We present another story from the RTÉ Short Story Competition shortlist 2025 - read Labels by Mary O'Rourke below
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when she was nine she knew about monothongs diphthongs friphthongs about breathing deep into the diaphragm she knew too about the g clef andante allegro crescendo decrescendo common time rallentando but it was not until forty years later that she was able to distinguish between a direct debit and a standing order what was all this about forty that fascinated her was it the forty years which the israelites spent in the wilderness or the forty days that jesus fasted in the desert before starting his public life that was the origin of lent or was it the forty days he spent on earth after his resurrection or maybe it was the forty years it took to build the temple in jerusalem more likely it was the day forty years ago that they stuck a label on her forehead and told her she had bipolar it would have been so much nicer if the label said good looking or good fun or bright or this girl will go places but no matter how she tried to unstick the label it was not for moving so she had to become friends with it and embrace it as part of her life until eventually it would become unstuck of its own accord in the meantime when she brushed her teeth or put on lipstick the label would stare back at her from the mirror it was not even pretty the only thing was that thankfully nobody else could see the label and for that she was grateful the medics tried for years and years to come up with a solution to unstick it little by little they were able to remove bits of it by prescribing a mixture of drugs like largactil melleril serenace seroxat priadel cogentin lamictal xanax zispin olanzapine mogadon zimavane prozac kemadrin epilem but molly that was her name knew it was up to herself to do the main part of the work so one day she sat down with her favourite fountain pen she had inherited from her dad and a notebook and was determined to see where this label had come from she wrote things like must love myself more must not force myself to do what i am unable to do must then she got rid of the word must and instead wrote the word let let me love myself more let me not do stuff i am unable to do let go and let god let things happen let me not always try to be in control let the label just happen she remembers the day at art class when the teacher had said you can't make a mistake and she had had a bit of an epiphany up to then if someone said to her you cant make a mistake she understood that you were not allowed to make a mistake now she understood that it was not possible to make a mistake what a liberation thats probably where a bit of the label had come from being afraid of making a mistake so she underlined that bit and took a rest from her writing rest over what a discovery though to know that for the rest ofher life she couldnt possibly make a mistake she would ring emily that evening and celebrate with her over a long cappuccino emily would be delighted she had always told her not to worry so much about getting things right she had a way about her that made molly laugh at herself emily did not mind molly having a label she said it was a sign of something but then they would laugh and neither of them could come up with what the sign was she said everyone had a label of one kind or another some peoples label said i am a doctor more peoples label said i am a teacher some peoples labels were really boring and she thought mollys label was interesting because it was a real challenge and molly thought thats why they got on so well so far she hadnt discovered emilys label and she was killed tying to discover what it was but emily always said it was a big secret and not to be so inquisitive so she more or less left it at that back to the notebook it was looking a bit like a thesis by now not many pages left so she had to write really small if she wanted to fit everything in about the label how do you fit forty years of labelling into a notebook she kept writing teeny weeny letters until she couldnt even read them back so she counted the change in her purse and decided to go down town to buy an equally beautiful notebook for part two she remembers those classes when she was nine when they would all learn about monothongs diphthongs and triphthongs and how the elocution teacher would write in their notebooks all about broad vowels narrow vowels and she would teach them wonderful poems by yeats and eleanor farjeon
she had no label then and she would sing in competitions all lovely songs in irish and get medals and her father would come after the class and bring her and her little sister to woolworths and buy big lollipops much bigger than the ones nowadays he would sometimes buy huge bags of peanuts too and if they were really good an educational comic he wouldnt buy the trashy ones as he was a teacher so they had to be educational he used to write in big notebooks too at his writing desk he had so much work to do with eight children but he liked to relax and made his own cigarettes in a factory which was a little silver box the cigarette just hopped out like magic mollys mother could not even light a cigarette for him she hated them so much molly started smoking when she got the label which was so unlike her as she had always hated smoking when the other girls in the class would go down the back to have a smoke she would never go with them that was back in the days when she was afraid to make a mistake so she would have been terrified to have a smoke now all the girls have quit and molly is still smoking like a trooper funny not so funny really with the price of them and pictures of black lungs on the packs and that awful cough she gets from time to time at least cigarettes dont make you drunk which is a consolation that would be terrible altogether she remembers the time she quit for eighteen months and then all of a sudden one morning woke up with such a longing for a cigarette she thought she would murder someone so she found a cigarette and lit it and the tears rolled down her face cos she knew she was hooked again to make matters worse she was grossly overweight and was really a candidate for a stroke which she could well do without so she decided to tackle the bulges first and now she has lost nearly three stone can you imagine forty pounds of butter on your back thats how much shes lost theres the old forty word again she was delighted with her new notebook and wondered how long it would take her to fill it it had a purple cover and parchment pages it was expensive but molly figured that it was worth it seeing as she was writing something really important it was as important as a Phd that her friend was writing her friend had to do research on computers but mollys research was all in her head after forty years of labels she knew all about it she did not need computers or professors to help her you could say she was a freelance student of life that sounds good she remembers the director of an educational institution where she had worked saying how important lifelong education was molly knows she was talking about doing courses but mollys lifelong learning was much more of a challenge than any course one time a friend had said to molly that she needed a challenge if only she knew labels dont come without a challenge they go hand in hand molly was up for it she just needed forty years to complete the challenge and then the label would come unstuck completely and she would not know herself she might even give up smoking and be able to visit the places where smoking is banned and she would have loads of money and would not waste time it takes time to smoke a cigarette so she would make better use of her time her hand gets tired writing in the notebook so she lies down for a while and remembers the challenges she has completed already she does not need the shocks anymore they were awful except for the lovely feeling she got when they gave her the anaesthetic she just sort of blacked out it was when she woke up afterwards that her head was blinding and they gave her toast and tea and she could not remember anything that had happened the day before she felt really sick when she thought of people who were given the shocks with no anaesthetic she was glad she was born when she was and not forty years earlier it must have been unbearable but she had some craic too in the hospitals when she was high and her thoughts were flying when she was out of touch with reality it was frightening they called it psychosis a fancy name for hell maybe they should have called the label heaven and hell because thats what it was like mollys mind had travelled through hell so often and she was terrified it was a very lonely journey not all the time though the doctors and nurses were very kind and mollys family and friends loved her very much and she always felt safe even though she was pefrified when she was in hell when she would come back to earth it was like as if an enormous burden was taken away from her one thing that kept her going throughout the forty years was a gentle certainty that god loved her when things got very bad she would surrender to him and relax if she could now she would ring emily and they would have a geat chat over that cappuccino and laugh about labels they would laugh too about the time molly went through a horrendous psychotic episode when she was convinced that hitler was her father she was terrified at the time but learned to laugh at the idea when her mind returned to nonnal she even gave a speech about that episode at her toasmasters club and everyone commented that her speech was like an internal screenplay cos she remembered every moment of that weekend she had even been convinced that she was being inaugurated as president of ireland but sure how could she be in galway and dublin at the same time yes emily and herself would have a great laugh at times like this molly loved to remember her friend marks words may you always see the funny side of things
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About The Author: A retired library assistant, Mary O'Rourke lives in Galway. A former member of Galway Writers’ Workshop, she particularly enjoys writing haiku, sestinas and poetry with spiritual themes. Other interests include singing, theology, abstract art and theatre.
Listen to the RTÉ Short Story Competition 2025 stories nightly on Late Date from Monday 13 October (full broadcast schedule here). Tune into Arena for interviews and updates, and join us for the live Arena/RTÉ Short Story finale in the Pavilion Theatre in Dún Laoghaire on Friday 24 October -- tickets are on sale here
