Creative Corner is a space to share your creative writing at Roar! We hope you’ll enjoy the short stories we publish, all of which are written by current KCL students.
As a typical Indian student, I have always lived in my house and leaving the abode for the first time was an accomplishment itself. While packing anxiously, I found myself going through the ‘music diary’ I kept during my high school and undergraduate years. The last entry was dated in the latter months of 2019 with the song “Something Has to Change” by the Japanese House. In the past year of staying put in my house, I realised how devouring change had become such a grand part of my personality, and listening to the tune generated nostalgia for the time when I felt lost. When I heard the lead singer Amber Bain describe the monotony of life as a recurring factor, my feelings felt recognised; months of distress and anxiety were so calmly compressed within a simple song.
One may point out Japanese House to be akin to any other dream pop band, but I believe their music helped me meditatively. It has taken many spots in my heartfelt playlists for varying reasons, primarily at times when the angst of adulthood was knocking dauntingly. Amber Bain repeatedly points out the sluggishness of normality in the band’s discography. In the song “Maybe You’re the Reason”, the lyric “Apathy is a funny feeling” almost feels as though Bain is pointing out reality oxymoronically. As I was obsessing over the same emotions and getting heartbroken by the same person repeatedly, the feeling itself became stale – apathy became the very thing I related to adulthood. The days merged into one and weeks turned into months. The lack of emotion overpowered my normality.
For the large bulk of college life, I did everything to escape even an ounce of listlessness in the philosophical grand nature of living, and Bain’s lyrics in “Maybe You’re the Reason” vividly touch upon the abstract meaning of life. It was only the past year when bleakness shed light upon my purpose in the grand universe. It led me to find the perfect course at King’s and walk the path of an academician. While I did conform to the idea of change, the dynamism has also brought uncertainty along with its polarising experiences. Yet, for some reason, the repeating chorus of “Something Has to Change” echoed in my head for months. Despite being a person who retracted from spirituality or belief itself, I felt as though that was a sign.
In the days of filling in my application for King’s, I would shy away from thinking about the possibilities that moving to London would bring to me, in order to not jinx my fate. Sooner or later, I realised that it was my submission to the comfort of monotony settling me down for the sameness. It was holding me back by instilling fear. I realised that apathy can only help you stay alive for so long until you become a lifeless being; in reality, it brings you closer to madness.
Einstein once said that “insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results,” and I believe I was leading myself on a similar path. But rediscovering the Japanese House discography, constructed so lovingly by Bain, felt as though it was made for someone like me going through early adulthood. Letting go of your past is an arduous task but, yet again, Bain writes that “how your past becomes your present if it’s always on your mind”. Perhaps, when I relive these emotions when my heart keeps breaking in the same place, I’ll come back to the ever true words of Amber Bain.
You can send your short stories, poetry or creative nonfiction to [email protected].
