-to-write-on/

Read Issue 21 online here or find it in libraries and other outlets. You can see previous editions of our magazines here. 

Hear extracts from Showcase in our podcast. Write On! Audio. Find us on all major podcast platforms, including Apple and Google Podcasts and Spotify. Type Pen to Print into your browser and look for our logo or find us on Spotify for Pocasters.

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