SS'23 ENDLESS | Charcoal

endless

Imagination is Everything

There is something simultaneously terrifying and freeing about the future. The life cycle of all things has a beginning, middle, and end. The way these three segments are experienced and interpreted vary by the individual, but what remains constant is the relentless forward progression of time; change is ultimately inevitable. While we can't control the forward ticks of time, we can certainly aim to better acknowledge it, comprehend it, explore it, and accept it too.

Through the waxing moon, the newness of our early lives can be enjoyed.

Alongside the maiden, we can learn to live through purity, youth, creation, pleasure, naivety, and new beginnings.

Through the full moon, the depth of adulthood can be observed.

Through the waning moon, the perspective of our last steps can be embraced.

Alongside the crone, we can learn to accept that without death there is no birth.

Alongside the mother, we can learn to master giving and receiving love with power and patience.

If you allow Endless to do anything, let it scare you, let it excite you, and let it inspire you. By expanding our imagination for the future, we gain a firmer foundation in our present, and deepened acceptance of our past. With your present perspective, you may shock yourself with the infinite possibilities you can foresee.

The future is in our hands. Grasp it with a brazen heart and a solemn mind. It's ours for the making.

Imagination is everything in Charcoal's last exploration, Endless.

We can’t wait to see what the future holds,

Charcoal Magazine

Sorna's Choice

Set in 1965, a small village called Sockanathapuram, in Tamil Nadu, India

Written by Shre Venkatesan

Girls Like Me

To be the worlds greatest victim is to adopt the essence of a perpetrator

Written by Charline Ochang

My Mother/ What Is Love?

A collaboration on the mother-daughter dynamic

Written by Stacey Dubreus &
Ogenna Oraedu

Call Me When You Get There

A voicemail to a dead phone

Written by Kit Iyer

Endless = End + less

An endless story by charcoal's staff

Written by Emily Wu

P.O.V.: Solitude

A poem navigating topics of isolation and seclusion, this piece tells the story of a person coming to terms with the end of a friendship

Written by Yashvi Grover

Newton's Cradle

A short story about a mother's love.

Written by Kaushik Jasti

The Anatomy of an Ending

A collection of three stories explores themes of childhood joy, destruction, envy, and burning

Written by Charline Ochang

The Mother Omen

This trio of poems take us on a journey through a mother’s period of realization that she has learned to like her daughter far too late

Written by Kit Iyer

It’s a Kalyanam

Drawing parallels between a traditional South Indian wedding meal and the end of Charcoal, this piece explores the relationship between writer Shre and the publication, and officially unites it to the future

Written by Shre Venkatesan

Endless, Nameless

This collection of four poems looks at the boundaries of self in context of the mutual effect humans have on each other, and the dynamic nature of human beings

Written by Tami Gordan