Below is the transcript for Season 1, Episode 123 of Freely Written, a podcast by author Susan Quilty:
Welcome to Freely Written where a simple prompt leads to a little unplanned fiction.
[Light piano music]
Hi, friends! I’m Susan Quilty and today’s prompt is Labor of Love.
Today’s story was written on Labor Day, a recent holiday here in the United States, so it’s prompt came from simple word association. Labor Day… Labor of Love. It’s strange when you stop to think about it. Labor is work, and work is expected to come with compensation. Yet if the work is something you enjoy doing, it’s somehow okay to not be paid because it’s a labor of love. Does that actually make sense?
We have another phrase that says, the work is its own reward. That sounds like a nice idea, until you remember that we all need money to buy food, housing, and other necessities. An accountant, lawyer, or doctor may enjoy their work, and no thinks they should work for free. But if a singer, writer, or artist enjoys their work, they should be content with the love of doing their work. Yeah… that doesn’t make sense to me.
Anyway, this isn’t a place to change the structure of society. Those are just some of the thoughts rambling through my mind. Which is essentially the point of Freely Written. Here’s how this podcast works: I sit down with a prompt and write whatever comes to mind, with no planning and very little editing. I then record the story and share it with you.
If you have a writing prompt suggestion, let me know through social media or the contact info on my website: SusanQuilty.com. Links are in the show notes.
Let’s dive into today’s story:
Labor of Love
It was after six when Love came home and settled into her burgundy couch. It had been a long day and all she wanted was a cup of hot tea and a three-hour nap before starting her evening shift. Maybe not in that order.
From her place on the couch, Love looked toward the electric kettle in her small kitchen. Her eyes and limbs were heavy. The distance stretched, making the couch cushions more inviting. With a resigned sigh, Love pulled a small quilt from the back of the couch and curled her body into a pile of throw pillows.
With her eyes closed, Love felt a sense of relief. She was alone in the darkness of her mind, blissfully free to drift off to sleep. But her solitude was fleeting. Voices and faces crept from the shadows. They replayed scenes from her day shift, raising doubts in Love’s responses. Should she have urged a hug instead of a soft look? Should she have advised space instead of provoking an argument, even if it had been productive in the end?
Love tried to release the moments. They were in the past. It was too late to second-guess them, and she would likely have additional chances to revisit those clients on another day. Maybe even in her night shift, if anything urgent came up. The powers often assigned repeat clients. And if Love wasn’t available, another Love would take her place, offering a fresh perspective.
A fresh perspective was a good thing. Or so Love told herself as she tried to keep her eyes shut and her mind clear. But it didn’t work. Doubts from the day soon opened her eyes and a racing in her chest made tea a higher priority.
As Love drifted toward the kettle, her thoughts turned to a young woman she’d met for the first time that afternoon. Her name was Joan. It was a name Love hadn’t heard in many years, especially with such a young client, yet the woman wore it well.
Joan had been alone when Love was sent to help her. She wasn’t fuming in the midst of an argument or straining to support a companion. She was simply alone. Alone in the way so many clients were. It was an internal repair call. The kind Love handled every day. Yet the experience stuck with her. It replayed as Love brewed her tea.
It had been a repair call like any other. Love had crept close to Joan as she sat on her bedroom floor. She had watched the way Joan gripped her knees toward her chest and rocked very slightly side to side. Love could hear Joan’s thoughts—the same harsh thoughts she’d heard countless times. She could feel the familiar loneliness that emanated from Joan’s heart.
It was a standard call. A case of social dissatisfaction and existential fear opening the small slits of insecurity that were cut into everyone’s soul. Love watched as the slits expanded, creating gaping holes that pulled Joan deeper into sadness. No, not sadness, despair. That helpless feeling that was Love’s nemesis.
With the slits open, Love could see deep into the holes. So deep that she could find the source of what had made each and every slit. Exasperated complaints about Joan’s clumsiness from her mother. An indifferent shrug from Joan’s third-grade best friend after choosing a spot at the cool table instead of sitting with Joan. Her first crush telling Joan that she’d be so pretty if she had a different nose.
The open holes gave Love a look at the tapestry of Joan’s inner hurts, but they were open too wide for Joan to see beyond the mish-mash of pain they had resurrected. Love couldn’t help Joan with any of those hurts while they were all opened wide. Hence the repair call to sew in support.
To begin, Love studied Joan’s facial expression, the quiver in her body, and the tightness of her breath. She wondered which Loves had been assigned to Joan before and how often she’d been visited. It clearly had been a while, but Love was saddened by what she found when she laid her hand on Joan’s chest.
Beneath her palm, Love sent probing rays to uncover the stitches from previous visits. There were always tell-tale signs of Love’s past work. Silver threads that were frayed at the edges of opened slits, while more intricate designs would shine between the slits, woven into the fabric of the soul, usually at night while the person slept and processed their day.
Yet, Love searched Joan’s fabric for several seconds before finding half-formed shapes sewn with an impatient hand. The designs were pale and uneven. Shaky and unsure. The threads she found at the edges of the slits were so thin that most of them had fallen out, lightly clinging to the fabric where they would do very little to hold Joan together.
It was shoddy work. Clumsy and rushed. Love had seen cases like this before, but rarely as poor. With one hand on Joan’s chest, Love felt a swell of compassion. She sat quietly with Joan, studying each shape to read the pride and joy in Joan’s life. The time she cleaned and bandaged her own skinned knee, a day when she impressed her teacher with an insightful answer in class, the moment when she signed the lease for the apartment that she was now sitting in.
Love found scattered praise from Joan’s parents and friends, though not enough to counter what she had seen in the gaping holes. It was Joan’s own accomplishments that had been woven into the most interesting designs. Love focused on those shapes, placing her other hand on Joan’s head, and sat with her until the holes began to close. They softened slowly. Their edges gradually coming together until they were again thin slits that could barely be seen.
Joan sighed and wiped two tears from her cheeks.
Love kept Joan on the floor awhile longer, giving herself time to set as many stitches over the slits as she could. She would have preferred to dig into the holes, weaving elements of their contents into new designs so they would carry less pain, but Joan wasn’t ready for that. Love had to be content with stitching up the slits and hoping she would be assigned more visits with Joan.
Now, as she sipped her tea, Love’s thoughts veered from Joan to the others like her. Love had always been proud of her labor, yet she wondered if it was enough. She thought of the Legion of Love whose labors had always been spread so thin. More than ever, she felt that there was a flaw in the scheduling department. She and the other Loves were sent so often to the same clients, while people like Joan waited far too long between visits.
Thoughts of sleep fell away as Love focused on her own future. Maybe they needed more Love in the scheduling department. If she had a say, maybe she could spread Loves more evenly, offer more equality with the labor of Love.
The End
Thank you for joining me today. I hope you enjoyed that strange little story. Having written it without a plan, I don’t know how a legion of anthropomorphized love laborers would work, but I like the ideas that spilled out. If you did, too, please share this story with your friends.
Remember, you can listen to Freely Written stories in any order, so feel free to go back through the archive and listen to any titles that catch your eye. You can also check out my novels, blog, and other projects at my website: SusanQuilty.com.
Until next time, try a little free writing of your own. Let go of any planning and see where your imagination takes you.
[Light piano music]
