The trouble with writing is endings. Not the actual thinking of them and the ramifications they might have or even planning them; not the finding of them, whether they are dwelling deep in the recesses of the mind or stuffed casually down the back of the sofa or considering how they might be succinctly crafted. Not wondering about how they will complete a story to the satisfaction of the reader and whether they will tie up the loose ends and threads that have been woven, or leave them wanting more; and not worrying about whether the signposts that you have left had the story finished by the middle of the book or had left too many doors wide open and gaping with questions.
No, the trouble with writing – the trouble with endings – is that, as an author, one already knows what the ending will be, whether that knowledge is packed with the most minute of detail, or merely be a faint outline, a sketch to be (or, indeed, not to be) filled in and fleshed out at a later date. This mere knowledge, this hint of understanding, not matter how the writer may fight to keep it hidden or at least disguised from recognition, means that, for them at least, the story is no longer a story; no longer a tale to unpick or a fantasy in which to lose oneself. The story has lost the appeal that it may once have held, the appeal forged within the inventive mind as in ran through a succession of thoughts and ideas until it began to forge them into one long, continual construct. Now the story has changed. It has changed from a collection of ramblings, of both connected and disparate ideas, into a series of events which hold a meaning, at least for the author. If these ideas, these phrases and have formed sentences, had managed to escape their confines, the cage in which they had found themselves trapped, and spilled out onto the streets, they would have become lost and forgotten. Racing freely through the cities, towns and countryside, weaving their way in and out of houses, shops and pubs, they would have, perhaps, rested for a moment in the minds or on the lips of others before disappearing once more to be forgotten before the next sentence in a conversation could begin. Without their companions, their comrades in storytelling, their meaning would be lost, gone for ever, lost even to the writer to whom they had first made themselves known.
But this is nothing more than a theory, a fear lurking in the back of the author’s mind, like the monster of childhood which hid beneath the bed, always invisible, yet always there; always waiting for the one perfect moment that it needed in which to pounce and to devour its victim. Nothing more than an irrational fear then, kept at bay by the author as they guard each word as if their life depended on them as theirs did upon the author, nurturing them like children they are afraid to expose to the cruelties and vagaries of the world. The author watches, their eyes always turned inward, as each thought begins to grow and find its place first within the author’s brain and then with their mind. The writer observes them as they begin to dance around one another searching for a foothold, constantly seeking to establish themselves. Some the author sees, as they studies them, trying to force themselves upon the writer’s thoughts, hoping to make themselves indispensable to their thinking, an integral part of the story which is starting to grow within them. Others wait – the patient ones of the cohort – some for the moment in which to make themselves known, whilst others seem content to bide their time certain, perhaps, that will, in time, be seen. Yet more drift from view either shelved by the writer or discarded to lay slowly decomposing with so many thoughts that had come before.
Gradually friendships become formed, words developing into phrases and then sentences. Some are clearly happy bedfellows, others adopt a more professional and even detached relationship, working effectively with one another but each one understanding that theirs is a connection which exists only within the confines of the story – gestalt; there only for the greater good.
After a while, this network of sentences, paragraphs and chapters begins to gain an awareness of itself and its purpose. It begins to understand that it has a goal which it must, at all costs, reach; a goal upon which the lives of the very characters it has given birth to depend. And so it ploughs on, moving constantly forwards, blind to its destination, but blind too in its determination to reach it. And yet, as each sentence builds upon its predecessor and breathes life into the story, it retains an awareness, a nagging feeling that, somewhere someone can see the full picture as if there were a figure standing on some distance mountain surveying, judging all that could be seen. The story grows, begins to get legs, and stretches them out like a would-be toddler trying to find its feet for the first time. It looks down, gingerly, knowing that the peculiar shapes which protrude from the end of its limbs must have another purpose, then reaches out to haul itself skyward. Now the fledgling story feels, for the first time, its independence – the towering figure of its adult hovering in the distance is already becoming something from which it will free itself, given time – and yet the nagging feeling remains. The feeling that the adult is still watching over it, encouraging, supporting certainly, but still, ultimately, in control. And so the story slumps once more to the floor. It knows that it will rise repeatedly as it seeks to move away from its creator, but is aware too that, without any clear goal, and with no obvious finishing line at which to aim, it will remain, ever reliant upon its author.
The trouble with writing, then, is endings. The author knows, understands implicitly, that, when the ending arrives, their story will finally break free of its shackles. It will find its freedom and its place within the world, be that as a much-loved treasure, a work of literary genius or lost at the back of a dusty shelf. Its eventual resting place is, in many ways, of little consequence to either the author or, indeed, the story itself. In the mind of the story it has achieved its goal – its independence, its chance to stand on its own two feet. For the author they too have achieved what they set out to achieve – to bring life to their story and to set it out into the world, but each story that leaves them is akin to a small death, stripping the author of ideas that they know they can never form again, that will never mean as much to them as they did when they first began to grow inside their head.
Of course, whilst the story itself is blissfully (or painfully) aware of its own limitations in understanding its direction or destination, the author is only to aware of what is to come. From the moment the first words hit the page the final ones are already forming in the mind of the author, along with a growing sense of dread and disappointment. All children will, at some point, leave their parents, but their point of departure can never be foreseen and, assuming all parties are amenable, a return is always possible. For the author and their story such separation begins with the commitment of the first word. As the story’s conclusion shows itself in the mind of the author, so the initial joy and pleasure that they had garnered vanishes, replaced by disillusionment and sorrow, and yet, once life has been breathed into the words, it is a course that they are unable to alter. And so, a second word follows the first, and second sentence complements is predecessor, paragraph builds upon paragraph until the inevitable conclusion is reached.
I think that I have come, at last, to a crossroads; a point of uncomfortable realisation. A crossroads which leads, in every direction, to a dead end and a realisation that I have finally reached the last page of my own, personal dictionary. I have come to the point where I have used – and abused – every word that was ever known to me. I have twisted and contorted them into myriad sentences and phrases until all meaning that they might have once held has been lost, all connection to anything other than themselves distorted. As I sent each one on its way, safely wrapped as it was, like a child in a winter coat, cosseted by others to which it bore no relation, I watched it drift away. I watched as they gathered and then dispersed high, high above my head, dipping behind the clouds, never to reappear.
And, eventually, as I reached my hand deep into myself to take hold of another random collection of letters, I found nothing between my fingers, nothing within my grasp. My fist was filled with the emptiness of silence, the silence of a stilling heart.
And then the empty words within my head, the final ones that would leave me, spelled out their message: there was no more to say.
‘Across the Square’ is a short story taken from the collection ‘The Candle Game’ which is available as both a paperback and an ebook.
I hope that you enjoy it.
‘Of course I love you,’ you had said, and, at that moment I had, without the need for rationalisation, believed you.
‘Of course I love you,’ you had continued. ‘It goes without saying.’
But, I thought, if it goes without saying, then why would it need to be said; and, if it were not said, if those words that tumbled around us like mid-winter snow, had not been spoken, then would their meaning still exist? If you had not said, ‘I love you,’ then how else would you have made your feelings known; and if actions really do speak louder than the words that they emulate, then what actions could possible convey the meaning implied by them?
As you had said, ‘it goes without saying,’ I began to wonder what other feelings there might have been that had gone unspoken and what other truths had never found their way out into the light. And, if there were words that you had never spoken, words that I was supposed to have some implicit understanding of, then what would be my reply? How, I wondered, might I have responded to the words that you had left unsaid; how might the reactions and responses that I may have made changed the course of the events that had brought us to this point in time? And what of the words themselves, flying unrestrained through the air – where might they find themselves?
I had already shared experiences that were unexplained, moments when words fell into my ears without reason; moments when my thoughts shifted from track to track, unsettled by emotions that had arrived unexpected and uninvited. I began to wonder whether the language that we shared cast a stain upon the atmosphere, floated like dust particles in the light until it settled in darkened corners, slowly and inexorably building its meaning.
I was starting to picture entire lives constructed from the discarded words of others. I feel like Strangers who met, sandwiched between the lost conversations of those who had previously passed that way.
‘I feel like I have known you forever,’ which, of course was true, because the words between them had belonged to others. How blissfully unaware they were, accepting with gratitude the silent sounds as they slipped like snakes along their aural canals, coiling themselves in comfort deep within the darkest recesses of foreign brains. Over time the words of someone else becoming indistinguishable from one’s own, until they escape the mouth, and find themselves once more borne upon the breeze.
We were sat on the Square, a wide, circular, well-grassed area, large enough to have once housed several post-war prefabricated buildings, but now defunct of purpose. The road that ringed us hummed with traffic as it arrived and then departed along the multitude of arms that connected the Square to the wider world. People criss-crossed the island, traversing its footpaths as they made short the work of moving from one shop to the next. They went about their business undisturbed by us as we sat in the Summer-warm grass, face to face, our fingers interlaced. I wanted to tell you every thought that entered my brain. I wanted you to feel every word that rattled through my head, but I knew that I would never let them go. Behind my eyes a new story had grown, developed from a few words into an entire novel. It had out-grown its opening and flowed into a mid-section crammed with description and action. Its plot held twists and turns, hope and disappointment, despair and success, and, finally, resolution. Like all good novels the story left scope for hope; a sense that the tale was not fully completed, leaving the reader with a glow of satisfaction at their own conclusion of it. I knew that no spoken words could ever accurately represent this images that I saw behind my eyes, but, despite my hope, I knew also that this was invisible to you.
I had seen my future in your eyes, and then left it to grow in your heart. I had always felt that without you it would fall apart, and, despite not feeling any shame, I was disappointed to realise that I had been wrong all along. Pages began to fall away from me and my resistance withered. I could sense new words starting to form themselves within my mind, replacing those that were now redundant, re-writing and editing the script even as I read it.
You stood up, hands outstretched, helping me to my feet. Your eyes were soft with a blend of sorrow and regret, but I knew that they masked a steely resolve. Mine reflected yours, except, for me, resolve was displaced by acceptance. I understood that behind your words was a meaning that, although perhaps neither of us wanted to accept, had been inevitable. I stood, holding your hands for a moment longer than was necessary and wondered why the prefabricated houses no longer stood where they once had. Perhaps they had merely been a metaphor for the relationship that we had shared – perhaps, once more, I was looking for meaning where there was none.
‘Of course I love you,’ you had said, and now those words, out at last into the blue, swallowed up a new resonance. They echoed now across the Square, a sense of sadness following them with a soft and whispered ‘but…’, a gentle sound that settled only momentarily on the ear. It swept over cars as they turned away along avenues that either led them home or severed them from the life that they wanted. It drifted on soundless wings through windows opened against the heat, tainting the warmth of the summer’s air. In distant kitchen women became stilled, knives held useless in their hands, half-sliced vegetables weeping water, as sudden thoughts of abandonment touched their minds. For the first time questions began to rise in their heads and tiny seeds of doubt or regret or mistrust began their search for a fertile ground in which to sink their roots. In teenage bedrooms darker music began to filter out across the Square, spreading melancholy and hopelessness – this was not to be the summer that had been longed for. A sense of despondency had begun to descend, spreading itself out like a blanket, smothering the shoots of youthful exuberance.
The action of an embrace, an embrace of farewell, no matter how amicably it was shared, was not enough to catch the words as they flew. It moved clumsily across the ground, stretching up and clawing desperately at the words as they drifted tantalisingly out of reach, before disappearing from sight with a mischievous wink. The embrace turned, defeated, but by the time it had we too had departed. For the last time I walked with you the streets that would lead you home, my words following me like fallen petals dying as they hit the ground behind me. I knew that they would guide me home once more, but I knew also that somehow my trust in them had died.
If some things truly went without saying, then why, I thought to myself as I crossed the Square one final time, should I be the one to give voice to them?
Published in Gold Dust magazine, Literally Stories, Near to the Knuckle, McStorytellers, Penny Shorts, Soft Cartel, Whatever Keeps the Lights On, and Shooter magazine.
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