🎙️ Gio Clairval

Read Gio's story, Filbert, on Foofaraw now!

Is this story a metaphor for depression?

It can be read that way but, to me, Filbert is the seduction of retreat: the part of the self that offers relief through isolation, and asks for a bigger and bigger share of your life in exchange. The light in the story is not “happiness” so much as exposure: other people, expectations, noise, being perceived. Darkness is safety, and it is also a slow erasure.

I like metaphors that don’t lock onto one diagnosis. Readers have mapped depression, anxiety, burnout, neurodivergence, grief, and even first love onto Filbert, and I think the story has room for all of those readings.

If yes, what’s your experience with depression?

I’ve never experienced clinical depression. I’m interested in withdrawal as a human impulse.

What is your experience with photography?

Mostly my smartphone. Photography, for me, is less about gear and more about attention: deciding what deserves to be seen, and what can stay outside the frame.

Do you own or have you ever used a Leica?

My father owned one, and I grew up with the myth of it in the house. My own relationship to Leica is partly real and partly talismanic: the object as permission to take your seeing seriously.

Is it worth it?

For pure image-per-dollar, probably not. For the tactile ritual, the patience it demands, and the feeling that you’re making photographs on purpose (not just capturing), it can be.

Do you think Filbert had evil intentions or was the end of the story just the result of the protagonist spending time with Filbert?

I don’t read Filbert as evil. I read Filbert as need. He is the protagonist’s own pull toward vanishing, externalized into a figure she can love and bargain with.

If there’s a villain in the room, it’s the bargain itself: “I’ll keep the light away forever.” That promise slowly changes what “being you” means.

What's one of your recent favorite short stories?

In 2024, I was especially impressed by “The Ghosts of Wannsee” by Lauren Groff.

What book are you reading right now?

I’m reading Solvej Balle’s On the Calculation of Volume III, and I love how intensely the author observes the world. The prose is calm and plainspoken, and it keeps narrowing its focus until ordinary objects and ordinary time become strange. Even with that everyday texture, it builds a quiet suspense that makes me keep turning pages.

Do you have anything else you’d like to share?

My favorite among my stories published in 2025 is “Watercode” NonBinary Review #41: Solarpunk

In a future where oceans have become living archives, a data-diver finds the scattered song of a banned empathy AI, and chooses to hide it inside a reef that can let it bloom quietly, beyond corporate extraction.

Thanks to Gio for chatting with us about photography and the human condition!