ARTICLE ON: 'THE PENITENT'S ROSE'

PURGING ‘SOUL POLLUTION’ WITH THE SPRING CROCUS

A couple of readers have asked for clarification on the guilt theme in stories from my short story collection The Penitent’s Rose (2024).

To explain I will start by looking at what ‘soul pollution’ means to me. It isn’t easy to point to the ‘soul’, is it? If it was easy, we could all clearly say the ‘soul’ exists. I, like most people, definitely feel my ‘soul’ exists but, perhaps, the ‘soul’ is a descriptor relating to these feelings?

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

William Shakespeare wrote about ‘soul's pollution’ in Stanza 166. The Rape of Lucrece (1594):

‘To kill myself,’ quoth she, ‘alack, what were it,

But with my body my poor soul's pollution?

They that lose half with greater patience bear it

Than they whose whole is swallowed in confusion.

That mother tries a merciless conclusion

Who, having two sweet babes, when death takes one,

Will slay the other and be nurse to none.’

MY 'SOUL POLLUTION'

I relate to my ‘soul's pollution’ as the feelings I associate with guilt, grief and internal conflict. [However, ‘soul pollution’ might not be an actual entity either (perhaps both ‘soul’ and ‘soul pollution’ are descriptors? I don’t know)].

What I do know is that guilt comes in many voices. Everyone’s grief sounds different. Internal conflict is unique. And: I feel my poor soul’s pollution. This ‘pollution’ being anything that works against any feelings of a ‘pure soul’.

Anyway, ‘feelings are feelings’; emotional nuggets that want to be expressed and it is often unhelpful to view them as ‘pollution’. Of course, frequently I (we) do view feelings as ‘pollution’. When guilt, grief or internal conflict materialise it can feel like ‘pollution to a pure soul’.

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ENSURING ALL THE STORIES IN THE COLLECTION ARE ‘ON TOPIC’

I went back over the 35 stories in my book The Penitent’s Rose: A collection of short stories on guilt (2024) to ensure they all tackle the themes associated with guilt, grief and internal conflict.

Stories can address more than one theme: ‘Albert Clock’ tackles survivor’s guilt and is about being guilty of a crime. I’m not going to go into all the different variations of themes that I can think of in my stories, that would end up being a bit tedious.

‘Loss’ can work against the feeling of a ‘pure soul’ and so feel like a ‘pollution’. There are many stories that tackle loss: Loss of innocence in ‘Life after death’, ‘They only want one thing’ and ‘Mr DeCuervo.’ Loss of youth in ’Men are so different, aren’t they, Mary’ and ‘Serving Kate’. Relationship loss in ‘No toast’. Loss of empire in ‘Cool Britannia’. Death in ‘Pop-up sadness’.

The stories that explore the impermanence of life, knowing this can feel like a ‘pollution’, include: ‘Takeaway forever life’, ‘Tall Boy’ (N.B. Jolian’s condition is undiagnosed total locked-in syndrome), ‘Drink, for tomorrow we die’, ‘Time travel’ and ‘One pound and one shilling.’

‘Flat Share’ is in part about the feeling of guilt (shame) on hurting someone; while ‘A man I didn’t recognise’ on racism.

‘Letters for Monique’, ‘Starbucks’, ‘Breakfast with Sonia’, ‘Chateau de Marville’, ‘We are so much more civilized’ and ‘Mesmerising’ are about being guilty of crime.

‘Transmission’ tackles collective guilt. ‘Trying my best’ and ‘New beginning’ also tackle collective guilt but in them the moral guilt is set against the backdrop of environmental problems that need to be addressed.

There are stories on projected guilt (seeing someone else as guilty): ‘Crossrail’, ‘Tit for Tat’ and ‘A Mapmaker.’

‘Return’, ‘Habit’, ‘Ready?’ and ‘Kill Veronica Pound! tackle survivor’s guilt.

‘I am not here,’ is about a man trying to purge all guilt. While the ‘Magus’ has an absence of guilt.

Then there are stories of retribution and the purging of guilt: ‘Routemaster’ and ‘Funnyman’.

I hope you have enjoyed all the stories in The Penitent’s Rose (2024). People carry guilt in a myriad of forms.

THE POSSIBILITY OF HEALING

Remember, the spring crocus, the penitent’s rose, gives hope as it symbolises a possibility of healing from whatever causes ‘soul pollution’. The?flower?is associated with purging following wrongdoing.

David Steindl-Rast wrote about the spring crocus in Gratefulness, The Heart of Prayer (1984): ‘A single crocus blossom ought to be enough to convince our heart that springtime, no matter how predictable, is somehow a gift, gratuitous, gratis, a grace.’

While C. S. Lewis wrote in God in the Dock (1970): ‘Because we know what is coming behind the crocus. The spring comes slowly down this way; but the great thing is that the corner has been turned. There is, of course, this difference that in the natural spring the crocus cannot choose whether it will respond or not. We can. We have the power either of withstanding the spring, and sinking back into the cosmic winter, or of going on into those “high mid-summer pomps” ...’

The little crocus leads the way in the arrival of spring, for rebirth. The cheery purple flowers open.