At the end of October I was listening to a Jhumpa Lahiri story, The Third and Final Continent, on the New Yorker fiction podcast. In the story a man goes to a house to enquire about renting a room, and I was reminded that I want to write about my own experience of going to a house to enquire about renting a room. It was in London, late 1979 or early 1980, and the house I went to was like a vision of Utopia. When the owner turned me away at the door, I felt utter despair.

In the Jhumpa Lahiri story the man is successful in renting the room. It seemed unbelievable, given my own experience, and I decided to write a better, truer, version of room renting. The November 30 words for 30 days was about to start (thank you @WritingDani) so I could kill two birds with the one writing stone.

In the middle of November I was listening to another podcast – Rachel Kushner on Read This. Of the many fascinating things she said, in dialogue with Michael Williams, this hit hard: ‘Some writers look inwards. Some look outwards.’ She looks outwards. I thought about my own writing. I thought about what I’d been writing in my 30 words series. And at day 15, I changed course. I couldn’t bear to be a writer who looked inwards.

For a few days I looked outwards for inspiration – at the research that I was doing for my own podcast; at a woman walking down the street; at a baby being passed, with infinite gentleness, around the table at a café; at two little boys in a school playground, glimpsed as I waited at traffic lights. I responded, on a couple of days, to the sad world of news reports. But it couldn’t last. I reverted to writing from the inner prompt, finding unashamed joy in the placement of words. I couldn’t, in the end, fight my own newly-named nature.

30 words for 30 days: November 2024

1

Plant

Sally is wearing lipstick to make a good impression. She plants her feet on the doormat, arranges her fringe to cover her forehead. Desirable tenants don’t droop, or have acne.

2

Scatter

Sally’s rehearsed words are windblown husks, scattering on the black slate doorstep. I’m d-d-d. Determined? Dull? Debauched? What if that slips out? Dependable! That was it. ‘I’m dependable,’ she mutters.

3

Herb

Living here, perfection would be natural. Clothes would grace her lean body. Epics flow from her pen. Meals would be fragrant, meat browned, herbs plucked, sprigs of parsley in attendance.

4

Factory

She wouldn’t work in the factory kitchen where roasted ox hearts smelt of death and the underground walls made a dungeon. She would float, cossetted through life by invisible hands.

5

Decoy

She could leave her Self behind, a decoy for the Fates, its empty factory-fodder body going to and from the nosy people’s room. She could make a bright new Sally.

6

Drop
The door opens abruptly, pulled back by a woman who keeps her hand on the jamb. Her eyes drop to the young person on her slate doorstep, huddled and shrinking.

7

Seed

Some young people are lanky like seedlings pulled upwards by the surge of new energy. This young person’s lankiness was a frailty, ready to topple her. The woman saw trouble.

8

Mole

No, not a seedling. A little mole, head tucked down, eyes hidden. This young person was someone who would burrow into you, suckers delving to bleed you dry. Stay away.

9

Agent

‘I told the agent,’ the woman said into the cooling evening air. ‘The room is taken. Sorry for your trouble,’ her unapologetic voice concluded as she shut the door. Hard.

10

Perennial

Next to the door a modest garden of herbs said ‘cuisine’. Tarragon, sage, perennial basil. Sally watched those plants, concentrated on detecting each one’s scent. Better than turning for home.

11

Bush

The ink-blue sky darkened. Warm light filled a window, touching the herbs. Sally walked away stiff-legged, forced to the path’s edge by looming bushes. A night of shadows lay ahead.

12

Laboratory

Maybe she was a rat in a celestial laboratory, observed from on high by tutting analysts. Maybe, one day, she would penetrate the maze, be rewarded with pats and treats.

13

Vegetable

She could be a vegetable, no will left. Follow the streets to the station entrance glaring. Down to the trains pushing filthy air before them. Into the carriage, head down.

14

Plot

She was beyond plot. No neat bows would be tied. No rainbows appear. Her life was the dungeon-kitchen, her room in the house with those people, always there, always watching.

15

Fruit

Realising that November’s series of 30-word posts wasn’t bearing fruit, the writer abruptly changed direction. From now on she would be cheerful and outward-looking. She would smile as she wrote.

16

Mill

First, that ridge was Gadigal land. Then windmills tossed their sails. Then the wealthy built whitewashed villas. Bush gave way to manicured gardens. But still, that ridge is Gadigal land.

17

Snoop

When I’m frail and bent like her, head bowed to the ground, will I snoop on my own memory, snuffle in the mulch like some bandicoot looking for fragrant morsels?

18

Sow

The seed was sown, the egg fertilised and welcomed and now this little fragment of life is passed from person to person, sowing content, held up to view the world. 

19

Sting

The little boys take turns with the found stick, sort of. For both of them, handing it over to the other involves a darting, jabbing, poking sting in the tail.

20

Raise

She’d never raised the dead before. It had never been necessary. Plus, consider the mess. Soil, decayed coffins, bones. Ashes recomposing. Maybe there was another way to stop the bastard.

21

Spark

Fire at dusk, golden sparks ascend, splash on through the night, grow wings and spread. By morning the bush is alight, darkened trunks left behind. Homeless birds sing sinking songs. 

22

Leaves

When she leaves, only a slight hurry in her step betrays her impatience to be gone, to be away from this place where the air grows stale with unfulfilled need. 

23

Conceal

Her heart conceals, even from herself, a desire for a moment that never came. Glimpsed in the curve of a smiling mouth that can rattle the key in the lock. 

24

Place

Each grandchild made a nest in my heart, a place of feathers, soft and downy. As they grew, it grew rougher, like them, but stronger, with a more determined love.

25

Grass

The grass is bleaching, leaching out colour as it learns the danger of the sun. Once, it sought that glorious presence, turning its blades in adoration to catch every ray.

26

Embed

The message, embedded in the burning days the shifting ice the torrents of rain the tempests of storm the cracking creekbeds the whispering bones the vanishing of species, cries out. 

27

Tree

The girl stands tall and innocent, like a young tree, a sapling. She waits her turn and runs like the wind. A soft and graceful wind that bounds and smiles. 

28

Harvest

Should I be grateful that it’s only our words that they’re harvesting for their profits? In the past, and even now, people’s bodies have been harvested and set to work.

29

Blossom

Love didn’t blossom it burst open. Opened wide, petals overlapping, flapping onto each other, flesh of petals bruising in their haste. Rushing to open. Colours streaking edges, running through veins. 

30

Nature

It’s not in my nature to be effusive but this calls for trumpets and fanfare. Thanks

@WritingDani for another month of fabulous prompts, reminding me daily that I’m a writer.