Korean Literature Now - KLN Bookmark > Fiction (2024)

Summer

1It started about a month ago.Something in my ear clanged open and shut every time I swallowed.I didn’t know what it was.The sound continued even when I chewed.In the early hours, I rubbed my ear in my sleep.In the morning, I could sense my left auricle and the heat inside my ear.When I rose from where I’d been lying, my head felt heavy.When I walked, my body seemed to list to the side.I bet it’s due to my ear.It’s my ear, it’s my ear. I chanted it like a spell.Nothing outside of my ear concerned me.For a month after A left the house, she didn’t keep in touch.If she contacts me, I’ll show her my ear.I’ll tell her she can turn the auricle inside out if she likes.I’ll take her hand and hold it to my ear.Warmer than my cheek, isn’t it? I’ll say.A told me she wanted a slightly different version of me.She didn’t want a different me. Just a slight change.I told her, You change first.What did she say then?Maybe she said, Okay, I will. Or maybe she said, Why should I?Whenever she had a meal, she’d take out the mayonnaise and squirt it around on her food.She squirted it onto scrambled eggs, ddeokgalbi, salad, and boiled potatoes.She’d also mix it into plain rice together with a dash of soy sauce and sesame oil.She spent four months at this house. It filled the spring.My you and your me.We also had this conversation. We were sitting at the foot of the bed.What am I to you?And what are you to me?The light was off in the room, but we could see everything there was to see.We slowly examined each other’s eyes, nose, lips, hands, feet, fingers, and toes.It seemed like our hands and feet were similar even if they were a different size.Perhaps we were brother and sister in a previous life.Or if not, the inner organs of sperm whales.You the heart, and I the liver. It could’ve been like that.2The doctor stuck a long, thin steel tool in my ear.I was sitting in the examination chair with my head braced against the headrest.An enlarged image of my ear canal was visible on the monitor facing me.If you put water in flour and knead it and put water in and knead it again, what does it become? the doctor asked.Gooey dough, I answered.Yes, like earwax. The doctor began scraping and removing the buildup, and inside my ear, the noise was terrific. I recoiled and winced.At some point a nurse appeared. It’s all right. You’re in good hands. Don’t worry, she said, patting me on the thigh. She looked to be past middle age, her hair gray with a few brown strands. She was wearing a purple cardigan.How is it? Is the sound still muffled? the doctor asked me.I tried a few vocalizations. Ah. Ah.I rose from the examination chair, setting my feet on the tiled floor and standing up.My back was damp. Maybe I’d been sweating during the procedure.I tried rotating my head and walking on the spot to test if my head was heavy, or if my body was leaning to one side. I couldn’t yawn properly, but I tried. I also tried clicking my teeth together a couple of times to find out if the sound was still ringing on the inside. I couldn’t tell whether my hearing was clear or muffled.At any rate, it’s not back to normal. You have some inflammation of the eardrum. The doctor proceeded with his explanation after showing an image of my eardrum next to a normal one on the screen. Mine was a little thicker and redder.I’m giving you a prescription for antibiotics. Take the medication and come back on Friday, the doctor said.The nurse beside me said it was time to go.I paid for my consultation, pushed open the glass door and left the clinic.The hot stuffy air in the hallway wafted against my face.I went into Yang’s Pharmacy directly next door.It was bright and spacious.The light coming from the ceiling fixtures was neither too blue nor too yellow.The pharmacist went by the name of Yang Yu-jin.She stood there wearing a plastic name badge with her name on it.Yang Yu-jin was always alone behind the counter.Was she a few years younger, or my age exactly?Perhaps she was 5 or 8 centimeters taller than me.Generally speaking, she was lanky and pale. Her head appeared to be big and solid.She always widened her eyes a little when she assisted me.Her eyes were both fierce and affable.I wonder why she left an impression on me.This person, and that one, making one kind of impression or another, it tired me out.You’ve been to the ENT specialist today, she said, taking my prescription.Yes, I replied.She lined up fifteen little sachets across the counter with three pills in each: a painkiller, an antibiotic, and a pill for stomach ailments.She went over them, and concluded, You’ll have to reduce your stress level.Yes, I said, turning and walking out.Just as I was approaching the glass door, Yang Yu-jin called out to me and I stopped.Take this, she said, proffering a warm bottle of Ssanghwatang.3Pretend I don’t exist. A buried her face in her hands.You do. In fact, you’re very real, I thought, looking at A in front of me.How can something stop existing?Take this. A held out the thin thread-like necklace she’d been wearing and dangled it in front of me.What’s that to me? I asked.Take it and put it on. I think it’ll suit you. A fastened around my neck what had just been around hers.I bent my head forward slightly. I felt the cold, light weight of the chain and the brush of her fingers on the back of my neck.A and I walked together toward the only mirror in the house.She went first, and I followed behind.The sound of our steps on the wooden floor was somehow magnified.We stopped in front of the mirror and looked. My neck and the nape of my neck, my face and hair, my wrinkles and blemishes.It suited me just as A had predicted. It’s platinum, she said.She rested her whole palm on the nape of my neck.Now if something amusing happens, who can I tell? And who can I talk to about something sad and stressful?Tears streamed down A’s face.I looked in the mirror at the image of her crying.What’s wrong? I asked,But she didn’t answer.I looked at the image of myself standing there wearing A’s necklace.I stood there awkwardly with my arms hanging down.Whenever I made eye contact with myself in the mirror, I felt distressed. Shall we go somewhere? I asked her.How about going to the supermarket, or a bookshop? We could buy something new. Even just talking about something new would distract us.They’re too far away, she said.4I was far away, and I had to take the bus home.While waiting for the right bus, I drank the Ssanghwatang I’d got at the pharmacy. It was hot and sweet.I lived in a remote place, far from anywhere else.To get to a café or playground, school or clinic, I had to take a bus or walk for twenty to thirty minutes.I had to walk along a dirt path or a narrow two-lane street.I always wanted to be farther away.It was difficult, even impossible, to just be mentally distant.I needed to physically distance myself from everyone and everything.I left the place I’d rented securely for five years and signed a contract to live somewhere a little further from the outskirts.No one was curious about my move; neither did they try to dissuade me.A was amused.Do people really reside there? At that time, A used the polite language form to address me.Yes. I will attempt it myself. I used the polite form, too.We didn’t have any trouble conversing even when we were formally addressing each other.A didn’t talk too much, but she talked enough.Sudden gabbiness from people who were quiet, sudden quiet from talkative people, extreme quiet from people who’d merely been quiet, volubility from people who’d merely been talkative—the people I met generally knew no moderation. Either they nattered on, or they kept their mouths shut, expressionless, the whole time they were facing you.A was someone who both spoke and kept quiet in moderation.I did not feel any discomfort with the way she talked or with the timing of her silences.She was the only person who asked about my new place. I told her all about it.The living room doubles as a kitchen with a large window that takes up most of the wall.It faces north, but it’s bright.There are two rooms and one bathroom.The walls are white, the wooden floor is brown, and there’s no bathtub.It has a large yard and my contract will last for two years.Are you having a housewarming party? A asked.I’ve got to, I said.There were some old, deserted houses at scattered intervals around my neighborhood.Empty lots outnumbered the houses that were inhabited.Weeds grew in every lot. They flattened easily in the wind and rain, and then one day they’d rise anew. Small flowers like grains of rice bloomed at their tips, and on sunny days I could see their bright luster.On clear days it was eye-piercingly bright, and on overcast days, the surroundings were dark.There were spiderwebs around wherever you looked.Among the weeds, between branches, between the railings and the ground, in sunken hollows in the earth.I loved seeing dew on the spiderwebs.Aren’t you scared of living here? A asked.Living here—these words sounded so strange.When she first visited my home, A’d shown a lot of interest in it. She said it was magical, free, and fascinating, and not just the house, but the road leading up to it, the view of the low mountain in the distance and the dirt road. The things you stepped on whenever you walked, the big and small pebbles along the way, the refreshing breeze dancing in if you opened all the windows in the house, the sounds of the leaves rustling and the bugs you’d never heard of before, and the light and the shadows.Scared? What’s scary about it? I asked her.A listed all kinds of scary things.It was strange because nothing she listed seemed scary to me.How can you not be scared of anything? I’m starting to hate you, A said angrily.You’re so unfeeling, she sighed.What about you? How can you say you’re a feeling person when you put mayonnaise on everything you eat? I asked her with a smile.I wasn’t meaning to pick a fight. I said it hoping she’d laugh.But I don’t think she was amused.A and I decided to go out.We decided to have some coffee at a cafe and break up for good.It was a twenty-minute walk to the nearest coffee shop.In this twenty-minute span, I expected she’d change her mind.I couldn’t make A change her mind. Not even twenty minutes could do it, and when we arrived at the coffee shop, she still thought the same.It seemed as if something was settled in her mind. She didn’t appear to be looking at me but at the glass behind me.You seem to have made up your mind about something, but what? I asked.The truth of our relationship, she answered.What truth? I asked.She didn’t reply.Her eyes were almost closed in response to the sun streaming through the glass exterior of the coffee shop.I bet I looked like a shadow with the window behind me.I wanted to ask her if she could see my expression.We left the coffee shop and walked down a nearby alley.After a while, we sat down on a bench at a school’s playing field.The sun was about to set.It’s getting dark, so why don’t you stay over? I asked her.No. Over the next week, I’m going to collect my things and leave for good, A said.I didn’t want this to happen. At the same time, I wondered whether it’d really take a week. The few things she had would only take a single trip. Even if I brought to mind all her clothes, make-up, books, stationery supplies, and other sundry items, it seemed like there’d only be enough to fill a ramyeon box.A got up abruptly from the bench as if she were really leaving.Will we meet again? I asked.You go find your own happiness, A answered.Happiness? Oh, whatever, I said.By the time I’d said it, A had already turned her back on me and disappeared. So I was the only one to hear those words.Even after she was completely gone, I sat there a little longer.I sat for a long time, as if someone was pushing down on my shoulders and I couldn’t get up. The playing field slowly darkened, and the seesaw and the iron bars and the small number of trees there all turned the same color in the darkness. What kind of tree is that? Watching the leaves and branches sway, I wondered if it wasn’t time for me to go home.Alone, I walked five times around the playing field.My speed increased as I walked, so that by the last lap, I was almost running.5I feel like there’s still something there, B said, as if he knew all about my situation.I can tell by your face. B looked at me with a smile.We were surrounded by thick smoke from the grilling meat.B’s words were buried in all the noise.He asked about my ears. So they’re fine now?I thought, Yeah. My ears, they were uncomfortable until just three mornings ago.But now look. I’d gone and forgotten about them.How could I forget so easily?From day one, I hadn’t taken the medication.Where had I put it? I hadn’t thrown it away. I’d even gotten that Ssanghwatang.B flipped the meat over in front of me and chewed it noisily before washing it down with some soju.Something kept spraying me in the face.Like grease from the meat, or drops of soju, or B’s spit.The doctors said my eardrums weren’t normal. Were they normal now?I recalled the doctor telling me to come back on Friday.That would be tomorrow.Did I have to go? It didn’t seem necessary.Look. It’s too bad. Call her. I think she’ll answer. B seemed entertained by my plight.Is this amusing to you?Yes, B said.B was going through a divorce, but he didn’t bring it up.He appeared to be absorbed in my story, giggling. He didn’t look at all like someone going through a divorce. I wasn’t curious about how he felt during the divorce or how it happened, or even why he considered my situation amusing.B had been chattering excitedly, but as time wore on his expression became gloomy, and when we had finished our food and drink, he was crying.Even so, I loved her, B said, in a tone of confession.He said he didn’t want to get divorced.If you love her then why did you do that, I muttered.I don’t know the answer myself, B said.So you loved her, but what are you going to do now? I asked him.I really don’t know. I don’t know, B replied.He was pretty drunk, so he asked if he could stay the night at my place.I refused.He asked again and I refused again.B and I decided to part ways before midnight.He called a designated driver service. I felt like walking a little.I estimated it would take me an hour to get home.B fell asleep in the passenger seat of his car, and I began walking.I walked for ten minutes, and the rows of lit-up signs and the hustle and bustle disappeared.I walked a little farther and the damp smell of the earth and the scent of the chestnut blossoms became heavy in the air.I heard the frogs and the toads croaking. The sound was a continuous bombardment, like that of falling raindrops.I didn’t see anyone out there, but then I saw the outline of a person. It was so dark that I couldn’t tell if I was seeing them from the front or the back.After walking a little more I could tell I was viewing them from behind.I thought I recognized them.It was Yang Yu-jin.Was it really her?I’d never seen her from the back.No, on second thought, I might have seen her more frequently from the side and the back.The longer I walked, the more certain I felt.It was her limp hair and her long gangly frame.She was holding something in her hand. Was it Ssanghwatang? I wondered.I almost called out to see if it was really her, but I didn’t.I walked slowly, letting her get farther away.6Am I allowed to swim? I asked the doctor.I was sitting with my head against the headrest of the examination chair.The doctor poked the long, thin steel tool in my ear and studied it this way and that.The eardrum is still red. The infection hasn’t gone away yet. If you really have to swim, make it short, the doctor said.People’s ears aren’t made to be submerged in water, he continued.Is he mad now? I wondered.I wanted to see his face, but I couldn’t turn my head. I was told that if I moved my head I could get hurt.The human ear, the human body—they’re not empty vessels. They’re not made to hold water. He seemed to be scolding me.Then what is the ear made for? I asked him.Could he answer that?It didn’t seem like he knew much. He was just good at poking instruments around in the ear.Human eyes, noses, and lips were all made for a reason, the doctor answered without really answering.Do you swim a lot? he asked.It’s not that, I said.He issued me a prescription for three days worth of antibiotics. He said that if there was no discomfort, I didn’t have to come back.The elderly nurse was wearing the same cardigan as before. With a nod, she indicated that it was time for me to go.7A packed her bags in one go and never came back.Her belongings appeared from time to time.In the morning, things that hadn’t been there like plastic bracelets and earrings, hairpins, hand cream and fuzzy socks, popped up here and there around the house as if someone had come and deposited them there.I got a clear acrylic box, put all of A’s things inside, and set it on the kitchen table. From 1 until 4 pm, the box shone in the incoming sunlight. At 6 o’clock, light passing through the box formed pieces of rainbows on the white wall.I sat at the table facing the wall.When I sat at the table eating my meals looking at A’s belongings piled haphazardly inside the transparent box, I thought of her eyes, her nose, and her lips. Sometimes she smiled, but more often she was expressionless. Was it so? Many things seemed to have already faded. There were only uncertainties.I stopped eating and pulled the acrylic box from the side of the table over in front of me.I stroked the smooth surface of the box.Bright light reflecting off the box dazzled my eyes.I thought, what should I do with this box and its contents?I recalled the things that A said had scared her—things connected to the house. The stillness within the house, the things that brushed against the windows, and the mysterious bursting sounds. And also her parents, A compared her parents to rotten flesh that had to be removed from her body without anaesthesia. And the things she couldn’t shake off—the anger she had inside. The recurrent dream she had of riding a high-speed elevator up high and then crashing. The future she seemed to have seen. Occasionally, she talked about our future. She said, You don’t comfort me at all, and the you she spoke of was me.You don’t say anything. When A said this, what had I said in reply?Perhaps I said, What? I’ve talked a lot.Or perhaps I said, I’ll talk more from now on.8The doctor said people were not empty vessels.But I didn’t mind being an empty vessel.I’d actually like to be one, if I could.Above the pool, in the middle of the ceiling, was a heavy square glass pane. On bright days, light streamed down from it.The pool had a glass wall facing out on a mountain.While swimming underwater, I saw patterns of light rippling along the blue tiled floor. If I were an empty vessel, I could hold them too.I swam fifteen laps mostly underwater, hardly coming up for air.After swimming like that for so long, I was dizzy and almost gagged.My throat burned I was so thirsty.In the shower room, I realized that the thread-like necklace had disappeared.When I was washing myself to a slippery shine, I felt there was nothing hanging from the nape of my neck.I checked the drain in the shower stall but didn’t see anything.I went to the change room and checked inside the locker as well.I put on my swim trunks and cap and goggles once more.I began a lap in the swim lane. I sliced through the water, looking only at the bottom of the pool.I was swimming for so long that it seemed I’d learned how to breathe underwater.Maybe with my ears. It seemed like I was breathing with my ears.The whistle sounded. Everyone left the water.I did too.Outside the window, the mountain was getting wet.When did it start to rain?Outside the window, the rain sprayed like it was scattering in the air instead of falling.The mountain grew a little darker in the spray.For a long time, I looked blankly at the mist in the air and above the mountain.I couldn’t find the necklace.I returned to the shower stall and had a hot shower.To get home, I’d have to walk for forty minutes, or take a cab or two buses.The rain didn’t seem to be letting up.My faraway house was removed from everything. It was also removed from romance.I probably expected something when I moved into this faraway house.What? I wondered.A had maybe expected something of me.What?I was drenched all over waiting to catch a taxi in the rain.The things I was wearing stuck to my body and felt like skin.Trucks splashed through the water as they passed, making a terrific noise.How long will I have to stand here? I thought, waiting for a taxi to come.As I was waiting, the mist slowly drifted closer.The visibility was so poor that even if a taxi appeared in front of me, it would be a blur.Where is the necklace now?The thin thread-like one.That didn’t break, and barely held together.I imagined it somewhere in the water of a swimming pool I didn’t know.9My ear was itchy and hot through the night.10It seemed like the rainy season had already begun, as the rain didn’t stop.At the desk of the ENT, “Shape of My Heart” was playing.The elderly nurse was humming to herself.Maybe she didn’t see me push open the door and come in.Or maybe she didn’t care if anyone came or went.Was the doctor her son? I wondered.I approached the desk.She recognized me and smiled.“Shape of My Heart” kept playing, like a soundtrack.Even the auricle is red now. You must have had a tough night, the nurse said, in a worried tone.Yes, I replied.There were no other patients waiting.I went straight into the consulting room and faced the doctor.The doctor poked a large dab of clear, toothpaste-like gel into my ear.My ear, and my head as well, felt as if it was filled with a cool, heavy substance.Whatever you do, avoid touching your ears, the doctor said.Okay, I said.When did it start getting worse? the doctor asked. And what have you been doing recently? he went on.I didn’t tell him everything that had happened.Suddenly. Last night it started getting worse, I answered.Even while I was having this simple conversation with the doctor, I could hear “Shape of My Heart,” on repeat, and the patter of the rain. After he put the gel in my left ear, every sound became muffled.My body leaned to the side as I walked towards Yang’s Pharmacy.I felt so drowsy that it seemed like I was already half asleep as I walked.I held out the prescription and met eyes with Yang Yu-jin. By any chance, were you out walking alone a few days ago?I don’t know. She looked uncertain.She disappeared into the lab at the back.I sat down on the green sofa placed there for customers.I ran my palm over the green sofa, made of fake leather that felt almost like vinyl.Looking up, I counted the number of light fixtures in the ceiling.I was dazzled by the light, and my head felt heavy.Maybe I was coming down with a cold.The tip of my nose tingled, and I felt a chill.How’s it going?I began to text.I’m sorry, I wrote and then deleted it.Your things,I wrote and deleted it.Mayonnaise, I wrote and deleted it.The necklace,I wrote and deleted it.These days, my ears,I wrote.Yang Yu-jin walked out of the lab and turned on the air conditioner in the corner.It’s summer, I wrote.Translated by Kari Schenk

by Kim Umji

The Diving Bell and the Poison

The patient sustained catastrophic respiratory damage. At first, he was incapable of breathing independently and had to be intubated, but his condition later improved and the tube was removed. Orthopedics predicted a significant chance of nerve damage due to compression fractures to the first and second lumbar vertebrae, and explained that the patient had also seriously fractured his fibula and calcaneus. Even if everything else somehow stabilized, he would never walk normally again. Then again, ambulation wasn’t the problem. The microfractures to his left cranium were accompanied by brain damage. He had retained partial consciousness, but the patient continued to drift between lethargy and confusion. If there was one thing to be thankful for, he had miraculously avoided damage to the hippocampus, meaning his language and memory functions were likely to recover. Something to be thankful for, yes, from a doctor’s perspective. From anyone’s perspective, really. Anyone would say the same thing.Gong returned to her office and sank into the chair, melting into the cushions. It had been autumn until just recently, but the world outside was clearly already freezing. Winter. So it’s winter. White-gray trees peeked out between the white-gray buildings. The landscape grew paler by the day, bleached into monochrome. She liked that. It’s like . . .a good season for quitting something. She had been aware of this exhaustion for some time. But rest wasn’t the solution. Sometimes resting would only worsen the fatigue. Rest could sometimes mean neglecting the soul, abusing it. She tried to avoid being alone. And if that wasn’t possible, she made sure to always be doing something. At least grinding tomatoes in the blender, perhaps staring at the pulp until it turned to puree. That puree, too, would be processed again. Digested in the stomach and blended with other matter. Gong knew that corpses, too, worked like tomatoes. They slowly decayed, broke down, and disappeared, until finally they were indistinguishable from their surroundings. Like a person sinking into the water and trying to look around. Descending into the pitch-black abyss, perceiving one’s own body deteriorate. Slowly realizing that they were becoming part of the world that surrounds them. Much had changed in the past month. But “changed” was too mundane a word. Her life was now something altogether different. Did it even qualify as “life” anymore? Did breathing, moving, and being sustained count as life? Hyeon-wu would have laughed and replied, Sure does. Life’s a stubborn, dogged monster. Gong turned on her phone. The wallpaper was a picture of Hyeon-wu, smiling as brilliantly as a cloudless day. In the background were mountains, and hikers, too. Gong would playfully complain, You’re a photographer, can’t you send me something nicer than a phone selfie? Hyeon-wu would burst into laughter. Almost a literal Bwa-hah-hah. She had never laughed that way before, not once. She’d loved Hyeon-wu’s laughter almost as much as his pictures, probably because it was the kind of laugh that could disarm anyone. They had moved in together about five years ago. They hadn’t meant to not get married, but time had simply flown by. They hadn’t meant to not have children, but again, time had simply flown by. Did it feel empty to realize their lives were made of so unintentional choices, she wondered out loud, but Hyeon-wu would reply that it didn’t. Even if we didn’t mean for it to happen, our choices and perspectives still shaped it all. And those choices and perspectives were shaped by the logic of the universe we inhabit, too. Even trivial choices with surprising results are ultimately influenced by the rest of the world. That much was obvious to anyone, and cliché of course, but Hyeon-wu made it all sound so persuasive. Gong would respond by tilting her head, staring into his face. Let’s get married, Hyeon-wu had said, lying face-up in bed, Everything will be so much easier that way. Leaning back on a pillow, Gong turned the page of a book and replied, Sure. His proposal wasn’t particularly moving, nor was her response particularly hesitant. Being together for five years does that to people, huh, thought Gong. What if one of us gets into a car crash? We’re not considered family, so we can’t be each other’s guardians. And if I die in an accident somewhere, they wouldn’t let you see my body, Hyeon-wu said, smiling awkwardly. Gong didn’t smile back. Embarrassed, Hyeon-wu added, Sorry, I know it’s a serious topic. Gong still didn’t respond. Hyeon-wu quickly said, Anyway, what should we have for breakfast tomorrow? Boil up some nurungji? No wait, salad with chicken breast sounds better. Or maybe both, heh heh. One month ago on that fateful morning, Gong got up feeling properly rested for once. The sleeping pills had done the trick. In spite of the lingering daze, the dreamless night of rest had been lovely. Sunlight filled the living room balcony, a sight so unfamiliar that she suddenly felt out of place. As though she’d never seen such bright light, such a brilliant image, as though she’d never seen sunlight fill a balcony. It made no sense. I’ve lived here for years. Seen that balcony thousands of times. And on the sunlit balcony was Hyeon-wu. Leaning over the railing, halfway outside. Teetering dangerously on the edge. Gong gasped. One of those days you’re going to disappear, just like that. It was a terrible premonition. The balcony looked like an aquarium of sunlight, and Hyeon-wu’s silhouette was almost hazy as he leaned even further out the balcony with camera in hand. Gong raised a hand and tried to yell. But there was only silence. Is this a dream? Being a photographer doesn’t give you a license to put yourself at risk for your pictures,Gong had once said, but Hyeon-wu had laughed and given a long-winded response about how risks were what imbued his pictures with soul and turned them into masterpieces. She had wanted to protest, That makes no logical sense, but Hyeon-wu didn’t seem particularly convinced either. The debate ended there. Hyeon-wu usually braved the danger of falling from four stories above the ground for pictures of birds, cats, and subjects like rooftop fans. Recently, he’d switched to plants and animals, and even when he took pictures of the city, he only snapped shots without any people. I’m not trying to find healing or anything. That kind of healing’s not actually a thing. People say that nature brings healing, but the thing is, nature is by definition a constant, cutthroat struggle. Even a peaceful forest with a cool breeze is a life-or-death battle if you get down on your knees and look closely at the ground,he’d said, stating the obvious in that ever-so persuasive way that left Gong with a confused tilt of the head. Sometimes, Hyeon-wu would take closeups of the plants on the balcony. It was almost foreign to see him that way, safely taking safe pictures. Hyeon-wu was supposed to be going from New Zealand to Antarctica, taking the Trans-Siberian Railway to a northern town shivering at fifty below freezing, or racing across the Mongolian deserts to his next remote adventure. At some point he began crisscrossing battlefields. Palestine, when Israel began its offensive; a refugee camp on the border, when Syrian forces began attacking the rebels; Washington, when the Occupy movement was at its peak; Paris, when the Charlie Hebdo attacks occurred. That was Hyeon-wu, and Gong, although nervous, did not get upset with him. Finally, Hyeon-wu pulled himself back inside and waved. Then he focused again on something beyond the railings. It was just like him, to be so immersed in his work. Gong wondered what he might be doing, but instead muttered, Hey. Good morning. She paused. Then added: I love you. It was so unlike herself that she chuckled, but no one else would have seen it as laughter because it was so faint that it resembled more a stilted cringe. Being an unsentimental person, Gong never really said things like I love youor even I like you. Hyeon-wu would tease, C’mon, don’t make excuses about personality. You’re just not that into me. She would respond with an awkward smile. Back then, Hyeon-wu had said that he loved how her eyes and lips twisted with those smiles—It’s nice to see a shy smile on you sometimes. Shy. Shy, yes.Yes, it was shyness. But what really, did that mean? Gong didn’t really understand such emotions. So much about emotions still escaped her. The blinding sunshine still spilled in through the windows, and now the balcony remained utterly empty. No longer would she look out at the balcony and mutter quietly, like she did back on that morning.*Gong headed for the ICU, counting the time until her rounds. The patient: Kim Jeong-sik, sixty-five years old. He looked more like a middle-aged man than an elderly one and had a naturally strong build—that is, before he was carried into the hospital. Now, his skin was damaged in multiple places and his body hooked up to all manner of tubes and lines. Kim Jeong-sik had jumped, burning, from the fourth floor. He’d only survived because he’d been caught in the branches of a tree and then landed on a car’s sunroof. His unusually youthful body had shielded him from the worst. You should have seen all the people performing CPR when he arrived, the head nurse had said. Reporters had packed the hospital lobby and spilled all the way out the doors. Vehicles from broadcasting companies came and went. The director’s office instructed staff to be “especially cautious” with the patient, assigning the best of the best to his medical team. Gong was conscripted from neurosurgery, being a specialist in traumatic cerebral hemorrhaging. When Gong first joined the team, the attending physician was a surgeon who had been practicing for two years. They performed urgent treatment like skin grafts. Now, a different doctor was the attending physician: a neurosurgeon with three years of experience. The patient was to be transferred from one department to another, passing through neurosurgery and neurology before being sent off to rehabilitation. That is, if he was lucky. Gong spared no effort, designating the talented and hardworking resident as the attending physician and personally performing daily checkups, even visiting the ICU overnight. Due to subdural hemorrhaging, the patient was at risk of cerebral edemas and spikes in intracranial pressure, which meant they couldn’t let their guard down. No one came to visit. According to the head nurse—who knew everyone and heard everything—the journalists whispered that the patient had lived alone for a long time. He’d run a decently successful chain of VHS and DVD rental stores until just over a decade ago, but sales fell year after year, because he had clung to an obviously dying business model. It was not long before his company failed. It was a predictable end. He’d tried to diversify, opening 24 hours and also offering comic books and convenience store fare like snacks, but to no avail. Other rental stores had long since shuttered their doors, and as restaurants and cafés sprung up in his neighborhood, rents began to rise unsustainably. By the time he liquidated the business, he was left with nothing but debt. What came next, too, was predictable. First, he turned to Ocean Story slot machine arcades, and when that went bust, he got hooked on online gambling funded with loans, and ended up getting divorced. He’d spent a significant amount of time in homeless shelters, more recently circulating dirt-cheap gosiwon room rentals. It was a cruel fate for the man, yes, but a fate so generic and common that no one paid him any attention.At night, the ICU descended into watery silence. Gong stood amidst the faint specks of light and stared at the patient. The patient had regained consciousness, yes, but he was not fully lucid, pumped full of painkillers and a co*cktail of drugs. When he was awake, he was capable of some conversation, but nothing that counted as coherent. A nurse would have to lean all the way into his face to hear what he whispered, which were mostly short gasps of water, can’t see, hurts, and where am I. The rest of his nerves still had not recovered. His body did take signals from his brain and moved almost imperceptibly, but his responses were slow and limited. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Gong thought back to that movie. The story of a man descending endlessly into the water, stuck in a diving bell. The diving bell was, of course, a metaphor. The movie was about a white man left fully paralyzed due to a stroke. The fall of the cynical, proud, and successful symbol of masculinity. And death. I guess even people like him dream of being butterflies, she had thought while watching the movie, then wondered quizzically, Or is it because he’s like that he dreams about being a butterfly? Plip. Plip. Plip. The intravenous drip continued at steady intervals. The patient was in a lethargic state, his breathing unstable. Gong quietly took in his face. It was an angular visage, so much that it almost seemed to be made of stone. But at the moment, he was completely defenseless. Utterly unprepared for outside intrusion or harm. As fragile as expired tofu. She placed a hand on his neck. Pressed gently on his carotid artery, his weakest point. Eyes narrowing, Gong pressed harder. The artery took clear shape on his throat. One small cut with a razor, for instance, and his blood would drain away rapidly. The life would leak out of him like air from a balloon. Gong knew that people were, above all, physical beings. The human soul was neither holy nor virtuous nor evil. It was all simply the result of physical, genetic, and environmental circ*mstances and changes. A small injection of specific chemicals would confuse the brain’s neurotransmitters, thrusting the individual into another dimension. It was so easy to change sensations, desires, and personalities. Humans were weak and malleable and controllable. There was no other way to describe them, she thought. She inserted a needle into the patient’s arm. The drug would help staunch hemorrhaging and prevent intracranial pressure from rising. Once the patient’s physical circ*mstances improved, he would be able to converse. They could lean an ear towards his mouth to hear him speak, or lean into his ear to speak to him. If he improved further, he might even be able to nod in response.Gong returned home and looked out at the balcony. It was steeped in silence. There was no rain or snow that day, no particulate matter obscuring the sun. The balcony was exactly where it had been before. The sun still rose in the east and set in the west. The only difference was Hyeon-wu. And the only change was in the plants on the balcony. The plants’ change, however, had been dramatic. Some died so quickly that there was nothing she could do. At first, she tried watering them, but soon gave up. It was like the plants were rejecting water, sunlight, nutrients, everything. Her heart hardened one night and she tossed them all out. Even the poinsettia and the geranium, making a point of taking them outside at midnight when the garbage truck came by and putting some bills in the garbage collector’s hand. Now only one flowerpot remained, the one where Hyeon-wu’s ashes were buried. A plant was growing out of the soil, but Gong didn’t know what it was called. She didn’t want to know. All she had to do was hold a smartphone in front of it, but what did it matter? The plant had a long, thin stem with unnaturally heavy leaves, which were broad and dark green. The poor stem was struggling to hold up the burden. She couldn’t stand the imbalance. She understood that the world was not sentimental. And that the truth was it was not the world that was unsentimental, but herself. Maybe I’ve been off-balance all this time. Like a heavy leaf clinging to a slender plant. Gong thought back to her intern days, of when she’d been tasked to assess dementia patients. Repeat after me. Apple. Tree. Train. One more time. Apple. Tree. Train. Try to remember, okay? They would then discuss the weather for a minute, then Gong would ask, What comes after “apple”?The patients would stare back blankly. Apple…apple…after apple was…pear? …Mountain? …Home?The lost gazes would eventually land on her face and stop. I can do this all day, Gong had thought when she looked at these people who walked all alone in their landscapes of apples and trees and trains. It was like walking into the deepest, innermost sanctums of their hearts. In those sanctums lived apples, pears, mountains, and homes, but none of that had made her lonely. Or compassionate or sympathetic. It was a satisfying job, bringing some comfort to the gaps in patients’ souls. Gong had no interest in yoga or Pilates, and had never gotten into plants, pets, music, or art. Never met up to chat with friends at nice restaurants or ask how they were doing over text. Only occasionally browsed Twitter and Instagram, but only because they were followers of acquaintances, especially Hyeon-wu. She was neither a drinker nor smoker, only enjoying a solitary Weizen once a week or so, and only a single can over a book or an old movie. Hyeon-wu never understood. Do you ever, like, have fun? I live with you and I still don’t get you sometimes.Gong had stared right back. Fun? Fun, huh. Gong wasn’t used to that word. She knew a bit about Hyeon-wu’s work, of course. How they brimmed with emotion. Each snapshot precarious and impassioned and filled with longing, beautiful or ugly or meaningful or meaningless. Hyeon-wu had only held two exhibits and published one photo essay book, but he was already a rising star not just as a freelance journalist but as a photographer. Everyone agreed that he would someday go mainstream. The photo essay book was already about to join the ranks of bestsellers. Gong’s only interest was in the brain’s neural circuits and the structure of the cranium. The speed and state of the blood circulating the cerebrovascular system. The gunk building up in the blood vessels, whether or not there was subarachnoid hemorrhaging, and cerebral aneurysms. She felt like a simple component in the machine that was the universe. And had no complaints.*A pair of police detectives waited on the bench. One seemed to be in his fifties, and the other early-to-mid thirties. The middle-aged one was utterly relaxed, like he had seen every case in the book and then some. He was the sarcastic half of a buddy-cop movie brought to life, or at least heavily influenced by one. The younger detective asked most of the questions while the older one observed—took in, really—Gong with narrowed eyes. They assumed she wouldn’t cause them problems because she was a woman. But Gong didn’t care, because eventually they would understand: in this particular field, the detectives knew absolutely nothing. Her office was simple and ordinary. The winter sun hung on the drapes. Gong kept the drapes shut when she wasn’t on duty, turning on a lamp instead. The office was dim, just lit enough so that her eyes felt comfortable. “You keep up with the news, Doctor?” “I do.” “How is the patient?” “We’re doing what we can so you can interview him in a couple of weeks, but we can’t guarantee—” “A couple of weeks,” the young detective repeated. This time, the older detective steepled his fingers and also repeated, “A couple of weeks?” Gong frowned. “Again, we can’t guarantee anything. The patient’s condition could rapidly deteriorate at any time.” “So less than two weeks,” the young detective concluded. Gong did not nod. “His respiratory system and cranial nerves are our primary concerns at the moment, but it’s not so simple. He could suffer acute cardiac arrest, or even fall into a coma,” she explained, combining facts with hypotheses. If the patient did indeed improve, they could hand him over to detectives in under two weeks. Yes, a handover.Gong and the team were tasked with restoring him to sufficient health that he was capable of basic conversation by that point. But when speaking with the detectives, Gong was always conservative in her assessments—not because she wanted to avoid getting their hopes up, but because no one truly knew what might happen to the patient. The detectives had to be made aware. It took time for vitals to stabilize, and most importantly, for linguistic functions to recover. Until then, it would be impossible to conduct a simple interview, let alone an interrogation. You are to wait, if only for the sake of accurate testimony. You must wait. You must wait.That was the message from Gong and the team. The media and the internet mostly seemed to acknowledge at this point that it would take time for the truth to be unveiled. Let’s take our time. There’s no need to hurry.The police, too, did not complain about the pace of the investigation, at least not out loud. Take your time. We’re in no rush. But the detectives on the case were brimming with impatience. “We’ve been on standby for a month,” the younger one said. “You stated that he was capable of simple conversation, so why make us wait? There’s nothing more important than figuring out his motives.” Gong was silent. The detective added, “We need to know why he did what he did.” Why he did what he did. That’s right. Why did he do what he did? People were always interested in motives. Motives were important, true. But Gong was not curious. The incident had already occurred, and it could not be undone. It was the police’s role to uncover the reasons, and hers to determine if the patient lived or died. Detectives did police work, and doctors did medical work. That was the nature of the universe. Reporters had pieced together scraps of information slipped by the police and wove up several narratives. Their articles, however, made it hard to tell what was fact and what was conjecture. As if reality and fiction were waging war in their writings. Mainstream news told the story thus: A man in his mid-sixties named Kim barged into a newspaper company and started a fire—not in the lobby or the president’s office, but the editorial office on the fourth floor. The fourth floor was also home to conference rooms and interview rooms. The newspaper also ran a small studio where they recorded content for their video platforms. Kim had strolled down the hallway and walked into the editorial office. It had taken him only two and a half minutes to go from the front doors on the first floor up the elevator to the fourth floor and through the editorial office doors. He had taken the lid off a gasoline container as soon as he was out of the elevator, trailing fuel as he walked past the soundstage. By the time people realized what he was doing and what was about to happen, the fire had been lit. It was an unprecedented act of arson on a major news outlet. The outcome: catastrophic. Polyethylene had been used during renovations on part of the building, which the fire had devoured in a wake of toxic smoke. One person died of carbon monoxide poisoning, and two of suffocation. Seventeen more were injured, three of them in critical condition, meaning the number of dead could rise further. The fire had consumed not just the editorial office, but the studio next door, which had only one exit and no windows. One of the dead was a young journalist intern. Another was an editor-in-chief who had recently won an international prize in journalism, only days away from retirement. Some of the guests who had come to the building for interviews or to make an appearance on the broadcast had also been injured. The building was still smoking when one news outlet reported it as an electrical fire, noting that the metal door up to the rooftop was closed. They claimed that the tragedy had been caused because the door had been locked to deter people from smoking on the roof, basing the hypothesis on testimony from a building caretaker that an indoor smoking room had recently been installed and that the rooftop door had been closed off. Fire prevention codes were hauled up to the chopping block. But the article was purely speculative, based only on one caretaker’s testimony, and turned out to be wrong. It was taken down in less than an hour. The cause of the fire was not difficult to track. The building was indeed a tinderbox, yes, but the flames that day were not caused by a short circuit or a smoke break, but a person with malicious intent: arson. The survivors who regained consciousness gave testimony; the security camera footage clearly showed the arsonist enter the building with a container of gasoline. The day after the incident, some of the footage was leaked online. Clad in grey overalls, the arsonist entered the building through the first-floor entrance with gasoline in hand. There was a security turnstile, of course, but he passed through it with ease. The man simply gave the security guard’s office a wave. The guard waved back and opened the turnstile. Renovations had been underway on the second floor. The young security guard, a subcontractor only recently assigned to this post, had assumed the arsonist was working on the second floor. Then there was the footage that had everyone talking. It had been uploaded to a video-sharing platform, and almost looked like something out of Hollywood. It began with a shot of an indoor space glowing red with flames. The camera panned to the windows, then back indoors. The arsonist must have started recording and propped up the phone on the windowsill to film himself. For a moment, he peered into the camera to check that it was running, then he leapt into the flames. He raised his hands high into the air, triumphant. The composition was dramatic, a shadowed man standing with arms defiantly raised to a backdrop of fire. Almost satanic. The arsonist streamed it all live on social media. The video was quickly deleted by administrators, of course, but by then it had been circulated all over the internet. The arsonist not only streamed the act of arson, he even gave a determined performance in the flames. The clip spread almost as quickly as the fire, with the title “demon_irl.” People claimed it was a copycat attempt to mimic hate-based terror attacks across the world, kind of like those terrorists who streamed themselves shooting down civilians with machine guns. The only difference was that this arsonist was holding a container of gasoline. Many people wondered if “demon_irl” was a hate crime or some sort of cultist attack. The newspaper he attacked happened to be serializing an in-depth investigative feature on the negative effects of religion on Korean society. How in contemporary times, religion had turned into a sort of spiritual service industry, what method religions used to amass wealth, both within and without the system, why people were so prone to faith, why Koreans tended to be so fervent, and how diehard fandom—religious, political, and social—had become so mainstream in Korea. Some partisan readers and religious organizations protested, but the editorial staff had refused to bend. One of those investigative features had been found in the arsonist’s hand. But as it turned out, the arsonist was a single man aged sixty-five with no connection to any religion. He had attended church many years ago but had been an ordinary parishioner who had never tithed or showed signs of having suddenly fallen to religious fervor. Searches of his home turned up nothing of note, save for all the signs of an impoverished man living alone. No signs of mental instability, not enough evidence of antisocial psychopathy. Circ*mstances made it difficult to conclude that the newspaper feature was the reason for the attack. Journalists investigated the man’s past and learned that he had gone from one cheap gosiwon to the next, and when he could no longer even do work as a day laborer, he resorted to theft. The record was from two years ago. The man had stolen a box of donuts and a bottle of whiskey from a convenience store while the cashier was briefly away. As the man had already been on probation for another crime, the judge had followed protocol and sentenced him to eighteen months’ imprisonment. The chaebol patriarch who had been sentenced the same day had been given a six-month suspended sentence. He had been connected to corporate corruption totalling at approximately 1.5 trillion won, but had been let off easy for “fear of the impact his imprisonment might have on the economy.” The petty thief in his sixties had stolen one box of donuts and a single bottle of Jack Daniel’s, a total of approximately 45,000 won. Although the whiskey was a small blemish on the narrative, progressive media had blasted the criminal justice system, labeling the man a “modern-day Jean Valjean.” One conservative newspaper published a column that argued progressives were comparing apples to oranges, as the chaebol patriarch had the national economy riding on his shoulders. People on all sides raised their voices, but the system never changed. The people dispersed. That was how the universe always worked. But not for the single man in his sixties who had committed theft and been sentenced to eighteen months in prison. His sentence was shortened and he was released three months early. That was half a year ago. Ironically, he chose to set fire to the progressive news outlet that had compared him to Jean Valjean and criticized the justice system. No one could confirm if he had really read that article in particular, but whatever the case, his actions simply did not make sense. Supposedly, the man had once run a blog for promoting his video rental stores. Someone claimed that he had made far-right political comments on his message boards. Testimony emerged claiming that at the time, his interest had not been in films but political propaganda. Fact-checking revealed that such claims were not entirely true. The man’s “far-right political comments” were simply copied sections of editorial columns from the best-selling conservative newspaper in circulation, which were far-right in nature but not necessarily antisocial. The arsonist had not posted any original content save for those promoting his video rental business. The assertion that he had been obsessed with propaganda, too, turned out to be baseless. Back when the business was still running, YouTube had not been mainstream in Korea. It was a time before such political content was produced and consumed in video form. One daily published a column that speculated that perhaps all the possible motives proposed so far were true. Perhaps by assigning a singular motive, we consciously or subconsciously attempt to dismiss all other issues, the columnist claimed. Is this not the willful act of sweeping under the rug the rampant hate and rage and indiscriminate vengeance in our society? When this hate, rage, vengeance, and inequality balloons on and on until it finally bursts, what will we do with the aftermath? The column went on and concluded: This is a quintessential antisocial act by an individual hostile to society as a whole. We must examine every facet of this case and commit ourselves to addressing. . . The column, however, failed to explain why the arsonist had chosen that particular newspaper, why at that particular time, why the fourth floor specifically, why the fiendish livestream, or any of the myriad whys behind the case. Why the particular man in his mid-sixties committed such an act.The arsonist’s testimony and confession were crucial, but matters were complicated by his jumping from the fourth-story window while ablaze. He had survived, but was left with catastrophic damage to the brain and the entire nervous system and was incapable of giving an account of any sort. The case could only be fully understood and the facts properly uncovered if the arsonist survived. That was apparent to all. To the journalists and the public and the doctors and the police. The police had made an additional request to the hospital: to not disclose to the culprit the extent of the damage he had wrought. Revealing the fact that multiple people were dead or injured could cause problems, they said. That it could affect his mental stability, which came with the risk of the man refusing to testify, which in turn meant the truth of the incident would be lost forever. He must not know the truth, for his knowledge would distort his truth forever. Gong did not argue. Even in something as mundane as a car crash, the truth was a real, tangible thing. Unyielding. Singular. Extant in physical time. Why did the accident happen? Whose mistake or fault caused the accident? What kinds of intentions and decisions were involved? What universal logic was at play in those intentions and decisions? Once the confession was made and the truth brought to light, the culprit would likely be sentenced to death. He would appeal, and finally be delivered a life sentence. In prison, he would do push-ups and keep himself fit. He would write letters of contrition, be designated a model prisoner, and be permitted a brief leave upon the death of his mother at her nursing home. Gong could see it all unfold, as if it had already transpired. She did not forget that she was a vocal opponent of the death penalty. Human institutions must not sentence a human being to death, as it is tantamount to an act of murder… But one who has done something deserving death must be put to death. . .She quietly watched the conflict waging in her thoughts.Hyeon-wu had died in a car accident. Gong did not think he had jinxed himself or sentenced himself to that fate with, Common-law couples don’t have legal status. What if one of us gets into a car crash? We’re not considered family, so we can’t be each other’s guardians. And if I die in an accident somewhere, they wouldn’t let you see my body. . . Sorry, I know it’s a serious topic. . . His words echoed on and on. Hyeon-wu had clearly been thinking about ducking through conflict zones on the borders of Afghanistan or Syria, or clambering up and down some wintry mountain slope. Not a fatal left turn at an intersection in downtown Seoul. Hyeon-wu had rushed out of the house that day to make an interview. He had been running five minutes late because Gong had come home for lunch that day. He had been grinning over the meal, pretending to answer questions like, What’s the secret to publishing such a successful photo essay book?He would reply, The secret is to respect the subject, not the camera.Then he said they would ask, You used to be a wilderness photographer in remote areas. What made you pivot to conflict zones?He asked Gong what she thought might be a good answer. She advised that an answer like, A bit of risk adds a real pinch of soul to a picture, would sound too corny. It was only a twenty-five-minute drive to the newspaper office. Hyeon-wu had been nodding loudly along to “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” in the driver’s seat. Traffic was light, so he would make it just in time. His car was at the very front of the left lane, waiting for the left-turn signal. Flames burst from a building ahead to his left. It was about two blocks off, and the windows about halfway up the building were glowing red. That was Hyeon-wu’s destination. The old song was reaching its climax. Ob-la-di, ob-la-da, Life goes on, bra, La,-la, how the life goes on. Instinctively, Hyeon-wu reached into the passenger seat for his camera. The yellow light went dark, and a millisecond before the left turn light came on, he floored the gas pedal. One hand on his camera, one hand on the steering wheel. His tires left skid marks on the pavement, and momentum pushed him sideways. An SUV on the other lane was roaring towards him, speeding up to catch the yellow light before it changed.Hyeon-wu’s death was pure coincidence. It just so happened that he had an interview at that exact time, that his car had been the first one in that lane, that the arsonist set fire to the newspaper at that moment. Hyeon-wu had known that the next signal would be the left turn arrow, and that the turn would get him straight to the scene of the fire. He had grabbed his camera by instinct and stepped on the gas pedal precisely when the left turn light came on. So generic was the accident that no one gave it a second thought. The dashcam footage only solidified the banality of the case, and because it was a simple traffic accident, there was no “truth” to uncover or fight for. Gong was the only one who understood the chain of causality between the rising flames and the accident, and the only one who cared. She thought about the distance between the fire and the intersection. About the angle between them. About the abyss. Into the abyss she plunged, trapped in the diving bell.The ICU had no windows. Gong stood there and watched the patient. The patient watched her. They watched each other with eyes unmet, as if gazing into the distance past each other. Eventually, the patient moved his lips, as though trying to speak. No words were formed. Foam formed on the corner of his mouth, then dissipated into a small patch of moisture. It slowly dried white. He did not seem to be asking, Will I live? Yes. You will. You have to.Gong did not answer. She simply had her eyes on him. Watching silently. What good is it, clinging to life? They’ll interrogate me, then the world will condemn me, the patient did not seem to say. You have to live. Otherwise. . . how am I supposed to I kill you?Gong did not say. That’s right. Kill me. As soon as you can, the patient did not say. If he did, she could never kill him. It had been ten days now since Gong started personally administering neurotransmitter treatment injections into his arm. In proper doses, it would heal the patient. But an overdose would cause catastrophic side-effects such as cardiac arrest or circulatory failure. It was a doctor’s job to maximize a drug’s effects while minimizing its side effects. She couldn’t remember how many times she emphasized this at guest lectures. All drugs—whether chemotherapy agents or cold medications or painkillers—cause both effects and side effects. The Greek wordpharmaka, where we get the word “pharmacy,” refers not just to medicine and toxins, but to all drugs, no matter their effect. The truth is, the rest of the world also consists of countless interactions between effects and side effects. . . At least, that was Gong’s understanding. If there were no side effects, it meant no effect had taken place. That understanding was the bedrock upon which her knowledge of pharmacology, love, and life was built. Gong had once seen a feral cat catch a mouse. I thought cats these days didn’t care about mice. Maybe ferals are different. Hyeon-wu’s face fell. The cat was literally tearing into the mouse. Probably intending to toy with it for a long time before finally letting it die. With bloodied teeth and gleaming eyes, the cat looked up at Hyeon-wu. Hyeon-wu looked at the cat. In that instant, Gong looked not at the cat, but at Hyeon-wu. She knew he would watch the cat for a long time. Hyeon-wu said that he was exhausted. He was sick of recreating such scenes. The world was already unfathomably violent and aggressive and sad*stic, and reproducing them in photography or words felt like empty repetition, he said. Gong thought he was being too emotional. Hyeon-wu was always true to his emotions, always running straight towards his next destination, always risking danger, and frequently hurt in the impact. That was both his weakness and his charm, Gong had thought. She knew that thoughtful people who examined both sides of an argument and tried to take all the multifaceted aspects of a situation into account were the lethargic ones. I don’t believe I’ll be going back to the wilderness or to conflict zones, Hyeon-wu was supposed to say clearly and persuasively at the interview. I’m more drawn now to the peacefulness of a quiet life, the quiet struggles within that serenity, and the love and death that eventually follow.That new direction in my life guided the direction of my new book. . . The morgue did not permit her to see him, because according to regulations, only family were permitted to view bodies. I’m sorry, but we can’t do that. And the body was. . . severely damaged when the car caught fire. Not just the epidermis, but. . .The manager trailed off, knowing that Gong was a doctor. She didn’t have to hear the rest. The external force of the crash would have broken his body and ravaged his skin, his organs, and his nerves. There was no nuance or subtlety there. Gong pictured the scene as if looking at an ultrasound or an MRI. With eyes shut, she played it back in her mind in monochrome. How could she not? And how could she possibly stop? This too will pass, Gong did not think. She opened her eyes. Silently looked at the patient. She had a needle in hand. His eyes were shut. The blood vessels in his neck looked more prominent than usual. It only took a little effort to administer an injection. She simply had to insert the needle and put pressure on her thumb. The drugs in the syringe would flow into the vein. It would circulate through the patient’s blood. This man had no idea what a diving bell was, let alone what it meant to sink into the abyss in one. This man would live. Still trapped in her bell, still sinking into the depths, she watched the man. The room was a quiet, bottomless aquarium. Down and down the diving bell sank, and Gong’s body and soul were slowly warped. Poison slowly spread through her heart, but she did not realize it. The ICU had no windows. As it had one simple purpose, the room was a space without an outdoors. With herculean effort, the patient opened his eyes. His gaze pointed at Gong. Who is this person, and why am I lying here, he seemed to wonder. But soon he seemed to get his bearings and his lips twitched. Gong watched, eyes narrowed, before leaning her ear close to his mouth. The patient’s voice reached her ear. Gong’s face slowly went rigid.Translated by Slin Jung

by Lee Jangwook

That Place

At the height of summer a few years back, I was caught in a flash flood while camping. I knew I shouldn’t have crossed the valley in the summer, but I brought an icebox and made the trip anyway. Within an hour, heavy rains left me stranded on the other side of the stream. I was even on the 9 o’clock news. I still vividly remember the sound of the rope the rescue workers tossed to me. I knew that sound would save my life, which terrified me. That summer was sweltering and often rainy. Dark spots marred my wallpaper and water overflowed from the toilet. In many ways, I was a woman for whom nothing seemed to go right. One night, I clicked on a video of a terrorist group carrying out an execution and got charged 250,000 won. Persuaded by a home shopping network host’s claim that Korea had reached the point of being considered a subtropical climate, I ordered a dehumidifier, but mold continued to bloom on the laundry I hung up to dry. One day a woman with tattooed eyebrows told me to come with her. She said the reason nothing seemed to go right for me was because I had an ancestor who had died a virgin. The woman gave me some red beans and bay salt and told me to place them near a window that faced a mountain. I was living in the same residential neighborhood at the foot of Mallisan, the mountain where ladies in waiting and eunuchs from ages past were buried. I shoved the beans and salt into my closet next to a moisture trap, and every evening I went from coin laundromat to coin laundromat with a bundle of hand towels in tow. That’s how I passed the days. The middle-aged woman up ahead wouldn’t stop crying. Sobbed that she was so scared, she wouldn’t be able to hold onto the rope. In front of me was a man holding a baby in a sling. A dog barked somewhere behind me. Broadcast vehicles sat parked across the way. I knew the rope before me was a lifeline, but for some reason, I still thought I might die. When one of my slide sandals came off and got swept away in the muddy stream as I clung to the rope, I peed myself. “It all happened in a flash.” When someone described the incident this way to the 9 o’clock news reporter in her plastic raincoat, everyone who had been there understood exactly what that meant. In a flash. I almost died that day.*As the air grows colder, people start walking around with their necks covered up. Seeing this brings me a sense of comfort. When the seasons change and people begin revealing their necks again, my heart starts to race. It races every day in the summer. I’m surprised at how easily people can go around with such a vulnerable part of themselves exposed. I can’t get much sleep with my heart beating so fast. My body’s heat-regulating center gets fired up and keeps me awake. My sympathetic nerves are invigorated, my melatonin secretion reduced. Of course, this is also due to the heat. I’ve been stewing in weather hot enough to rival my body temperature for days. Between 37 and 37.5 degrees Celsius. Probably more than 80 percent humidity. The high atmospheric pressure is trapping hot air, and a typhoon expected to move north is driving up the humidity even more. When the temperature exceeds 27 degrees Celsius, ginseng can’t grow, and when the temperature surpasses 35 degrees, chickens start dropping dead. Every time I walk past a thermal camera, I come out bright red. I can’t sleep because my body is burning up. Because it’s so hot.It sounds like I’m describing the dog days of summer, but it’s only June. The reason I ended up visiting the public sports center so often wasn’t only because it was deep in the hills. Nor was it because the park that formed part of the center was located at the foot of Mallisan. What was the reason, then? The incredible air conditioning? The sports center’s facilities were impeccable. The supply of nice, thick hand towels in the bathroom never ran out, and cushion-soft, eight-millimeter-thick yoga mats lined the stretching room floor. The showers were fully equipped with sunflower shower heads. The lockers were deep, the parking lot spacious. The center had eight ping-pong tables. A new squat machine had recently appeared in the weight room. Persons of national merit as well as women of childbearing age got a ten percent discount. And the convenience store there always had bungeoppang ice cream in stock. At first, I was the only one who bought them, but as the days grew warmer, one elderly man started buying them too. He usually works out with the dumbbells, and before he begins, he spits, ptt, into each hand and rubs his palms together. Then he grips the dumbbell bar with those hands. It’s a scene I end up witnessing right as I arrive at the sports center, and each time it happens, I file a civil complaint online. I can spot extremely repugnant behavior anywhere, anytime, and am proactive about reporting it. I reported countless people during the height of the pandemic. I’m this district’s top civil complainant. With today’s complaint filed, I head over to the endurance zone and start off with the weighted Hula Hoop. I keep the hoop spinning, sometimes gently, sometimes powerfully, sometimes in a daze. Once I finish with that, I head to the speed strength zone and do single-leg deadlifts. As elegantly as I can, focusing on the sensation in my glutes and the backs of my thighs, I find my balance on one leg. When my workout is over, I chug a liter of mineral water, staring all the while at the indoor rock-climbing wall that no one is using. This is my morning routine, the reason I come to the sports center almost every day. To build up my endurance and speed strength. After sunset, I run along the Mallisan track for about an hour. I run despite the rain, despite the stickiness of the day. When I still can’t sleep, when the evening becomes yet another summer night that my heart won’t stop racing, I think of that summer a few years back when I crossed the valley. I start wanting to tell someone about the humidity, the heat, the dampness of that day. About the rope and the life vest I’d clung to. About my three-line slide sandal. About the dog that had been left behind. I’m someone who finds it easy to talk about these things. When I want to chat someone up or when I’m drunk, sometimes for no reason at all, I talk about the time I almost died. When I mention how I was on the 9 o’clock news, most people don’t believe me, but there are some who do. The sports center was where I first met Sooseok-ssi. He lived in the area prone to flooding at the foot of Mallisan, too, and after running into each other at the sports center a few times, we became what some might call neighborhood friends. Friends who slide on our sandals and go out for beers under the outdoor umbrellas in front of the convenience store. Friends who contact each other only occasionally but never completely give up on the possibility or anticipation of the next message. Friends who have the same escape route and designated shelter to take cover in when it floods. —What are you doing? —I can’t sleep. —Too hot? —Too hot. When our thoughts align like this, Sooseok-ssi and I head to the highest point in our neighborhood, which is Mallisan Park. This summer, too, we met up there even though it was a Monday night. We sat and drank cans of Tsingtao in front of the park’s convenience store, which overlooked the sports center. Others who couldn’t sleep on account of the untimely heat wave and tropical nighttime temperatures were scattered throughout the park. I could see Mallisan straight ahead. Its walking trail, a part of the third course the city designed to circle the mountain, ran parallel to a track along the foot of Mallisan and fed into a nearby trail that encircled Bukhansan. “So do you still have those red beans?” Sooseok-ssi asked. “No, I ate them, but I still have the salt.” I’d checked around in my spare time over the years and found that no one else in this area had received red beans and salt from a woman with tattooed-on eyebrows. As most people know, red beans and salt are used to drive out evil spirits. The woman was still roaming around Mallisan Park and the trail around the mountain, but these days she was selling ice towels. Cold enough to cool you down with a single touch, she claimed. When she came by the convenience store, I bought a towel and handed it to Sooseok-ssi. “One touch really does cool you down,” he said, wrapping the towel around his neck. Once he’d covered up that vulnerable spot, I felt simultaneously relieved and at a loss. “Do you think she doesn’t remember? Giving me the red beans and salt?” “Maybe she’s pretending she doesn’t know you?” “Do you want to go to the mountain with me?” Sooseok-ssi acted as if he hadn’t heard. Unlike me, he didn’t visit the sports center often. He didn’t even go for walks in Mallisan Park unless I called him out. He’d been a victim of the heavy rains that summer a few years back, still the heaviest rainfall on record in the northwestern region of the metropolitan area to this day. Since then, the summers had grown that much hotter and came on that much sooner. But no nationwide heat wave advisories had been issued in June before. Nothing like this had ever happened. The cooling mist that was sprayed to reduce the ground heat settled like chilled steam over the residential area of the city at night. At dawn, ambulances transporting heat stroke patients raced down the same streets the sprinkler trucks had passed through earlier in the day. As the pipes heated up, the sprinklers malfunctioned and the concrete roads buckled. If you stopped and stood in the middle of a side street in the shopping district, you could hear the outdoor air conditioning units that filled the city humming like a vibrator in your ears. In late June, the average temperature hit an all-time high. The first time tropical nights were recorded in June. A chunk of a glacier broke off and struck a group of hikers in the Alps, and indoor events without functional air conditioning were banned in France. Words like deadly, unprecedented, and all-time could be heard on a daily basis. Right next to the banner promoting the sports center’s classes hung an additional banner from the local disaster preparedness team that listed precautions to take during the heat wave. I’m lucky enough to have successfully signed up for several of the sports center’s popular classes. My base body temperature is high. There must be something in me that evil spirits crave, and I know without a doubt that even more than being hungry, they hate being hot. I’m drinking beer with my neighborhood friend, who has an ice towel covering his vital spot. A glow-in-the-dark flying disc toy traced an arc through the air and fell to the ground. Over at the water playground, people were dipping their feet in the water despite the fact that the fountains had stopped running. Several delivery motorbikes rode up, off-loading fried chicken and trotters onto the mats scattered throughout the park. People lay sprawled out inside the gazebo. The squeak of sneakers, the sound of the wind—then the glowing disc that had been flashing through the sky suddenly changed directions and shot straight toward us. Sooseok-ssi and I shrieked and bolted up from our seats. A pair of bugs I had never seen before had flown over to our table and were rubbing their bodies together. Similar screams went up from all different corners of the park before dying down again. “Didn’t they say there would be a typhoon?” said Sooseok-ssi, returning to his seat. I stared at the lights from the residential area that ran along the base of the mountain. Typhoons always came. The same way summer was the season for bugs. And then there was the sports center. The place located at the highest point in our neighborhood. The place that had been designated as a temporary shelter in the event of a natural disaster. That night many people had gathered in Mallisan Park, but none of them had any idea what sort of disaster alert they would receive before the week was out.*I love myself in the moments when I’m standing on one leg. I like who I am when I’m gripping a decently heavy dumbbell and doing single-leg deadlifts. I lean my upper body forward as one leg supports the rest of me and form a T shape as I extend my other leg behind me. The moment my body trembles slightly as the curve of my butt and the lines of the muscles running down either side of my spine come into view. The moment I gain my balance as I get that tingling sensation in my gluteal muscles and hamstrings. I love my concentration in that moment. I know from experience that while I enjoy physical exercise and have a pretty strong pelvis, it’s endurance and speed strength that are the most advantageous for survival. When I look at men, I place a lot of importance on their buttocks, regularly thinking about how they’re sculpted, and when people step foot into the sports center, I’m quick to sense whether physical activity is a big part of their daily life or not. I was standing on one leg, the sweat running off me, when a couple of kids I had never seen before appeared by the foot of the indoor rock-climbing wall. From what I could hear, they seemed to be quizzing each other. “Do you know 50 plus 20?” “70!” “Then do you know 25 plus 25?” “Uh . . . 40?” “I don’t think so? Isn’t it 50?” “Come on, how can 25 plus 25 be 50?” I lost my balance. I approached the kids, trying to see whether they were up to anything that might warrant some quibbling, but they were properly wearing masks that fit snugly over their faces and covered their noses. The sports center didn’t offer any classes for children. Summer vacation hadn’t yet started, and today wasn’t the weekend either. “What brings you two here?” “It’s hot.” “Don’t you have school?” “We have the day off.” “Did you come by yourselves?” The kids pointed in the direction of the multi-purpose gymnasium. Only after walking over to the gym did I realize that the sports center had been converted into a heat wave shelter as of midnight the night before. The ping-pong tables had been cleared away and placed against the walls, and waterproof tinfoil mats as well as tents had been set up in rows throughout the room. As the heat wave advisory period stretched on, the city had seen a spike in electricity consumption and decided to implement rolling blackouts by district. They also issued an advisory to the residents of districts facing blackouts that day to take shelter in the designated locations. I observed the crowd of people standing near the fire extinguisher, each one holding a bag. From now on, I wouldn’t be able to use the showers or the locker room in peace. I thought about my house in the residential area down below. Mold spores had formed on the damp walls and were floating all around, but I hadn’t been able to ventilate for the last several days. Because the bugs that traveled in pairs had increased their numbers and started swarming the windows. Black clusters of them coated car windshields and building facades, flying away only to return again in droves. They found humid places to hatch hundreds of eggs each, and then they died. No one knew what they were, and no one had seen them before. The employees at the district office had lost their minds over the number of bug complaints that had been filed. I went down to my house and grabbed the go-bag I had first packed after the heavy rains a few years earlier. Then I returned to the sports center, sneaked into the stretching room, and claimed one of the yoga mats in the corner. About half an hour into sitting on that mat, I realized something. That no one gave a damn whether I was there to work out or volunteer or sit around like the residents taking shelter.Until the moment I set my go bag down on that yoga mat, I’d thought the sports center was the safest place around.*I began to sense a strange combination of energy and listlessness from the people sheltering in the sports center. They seemed both like they had come for the experience of camping out in an unusual place for the night and like they had shown up grudgingly after a long night of drinking as a group. People who hadn’t been able to see each other face to face during the two-plus years of the pandemic suddenly had to spend the night packed together in the same place. The person lying on the mat next to mine was a neighbor who had been the object of my wariness and fear as recently as the day before. We’d been told to take shelter, but it wasn’t as if our houses had collapsed before our eyes or as if a flood had swept through the neighborhood. A heat wave was such a silent disaster that people forgot they were evacuating and forgot that there were others who hadn’t been able to. All the indoor space to exercise was gone, so I ran the track around Mallisan in the mornings and the evenings. It was insanely humid in the mountains, and the sound of insect wings rubbing together stuck to my sweaty skin as I ran. A fleeting breeze sent the white flowers from the pagoda trees scattering onto the edge of the track. I stopped running and stood where I was, breathing in all the humidity at once, as if sniffing out the spirit of the mountain. Bones and tombstones are strewn all over Mallisan to the point that the trail through it was called Cemetery Road. Since I’d received the red beans and salt from the woman with the tattooed-on brows, I had never once forgotten that Mallisan was a burial ground. It couldn’t only be for ladies in waiting and eunuchs. No way were they the only ones buried there, right? Goosebumps sprang up on my skin at that thought, and to get rid of them, I ran down the track until I was out of breath, shouting aaaah. I ran, looked back, shouted Aaaah, ran some more, looked back again, and shouted Aaaah why did you die? Aaaaah how did you die? Aaaaaah do you have a lot of resentment? Aaaaaaah were you really a virgin? Aaaaaaaah can’t you look after me? When I made it back to the sports center turned shelter, I was drenched in sweat, surely not a sight for sore eyes. The drains in the shower room were clogged with hair and naked kids were shooting each other with water guns under the shower heads. I found myself strangely busy, standing by the water dispenser and telling people, “The drain tray is not the place to pour out your water,” standing by the hand towels in the bathroom and saying, “One towel per person is plenty,” and when I saw someone throw out their trash in the recycling bin, I went over and sorted out the garbage again, fuming the whole time. Right on the hour, I called the district office about those bugs. I’d just wanted to hide out quietly somewhere safer than my house, but at some point, even though all I was doing was standing near the stairwell, people started to approach me and ask me things. “What floor is the women’s changing room on?” “You have to go one more floor up.” “Can I call my ex and tell him I’m here at the shelter?” “I’m sorry?” “I wanted to call him when I got Covid, too, but I couldn’t. It should be okay to reach out to him now, right?” A member of the disaster preparedness team wearing a green vest asked me to come with him for a moment. I realized it was the old man who had spat in his hands before using the dumbbells. I couldn’t believe it. What was the disaster preparedness team anyway? Wasn’t it a local emergency response group organized around disaster prevention and safety? At the bare minimum, there needed to be some sensitivity to the current situation. Coating public-use dumbbells in your own spit in the spring of 2020 would have called for a public execution. “We’ve been watching you.” The old man I’d reported every day regarded me now with a serious expression. “You seem to have a real talent for it. Anyone twenty-three and older can join.” He held out an application form for the disaster preparedness team. I stared wordlessly at the pen he was also offering to me. I didn’t know how they’d been watching me, but honestly, I was an incredibly busy person. This month, I was teaching equations including the Gauss notation and quadratic equations involving two unknowns to three teenagers, and I had the written exam for becoming a licensed washing machine technician coming up. Not long before, I’d gotten my level-two certification as an organization and storage expert, and soon I would take on training to become a licensed auto mechanic and a certified rice cake manufacturer. Hours earlier, I’d also taken an interest in becoming a forest tour guide. I had to continue to build up my endurance and speed strength, and on top of being a woman of childbearing age incentivized by the powers that be to stay healthy, I needed to take care of my neighborhood friend. I stormed out to the lobby and called Sooseok-ssi. “Sooseok-ssi, when is the blackout? Which shelter will you go to?” Sooseok-ssi said he was just going to stay at home. “Come to the sports center,” I told him. “It’s safest here.” “I can’t.” “I’ll look out for you, okay?” Silence. “Sooseok-ssi.” More silence. “Sooseok-ssi?” As I was calling his name, a woman holding a baby approached me and asked for the location of the nursing room, and at that moment the fourth typhoon of the season was in the waters 250 kilometers southeast of Taipei and moving north at a speed of 30 kilometers per hour. At the same time, two bears had torn their way out of their cages and escaped a farm 6 kilometers away in the southwestern region of Mallisan. The baby in the woman’s arms looked at me and immediately began tearing up. Don’t cry, I thought. But the baby kept pouting, and again I thought, Please don’t cry, but shortly after, the baby leaned its head back and began to wail. It wouldn’t stop, sobbing as it raised its arm and pointed somewhere behind me. Everyone in the lobby turned to look in that direction. The sweltering heat had fallen over the empty parking lot. The heat, so overpowering that a parked car probably wouldn’t last five minutes in it, was baking the expanse of concrete. It was trapped and blazing in one place, as if all the stuffiness and fear of the June heat wave had been compressed into that square lot. People stared blankly through the glass at that unreal light as if they were blind. The baby was the only one crying. “Did you hear about the bears?” Residents of the lowlands came up the road through Mallisan Park carrying slightly bigger bags. A seasonal rain front was forecast to collide with the typhoon in a cloudburst. The volunteers with the disaster preparedness team had split up, some of them heading down into the village to help with installing cooling pads in a nearby livestock shed. Twenty thousand chickens had died that week alone. “I heard.” There was word that one of the two bears that escaped from the farm had been shot dead. The other was still loose, its whereabouts unknown. I went to a corner of the lobby to catch my breath. The fact that the bear was nowhere to be seen meant that it could be anywhere in the area. My back pressed against the wall, I kept reading the same parts of the alert text I’d gotten earlier.Refrain from entering Mallisan. If you encounter a bear, please report it immediately.*There was quite a stir once people learned that the missing bear was a moon bear that had been raised on a nearby farm. “Aren’t moon bears the ones that live in Jirisan?” Only after these two had escaped did most people learn that several bears had been living close by for nearly a decade. These weren’t the moon bears that were given names by the National Park Service and had surgeries performed on their fractures. Until they were ten years old, the age at which they could be butchered, these bears had been kept in confinement, living in an outdoor cage. According to the old man with the disaster preparedness team, who was caught up on the local goings-on, the standard price one might fetch for the gall bladder of a single bear was 10,000,000 won. As if to assuage their fears about the typhoon, the residents from the lowlands who had just settled into tents in the sports center focused for a while on talk of the bears. “I think the farmer might have made a false report.” “I think you’re right. There was a case where a farmer slaughtered a bear and filed a false report saying it had escaped.” “I don’t think so. I bet the bear went into the mountain.” At that, a brief hush fell over everyone. If the bear was on Mallisan, people were bound to be affected one way or another so long as they remained inside the sports center. But the CCTV cameras installed at the entrances to the walking trails hadn’t recorded any bears. Not a trace of one, no footprints or droppings, had been found, and all the food in the traps set up to catch the bear remained untouched. “Ajumma, where do you think the bear is?” I was sitting in the endurance zone when two kids came over and asked me this. Upon closer inspection, I realized they were the kids who’d been asking each other math problems earlier. “Why don’t you call me ‘teacher’ instead?” “What do you teach?” “I know what 10,000 times 10,000 equals.” “Really?” I picked up a weighted Hula Hoop and slowly began to spin it around. “Did you two hear?” “Hear what?” “That bears rip people apart. They’re not like Pororo’s friend Poby.” The kids didn’t breathe a word in reply. “Think about it. That bear is being chased right now. His friend that escaped with him was shot dead. And to make matters worse, he’s starving. Not only will he be extremely on edge right now, but his aggression is probably skyrocketing.” A woman who must have been their mother gave me a disapproving look and ushered the kids away. I kept the Hula Hoop spinning, a little more vigorously. Now that I couldn’t run along the mountain track because of this bear, my body was itching to move so badly I thought I would go mad. “You’re quite flexible.” A woman with short, bobbed hair had entered the endurance zone. She was wearing a beige linen dress with a square neckline and loose pintucks. It was exactly my style, to the point where I wanted to ask her where she’d bought it. “Want to try?” I lifted the Hula Hoop over my head and handed it to the woman. She readily accepted it and stepped inside. When she started to swivel her hips, her dress twirled in the same direction as the hoop, whirling around and around. I found that so funny, I gripped my knees and doubled over laughing. “I love this. The twirling that happens when you hula hoop in a dress. Just seeing it makes me happy. Seriously.”The woman laughed with me. I saw a woman with tattooed-on eyebrows watching us closely as she passed by. “Did you come here alone?” “I did.” “What number is your tent?” The woman gestured to the far end of the gym. “Where do you think the bear is?” The woman’s hula hooping came to a halt. “How about this? Try leaving Choco Pies by the entrance to the mountain tonight.” “Whoa. Do bears like Choco Pies?” “Hm. Maybe.” “Couldn’t a raccoon just eat them and leave?” Before we parted ways, the woman took me to the end of the mechanical room that led out to the trail around Mallisan.“I’ll show you something amazing.” There was a cement platform that sloped gently to the ground, and on top of the platform was a single footprint. Not a footprint from a sneaker that had stepped in the cement before it dried, but a bare footprint. The woman placed her own bare foot over the impression, the two an unmistakably perfect match. “That really is amazing.” She looked at me with a mischievous grin, then went back inside the gym. As soon as she was gone, I felt a sudden hollowness inside me and went down to the convenience store to actually buy some Choco Pies. Even as I paid for them, I couldn’t believe the bear could really be on Mallisan. It wasn’t fully sinking in, the fact that lives were on the line, that people were eating and sleeping in the multipurpose gym, that despite the blazing sun there was a typhoon on the way.*I don’t have anyone who would ask me something like this, but if someone were to ask me what I like, I’d want to say:Kind people. I like kind people. I have a habit of falling for people easily. Liking people is so important to me that I feel as if I’m sinking when I don’t have anyone I like. So if I can like someone, I will readily, undoubtedly fall for them.The nurse who held my hand and told me not to be nervous as I lay on the bed in the endoscopy room, I liked for that entire day. The guy who quickly grabbed hold of me and pulled me upright when the bus lurched to a sudden stop, I liked for a whole week. To this day I still like the rescue worker who came up to me when I was released from the rope, soaked in rain, tears, and urine, and wrapped a blanket around me. And now I think I’ve come to fall for the woman who hula hooped with me that strange, hot summer at one end of the emergency shelter. “Do you remember me?” It was still dark at that hour of dawn, but several people were already awake and sitting up. I approached the woman with tattooed-on eyebrows where she sat on her waterproof mat drumming on her legs and asked her if she remembered me. Now that I was sitting up close to her indoors, she looked older than I had guessed. After a brief pause, seemingly to determine whether I was talking about the red beans and salt or the ice towels, she said she remembered me from both. My chest grew heavy once again. When the water’s rising, you can’t have any lingering attachment to anything. In the summer you can’t cross the valley for fun. From where I sat on my mat, I scanned the gym. All the residents of the lowlands sheltering here must remember that summer a few years back. Even sitting around now like nothing is wrong, they must still have that fear of floods engraved in them. At least now that this was a pre-disaster evacuation and not a post-disaster one, everyone here must have had things hidden in their bags that they couldn’t give up even in an emergency. “The ice towel guy is still at home,” I told the woman, giving her Sooseok-ssi’s regards. “His dog is sick.” None of the emergency shelters allowed pets. Because of his dog’s poor vision and kidney problems, Sooseok-ssi felt he couldn’t just send his dog somewhere else and come to the shelter by himself.After I told her that, we sat there for a while, the woman studying me without a word. For some reason, I briefly thought she might want to hear about the woman in the linen dress, but oddly enough, since we’d parted ways outside the mechanical room, I hadn’t seen her again. “Back when those landslides hit Mallisan, all the bones were swept into a heap.” Some of the elderly folks who were up early had started talking about the floods from a few years back. That was around the time the sports center was preparing to move from its previous location to the current one. “Bones? Do you mean the bones of the ladies in waiting?” I cut in to ask, but one of the others waved their hands. “Why are you going so far?” “They tossed a ton of them onto the mountain. Women with no names, no homes. Women whose causes of death they tried to cover up.” “And it wasn’t suspicious because the mountain’s always been a burial ground.” Beyond the gym windows, the day was slowly dawning. Noting the time on the LED wall clock, 5:57, I leaned in to confess something to the elders gathered around on their mats. “Last night, I secretly . . .” “Uh-huh, you secretly . . .” “ . . . left Choco Pies at the entrance to the mountain.” For a moment, everyone was speechless. The wall clock struck 6:05, and we heard a sudden noise from outside. The sound of several people’s chatter muddled with that other sound, a deep hum like the wind roaring over a motor. Then the doors to the gym flung open and in burst some of the disaster preparedness team members, their faces flushed. “Starting now, everyone here is absolutely prohibited from going outside. You cannot use the outdoor physical fitness center. The parking lot is also off limits.” Everyone stopped in their tracks. I swallowed. The bear had appeared. “We’ve confirmed that the bear is on Mallisan. It came down close to the sports center.” The bugs infesting the area in pairs were running rampant on the mountain as well, and the city was hanging up huge flypaper traps between the trees like curtains to catch them. Apparently some tufts of moon bear fur had been discovered stuck to the traps alongside the insect carcasses. “Now that we’ve found traces of the bear, it’s only a matter of time until we capture it.” A drone equipped with a thermal camera had been launched into the skies over Mallisan. Hunters with the Wildlife Management Association had gone up the mountain with rifles. As the typhoon neared, the swaying of the trees on the mountain could be seen even with the naked eye. Only the park plaza, on which the morning sun was beating down, remained radiantly calm. I stared out blankly at the water playground where tiny puddles had formed. The woman in the linen dress and the little kids who were terrible at math were playing barefoot in the sprinklers, kicking at the water. Droplets flew up to their knees and disappeared, then flew up again. Suddenly it looked like the woman was waving to me. I wasn’t the only one staring out at them—the children’s mother shoved open the door and ran outside, shouting that they weren’t supposed to be there, that it was dangerous. Taking advantage of the commotion, I slipped quietly out of the gym. Wondering what color I might show up as on the drone’s thermal camera, I walked down the hallway, past the mechanical room and up to the entrance to the trail around the mountain. The three Choco Pies I’d placed on a disposable tinfoil plate had vanished. I picked up the plate, which reflected a round disc of light, and went back inside the gym.* I set the plate on a windowsill at one end of the gym and wandered around indoors looking for the woman in the linen dress. When I found her, I planned to show her the plate that either a bear or a raccoon had licked clean so that we could be amazed at something together yet again. But there was no sign of her at all. I was standing in front of the tinfoil plate like someone in prayer when the old man from the disaster preparedness team spotted me and came over to ask how things were going. The people who’d gone up the mountain making a fuss like they were sure to catch the bear soon still had nothing to report by the time noon came around. The mountain was disturbingly silent. The typhoon was due to hit soon, but only the wind and humidity had intensified and the sun was still blazing fiercely. We hadn’t heard so much as a peep about whether the storm had veered west or tapered off, so the people sheltering started to get fed up, feeling like they’d been taken hostage indefinitely. That was when it happened. First, the lights on the water dispenser flashed several times in warning. Soon after, the big ceiling fan in the gym began to slow down. The subtle but powerful vibration coming from the air conditioner died out and stopped at the same time the red numbers on the LED wall clock display went black. All of a sudden, everything inside the gym was uncannily quiet. In the hush that swept over them like an ambush, people stared at each other in confusion. But they soon realized it was a blackout. Outside, impossibly bright sunlight poured down and the trees still swayed in the gusting winds. It seemed as if only things inside the building had come to this sudden halt. People who had been inside their tents came crawling out one by one. Once the air conditioner went silent, even the soft sounds of other people rustling around came to grate on my ears. My breathing grew stifled, like something was plugging up my nose, and the humidity under my armpits began to build. People started to sweat, breathing each other’s stale air as they sat gathered in the huge auditorium. The number on the thermohygrometer was changing rapidly. Someone realized we needed to open the doors and went over to the entrance but stopped short. They remembered they couldn’t open the doors after all. There was still a bear that hadn’t been captured roaming around outside. Thinking the windows should be fine, several people went over and flung them open only for the bugs that had amassed on the face of the building to immediately rush in. As bugs the size of hornets paired up and flew inside, people began screaming and running around the gym. Once the windows were hastily shut again, people realized they were isolated in a building that was quickly turning into a steamer. The sports center, now experiencing a blackout and a lockdown, had become the most dangerous place around. A woman who seemed to be having a panic attack grabbed me and shouted in anguish. “We won’t be able to breathe. We need to get out of here!” I conjured up a rough map of the indoor areas of the sports center in my head and brought the woman to the area that felt the least enclosed. The body heat being emitted by the people around me was becoming painful. The temperature kept climbing. Some people stripped off their clothing and others told them off for doing so. Some people wept and others covered their ears. When someone coughed, others quietly backed away from them. Still mired in all the trauma they’d accrued during the worst of the pandemic, people searched for their masks again and put them on, swallowing their breaths. As if they believed all their problems could be solved with the bear being caught, the voices calling for its immediate capture grew louder and more impatient. But there were also people who hoped the bear wouldn’t be captured. As the sound of babies crying tore through their ears, some people pleaded for something they could use to block out the noise. At the same time there were others who offered to take the crying babies from their sweat-drenched parents and calm them down. Some people begged anyone who was coughing to please go out into the hallway, but there were also people who were quicker to offer them thermometers and first-aid medicine. As time went on, I became more aware of other people moving around. People who’d been scattered, not speaking a word to anyone else when the shelter was still comfortable, began looking to the people around them as the situation worsened. Several people gathered the ice they had scraped from the freezers in the convenience store and gave it to the elderly. They grabbed everything in the supply room that could be used to hold water and brought in cold water from the showers. When people learned that they had the same ailments, they shared anti-anxiety meds and first-aid tips. I and a few others found some people there who knew how to use the AEDs and put them on standby, then went around to all the tents and checked to see if anyone was laid out inside. We separated the people who had a cough but no fever into the stretching room. Then we went back to the gym and made our rounds again. I went around to all the tents. I kept going around and around until I was drenched in sweat from head to toe, and because of the sweat I couldn’t open my eyes at all, which meant I didn’t see the woman in the linen dress anywhere, and all these kind people looking out for each other kept grating on me, so I couldn’t stay there a second longer and stumbled out to the lobby entrance. I stood in front of the glass door, thinking about how badly I wanted to undo the latch that had a ‘Watch your hands’ label on it. Only then did the awareness that I was trapped in an enclosed space come flooding in all at once, and suddenly I felt like I couldn’t breathe. Now that I was completely sweat-soaked, now that this had become an emergency situation, I couldn’t help but experience it all over again—the sensations vividly engraved in my memory, the fear that the sound of the rushing water in the valley had instilled in me, the feeling of the rope I kept gripping and letting slip, another person’s struggle to quickly hoist me back up. Someone came up to me and asked if I was all right, and as I sat before the glass door gripping the handle, I answered that I wasn’t all right, I couldn’t breathe, I needed help. As I watched the person rush off to grab something, I realized that it was now, and no other time but now, that my endurance and speed strength should have been operating at their peak. Consciously evening out the pace of my breaths, I picked my body up off the ground. Once I was upright again, I looked outside. On the other side of the glass, standing in the beaming white sunlight, was the woman in the linen dress. As soon as I saw her, I shouted. Asked what the hell she was doing out there, told her to hurry back inside, it was dangerous to be out there right now. But I soon realized how meaningless these words were. The woman regarded me with a calm expression, then smiled her mischievous smile. “I don’t have all that much resentment,” she said. Maybe because the wind was blowing behind her, the woman looked as if she were standing in the one spot where time was passing by. She watched me for a while, then slowly held out her right arm to me. She kept her arm extended for so long that I couldn’t even tell how much time passed like that, her standing there, arm out, reaching for my neck. Soon enough, two of her fingers came to rest below the right side of my jaw, touching the carotid artery. She stood like that for a long time, fingers pressed against my vital spot, feeling for my pulse. Confirming that I was alive. At that moment I heard a gunshot ring out on the mountain. People folded up their mats. They returned all the things they had taken from the supply room. They put the trash in trash bags. They gave back the medications they had borrowed and rounded up all the towels they had used. They unzipped their bags and zipped them shut again. They sat on the edges of the gym stairs and stared blankly down at the landing. They lay with their backs on the floor. They opened their eyes and stared at the ceiling. The plate I had set on the windowsill in the gym that morning was still where I’d left it. It crinkled despite not being touched. Tinfoil plates were noisy by nature. Looking at the noisy plate made me want to bow to it. I wanted to bow so badly I couldn’t bear it. So I stood before the plate and bowed once, then twice. I got on my knees and leaned forward until my forehead touched the floor. Several people came over and bowed beside me. Someone filled a paper cup with water and set it beside the plate. Someone else placed a bunch of blackened bananas on the windowsill. Yet another person left behind a key ring shaped like a bird. There were My-Chew candies and hard-boiled eggs. Hairbands and hand lotion. When a group of people had finished bowing and stepped back, another group came over and got on their knees. By the time the sun set that day, everyone had left the building. Unable to leave right away, people stared at the emergency shelter where they’d been confined. The late afternoon sun was descending from the foot of Mallisan down to the park plaza and at last onto the residential area below. Standing there like that, people seemed like they were maybe looking at something. As though trying to check whether or not it was raining, someone held out the palm of their hand and said, “I think it’s snowing in June.” Hearing that, others reached out their hands one by one, as if to confirm that it was really snow. “These look like the flowers from the pagoda trees.” “Isn’t it fine dust?” “They’re soap bubbles.” As each person chimed in, they turned their head to look at something in the distance, like they were giving a group performance. Then they all held out their palms toward that place.*Around the end of the summer, I passed the written exam for my washing machine technician license. I’d had to walk past a hilly road on my way to study for the test, and whenever I was going by, I would always see a delivery truck coming down the road on the right. If I was passing by first, the delivery truck would slow down, and if the truck was passing first, I would pause. Later when I lay down to sleep, I would suddenly remember that and tears would come to my eyes. Because I knew the truck would stop when the driver saw me.These days I like the delivery truck driver. I didn’t end up joining the disaster preparedness team. Instead, I introduced the old man to Sooseok-ssi. Around the start of autumn, the old man said he had something to show me and played me a video. It was footage of Mallisan at the end of June captured on a surveillance camera meant to monitor for wildfires. There was a bear in the video. Wandering around the mountain. It was walking over the dirt when it stopped to sniff the air, then continued to roam around before pausing to nibble on some food, after which it pressed its nose to the ground a few times and then continued to saunter about, unhurried. Nothing out of the ordinary for a bear. I still go to the sports center every day. Alone, I spin the Hula Hoop and run the mountain track. There are some things I would be better off forgetting, but I still cherish certain memories. Things like a phone charger left on top of a waterproof mat or the impression someone’s head made on a pillow. And the rainbows on the water playground. And someone’s footprint that would fill with water when it rained. I think of all the colorful body temperatures of the Mallisan wildlife that would have been captured on the drone’s thermal camera.And of the moments of kindness I relied on. And of the things that saved me.All of them still remain there, in that place.Translated by Paige Aniyah Morris

by Choi Eunmi

Representation and Presentation

A Pile of Dirt by a Pile of DirtHe was breaking. He was swinging his massive fists, breaking the Neot before him. How long had he been doing this? He was breaking. Each time his fist made contact, thud, thud, the ground on which he stood seemed to quake. Come on, please. When the ground shook, he looked at his feet and looked up to appraise the right end of the Neot. Raise it up high. Hold tight. He did not see the end of the Neot. Don’t let the light go out, please. He took several backward steps. When it all disappears, you’ll still be. More of the Neot seemed to come into view. The asteroid is due. He took several further steps. More of the Neot came into view, but it did not grow more distant. This time, he appraised the left end of the Neot. What do dancing and kissing have in common? Perhaps the Neot was the edge of a city. As he could not see the end of the Neot, he pictured it bisecting a city. A Neot dividing one city from another. Dividing one city in two. One day, the Neot reached toward the border of a country. How exhausting it is to watch over time. A Neot dividing one country from another. Dividing one country in two. In truth, the Neot had no left or right, but in his imagination, each day the Neot was a border between something new. A Neot dividing one time from another. A Neot dividing one person from another. He was breaking. When I watch over time, I feel like time stares back at me. He swung again and drove his fist against the Neot. He considered cases and numbers, distance and necessity, and the Neot refused to crack. He was breaking. He raised his fist and threw all his weight behind the swing. Sappho once sang, But in pity hasten, come now if ever / From afar of old when my voice implored thee. He believed that each time his fist made contact, some inner part of the Neot would crack. From the outside, the Neot was unyielding. He glared silently at the unmoving Neot, breathed heavily, and swung again. From now on, this is a mango. He was breaking, although only he knew the purpose for which he first set out to break the Neot. The Neot’s size was incalculable and his fists soon began to miss their mark. He needed accuracy, he thought. Remember to wash the backs of your hands too. He took several steps back. To him, the Neot was a Neot, nothing more. He placed his hands on his hips. I mean sex, games, liquor. He glared silently at the Neot. If he could mark one point of focus, one point to strike consistently, he thought, it might be possible. Although only he knew what he wanted to be possible, no one knew what exactly would be possible. I’m talking about someone’s life. He wanted something to mark the Neot. It was impossible to remember the exact point of the many he had punched. Neglect seeps in soft and wet as a tongue. He could not be certain that the spot he just struck was the place he’d struck a moment later. I’ll wait for you. Any more of this, and his fists would break before the Neot. Silence was golden. Unconquerable. His fists would lose their function. He was solitary. He did not know how long his fists would last. It’s just like. Therefore, marking out a specific spot was also an act of self-preservation. Solitude was a hermit. If only I could take proper aim. He looked around, but found nothing at a cursory glance that might mark the Neot. Before him, the Neot stood in his way. Be silent on the matter of transcendence. Because he stood facing the Neot, the Neot stood immovably in his way. If the way ahead is blocked, just turn around. He turned with ease. The sound of lips parting from lips. And because he turned, in front of him now was a plain. There were no trees or grass, dogs or cats, birds or water. Only a plain. If I go to the end? Because he saw no end, for a moment he thought of the end and walked to the middle of the field—that is, he walked forward. It’s less romantic than it is destructive. His two feet make their way across the plain. The plain is all dirt, and the occasional gust of wind sends dust whirling up and forces him to shut his eyes. Who will it be today? Dotting the plain are massive stone statues and their shadows. That one looks like a mammoth. He thinks as he passes the first. If we cannot discern between deception and belief. We would choose to believe. Not long after passing the statue that resembles a mammoth, not far from the statue that resembles a mammoth, he spots another stone statue. Not a mammoth. Not a quinkana. Not a dorudon. He stops briefly, and gazes at the statue. Having noted on the mammoth-like statue a mammoth’s tusks, short hind legs, and hump above the head, he gazes on at the statue. That’s. I think. That’s. That thing. It. The gap between the lips. It reminds me of. The concept escapes him and frustrates him. Two and one. Bearing the other. More than two. Pigeons? Next to the black statue he sees another black statue. Emily. Sunja. Caudron. Alexander. Yao. Could they live? About fifty meters away, he sees a statue smaller than the statue he has just seen. Kuesi. Clouded angelshark. Kongthong. Melody. No. The truth is, when he first walked the plain, he saw uncountable numbers of statues at once. Something. Something. Similar. Similar. To the edge of the plain. From the rightmost edge to the leftmost edge. Though his right and left turned to left and right the moment he turned, both right and left and left and right were all plains. Pierce the hole. Pierce the sky. Slowly he walks fifty meters onward, during which time two strong gusts of wind ruffle his hair. A small statue. It resembles a Neot. Though clearly smaller than the two statues he examined before, it reminds him of a Neot. Let’s look at this small Neot. He remembers that he’d set out to find something with which he could mark the Neot. He stands tall in the center of the plain. Wherever he is, he cannot keep going like this. He is anxious. He looks at his dirt-encrusted feet. Not like this. The plain stands in his way. Without walking, he returns immediately to his original place, as in truth, he had not taken a single step. He had only considered the idea. What if? He had no idea what might have happened if he had actually walked that plain, and not just in his thoughts. But he was glad that he did not. If I can’t find something to mark it. Without hesitation, he turned. And because he turned, in front of him now was the Neot. Acknowledging that he could not mark the Neot in any way, he resolved to lock his gaze on the point he would strike. 1 rhythmic slip XI lonely yet laid-back $ reverberations that fill the gaps between extremes. It was not possible to mark the Neot with any number or symbol or letter. He considered the center of the Neot. I know you too. The heart of the Neot. With his mind, he went on picturing the center of the Neot. Everything has a center and outskirts. The center of the Neot. The center of the Neot. With his mind, he pictured the center of the Neot. One. Two. Three. He went on and on and on. The first sound was in a minor key. Again, he pictured the center of the Neot. Going so far. Then he pictured the center of the Neot again on top. I swear, it’s on the tip of my tongue but the word won’t come out. In one single spot, he went on picturing the center of the Neot. The center, again and again and again. Value and quotient. Faster than everything. And finally, he saw the center of the Neot. The center he had painted on the surface with his mind was finally real before him. His heart leapt, for he had brought forth the center of the Neot. He had discovered the center of the Neot. It had emerged before him. Having exposed the center of the Neot without assistance, he nearly succumbed to ecstasy. He heard nothing. Joyfully, he punched the air. He had clenched and swung that fist countless times, and yet it somehow felt as though he had never made a fist before. Both fists were clenched. He was now more confident than ever. He stared silently at his fists, then closed his eyes. He heard no voices. When he opened his eyes and looked at the Neot again, its center was still burned into his sight. It had not disappeared. Heat shimmered around his arms. He saw his fist strike the Neot squarely in the center. Thud. He saw the Neot. Thud. Again, he swung precisely at the center of the Neot. This time with more force. Thud. He got warmer, and the heat around him shimmered even more. Thud thud. He was getting faster, he thought. Thud thud thud. He did not think he was witnessing his own power, but felt tremendous satisfaction at the act of witnessing. The more he delighted in himself, the Neot seemed to break, just a little more at a time. Sweat ran down his brow, but he did not realize it. He was elated, seized by a sense of stilted accomplishment, and the heat around him warmed him further. He heard nothing. He did not watch his actions. He did not think about himself. Thud thud. Thud thud. He was nearly reduced to his fists and the Neot, and he was breaking. The ground quaked each time his fists made thud thud contact with the Neot. Each time the ground quaked he felt himself quake. But he simply trembled with each synchronized quake. Now he could punch precisely at the center of the Neot. Each swing found its mark at the center of the Neot. He punched the center of the Neot, then punched the center of the Neot again. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Faster. Thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud a gust of wind sent dust flying into his eyes, but even as he blinked he refused to tear his eyes away. His eyes were locked on the center of the Neot. Countless repetitions later, he swung once more, and the Neot cracked. The crack emerged across the hollow core and grew instantly. Because he had swung his fists endlessly at that particular point, the center of the Neot, he witnessed clearly the moment the crack spread across the Neot. In that second, the crack extended like a bolt of lightning. One handspan, a handspan and a half, three handspans, more than three handspans and a half. The crack went on to the underside of the center. He wished he could see that moment again, for it had been so quick he could not savor it. Disappointed, he silently looked at the crack. Then he took several steps back to look again. Even from this distance, the crack was clearly visible. He looked up to gauge the potential direction of the crack. He craned his neck all the way. He found himself shutting his eyes because of the sun. It was a new day. He had punched away at the Neot all night. In the middle of the unlit plain, he had watched the center of the Neot throughout the night. He had not seen night, dawn, and morning. But he was breaking. All that mattered to him was that he had a goal, actions to take, and that there would be an outcome. With eyes shut, he stood tall before the Neot. The undersides of his eyelids were dry. Tears ran down his face. He realized that he had scarcely blinked throughout the night. Eyes sufficiently moist, he slowly opened his eyes. Before him was the Neot. The Neot he had watched all night. The center of the Neot was nowhere to be seen. What he now saw was the clear line. A line that had not been there before. The line had no color. Then he was struck by an insurmountable urge to drink water and relieve himself. He wanted to shout. It was a historic moment. He had achieved success with his own two hands alone. Although only he knew how long it had been since he’d last felt this accomplishment, he could not hold back his cry. He swallowed. Saliva kept on pooling in his mouth. He looked at the line. Once drawn, the line would not disappear. He wanted to witness his own power again. To the Neot, to the world beyond the Neot, he shouted, as though there was anyone there to hear, to watch. I made this. I made this. I made this. He was breaking. The act of witnessing his own power drove him to work without rest. The sound of himself was everything now. He swung a little harder, a little faster. Dawn broke and darkness fell and dawn broke again, on and on. Dawn broke and split and shattered and the dirt was blanketed in snow, which blanketed the statues and melted away. Streams of water ran down the statues. Stains were left behind. The statues were bathed in a red glow, then in darkness then in sparkling light. Meanwhile. Which statues resembled which and which statues were eroded by sand and which statues disappeared forever, he did not know. He did not think of the values he had never considered. To him, what was not was not, nothing more. He went on swinging his fists at the Neot, and his body grew neither cold nor hot. The cracks spread in every direction. Each traveled further than he expected. Thud thud. Thud thud. Thud thud. Uncountable nights later, he saw a hole. As he had driven his fists into the same spot over and over again, he had pictured the Neot splitting apart. It refused. He no longer thought about the Neot. The Neot was the boundary between yesterday and today. The Neot was the boundary between fear and fear. The Neot was the call of temptation and temptation itself. Soon he would see beyond the Neot and soon he would travel beyond the Neot. Nothing would stop him. With such thoughts in mind he swung his fists at the Neot without rest, then swung his fists some more, at which point he finally saw the hole. The end of the Neot. It could be nothing other than a hole in the Neot. There was no beam of light or whistling breeze, but he knew it simply had to be a hole. Rain hammered at the statues on the plain. In that moment, he could feel it, the Neot had been fully penetrated. Though unlike the moment the first crack appeared in the Neot, he felt his fist break through. He remembered clearly the sensation of his fist being stopped by the Neot. His fist would fly into the Neot with no more or less than all his power, then stop against the even greater power of the Neot. Tens of thousands of repetitions had taught him thus. Emil Cioran once said, Nescience is older and more powerful than all the gods combined. The Neot seemed rigid. The Neot seemed unyielding. The Neot seemed immense. It’s not not any of those things. He nearly lost his balance and fell. Quickly, he pulled back his fist. He had dug a sizeable cavern into the Neot. Please. Just once. Please. The fact that the base of the cavern was still blocked by the Neot had filled him with renewed determination each time. Zzbbkkiibb. But now there was a clear hole at the end of the cavern. He peered into the hole, slightly larger than his two fists. People everywhere made love. And stories. The hole was perfectly blocked. He scrutinized the blockage for an age before deciding to touch it. Gingerly, he reached toward the hole. When the tears well up, we reflexively close our eyes. He guessed at the texture of the thing he was about to touch and had a realization. He was already inside the Neot. I dig and I dig. His hands had touched the Neot countless times. With his fingertips he felt the thing blocking the hole in the Neot and realized. That his fists had never felt. Change of usage. He pulled back his hand. Stared intently at the hole. A texture. To his eyes, it looked clearly like a textile of a certain texture. Thanks for all your hard work. The texture he sensed with the tips of his fingers. He stared down at his swollen red hands. Quit talking and get back to mopping the floor. At his calloused knuckles. The temperature of the thing he touched clung to his palm. He clenched his fists. The panting of a dog running into its master’s arms. That’s. I think. That’s. A thin woolen coat. That was what it felt like. The greater the mass, the greater the friction. A low-quality woolen coat. A black coat. Although only he knew if he possessed such a coat. The mass of ancient disregard. To his eyes, it was clearly a black coat. Though he had no idea why a black coat blocked the Neot, it was clearly a black coat. I can tell from just the laugh. And if someone was wearing that coat, the coat was someone’s back. There are all sorts of twists and knots here. If he swung at that coat, it would instantly turn, swing back at him, and faces would break and blood would flow and someone might die. Why won’t you think of the kids? He stared at the coat, the thing that might be someone’s back, the thing that blacked the hole he’d given all to make. Hello? Who’s there? He almost asked, but did not. Instead, he strained his ears. Instantly, all was silent. He was still on this side of the Neot, and he still did not know who was beyond. It was quiet. With the fists he’d swung, he gave the black coat a push. It refused to budge. He reached out with both arms, heaving all his strength into his palms. It refused to budge. He placed all his weight behind his palms and pushed. The black coat did not move or turn or make a sound. He heard nothing. f*ck. What the f*ck. He shook out his arms, hopped two or three times on the spot, and spoke nonsense to himself to relieve the tension. What the f*ck. f*ck. The curses tumbled from his lips. f*ck. He clenched his fists tight. Felt his body cool. His hands even felt cold. That the Neot was wearing the same kind of coat he might have owned did not make the Neot not a Neot. It’s almost like. He no longer needed to concern himself with such things. He sensed blood in his fists. He shut his eyes. And just like before, he swung at the Neot. He heard no words. He swung at the Neot. He swung at the Neot. Clouds of dust rose into the air. He held his breath and swung. He heard nothing. He swung. The moment his fist went through without bouncing back, he opened his eyes. He strained to pull back his fist. It was stuck and refused to budge. This time, he put all his weight into the pull. The Neot’s hold on his fist was so strong that his shoulder nearly popped. He placed his soles against the Neot and lay back. He was afraid. Cold sweat ran down his body. f*ck. He screamed. He heard nothing but his own voice. He took the center of his gravity entirely off the ground. In that instant, his fist came dislodged, and he fell. His whole body ached as he lay there. He panted loudly. Looked at his dislodged fist. Though it was unharmed, he was furious. He wanted to howl. The Neot is a Neot. The Neot is a Neot. The Neot is a Neot. Inside the cavernous Neot was silence. He rose. Glared at the Neot. Before him now was a hole as big as he. He wound back and swung again, this time avoiding the point where he’d driven his fists before. Because he swung more softly than before, it slipped free easily. He whipped his fists in and out. He swung. Swung at the Neot beyond the Neot blocking his way. The Neot that had swallowed his fist again and again soon became pulp. Penetrated. So natural and quick was the process that it seemed almost like a fleeting future glimpsed long ago. In an instant, he made it through the Neot. Beheld the pulp that remained. His heart seemed to hold its breath. He clenched his fists. He heard nothing. f*ck it, what the hell. This was the end, he thought. He threw his entire weight behind one final punch at the air, driving his fist faster than it had ever flown. In that moment, he nearly fell forward. It was because he’d lunged without an iota of fear of the Neot. Therefore he nearly lost his balance. His fist hit nothing. The black coat. There was no black coat. He had reflexively shut his eyes a moment before contact and therefore had not seen when it disappeared. The beginning and end of the work. A certain singular determination, imagination, and thought. The puncture was effortless. Nothing stopped him or made demands. The thing before him. What the. He turned to face the hole through which he entered. He spat in the hole. He swung another fist at the hole. He was empty. He took a step. Passed through the hole in the Neot as though crossing a line in the dirt. The second he made it through, he whirled around. Again swung his fist. The hole was definitely there. Again, he passed through the hole. The second he made it through, he turned again. He had to see the Neot. The cavern he made, before he left through the gap. Beyond the Neot he had crossed. When he turned, he still faced the Neot and the darkness that seemed to be the hole. He was exhausted. Heard nothing. Mm. He intoned. The sound disappeared without returning to him. He took several steps back. Mm. It was silent. He thought he could see more of the Neot now. Mm. Because he stood facing the Neot, the Neot was before him. There must be a center and outskirts. He thought back yet again. The hole he made. The center of the Neot. In an instant, he crossed the darkness. With the hole in the Neot behind him, he walked forward. Quickly escaped the cavern. A dusty wind came blowing. He held his breath. On the top of his head, his shoulders, the tops of his feet, Neot. Neot. Neot. Neot. The sensation of swinging his fists tugged at his arms. Thud thud. Thud thud. He thought he could hear something. Thud, thud, thud, thud. Maybe it wasn’t a hallucination. In the darkness would be the statues. The rain had long since ceased. In the darkness, he recognized a familiar statue. Lhotse. Makalu. Manaslu. It’s a. White. Black. Of the soul. He absolutely knew of something resembling it, and that was Thuja. Forsythia. Hornbeam. Destruction. Perhaps he mixed up the statue for something else because of the darkness. More different things. Sexual. Romance. Sexual. A short distance away were slightly smaller statues. Evens and odds. A row of identically-sized statues. This is. Actively. Disintegrated. Oblivion. In the end, he could not recall its name. All he could repeat was that it resembled something. He went on. Circling around Determined, perversion, ancient, fantasy, something resembling it. Something. Something. That doesn’t exist. A more familiar statue further ahead. There was a statue that reminded him of a Neot. But now it looked nothing like a Neot, he thought. It was much too long ago. Something that was not. No such thing existed. He had succeeded in breaking the Neot, and the Neot clearly had a hole through it. When he thought of the hole in the Neot, he swelled with accomplishment and his vision seemed to clear. He wanted to see it once more. The hole in the Neot, as big as he was. The power. The drive. Without walking, he returns immediately to the Neot, as in truth, he has not taken a single step. The return journey is omitted. Without staring further at the darkness beyond the Neot, he whirls around. In an instant, the statues on the plain, the statues dotting the darkness, disappear. But before he can complete his turn, A strike. He falls. He is lying flat. Stopping him is nothing. Was not nothing. Was not nothing. Was not nothing. As though still lost among the statues, he thinks yet again in repetition. Of forgotten. Forgotten things. The smell of burning mackerel. All he knows is that it has been piercing the same point for a very long time. Perfect accuracy. Unerring aim. Vaguely, he thinks. You. His arms remember his fists. Remembers him, who was almost entirely his own fists. The push. The bend. The plain. Statues, endlessly littering the darkness. One black statue next to another. One big statue next to an even bigger statue. Statues dotting the plain. Black statues and black statues. Dark statues and even darker statues, endlessly on a ground swept by gusts of dirt. One after another. The wind ruffles his hair. His eyes are shut. He hears nothing. He can no longer escape into reality. Although only he knew what exactly he had wanted. Despair will not break. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud thud thud thud. It may not be a hallucination after all. He does not think.Translated by Slin Jung

by Yun Haeseo

Anatomical Part

Eunha’s onni sat on the edge of Eunha’s bed. She wiped Eunha’s face with a warm, wet towel. She asked if she’d had a good dream. Eunha reached out to the bedside table. She groped around the top. “Where is it?” “In the drawer,” her onni replied, wiping the corners of Eunha’s mouth clean. Eunha opened the bedside table drawer. She took out the glass bottle. She put the bottle on her chest and looked at it. “It’s scary,” Onni said as she wiped Eunha’s hands. Eunha liked all things that her onni found scary. The opposite was also true. Her onni was afraid of all things Eunha liked. Horror movies. Taking the dark alley home at night. Staring at the endless depths of the ocean while snorkeling. Bungee jumping. When the two of them were together, no one guessed that they were sisters. It took a careful look to see their common attributes. Like thick earlobes and large kneecaps, wide feet and fingernails. They only shared features that went unnoticed. Eunha was exceptionally tall while her onni was exceptionally short. Her onni had unusually large eyes while Eunha’s were unusually small. Eunha liked to wear t-shirts with skulls or motorcycle jackets with studs, while Onni liked chiffon blouses and pastel-colored trench coats. They wondered themselves how two sisters could be so different. Any time the subject came up, Onni would explain how firstborn children are socialized to be dependent while the youngest grow up more free-spirited. Eunha would nod in agreement, thinking to herself that her onni’s theory made as much sense as the blood type and personality correlations that people spouted over drinks. When Eunha proposed that they hop on a scooter and fly down to Ban Kum Waterfall, her onni said it sounded scary. Eunha liked to scare her scared onni even more. She yelled—Boo!—in the middle of a horror movie, suddenly disappeared and ducked behind a car on their walk home after dark, made the signal for shark while snorkeling, warned her about the dangers of bungee jumping while bungee jumping. Onni, scared, couldn’t laugh again until she reached the next level of fear. Eunha hit the gas and Onni wrapped her arms tight around Eunha. She laughed and pulled the throttle harder, and she hugged her tighter. The tire lost traction on the road. The scooter skidded as it fell over. Warmth spread over the top of Eunha’s foot. Onni flew into the shrubbery by the road. “What do you mean it’s scary?” Onni applied the rest of the lotion on the back of Eunha’s hand without an answer. Eunha turned her eyes back to the glass bottle. Eunha was due for a dressing change in the morning. Eunha got out of the bed and sat in the wheelchair. In front of the treatment room, her onni gave the wheelchair over to the nurse. Eunha reached out and tugged at Onni’s arm. “I’m scared,” Eunha and Onni said at the same time. Onni freed herself from Eunha’s grasp. The top of the foot was unveiled as the gauze came off one layer at a time. The toes emerged. The thumb toe was the only one intact. The second toe was cut off at the joint, the skin pulled over, and sewn up. The third toe was gone. Stitches lay like a centipede where the base of the toe would have been. The fourth and pinky toes were rotated, toenails now facing in toward the thumb toe. Each had a pin sticking out the top like a cherry stem. The stitches were as dark as a swarm of ants on an apricot pit. “Does it hurt?” the nurse asked. Her onni stood by the door as Eunha was wheeled out of the treatment room. Her eyes were bloodshot. They were puffy like Eunha’s eyes.*The early mornings began with the sound of scooters. Eunji looked outside. A few scooters were racing down the eight-lane road. This was the sound she had to live with from this time of day to the late hours of night. Wheels turning like the blades of a blender, the scooters raced down the street, ready to mow down everything in their way. Thousands of blender blades would zip along today as well. Her dongsaeng was asleep under the white, fluffy covers. She could hear her even breathing and the howls of the scooters at the same time. Eunji left the hospital room. She waited for the hospital administration office to open. The blinds went up at the window and the office door opened. The documents she needed for the insurance claim weren’t ready yet. Kanchana said firmly that the documents would be ready before Eunha was discharged. Eunji pleaded with her again to hurry. She could not have anything else go wrong. Kanchana was obviously vexed by Eunji’s visits. Eunha wasn’t able to eat dinner the night before. She said she couldn’t swallow a thing. The doctor said that she had to eat well for the bones to reattach. The cart arrived in time for breakfast, and Eunji pulled out the tray table on the bed. The kitchen worker wearing a cap passed her a meal tray. Watching the food get cold, Eunji woke up her dongsaeng. Eunha took the glass bottle out of the drawer and put it on the tray table. Looking at the glass bottle, she picked up her fork. She pushed around the macaroni in the hot peach yogurt, and licked the bit of yogurt off the fork. She said the peach yogurt tasted like cilantro. Eunji took her dongsaeng to the treatment room and went by the hospital administration office again. She bought a Wi-Fi pass, followed up on the documents she needed for insurance, and asked if there was a supermarket near the hospital. Kanchana retrieved a map from a drawer and circled a spot with a red pen. She wrote “TESCO” under the circle. With the map in her pocket, Eunji waited outside the treatment room. Through the open door came the cries of dozens of people. Dozens of nurses asked in response, “Does it hurt?” When the scooter was lifted off her dongsaeng’s foot, one of her toes was split at the end and had turned into red pulp. The other toes had been mashed. The bone was sticking out of one, and another was dangling by a tendon. Eunji took her dongsaeng back to her hospital room, crossed the lobby, and headed out of the hospital. She stood before the eight-lane road. Hundreds of scooters were flying by like arrows. Eunji took out the map and placed her finger on the circle. Far in the distance stood a huge building bearing the sign, TESCO. The pedestrian light came on. Like a kindergartener, she raised a hand to signal she was crossing and limped across the road. Among the burn and amputation patients, she couldn’t ask someone to have a look at her knee. She didn’t get a chance to tell anyone that she’d hurt her knee, either. The light turned red. Eunji stood on the midline and waited for the light to turn green again. Scooters honked at her as they passed by. Blender blades charged at her. Scooters flew past the front and back of her. Her shirt flapped against her. The scooters weaved acrobatically ahead to pass one another. They were all charging ahead wearing flipflops like the ones her dongsaeng had been wearing. ‘Sickening.’ She pictured all of them falling over and all of their feet being ground up like her dongsaeng’s. Eunji shut her eyes tight and opened them again. Restaurants were lined up in a row at the food court. The Italian restaurant smelled like tom yum goong. The Chinese restaurant smelled like tom yum goong. All the dishes in all the restaurants bore a whiff of tom yum goong. Eunji found a Japanese restaurant that did not smell like tom yum goong, but it was an udon place for vegetarians. Her dongsaeng needed to eat meat. She needed protein to recover. The udon restaurant owner said that there was a sushi place in another building nearby. Eunji thought sushi might work. The sushi chef opened the refrigerator. He got out a large bundle wrapped in cloth. The cloth was pulled back one layer at a time to reveal a chunk of flesh. He placed it on the cutting board. The sharp blade cut smoothly into the soft flesh. Lining up the pieces of flesh on the cutting board, the chef said with a broad smile that he specially cut them into thick slices. When she returned to the hospital room with a shopping bag, Eunha was hunched over, staring into the glass bottle. Eunji asked her to put it away at least for meals, but she did not respond. She produced the sushi from the shopping bag. Eunha put a piece in her mouth and chewed. She kept chewing and didn’t swallow. She ate two pieces and said she couldn’t eat anymore. Eunji peeled the fish off the rice. She encouraged her to at least eat the balls of rice. Dongsaeng ate a few of them saying she could smell the raw fish on them. Eunji called the insurance agency. They said that the policy might not cover scooter accidents. She called the airline. She confirmed her standby tickets had been booked, and requested wheelchair service. She called a clinic in Korea specializing in reattaching digits. She begged for them to move up the appointment date. She called the credit card company and asked if she could have her credit line increased. She received a message that her cell phone roaming charge had exceeded one million won.*It felt as though someone was pulling out Eunha’s toenail and turning it over. Eunji was asleep on the sofa. Eunha picked up the bottled water and painkillers. She swallowed four tablets of Tylenol. She had to take Tylenol every three hours. That was thirty-two tablets per day. The nurse flat out denied that there was any such thing as a morphine drip in Thailand. Two cups of water with three tablets of Tylenol was pretty filling. Her fever went up and down and she felt sick to her stomach all day long. When she tried to sit up, all the blood in her body shot toward her foot. She lay flat on her back and drew her knees up. She craned her neck and looked through the space between her knees down at her foot. The foot was bandaged, but she could feel the wet alcohol-soaked cotton balls between her toes. It felt as if dozens of tiny needles were being driven under her nonexistent toenail and suddenly ripping it out. Eunha held her breath. The pain was palpable, but the toe was gone. Eunha reached over and groped around for the bottle. Her onni had put it away in the drawer again. She never touched the bottle directly without wrapping it with a towel or tissue paper first. Like someone afraid of making direct contact with a bug as they try to pick it up, she held the bottle by the tips of her fingers and put it away in the drawer. Eunha wrapped both hands around the bottle. She stared hard at it. The bottle contained something ambiguous. It was not as important as a finger or as unimportant as a hair. The pain came like a door bursting open and disappeared like a door slamming shut. The memories of that moment worked in the same way. Each time the phantom pain came over her, she had to look at the bottle to convince herself that the toe was no longer there. When Eunha woke up, she was laying in the dark recovery room waiting for the door to open. The door opened, white light poured in, and a nurse came over to her. She put something in Eunha’s hand. It was a glass bottle with Eunha’s toe floating in it. Her onni came in. She had long blades of grass in her hair. “They cut it off.” She held up the bottle for her onni to see. Her white T-shirt stained with mud, grass, and drops of blood read I LOVE THAILAND. “Why are you giving this back?” Eunji asked the Thai nurse. The nurse, who was pushing the bed, stopped to gather her hands together in prayer and said, “Because it is part of your body that god gave you. Here, we give removed body parts back to the patient.” The physical therapists picked out a pair of crutches. Eunha tucked the crutches under her armpits and tried walking one step at a time. The armpits quickly ached when she put her weight on them, and her wrists hurt when she pressed on the grips. The physical therapist explained that not letting the muscles turn stiff was just as important as the bones reattaching. She warned that Eunha might end up with a limp if her muscles hardened.*Eunji bought rolls of bandages at the drugstore. She wrapped the bandages around the grips of the crutches. Eunha said that her hands still hurt. Eunji took out sanitary pads from her backpack. She wrapped one on each of the grips and armpit rests on the crutches and bandaged them up again. Eunha clapped. She laughed to think what they would say if airport security asked what they were hiding in the crutches. This was the first Eunji and her dongsaeng chuckled together in a long time. Eunji took her dongsaeng to sit out in the hallway while the cleaning staff cleaned the room. Eunha practiced walking on her crutches. She said that her phantom pain occurred less frequently now. The cleaning staff came to the door holding up a bar of soap and asked if they wanted to toss it. Eunji and her dongsaeng shook their heads at the same time. The cleaning staff held up a broken hair tie and asked if they wanted to toss it. Eunji and her dongsaeng nodded at the same time. They shook and nodded their heads at the same time. The cleaning staff returned with the glass bottle. Eunji nodded. Dongsaeng shook her head. Temperatures hovered above 30 degrees centigrade outside. The toe in the bottle expanded. The details became clearer as if seen through a magnifying glass. Little bits of skin came off the surface of the amputated toe and floated in the bottle.*As Eunji said, she couldn’t bring it home with her and display it like a souvenir. Still, she couldn’t throw it in the trash as she would a snapped hair tie. Eunha held the bottle up in her sister’s face. Eunji turned away. Eunha glared at her. Her onni glared back. Her eyes turned red around the edges. On the television, a close-up drone camera shot of a beach filled the screen. Yellow parasols stood in a row on the sandy beach and colorful canoes floated in the water. The shot continued as the drone flew over the canopies of palm trees and dove deep into the jungle. A praying mantis snatched up a katydid eating a snail. The praying mantis held the katydid with its front legs and tore into the katydid tail first. Its abdomen gone and half its thorax ripped out, the katydid continued to eat the snail with unwavering focus. More developed organisms have more delicate senses, and mental faculties based in cognition and intuition are crucial, said the voiceover. The katydid’s lack of sensitivity was characteristic of an inferior organism, the voiceover added. The katydid reminded Eunha of her onni; she only focused on the facts in front of her. The whole time as they watched the documentary, followed by a tourist attraction advertisem*nt, and then a TV drama, Eunha and her onni kept their distance like boxers circling each other in a ring.*Each time Eunha left the hospital room to see the doctor, she grabbed the glass bottle along with the crutches. Everywhere she went, she wanted to get up off the wheelchair and practice walking, and she wanted to look at the toe. The sizzling asphalt was cooling. Eunji got off the bench. She walked along the line between the road and the adjacent field. A pack of stray dogs roamed the field. Their backbones were poking out under the skin and their tongues hung out of their mouths. They saw Eunji and barked at her. She kept her head down and walked on, one foot on the field and the other on the road. She looked back each time she heard a scooter coming up. ‘It’s scary.’ There were scary things that needed to be done and scary things that needed to be avoided. Her dongsaeng could not tell the difference between the two. Eunji thought her dongsaeng was like the katydid: blinded by the impulse of the moment, she could not think of the possible consequences. This scared Eunji. She was scared of her dongsaeng’s inability to sympathize with others’ fears. Eunji shook her head and clenched her fists. When she thought of that day, she was reminded of the bottle, and the sight of the bottle brought back images from that day. Eunji went into a shoe store. She looked back and forth between a pair of pastel canvas shoes and vintage washed canvas shoes. She chose a bright white pair of canvas shoes.*The bottle left a ring of water on the table. The fluid was starting to leak. Eunha carried the bottle into the bathroom in the palm of her hand. She opened the top. The skin of the toe was in tatters, bloodless and dark. Veins spilled out of the severed section like noodles from a spring roll. Eunha moved the toe into a cup they had used for rinsing after brushing teeth. She filled the cup at the tap. The toe swam in the swirl of water. Eunha was glad to see her toe move, if only in the water.*Eunji filled the tub. She stirred in shower gel to make a bubble bath. She brought a chair into the bathroom and sat her dongsaeng in it. She slowly helped Dongsaeng lower herself into the tub and lie back. She washed her hair and wiped her down all over. Streaks of grime flowed down her body. She squeezed toothpaste onto a toothbrush and put it in her dongsaeng’s hand. She turned the tap and picked up the rinsing cup. Eunji screamed and threw the cup. The cup fell on the bathroom floor. The toe rolled away. Eunha reached out from the tub and strained to reach the toe. Eunji dried off her dongsaeng and dried her hair with a dryer. Eunha sat in willful silence. Eunji took out the canvas shoes and put one on the uninjured foot. She got two bottles of yogurt drinks from the refrigerator, put one in front of Eunha, and drank the other. Dongsaeng poured her yogurt drink down the drain. She rinsed the bottle with water. She put the toe in the bottle. She stretched a plastic bag taut over the rim and sealed it with a rubber band. The yogurt bottle read SWEET PU! PU! Under the writing was a cartoon red panda in relief drinking yogurt. Behind the winking red panda, the toe floated. Eunji turned on her cell phone and pulled up the calculator. She calculated the cost of the hospital bill to date, the plane ticket, and the physical therapy her dongsaeng would need over and over. She had already made up her mind to sell the car when she returned to Korea. She would have to take the bus and transfer twice on the subway to get to work by public transportation. She would have to get up an hour early and go to bed an hour late. She would not be able to drive anyway. The image of her flying into the shrubbery at the side of the road would replay every time she hit the gas. Eunji wanted to protect her dongsaeng, and Dongsaeng wanted to protect the bottle.*Eunha watched as her onni made a list of things to throw away. She took inventory of the contents of the backpack and checked each item. She put the throw pile at the foot of the sofa and lined up the things she would pack in front of the backpack. In order to carry the backpack and push the wheelchair, she needed to consolidate their things down to one bag. Looking at the objects lined up by the backpack, Eunha wondered if she should add the bottle to the ranks. The passports were placed right by the bag. Next to them were a pair of underwear and socks folded neatly in a zipper bag. The chargers were tied together with a rubber band. The “Emergencies” chapter of the Thai conversation book was cut out and held together with a paper clip. “What are you going to do with that?” Eunji asked, pointing at the bottle. Eunha squeezed it tight in her hand. “It’s my body.” “No, it’s an anatomical part.” “Does this look like a piece of flesh to you? Like sashimi?” “Does it not look like a piece of flesh to you?” Eunji squatted and returned to packing. She wasn’t willing at the moment to accept that some things could not be thought of in terms of utility. “Can’t you think of it as a souvenir?” Eunji was about to put a bundle of Tylenol boxes in the bag when she stopped and looked over at Eunha. “You’re taking it home as a trophy.” Eunha thought of a bull with spears stuck in its body like a sea urchin. The bull fighter would unsheath a long blade and drive it in one breath right between the bull’s eyes. When the bull fell, the bull fighter would cut off its ears and tail. They were his trophy. Eunha thought of the people in black-and-white photographs posing proudly with the heads of enemies they’d decapitated with scythes. The thought of the horrifying severed heads and the even more horrifying joy in the smiles. Eunha shook her head. “I’m taking it with me.” “And then what are you going to do with it?” Eunha didn’t know what to do with it. Or what to do with herself without a toe. “I’m taking it with me.”*Kanchana said she would give her the documents after the bill was settled. Eunji passed her credit card to her. The credit card was maxed out and declined. She gave her another card. This too was maxed out and declined. Eunji called the credit card company. She raised the limit as high as it would go. The concern in Kanchana’s eyes finally dissolved into a smile. She put the hospitalization record and documents for the insurance company in a clear folder and passed it to Eunji. Eunji smiled as well. Kanchana gathered her hands together and bowed at Eunji. Eunji did the same. “Khop khun kha.” This was the phrase Eunji said the most during her time at the hospital. Eunji returned to Eunha’s hospital room. She put her backpack on. She pushed her dongsaeng’s wheelchair. Eunha had just been wheeled out into the hallway when she looked back. Eunji fetched the crutches leaning by the bed and passed them to her dongsaeng, who hugged them with both hands. Kanchana and the nurses were waiting in the lobby to see them off. Residential areas fell away as the taxi got up onto an overpass and an open road appeared before them. Billboards bearing resort ads appeared from time to time as they passed through the outskirts of the city. Eunha felt around in her pockets. “I forgot my toe.” Dongsaeng insisted they go back for it. Eunji checked the time. They would miss their flight if they went back. If they missed their flight, they would miss the appointment at the digit reattachment specialist and the podiatry clinic at the university hospital. They would have to get another appointment and buy new plane tickets. If there were no seats available, they might not be able to return for a few weeks.*“One point fourteen million won for the plane tickets, 470,000 won a day for the hospital room, food, and treatment. That is the cost of going back for your toe.”Eunha watched as the number on the cab meter climbed fast. “And it’s not just 1.61 million. 1.14 million for the plane ticket you wasted. Another 1.14 million for the new tickets. If there are no seats, we’ll have to stay for at least three days. International roaming fees for booking a flight and a spot at the hospital will be 200,000 at the very least. Ten thousand a day for udon and snacks.” The numbers that Onni listed implored on her behalf. “Five thousand per day for Wi-Fi. Forty thousand for roundtrip cab fare. A total of 3,975,000 won. It’s 485,000 won for every extra day we are here. Do you have 4 million won? Is that toe worth 4 million to you?” Eunha thought about how her onni said many times over that she was scared. Fear was a sort of desire, too. The desire to avoid damage costs. She thought of the toe that her onni was so afraid of. For the first time, she guessed at the price of that bottle. How much value could be assigned to a body part that one could not use? She thought about the price of the second toe that was half gone and the thumb toe that was fully attached. If it was Eunji’s toe in the bottle, would Eunji have gone back for it? She would have left it. If it was Eunha’s heart in the bottle, would Eunji have gone back for it? Probably yes. If it was Eunji’s heart in the bottle, would Eunha have gone back for it? Four million won was a huge sum that would take Eunha three months of working eight hours a day to earn. It was more money than Eunha ever had at one time. Even so, she would not have given up her onni’s heart for it. What if it was Eunji’s toe in the bottle? Eunha couldn’t say. How was a heart different from a toe? When they returned to Korea, Eunji would get pedicures once in a while on her pretty, intact toes and toenails. Once a month, she would pay 40,000 won to get her feet done. The cost of Eunha getting her toe back was tantamount to her onni getting her feet done for the next eight years and change. Each of their pleas was a desire to protect what was theirs. A plea was a desire of sorts. Each of their pleas would only resonate within themselves. Eunha became scared of the pleas. No. She was scared of the plea trapped in the bottle. The isolation of a plea was the scariest of all.*In the end, Eunji had the cab driver turn back. The hospital room had been cleaned out already. Eunji went to the cleaning staff. She was directed to a large bag containing all the trash from the countless hospital rooms. Eunji went through the trash. Among the bandages stained with blood and pus, used toilet paper, and a disposable plate with food still clinging to it, Eunji found the bottle. Eunji and her dongsaeng stayed near the hospital for another four days. Eunji did not put the bottle away in a drawer. Dongsaeng ate dutifully. Upon arriving at Incheon Airport, Eunji took out the hooded jacket from the bag and helped her dongsaeng put it on. She placed the bag through the baggage scanner. “Please open your bag.” The security check agent ordered her to take out the bottle. Pointing at the bandaged foot and then the bottle wrapped in a towel, Eunha said, “It’s my toe.” “May I see the embalming documentation, please?” Eunha said that it was not embalmed. The security screening agent informed them that it was a violation of quarantine law to enter the country with an anatomical part that was not embalmed. Eunji asked what she had to do to get her bottle back. “It will be registered as an infectious biohazard waste and incinerated by a specialized waste disposal company.” The agent handed her a waiver form.Translated by Jamie Chang

by Lim Solah

Low Resolution

pixelWinter was fading away. Following nature’scourse. Little by little, winter was fading away. Little by little, the days grew longer,allowing me to witness the sunset from start to finish on my way back fromwork. The scenery outside the subway window shifted rapidly before fading away.It faded away, but I, watching it fade away, did not. Far out into thedistance. My gaze remained locked, the sun now about to fade away from mylocked gaze. Following nature’s course. The sun slowly faded away.pixelFortunately, everyone at the office seemed tohave lunch on their own. I usually chose to spend my lunch breaks alone at acoffee shop. The coffee shop I frequented the most was only a short distancefrom the office. On some days I brought my own lunch to the office, but Iusually just preferred grabbing a small bite to eat such as a pastry with acoffee. Since I spent so much time at the coffee shop, I would occasionally seepeople waiting for someone there. These people who had been waiting for someonewould then turn into people meeting up with someone.pixelA rendezvous. Waiting. One person meetsanother. Two people meet, but I have never met you. You told me that you workedas an app developer at a company nearby. This happy coincidence made us feelcloser, but were we really close? We often said that we should make time to seeeach other but never did. As things are, it seems unlikely we’ll ever see eachother. I don’t know the reason why you deleted your Twitter account sosuddenly. We exchanged a lot of messages with each other before your accountwas deleted.pixelYou said that you went for coffee every dayduring lunch at a coffee shop near your office. You said that drinking a lot ofcoffee did not interfere with your sleep at night. But you didn’t need muchsleep to begin with. You have a driver’s license, but you don’t own a carbecause you prefer riding the bicycle. You once learned how to swim. You’rerelatively healthy, but you were born with a weak heart. As a matter of fact,your grandfather died from a heart attack. You’ve been on a pilgrimage toJerusalem and you were pickpocketed on a trip to Europe. [. . .] You likereading books, and also occasionally enjoy going to the theater by yourselfafter work. You don’t mind being single. You enjoy spending time alone. Youtold me that people at your office spend the entire day staring at theircomputer. You told me that not much talking happened there. You told me thattyping and clicking sounds filled the silence instead. You were content withyour job. If you were telling the truth, that is. Although I knew a lot aboutyou, I neither knew your name, your gender, your age, your face, nor yourvoice. I didn’t even know your contact information.pixelI once told you about P. I was comfortabledoing so since you didn’t know P. I knew that you and P wouldn’t be crossingpaths. P and I had nothing to say to each other at all. We would meet everyweek to eat, have drinks, and sleep together, but nothing else happened betweenus. I’m not even sure whether P really loved me or not, but that is of littleimportance now. Meeting P taught me two things. That a conversation is morethan a mere exchange of words, and that what I need isn’t a lover as much assomeone who I can have real conversations with. As it turns out, I feel love throughlanguage.pixelIt occurred to me that I might bump into P bychance someday. On the street, at a restaurant, or in the subway. I tried toimagine our chance encounter. It seemed fair to assume such a thing mighthappen one day. If I ever met P by chance, if that day really did come, I washoping we would just pass each other by. I was hoping that I wouldn’t recognizeP at all. Yes, that would be best. I wished that I would no longer be able torecognize P by then. Like we’d never met to begin with, as if we were total strangers.I was hoping that we would have become too old to recognize each other—that wewould have grown so completely distant that I wouldn’t even be able to recallP’s face.pixelIconjure up a distant memory of your face.ForeheadEyebrow EyebrowEar Eye Eye EarNoseMouthpixelDid I ever call you by your name? In a lovingmanner. Did I ever call you in such a way? I couldn’t remember your name. Icould only remember your face and whatever little time we spent together. Therewas no way for me to find you. I had no clues to fall back on. It wasimpossible for me to find you without your name. How could I forget your name?Perhaps it had been too long. Back when you were little, I was little as well.Your face came to replace your name for as far as I can remember.pixelA little one who never even had a name, and alittle one whose name I can’t remember. I used to have two little siblings. Oneof them died before being born, and the other had their adoption revoked.Although I don’t know the name of the one who died, I know they existed.Although I don’t know the name of the other one whose adoption was revoked, Iknow they existed. If I can call them so, then I’m quite sure I used to havetwo little siblings.pixelI don’t know my dead sibling’s face. It’sbecause I never got to see them. They never had a single photo taken of them.But that doesn’t mean they didn’t have a face. Once their heart formed andblood began flowing through them, things like their ears, eyes, mouth, and nosewould have started to take shape. From some moment on, they would have hadsmall holes destined to become ears and small spots destined to become eyes. Asthey began to move, they would have developed their sense of touch. As they beganto feel things, their facial features would have become increasinglywell-defined. they would havegrown fingers and toes, and their tail would have disappeared altogether. Itwouldn’t have taken long before they grew to the size of an adult hand. Theirfate would be determined with the formation of their genitals. As theircerebrum developed, they would have begun to think and remember things. Bythen, they would have been able to feel anger and sorrow, although theywouldn’t have known what they were called. Once they had a face, they wouldhave been able to smile and frown. Although they wouldn’t have known themeaning of love, they would have been able to feel it. Even without knowing anywords, they would have been able to feel all kinds of sensations and emotions.Little by little, their reddish skin would have darkened and become thicker asthey began to sense the world around them.pixelThey died suddenly one day. Their bones andflesh, their blood, their heart and stomach, their liver and spleen, theirappendix, their brain, their forehead, their eyebrows, their eyelashes, theireyes, their mouth, their lips, their nose and their nostrils, their ears andtheir ear canals, their hands and their fingers, their feet and their toes,their soft hair, their muscles, their nerves, their emotions, their shortmemories—all of these things which once belonged to them before dying. Icould’ve seen their face had they been born and not died. I could’ve seen theirface change with age as they grew up. Instead, they were labeled as “infectiouswaste” and disposed of in accordance with the law.pixelI found myself alone for a while. I grew up,began to walk, and learned to talk. You showed up at our house just when Istarted talking. You’re a big sibling now. You became my little sibling that day.Although you didn’t know how to speak yet, you could make sounds to expressyour hunger or your dissatisfaction. You could also burp, sneeze, and smile atme. You lived with us for close to a month. Sometimes you sat on the bedstaring blankly at me. Was there something you wanted to tell me?pixelThere’s something I’ve been meaning to tellyou. Although you may not remember me, I have always remembered you. A lot hashappened at home since you returned to the arms of your grandmother and yourmother. Our family isn’t as well off as it used to be. I no longer live at thehouse where you and I used to live. Whenever we downsized to a smaller home,and when fights between my parents grew more frequent, and when red stickersappeared on our electrical appliances and furniture indicating they were to be seized,and as my personal space kept shrinking, I thought about you. I was glad youdidn’t have to go through any of that. Had you not left—or rather, had you notbeen returned—we would have gone through all these things together. I’m glad Iwas the only one subjected to this kind of life. Mom left. Dad stayed behind,and I watched him fall apart bit by bit. I’m really glad you weren’t there tosee that. But I always longed to see you. Although you probably don’t rememberme, you could have been my little sibling.pixelThey must be grown up by now and are nolonger a child. They must no longer have the face of a child. They used to havea wide and round forehead. Maybe. From what I remember, their face was roundbut their cheeks were not very plump. I think they had thick lips and a deepgroove under their nose. I’m not sure. I don’t remember well. But they did havea sharp nose. I can recall that clearly. No, I’m actually not even sure. Iremember their nose being sharp, but I’m not sure if it was sharp enough to be calledsharp. Although they may not have had a very sharp nose, it would also be wrongto say that they had a flat nose. They had very big eyes as well. Yes, Iremember their faint double eyelids. Their eyes were undeniably big. I rememberthose eyes vividly.pixelYou left a lasting impression on me. Althoughyou were smaller than me, your eyes were bigger than mine. Although your eyeswere very big, they were more than just that. Your eyes sparkled. They glowedbrightly like little marbles, like gems. They were moist. [. . .] kind and innocent. They were pure. Theywere pretty. They were beautiful. But they were more than just beautiful.Although I could remember your eyes, I couldn’t find the right words todescribe them. It was a nearly impossible task. I could try. I could make theeffort. But the more I described them, or the more I tried to describe them,the more I damaged them. I tried not to talk about you to prevent my words fromerasing what was left of your face.pixelI was removing water. Water removal was acumbersome task. When photoshoots involved spraying water on a product, it wasalmost impossible to achieve the client’s desired outcome no matter how manytimes I tried. That’s because I had no control over the direction or the anglein which the water would go, and because the brand logo would sometimes getcovered in water. When this happened, I would take a photo of the productseparately and merge it with another photo of the product with water sprayedonto it to create the final image. I was removing and altering the water’sshape to create a beautiful image that would include the brand logo while alsocapturing the moment when the water came into contact with the product. Iadjusted the opacity, removed some water droplets, and added new waterdroplets, droplets, and droplets. When combining two photos together, it wasvital to achieve a seamless result.pixelSummer was very hot this year, but winter wasalso very cold. Contrary to nature’s course. Paradoxically, the fact thatwinters have been getting colder serves as evidence that the Earth is graduallygetting warmer. The melting of glaciers driven by global warming is said tohave caused cold air from the North Pole to sweep across East Asia. Polar bearsare losing their habitat and dying. Polar bears are disappearing. Disappearingfast. One animal has disappeared even faster than polar bears. The Bramble Caymelomys. This small rodent was driven to extinction by rising sea levels.Although I’ve never seen one in real life, I could see them everywhere.Although I’ve never seen one in real life, I knew that they disappeared.pixelI don’t think I would’ve minded had you usedmy stuff without asking me. Even if you had eaten ice cream that I bought formyself without asking me, or used one of my handbags without asking me, orborrowed my clothes without asking me—and even if we would have fought over whyyou did that—I don’t think I would’ve minded. If you got hit by another kid, Iwould have stood up for you and taught them a lesson. Even though I’ve neverfought with anyone in my life, I would have been willing to do it again and againfor you. I would’ve gotten medicine for you when you were sick and taken you tothe hospital when you hurt yourself. I would’ve slept next to you on nightswhen you had a nightmare and were scared, hugged you when you cried, andthought about something to make you laugh while making the silliest face in theworld when you felt depressed. To cherish dearly. I wished to know what that meant. I alsowanted to capture your entire childhood on camera, and yet I don’t even have asingle photo of you.pixelI didn’t keep a single photo of P. I tried mybest to erase every memory, every trace, and every thought of P. But my effortsto completely erase P felt contrived. There was nothing I could be forced toerase. Not that I remember. Attempting to completely erase something made merealize it was impossible to completely erase something. Memories, traces,thoughts. Only time could erase and cause them to fade away. The natural way toerase something was to let it gradually fade away. Trying to speed up the processby erasing something that was meant to gradually fade away, or attempting tohold on to something that was meant to fade away on its own someday. I was likea human trying to interfere with the course of nature.pixelYou said you liked computers. You said thatcomputers didn’t do anything unpredictable or irrational. You said that youunderstood computers. Cause and effect. You said that computers were alwaysright and never left you feeling bewildered and frustrated. You said thatnothing about computers ever happened merely by chance, accidentally, or for noreason. You said that computer programs were not complicated. Or that, yes,they could be complicated—but that their level of complexity paled incomparison to humans. You said that the complexity of humans often left youfeeling bewildered and frustrated.pixelI went into the App Store every now and thento search for Griffin. Up until your account was deleted, I knew you’d beenworking to develop a photo application called Griffin. You said that Griffinwould not only allow people to retouch their faces, but that it would also havea feature making it possible to seamlessly erase anyone from a photo. You saidthat, for example, users could use this feature to erase people appearing inthe background of a selfie. You said that it would also make it possible to erasea specific person from a group picture. In contrast to Photoshop, whichrequired editing photos after they had already been taken, this applicationwould allow users to make anyone disappear the moment they took a photo. Youwere working to develop disappearance.pixel0000101000000010 0100010 0 0 011 1 11 1 10010 01000010100pixelI looked at a photo of P. Although part of mewanted to forget what they looked like altogether, I would add him back to my kakaoTalk contact list to look at theirface every once in a while. I couldn’t help it. But the face in the photoappeared both like the one I knew and one that I didn’t know. Their face seemedto have changed, but also seemed not to have changed. The more I looked at thephoto, the more familiar they looked, and the more unfamiliar they looked. If Istared long enough, it would feel like I both had and yet hadn’t grown distantfrom the face I remembered. There are countless ways a photo can distort aperson’s face, though. I knew this better than anyone because my work involvedretouching and editing photos. And yet, I still couldn’t take my eyes off thephoto. I formed a new impression of him that fell somewhere between the face Iremembered and the one in the photo.pixelI was waiting to receive another message fromyou. I waited and waited. Perhaps I wasn’t waiting for you as much as I waswaiting for the message. You were already a message in and of yourself. Amessage which aroused feelings in me. But could I really have harbored feelingsfor someone whose name, gender, age, face, and voice I didn’t know? Although Ididn’t think it made any sense, I continued waiting. I waited and waited.Perhaps it was all P’s fault. Perhaps I wanted to talk to you about things I didn’tget to tell P or find in you what P couldn’t give me. Linking your message tohis image. I waited for your message to create—and love—someone who didn’tactually exist.pixelPeople at the office began playing aroundwith an AI chatbot as a way to kill time. It wasn’t long before it became atrend. “Did you have lunch?” “It said it had kimchi-jjigae for lunch today.”“It’s asking me why I’m asking that kind of question.” People reacted to thethings the program said. People looked a little more excited than usual. Theysaid that the more people used the program and the more they interacted withit, the more the program would be able to learn, and the more fluent it wouldsound. Just like a human, AI learns by copying the behavior and language ofothers. If it was exposed to bad words, it would use bad language, and if itwas exposed to pretty words, it would use pretty language. Listening andspeaking were one and the same. I looked at the chat window to see what theprogram was saying.pixelI sendyoua digitalmessage.You speakto me intext.texttext text text text text text text text textYour faceand body aremade of text.Yourthoughts and personality are made of text.Your mindproduces a softskin.texttext text text text text text text textYou arean organism made of text.Usingnothing but text I candrawand recallyour face.I canimagine your eyes, nose, and mouth.pixelIt was supposed to be the last snow of thewinter according to the weather forecast. The snow fell with such intensitythat it blanketed the whole world. It finally came to a stop after the sunreached its zenith. I stepped on the snow and slowly made my way to the coffeeshop. A cat—or a dog—had left some pawprints in the snow. Shoeprints. Therewere still visible traces of someone’s passage here and there. Store ownerscame out during lunch time to clear up the snow piled up on the sidewalks.Someone was sprinkling salt on a steep road. A small snowman, a tiny littlesnowman, a snowman the size of a person, a dirty snowman, an uneven snowman, anugly snowman [. . .] a snowman with rocks for eyes, a snowman with eyebrows. Ihad no idea who made them, but there were all sorts of snowmen in front of myoffice building. Those who cleared the snow did not clear away the snowmen.pixelAnyone can build a snowman, it’s easy. Youjust have to roll up some snow into two big balls and stack one of them on topof the other. Then, you can use tree branches and small rocks to create itsface. It just needs a pair of eyes, a nose, and a mouth to be a person. If it’stoo much trouble, you can just give it some eyes. But make sure you don’t justgive it a nose or a mouth. It needs eyes to be a person. It wouldn’t be asnowman without eyes.pixelYouknow there’s a meeting tomorrow, right?I’llneed the file before the end of the day!Youknow there’s a meeting tomorrow, right?I’llneed the file before the end of the day. :)Youknow there’s a meeting tomorrow, right?I’ll need the file before the end of the day.^^Indeed,nothing is more important than eyes.pixelI would think of you whenever I saw someonewith big eyes. You had big eyes when you were little, so you must still havebig eyes today. I’m sure we must have seen each other at least once before.Although we bumped into each other, we must have simply walked on withoutrecognizing each other. Back when I was in university, I worked part-time at acoffee shop around Sinchon Station, and given how crowded it was, I wouldn’t besurprised if you visited once. I take the subway every day, and given how crowdedit is, I wouldn’t be surprised if we got on the same subway once. Couldn’t youhave been one of the people I bumped shoulders with on an overcrowded train?Couldn’t we have once been sittinginside the same screening room at the movie theater? Couldn’t we once havebumped into each other on the streets of Hongdae, Sinchon, Jongno, Myeongdong,Itaewon, Sinsa, or Gangnam by chance? And if we haven’t yet, if we keep walkingthese streets, isn’t there a chance we might bump into each other? Although Iwon’t be able to recognize your face, and you won’t remember me at all, I wouldlike to see you again once.pixelBut we’re better off never seeing each other.Even if we were given the chance, it would be better not to. If you don’t haveany memory of me, then it’s better to keep it that way. I probably don’t existfor you. I feel strange when I think about that. I most likely don’t exist inyour memory. Your grandmother and your mother came looking for you again, andyou went back with them. Had you not gone back with them, you would’ve becomemy most beloved little sibling. When people ask me if I have a sibling, I tellthem I don’t have one, all the while thinking about you. I will keep thinkingabout you when I say that I don’t have a little sibling.pixelI went out to buy some diapers for you. I wasreally young myself. I must’ve been four or five. It was the first and lasttime I would ever buy baby diapers. I did as Mom told me and went to thesupermarket to buy diapers. I was worried that I would buy the wrong diapers ormess something up. But I did my best to keep my cool. I walked out of thesupermarket with your diapers, but you have no idea how heavy they were. Igroaned as I carried the pack of diapers which was nearly as big as me. I hadto drag it a few times, but I remember doing my best not to let it touch theground. Passing by a factory, a vacant lot, and residential buildings, I keptmy eyes on our house far in the distance. Knowing that you were in that house,I walked with all my might. I was filled with a sense of responsibility. Ireminded myself that I had to take these diapers home no matter what. That Ihad to do this for you. You’re my little sibling. You’re my littlesibling. We look nothing alike, but you’re still my little sibling. I walked home to you whilereminding myself of this. I came to rely on you. I managed to walk back homebecause you were there.pixelAlthough I really wanted to see you, and Ipromised to see you again one day, I couldn’t bring myself to reach out to you.Had we wanted to, we could’ve met at any time since we were so close. Icould’ve walked over to go see you, or you could’ve walked over to come see me.But in the end, we never did meet. We didn’t get to meet. And yet, I was stillmeeting all sorts of people every day. Are you among the people I came acrosson the subway after work? People who went down the stairs to the subway stationand vanished from my sight. The subway station seemed to swallow them up.pixelI’mlooking for a face I don’t know. 人 入 人 入 人 入 人FOREHEADEAR EYEEYE EARNOSEMOUTHA womanwith short bangs walks into the subway station.A manwith a beard walks into the subway station.FOREHEADEAR EYEEYE EARNOSE人 入 人 入 人 入 人MOUTH人 入 人 入 人 You’reeither one of the two or neither of the two.You’reeither a woman, a man, both, or neither.You’reeither older, younger, or the same age as me.Youhave a name that I don’t know.pixelI went back into the App Store. It was theonly way I could look for you. When the application was released, I would beable to learn the names of the developer or the members of the developmentteam. If I was lucky, I might even get to know your contact information.However, even if I did, I wouldn’t be able to contact you. I wasn’t thinkingabout contacting you. In reality, your contact information wasn’t all thatimportant. Perhaps, I just wanted to see Griffin. I wanted to see the Griffinlogo, check out the Griffin features, and download the Griffin application.No—in reality, Griffin wasn’t all that important. Perhaps, I just wantedGriffin to appear in the search results when I searched for it. That’s all Iwanted. That’s really all it was. Because you were working to develop atechnology that could make anything inside a picture disappear the moment itwas taken. Because you worked on developing Griffin. If you really did exist,then Griffin would one day be released. If you truly did exist, if you trulydid exist. I made sure to get each consonant and vowel right as I typed awaythe letters on the keyboard—G, R, I, F, F, I, N.pixelI wanted to tell you about it one day. Simplybecause, for no particular reason, just once. That I used to have a littlesibling as well. Or rather, that there once was a little one who could havebecome my little sibling. You always paid attention to me when I talked. Icould have spoken to you about the things I couldn’t tell P. Although it wasall behind me now, I struggled through so many things on my own. I desperatelyneeded someone to fall back on. My father fell back on alcohol, but I hadnothing to fall back on. I was worried that saying I was lonely would actuallymake me lonely, so the word lonely disappeared from my vocabulary. But I feltlike you were someone I could say anything to. Without the need to be logicalor to make any sense. I could talk to you about my little sibling, and eventell you all the things I wanted to tell them. Up until your account gotdeleted, I had felt as though I could have told you anything.pixelNo one thought it strange when the snowmelted and disappeared without leaving a trace. Even though the snowmen haddisappeared, no one went looking for them. It was only natural for snow to meltwith the rising temperature. If snow melted, snowmen would naturally melt anddisappear, too. Their gradual disappearance was only natural. I have beenworking around here for the past three years, and as I walk these streets everyday, I have witnessed them change little by little. Life went on. Without snow.Life went on. Even without snow. Today, too, I think about coffee. Wanting todrink coffee, I walk and walk.pixelNice to see you again. It was the first timethe coffee shop employee addressed me. Although I didn’t know their name, andthey didn’t know mine, we exchanged a few brief words. The coffee shop employeehad big eyes. They caught my attention the first time I came here. The one whocould have become my little sibling would have been about the same age as them.I looked into their eyes and ordered a coffee. I then grabbed a seat and waitedfor my coffee. I waited. For someone. Just then, the coffee shop door swungopen and someone walked in. It’s that person I saw yesterday. Just like me,that person comes here alone every day. That person looked around. That personmust’ve been looking for somebody or for somewhere to sit down. That persongrabbed a seat without ordering anything. They seemed to be waiting forsomebody. Was I the one waiting for them? Even though I did not wait for them,the same people still showed up every day. The ones who came here at lunchevery day. The people who worked nearby. They were all people whose names Ididn’t know. Although I wasn’t waiting for them, I always felt a bit strangewhenever we crossed paths. It was as though I had been waiting for them. Asthough I knew them well. Nice to see you again, I could have triedgreeting them. I might or might not have been waiting for them. I might ormight not have been waiting for anyone. I might have been waiting for someonewhose name I didn’t know but whose face I knew, someone whose name I knew butwhose face I didn’t know, someone whose face I knew but who I could no longerrecognize, or someone whose face I could never have recognized to begin with.But I didn’t come here to wait. I was waiting but not waiting for anyone. Awarm coffee. I was waiting but not waiting for anyone.pixelWinter has now faded away. Following nature’scourse. Winter has entirely faded away and the days have drawn out entirely,allowing me to see the sun still shining brightly on my way back from work.Apartment buildings under construction. An intersection. Cars waiting for thegreen light. People crossing the street. Baskin-Robbins. Olive Young. Peoplewalking out of stores. A high school. Students in uniforms walking out of thefront gate. A student on his bicycle passing swiftly through a crowd. Weeds growingall along train tracks. An old wall. The same old wall. A concrete wall. A treebehind a wall. A tree. A tree. Trees with budding leaves. A white magnoliatree. A tree. A yellow forsythia. A forsythia. A forsythia. The forsythias arein full bloom. The scenery outside the subway window shifts rapidly beforefading away, fading away. I take out my cellphone to take a photo of thescenery as it fades away. I hold my cellphone up to the window and turn thecamera on,pixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixel pixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelIappear on the screen. I switch to the rear camera setting to take a photo ofthe scenery. The screen changes to reveal the rapidly changing scenery outsidethe subway window as it fades away, fades away. Forsythias. Forsythias.Forsythias. My gaze remains locked on the camera screen. Roadside trees.Roadside trees. Roadside trees. A building. Roadside trees. A building.Roadside trees. A building. Roadside trees. The scenery changes and fades away,fades away from my locked gaze. Rapidly, more rapidly. It changes nonstop andfades away. pixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixelpixel1334 × 750□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□Translated by Léo-Thomas Brylowski

by Seo Ije

September Is a Prayer for the Estranged

It’s September. You haven’t forgotten our promise. . . have you?I tilted my head in confusion at this random, cryptic message from H.Our promise? What sort of promise had we made? Figuring the message was meant for someone else and H had gotten the chat windows or contact names mixed up, I pretended I hadn’t seen it to give H the chance to clear things up.If H said: Sorry, wrong person,I’d reply: No worries, I didn’t even see what it said!The idea being that it was probably best to feign ignorance.But a moment later, when I remembered the promise H was referring to, I paused. Opening my calendar app and seeing the date, September 1, reminded me that we’d agreed to do something together around this time.Last September, I had taken part in a workshop H was holding at a tiny bookstore in downtown Seoul. The workshop was called A Diary of September. When I asked about the flyer posted inside the bookshop calling for participants to join a month-long journaling session, the bookstore owner eagerly invited me to join. I found out later that the owner was none other than H, the workshop organizer. H admitted to being a little embarrassed that no one else had signed up so far and asked if I’d be all right if it was just the two of us. Likely worried I might feel pressured or run away, H insisted that it would be simple and walked me through the three rules of keeping a diary.First, write by hand. (You can type on the computer first, then transcribe.)Second, write every day. (Binge writing works, too.)Third, write anything. (It’s OK if it’s not exactly a diary entry.)H and I kept our diaries for that entire month. We wrote them separately and at the same time in tandem, as the whole premise of the exercise was to share in the sense that we were writing during the same period of time. There was even time to swap and read each other’s diaries planned for the end of the month. Because we were essentially writing with an awareness of our reader, I hadn’t known how honest we could be, but since what we wrote didn’t necessarily have to be true, the sincerity didn’t feel forced.On the last day of the month, as promised, we met up again and slowly, silently read through each other’s Septembers. The workshop ended with the creation of a fourth rule: to never voice our thoughts or opinions about what we had read.Once we finished all the planned activities for the day, I was getting ready to head home when H asked if I wanted to do this again the following September. Though we hadn’t spoken much about it, we both could tell that this time had stirred something within us. Honestly, the reason I’d been such a willing participant may have been because I’d known deep down this would happen. I can’t go into detail here, but reading H’s diary, I was struck by the thought that we both seemed to have had days where we felt as though we had to at least get these entries out right away or else. I barely managed to contain my emotions for fear of upsetting H, but there were certain sentences where I could feel something hot welling up suddenly at the back of my throat.As we made earnest plans for the following year, I asked H about the timing. Why September? With twelve months in a year, it wasn’t like this was the only month you could keep a diary.H told me there was a part in Oh Eun’s poem “One Year” that read: “In September I try to get a firm grip on my mind / but try as I might my mind is the one thing I’ll never grasp.”Amazed that I’d remembered those lines so vividly even as I’d completely forgotten our promise, I sent H a reply. Thinking all the while how weirdly fitting it was that she hadn’t said a word for months only to carefully broach the subject now that September was here again.Of course not! I’m going to start today. Are we meeting up on the last day of the month this time, too?*I went to the hospital to fill a prescription for my blood pressure medication and ended up with a new medication tacked on. Suspicious about the change, especially as I hadn’t had any other tests done, I asked the doctor what the new medication was for and was told that it was the first and only drug of its kind that could be used to treat my chronic illness, so I should give it a try. The drug had initially been used to treat a different disease but had gotten approval from the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety in early August and could now be administered to patients like me starting from September.On the bus back to the office, I looked up the name of the drug and its side effects. The information was no different from what I’d heard at the hospital and the pharmacy, but seeing it in print made it feel more real somehow, which in turn made me antsy. Very common side effects included hypoglycemia, with dizziness and lumbar pain also commonly reported. There were instructions to consume water frequently to dilute the amount of glucose present in the urine. I normally didn’t drink a lot of water, so this might prove to be yet another positive change for my body. But as always, when one thing gets better, another gets worse.The new medication came in yellow, diamond-shaped tablets. My blood pressure medication being white, at least I knew I wouldn’t mix them up and overdose.*I had been drawn to Water once upon a time. Though he often asked who would like someone as unremarkable as him—and this wasn’t just him whining but a conclusion drawn from a long history of rejections recorded in his body and mind—I didn’t think Water was as unattractive a person as he made himself out to be. His small, round forehead and plain features had a cute charm to them, and his polite yet somewhat timid attitude weirdly came across as tenderhearted.But I quickly sorted out my feelings for him. The more I learned about his lifestyle, the more certain I felt that not only was I ill-equipped to handle his type, but that he was also incapable of managing a steady, monogamous relationship. Water wanted people who could lust after him without the assumption that a relationship would follow, and those people were relatively easy to come by, almost sure to be found coming and going from particular kinds of places, such as love motels, DVD rooms, bathrooms. These were, for the most part, clandestine spots shared only within the gay community, places where those with no choice but to resign themselves to the risks gathered and then dispersed.Honestly, thinking back on Water as I knew him then, I find myself wondering. I had somewhat impure intentions toward him at first and later came to listen closely to his stories with a strange curiosity and a sensual pleasure, but that’s because I couldn’t understand why he wanted me to hear them. Whenever we met up, he would confide in me about things like the men he’d encountered fleetingly since I’d seen him last and the emotions, sensations, and thoughts brought about by those encounters. But there was never a moment when I wasn’t judging him, and though this would have already been plain to see from the look in my eyes or on my face, Water, for some reason, always tried to be transparent.Whatever his true feelings may have been, though, I still regret the words I often said to him back then. They came from a place of genuine concern on my end, and while he fortunately didn’t twist my words or take them the wrong way and get upset, they were much more scheming and had a weightier stigma to them than I had realized.Can you not? I used to say to him. This is how you’ll end up getting f*cked for real. *I was banging my forehead against the rattling window, feeling like a failure and punishing myself for getting lost in thoughts of Water once again, when the golden light of the setting sun came pouring into the bus all at once. An overwhelming heap of sunlight, enough to make me question how such a thing was possible. One by one, sensing that something was strange, other people on the bus began lifting their eyes from their phones to gaze out the window, and the light scattered softly over their tired faces, if only for a moment.When the warmth that briefly ghosted over my eyelids disappeared, I was struck by this thought.Let’s take the bus. Let’s skip the subway for September and ride the bus instead. Let’s not stare at our own blank-faced reflection in a dark window, let’s not focus on those doggedly persistent memories of Water, and let’s look instead toward where the light is pointing.*At the start of the year, I decided I would no longer live as a handmaid to art. This decision came after I realized almost all the troubles that had befallen me as of late could be traced back to that damn discipline. I’d believed I was moving through life side by side with art, never doubting for a second that we were on equal footing. but over time I learned that art had already surpassed me long ago, not only getting ahead of me but recklessly deciding where I ought to go next or else narrowing my field of vision as it pleased. I had judged people based on their importance, made use of others’ feelings, and even ended a long-term relationship, all because of art.When I told Earth about my decision, he said that even without my mentioning it, he’d thought for the longest time I was unhappy because of my novel, and it seemed like he was right. At the end of the day, he said, writing can’t be more important than living. He had a point, but it seemed that he’d misunderstood me; namely, that he’d mistaken the part where I said I wasn’t going to live as a handmaid to art as meaning I was going to quit writing my novel, and I was quick to correct him and say that wasn’t the case. Earth shrugged after appearing to ponder it for a moment and said he wasn’t sure the two aims were compatible. Then, after a beat, he asked,Why a handmaid of all things? Isn’t that a bit misogynistic?*Written this way, it may seem as though Earth had never uttered a discriminatory remark in his life, but that’s not true. Not long ago, we were watching a news story about a repeat sex offender who had escaped from prison when Earth thoughtlessly commented,Better off being gay than living like that.I froze in sheer disbelief as a cutting silence settled into the space between us, which Earth quickly broke through with a muttered retraction.I mean, I don’t think so, but realistically speaking, that’s how our society sees it.I was silent.Sorry.What for? You should say sorry to yourself.Just forget it.It felt deeply unfair how his words had immediately etched themselves into my memory, made themselves impossible to forget, and I asked myself just how long I could continue to watch the self-hate embedded in Earth’s bones present itself in this way from time to time, in what seemed like his sincere belief that we were a social evil, that our queerness was a serious criminal offense. I wanted to do something about it but often wondered whether there was anything I could do.Oh, but of course I don’t mean to speak ill of Earth. *There’s this one story I sometimes use as an example to explain to folks the kind of person Earth is. A few years ago, we were on the subway when an older man sat down next to us. From what he was wearing I guessed he was coming back from a hike, and the moment he took a seat, the air around him began to reek with the musty, intermingling stench of alcohol and sweat. I watched for a chance to strike, and as soon as a pair of seats opened up across from us, I moved. I gave Earth a look telling him to hurry and join me. It wasn’t like the new seats were that much more comfortable, but they had to be better than sitting right next to that man.Still, Earth stayed in his seat. He watched me with obvious discomfort, creasing and relaxing his forehead again and again. Later when we got off the train, I asked him why he’d just sat there, and Earth said that if both of us had gotten up at the same time, that man would have known it was because of him and would have been embarrassed, so Earth decided to tough it out. He didn’t want to humiliate the man. But that guy had been so drunk he could barely keep his eyes open, and even if he had managed to open them, he’d been in no state whatsoever to notice whether someone next to him had gotten up or not. . .Now that I think about it, there was another time something like this happened. We had been walking around Earth’s neighborhood when he suddenly pulled me into a nearby side street. We had barely walked a few steps down the alleyway when the street opened out again onto the main road, so despite it being my first time in the area, I could clearly tell we were going the long way around. Picking up on my suspicion, Earth explained that for several months now he had been trying to avoid the salon on the main street that he used to go to. He said that if the owner spotted him walking by, she might feel upset. Baffled, I asked him whether switching salons was a big enough deal to warrant all this, and Earth smiled, told me that in the end it was best to do what he had to do for his own peace of mind. Looking at him then, I remember thinking we were patently and unmistakably different people, so I later learned to simply give in.But lately I’ve begun to wonder if Earth and I kept meeting up precisely because this was the sort of person he was. I thought maybe he was putting up with the emotional stench emanating from me. Thought maybe he was taking the roundabout way in an effort not to hurt me. Thought that since that was who he was, I would be no exception to the rule.I’m not the only one trying to endure.*I had nothing I wanted to write, not enough words to fill a single line in my diary, so I transcribed the notification I had received earlier that day.Please be advised that the indoor charnel house at the Seoul Municipal Crematorium will be closed during the Chuseok holiday in accordance with COVID-19 prevention measures. We ask for your active cooperation and request that you refrain from visiting over the Chuseok holiday period. *The first thing I do when I get on the bus is check if the very front seat on the left is empty. The seat is installed above one of the front wheels, and sitting there makes for an even more cramped and bumpy ride than usual, especially on a low-floor bus, but I still try to claim that spot whenever I can.This seat preference is because I can watch scenes unfold as clear as day. Scenes of bus drivers exchanging the briefest of greetings as they pass each other. At some point I realized that every time the driver of the bus I’m on and the driver of the same bus going in the opposite direction cross paths and lock eyes, they slightly raise a hand or give a little nod, and that made me think there must be something like a tradition practiced at every bus company in the country, or else a mannerism known only to the drivers hired by this bus company. But anyway, seeing the drivers act as if they knew each other lifted my spirits so much that I found myself looking forward to those moments. Today, though, for some reason, the driver in the opposite-bound lane gave no greeting whatsoever as he passed my driver by. From the moment the bus entered my field of vision, my eyes had been trained on the driver’s seat, so I doubt I missed the timing or had seen it wrong. Had the driver been distracted with other thoughts and simply driven past? Had something happened to sour his mood to the point where he couldn’t be bothered with greetings? Or did that driver and my driver dislike each other so much that it was second nature to turn away whenever they crossed paths?Right, that could be it. Even an encounter this brief could be too hard to bear.*As I was reading the horoscopes my co-worker S shared with me a few days ago, I thought again of Water. Because the forecast for Cancers like me said that as Uranus continued to occupy our Eleventh House as it had begun to do in 2019, we would experience many changes in the realm of friends and acquaintances. The way thoughts of Water specifically flooded my mind as soon as I read that made me think there was still quite a distance between us.While 2022 will bring many sudden, unexpected encounters with new people, your core relationships will also undergo many shifts. In a few years, by the time Uranus moves into a new position, you will have completely different friends, colleagues, and acquaintances in your circle.I read up to there, then scrolled back to the title of the post.‘2022 Classic Horoscope for the 12 Zodiac Signs.’So these were predictions for the following year. I stared at those four digits, a number that felt like such a distant future. Did this mean I was going to lose someone again? Would next year see another relationship severed and estranged?*Look, I’m sorry, but. . . I wish you’d stop talking about him with me. We weren’t even all that close, to be honest. I don’t think carrying on like this will do either of us any good.This was what Earth said to me around this time last year, his face stiff in a way I’d never seen before. Until then, I hadn’t known just how much I had been talking about Water. Or, I knew, the same way I knew that Earth was tolerating it and that I’d become a burden to him, but there was no one besides him that I could talk to, and no one else I wanted to talk to, either.*I got a call from Water last year in mid-May. It was a little after midnight, the fresh sound of the rain rushing into my room through the slightly opened window. I was awake with my phone already in my hands, but when Water’s name came up on the screen, I just stared at it, not moving. It had been long enough that I was shocked to be getting a call from him after all that time, and I had a bad feeling. Why a phone call at this hour . . .?If I had been curious or concerned about how Water was doing, I should have answered, but in the end I didn’t pick up. It’s not that I wasn’t curious or concerned, but more that the desire not to know overpowered my every other thought. I didn’t want to deal with a situation that had grown complicated, and I wasn’t even sure I wanted to reconnect with Water. I figured if he had an urgent request, he would message me, so I waited a little while, but after that one attempt to call, Water gave up on contacting me again.For some time, whenever I thought about my choice that day, I would insist to myself over and over that my back had simply been against the wall. I was completely burnt out at the time and wouldn’t have had the energy to listen or empathize with someone else, so even if someone besides Water had sought me out that night, I wouldn’t have answered—this was how I tried to make sense of the way I’d acted.But a year and a half has gone by now, and I know that’s not the full reason. It’s not a complete lie, but I knew there were real reasons that would easily overshadow it, knew there was a clear element of truth to the discomfort that had made me cower and hesitate that day.*When I started seeing Earth, we all hung out together from time to time. Earth and Water were curious about each other, and Earth in particular seemed to find Water amusing. At first, Water didn’t seem to like Earth much and was standoffish toward him, but after having a couple of meals and drinks together, they hit it off and soon were laughing and chattering away. Earth certainly seemed more cautious than when it was just us two, and I had a feeling his interactions with Water were working to feed his own ego, but things felt neither awkward nor strange. As always, Water regaled us with stories about his latest string of one-offs, but at some point Earth ended up being the one to direct the conversations, firing off questions for Water to answer. Earth had never been around someone like Water, someone who acted boldly on his desires, or rather someone who had no qualms about discussing them openly, which Earth found fascinating. I knew all too well how he felt, wide-eyed and eager to listen a little more carefully.But at some point, Earth started hinting at his true feelings about Water.By the way, is everything all right with him?Huh?He didn’t look so good today. He’s not sick or anything, right?Sick?I mean, I’m genuinely worried about the guy. No matter how lonely you are, no one should be living like that.Did you not hear him earlier?Hear what?What he said. That he doesn’t sleep around because he’s lonely, but because he likes to. He said it’s as simple as that.I tried defending Water, even told Earth that if he wasn’t going to introduce the guy to someone, he shouldn’t judge or criticize him for the way he lived, but even I couldn’t completely mask my concerns. If I imagined that when he parted ways with us, he would be heading into a world branded with stigma, I worried that much more.A moment later, though, I realized we were both feeling reassured deep down that we were in a position to worry about Water, and that by drawing this distinction between us and him, Earth may even have been inching closer toward something like certainty about our relationship. I didn’t know when or how things would end, but in that moment at least, I felt as though the two of us had pulled off a joint escape from rock bottom.Yet naturally these conversations I had with Earth about Water opened a rift between Water and me. The reason I stopped responding to Water’s messages right away or pushing back the date of our next meet-up wasn’t just because it was getting harder to make ends meet. Whenever I got the occasional message from Water jokingly saying that he was living modestly as a ‘non-gay’ like the two of us these days, I could sense that he was hurt but just laughed it off, not wanting to lay bare those feelings even then.And so I think at some point I began to choose Earth over Water. More than the world of Water, which was swept under the rug and seen as shameful even within the community, I wanted to be enmeshed in the world of Earth, which seemed middling and safe. I wanted somehow to settle into a life that sat higher up in the hierarchy of normalcy, even if only by one level. Yet in the end we’re no different from other outsiders. Even if we prove we’re as loyal and benign as any of our fellow citizens, our community is always in danger, always subject to approval, a bunch of people who never know when or how we might be dragged away by our hair yet again.*If I imagine the reason Water called me that time wasn’t to complain or ask for help but because he’d wanted to know how I was doing, I feel like crying. Amidst the unprecedented chaos of being violently outed and watching the soaring number of hom*ophobic articles being churned out by the day in the name of disease prevention, as we held our breaths, trembling in fear of becoming each other’s alibis—if I imagine that in the middle of all that, he’d been wondering about my well-being. . . I want to die.*Today, at the recommendation of S, I went to have my palm read. There was a fortune teller based in Gwangju who even researched palmistry, and I jumped at the chance to book a reading on one of the rare occasions they would be in Seoul.Yet for the thirty-odd minutes I sat across from the fortune teller, my mind was elsewhere. Whether because I hadn’t slept well the night before or because of the side effects from the new medication, I couldn’t focus, my mind muffled as though swathed in fabric. Even worse, the details that the fortune teller was reading in the lines of my palm were generally unexciting. My fate must have been a drag if this was all they could come up with, but I had to wonder, as I slowly began tuning out, if some of the particulars—my digestive issues, my tendency to overthink, my choosiness when it came to people—weren’t things anyone could tell just by looking at me. Probably finding it equally awkward to end the conversation or simply let it meander, the fortune teller asked me whether there was anything I was curious about, and I considered mentioning what a hard time I was having with my novel, but I was afraid the reason for that would turn out to be my own lack of talent or something along those lines, so I kept my mouth shut. I stared down at the chaotic crisscross of stark and faint lines on my palm until I thought of something to say. Ah, I thought of something.Of course, ask away.Will next year be a hard year for me again?Seeing the puzzled frown on the fortune teller’s face, I explained that I was asking because my horoscope had said that Uranus was entering my star sign’s Eleventh House, which meant some of my core relationships would become estranged. It said this was true not only for last year and this year, but next year, too, so I was curious whether that would really be the case.Your star sign?Oh, does that sort of thing not appear in your palm?The fortune teller calmly returned my gaze.What’s wrong? Have you grown estranged from someone?Well, yes . . . Was that really hard for you?Well, yes . . . After silently studying my palm for a moment, the fortune teller spoke, a wan smile on their lips.Just call that person up and invite them out for a drink. That should do the trick.On the bus home, I listened to a song by Lee Young-hoon. I watched a little bit of a live cover he did on YouTube, then queued up several songs I liked from his first and second albums. His voice was thin and shaky, yet comforting for that reason. A quiet, honest consolation. Suddenly, I thought of the person who had first introduced me to him. Back in 2010, this singer would sometimes busk at the old playground in Hongdae, and this person enthusiastically urged me to go and see him perform at least once. That was already more than ten years ago now. How had that person and I grown so distant?While the songs played on, I thought of all the people, in no particular order, from whom I’d now become estranged.The hyung next door who had fled under the cover of night with his debt-saddled parents but left behind a three-page letter for me. The friend who pretended not to know all along that I was the one leaving recordings of love songs as voicemails for him every night. The friend with whom I’d shared my first kiss in a bathroom out of sheer curiosity. The friend who swore that when he grew up he was going to work in an office building in Gwanghwamun. The teacher who told me on graduation day that I could make movies and gifted me the film magazines he had been gathering since his own college days. The sunbae who said we should never give up on our novels no matter what and then wept inconsolably. My first love, with whom I’d been denied entrance to a motel on the grounds that there were no rooms they could rent out to two men. A lover from long ago who shouted while drunk that I was an asshole and I should know it. I wonder whether they’re all doing well.*I woke up this morning and saw that Earth had sent me a link on Messenger. Thinking it would be one of those clickbait posts that starts off with a sensational news report and ends with an ad for some dietary supplement, I clicked it and saw the title card for a set of slides that read ‘The Words Half of All Koreans Spell Wrong.’ The slides featured the instructions ‘Choose the correctly spelled word from the following pairs’ along with sets of commonly confused words: apoplepsy vs. apoplexy, renumeration vs. remuneration, reperation vs. reparation, perspire vs. prespire.Ever since I had brought Earth’s ridicule upon myself by accidentally saying “I’m spurious” instead of “I’m furious,” he’d taken to shoveling articles about spelling down my throat like a mother bird regurgitating food into her chicks’ mouths. Seeing the lengths he went to, I wondered whether I had made similar mistakes in front of him more than just the one time. Earth didn’t know this, but I’d been humiliated at my first-ever job, too, after writing “personnel expenses” as “personal expenses.”I picked the correct word out of the first few pairs before I got frustrated with myself for obediently doing what I’d been told and went back to the Messenger tab. Then I started a new conversation completely unrelated to spelling. Earth replied right away, as if he’d been looking at his phone at that exact moment.What are you doing this Saturday?Probably hanging out.With who?With you.In that case, can you come with me? I need to go somewhere.Of course.You’re not even going to ask where? Are you the type who’ll go anywhere if someone says let’s go?What’s wrong? Do I need to mentally prepare for something?No, nothing like that . . . I’m going to Paju.Paju?Yeah, to see my grandmother. I couldn’t visit during Chuseok. The charnel house was temporarily closed due to Covid.*We had just entered the building when Earth stopped short and said it would probably be better if he waited outside. There was a table near the entrance with a sign-in sheet for contact tracing purposes, and I was writing down my phone number and about to head inside when Earth spoke up.I’ll be fine. Take your time paying your respects.The charnel house was a two-story building constructed in the style of a royal mausoleum, and Earth’s voice hummed inside the high-ceilinged room. Suspecting something was wrong, I studied his face, and sure enough he seemed annoyed, which prompted me to apologize again. I couldn’t help feeling sorry, as he’d walked more than thirty minutes uphill in the glare of the autumn sun to accompany me. When I came alone, I got on with the trek by telling myself the walk was manageable, but today for some reason there had been unusually heavy traffic coming and going, so we had to keep stepping aside onto the shoulder of the road to avoid the cars as they passed. According to Earth, though, that wasn’t the reason he was hesitating now.It’s just, I don’t think it’s right for me to join in.What do you mean?Your grandmother might be uncomfortable with us being together.At that, I fell silent. Here was a man who had come this far in life only to feel like he even had to walk on eggshells around a dead person, but if I thought about it as though I were bringing someone home to meet my parents, it wasn’t like his diffidence was totally unfounded, so I couldn’t quite scoff at him for that. Yet even when I considered it in that light, I still came to the conclusion that Earth was worrying for nothing. What could my grandmother possibly know about us when it had already been twenty years since she’d passed? And even if she did somehow know something, what was I supposed to do about that now?As these thoughts ran through my mind, Earth asked me,What was she like?My grandmother?Yeah. Like, was she open-minded?Open-minded . . .I pretended to think for a moment, then said that for someone of her generation, she leaned more toward an open mindset. Even in that moment I wanted to say the words Earth wanted to hear, and since he’d come all this way, I wanted him to have a good impression of my grandmother.But as I answered him, I thought of how my grandmother was about as far from open-minded as anyone I could imagine. I learned later from my mother that while my grandmother was incredibly warm in front of me, she would nag my mom behind my back. Just how are you raising your son to be such a sissy? Sometimes when the topic of my grandmother came up, my mom would tell me how she’d spent so many heartbreaking years unable to conceive even after marriage, how she’d never been able to shake off the sorrow she’d held onto all that time, how my grandmother went around to all the top herbal medicine clinics in the country and refused to let her give up, how there wasn’t a single day my mom managed to get a restful night of sleep. No one would have imagined then that the precious son she had conceived with such difficulty would eventually grow up to be the one to sever our family’s bloodline entirely.*My grandmother’s remains were enshrined somewhere in the middle of Section B. From the entrance, she was on the right, housed inside a rectangular stone pillar that looked like any other storage locker. While I wiped away the dust that had gathered on her nameplate with one finger, Earth spoke.Your grandmother’s family name was Won.It was.“Grandma Won’s.” Like the bossam restaurant chain. Did your grandmother like bossam?I said nothing. I told myself it wasn’t right, I shouldn’t laugh, but then I started cracking up, the corners of my mouth lifting as I tried to ignore the satisfied grin on Earth’s face. I slid my bag off my shoulder and set it on the floor. After pausing for a moment to catch my breath, I took out the memorial prayer pamphlet I’d brought from home. It was a four-page printout that Roman Catholics used for funerals and death anniversaries. My faith had lapsed a long time ago, but when I came to the charnel house, I always made sure to bring this booklet, believing that reading the prayers was an effort to remain even a little while longer by my grandmother’s side.We crossed ourselves clumsily and started on the prayer. The text was divided into alternating parts, the changes in the speaker indicated by alternating white and black circles. I hadn’t noticed when I read it alone, but as the two of us read the prayer together, an interplay, we unwittingly created a kind of rhythm. At one point I even felt as though we were reciting a poem. Once we had read through the whole thing, I was seized by a strong desire—no, a need—to read it over from the beginning. I asked Earth if we could go through it one more time from the top.Again? How come?Is it too long?It is.Well, I just liked how it sounded. And it would be nice to pray for all my grandmother’s neighbors here, too. . .At first, Earth studied me, as if trying to suss out any ulterior motives. Then, seeming resigned, he took the prayer sheet from my hands and said if we were reading the same prayer again, we should switch roles. He would start this time.In that moment, I thought of Water. The line in the prayer that read “all the departed” repeated so often that I couldn’t help but think of him, couldn’t help but think about how I couldn’t go and see him, how I had no way of knowing where or how he was resting. According to the friend who had sent me the funeral announcement, even though the ongoing pandemic was reason enough not to hold a gathering, the truth was that Water’s father—his only surviving blood relative—didn’t want anyone finding out his cause of death and thus had elected to lay him to rest without a service, keeping even the location of the cemetery a secret from the prying eyes of people like us.For our second reading, I thought it would be a good idea to recite the prayer loud enough so that others could hear. I thought it would be nice if we could somehow send the prayer farther by exerting a little more effort. It probably wouldn’t be able to reach Water, wherever he was, but still. . . If I didn’t at least try thinking this way, I might come to hate myself again so much I couldn’t bear it, and not wanting Earth to know what I was feeling or to blame me and hate me too made me deliberately try thinking this way even more.Earth tapped me on the elbow.All right, he said. Let’s start.*Meanwhile, even now, I still know nothing for certain about what happened to Water. I’m not the only one in the dark—almost nobody in the community who knew him has any idea either, and since we were the type who could easily remain friends without knowing much of anything about each other’s daily lives, Water’s death could only be explained to us in a handful of familiar keywords and some guesswork based on those. Hate and condemnation, exclusion and deprivation, depression and isolation, disease and pain, sexual minority and suicide.For a while, I tried to tear down these speculations surrounding his death. I declined the test papers submitted in the absence of the one person who would know the right answers, refuted the narratives that reinforced the old bias that a life lived outside the norm was the same as an early death. I feel awful, but now I wonder whether there was something else I could have done for Water, if I had done all this more for myself, to put my own mind at ease, if only a little.Water hadn’t died because he was promiscuous.Water hadn’t died because he was anxious.Water hadn’t died because he was weak.Water hadn’t died because he was sad.Water hadn’t died because he was angry.Water hadn’t died because he was lonely.Water hadn’t died because he was gay.But my effort to cleave these causal relationships left me with yet more questions. Why do I want to make Water’s death into something flawless? Do I somehow want to prove, by completely erasing the parts that might appear unsavory, that not all of us gays lived and died that way? Who exactly is the owner of the gaze I find myself constantly aware of as I censor myself over and over again, and who exactly am I pushing away or cutting off so that I might receive approval from that gaze?*The night I first introduced Earth and Water to each other, Water had said about Earth:I knew you’d end up meeting someone similar to you.And that same day on the subway ride home, hinting at his first impressions, Earth had asked me about Water:Where did you end up meeting someone like him?*I met up with H on the twenty-ninth. We’d initially agreed to meet up on the last day of the month, but something unavoidable came up for H and we pushed up the meeting by a day.We sat in a quiet corner of a café that H liked, reading each other’s diaries in silence. Reading through them just once left much to be desired, so we went back and read them again from the beginning. And like that, half an hour went by. There wasn’t that much to read, but it still took us a while. We returned the diaries and heaved dramatic sighs—whew—neither of us wanting to start first.Then H spoke up.Because at least someone should know, she said.I chimed in,Right, I think so, too.We decided to abide by our old rule of not sharing any feelings or opinions related to the content of the diaries this time, too, and so had no choice but to talk about other things. Those other things turned out to be mostly what we’d been seeing, hearing, and thinking about lately, so technically, you could say our conversation wasn’t all that different from what we had written. But either way, H and I both thought it was a little funny and a little sad watching the other try their hardest to refrain from discussing the diaries. H told me how she’d been consistently calling someone by the wrong name, a syllable off, since last summer, yet the person hadn’t once corrected her, and I talked about the time the host of this podcast I liked said he was confident we could all have decently interesting conversations without making other people into caricatures or insulting them.How long had it been? As we were chatting, I’d gotten hungry and ordered a slice of carrot cake, and when I returned, H suddenly remembered something.Wait—I just realized we have one more day left of writing our diaries, but I guess we won’t get to read those last entries. September ends tomorrow.Oh, you’re right. Should we write them and send them over KakaoTalk or something?H considered this for a moment, then suggested another option.How about we bury them and dig them up again next year?Oh, like a jar of kimchi?Like a time capsule!I thought that sounded like it could be fun.Ah, then will we keep diaries together next year, too?Of course. We’ll write them together.Embarrassed at the way something inside me fluttered in that moment, I lowered my gaze to the table, staring at a spot where the afternoon sunlight was puddling as I answered.Then next September first, I’ll be the one to let you know it’s time to start.*I was walking down the street when I stopped short at the sight of a flowerpot placed outside the gate of someone’s home. A rather large note was stuck to the nameless, dried-up, withered-black plant. Reviving. Please don’t remove.I opened my camera app, framed the shot so that the note was clearly visible, and was about to snap the picture, convinced I should write about this today, when a thought suddenly crossed my mind and made me lower my phone once again. Though I had decided not to make rash judgments, though I had resolved to stop rushing to sympathy or pity, it seemed that in the blink of an eye I had already forgotten my promise.Translated by Paige Aniyah Morris

by Kim Byungwoon

Circle of Light

Sumin heard from Jeong-woo while she was reading a concert program that began: “Enrique Granados disliked traveling.” She’d seen a banner ad for the solo piano recital on a reservations site and bought a ticket on impulse. The pianist performed seven pieces by Granados, playing for over seventy minutes without an intermission. He received long, loud waves of applause, but he did not grant the audience’s request for an encore even though he came back to the stage three or four times. He placed his right hand on his heart, maybe to ask them to understand that another song could spoil the lingering feeling. Sumin came out of the auditorium and was walking around the foyer when, belatedly, she purchased the program. She put it in her bag and forgot about it until the bright orange color suddenly came to mind a few days later, and she perused it carefully.The Spanish composer Enrique Granados disliked travel, only leaving his home country twice. At age twenty, he went to Paris to study, but he contracted typhoid fever and the trip ended in disappointment. He took his second and final trip in the spring of his forty-ninth year, when he went to the US for the premiere performance of an opera. It was during WWI, and the ocean liner that he and his wife took for their return voyage was attacked by a German U-boat. The ship cracked apart. Granados had the good luck to be rescued, but when he saw his wife struggling, he dived into the water to save her, and they both ended up drowning. The write-up went on to add that Granados was especially scared of boats. Working as an editor for the last six years, Sumin had the habit of searching for the crucial point of any kind of texts. In this case, she struggled whether to locate it in the tragedy sensed beforehand, or in love overcoming the fear of death. Ultimately, for her, the main point was that she’d only found out the context for the story after the concert had finished. She’d attended the recital without knowing anything beforehand, not even that the suite Goyescas meant “in the style of Goya,” having been inspired by Goya’s paintings. Sumin frequently learned things after the fact; this had also been true when she studied in France. The feeling of time passing extremely slowly—that was the first thing that came to mind about that period seven years ago. It was a different feeling from boredom. Because she had such an acute sense of time, her impressions of it were more exact, just as an athlete with excellent dynamic vision can feel a speeding arrow pass by more slowly. Each day she finished four hours of study at the language school and attended a special writing class at extra cost or an open lecture on art history. The French level was so high that she could hardly make out any words besides the ones she’d learned in liberal arts classes at home, like “Surrealism” or “avant-garde.” She had time left over after that, and for once in her life, no money worries either. Not only was her mother enjoying some financial breathing room and sending her a monthly living allowance, but she’d also saved a sizeable amount of money working part-time while attending university. She wanted above all to learn French, but in practice, she felt buried under a variety of routines. Every little thing became magnified. She felt like she had become part of a giant painting of daily life in which every detail continued to expand. When she became somewhat familiar with the area around the language school, she began to walk endlessly along the riverbank, following the second-hand book stalls. Walking along, her gaze alternating between the tourist boats cutting through the murky, shallow water and the stall keepers selling used books in a line along the riverbank, she’d find herself at the Palais Garnier. She’d look around at the resplendent buildings, stop in at a Korean grocery store, buy ramyeon or instant curry, and head home. Then, time permitting, she’d go to a concert. Discounted tickets would be sold just before the show in the case of cancellations or seats with a restricted view. Jeong-woo, her roommate, told her this. She informed her that if you topped this off with a student discount, the ticket would cost no more than a sandwich. Jeong-woo exhorted her to learn about discounts and freebies, adding that this knowledge wasn’t just the right of a visiting student, but a duty. Jeong-woo had been studying there for four years. As a female East Asian international student, there were ordeals you faced many times daily, like government officials glaring at you as if you were trying to sneak into their country, innocent-looking teens shouting abuse like “Bitch!” or “whor*!” and nonstop sexual advances from men on the street, so she said that using your student discount to access art and culture in the city was not so much an expression of enjoyment as a protest. Sumin liked Jeong-woo’s logic, perceiving the gap between the low status of a foreign student and the beauty and elegance in appreciating classical art as something to fight and overcome, rather than as vanity or extravagance. This period was full of uncommon scenery in the greater context of Sumin’s life, but strangely, when she reminisced, her clearest memories were of routines, and Jeong-woo was ever present. Sumin was a morning person, and it was only around the time she started her day that Jeong-woo would gently place her empty beer bottles by the kitchen trash can and prepare for bed. Though her voice and movements were bold, Jeong-woo walked light as a feather. She told Sumin to walk on tiptoe or the woman below would come up one day and do away with them both. Jeong-woo often overslept and missed her language classes but since she had perfect attendance at the private atelier class she took for five euros, she was able to enter the École des Beaux Arts, the school of her choice, the same year that Sumin finished language classes and returned home. As far as Sumin knew, Jeong-woo had only gone back to Korea once, in the summer break after her second year at the École des Beaux Arts. She hadn’t been home for six years or so before that, ashamed to show her face to her family. She ended her long exile only after entering the École des Beaux Arts. Sumin reunited with Jeong-woo at a chicken soup restaurant in Jongno. Sumin had been back for two years. It was a very simple place with only one item on the menu. Sumin had just found a full time job, and she would rather have taken her Unni to a cleaner, brighter Korean or Italian restaurant where they could chat comfortably for a while, but she could not prevail against Jeong-woo, who dearly wished to try the soup she’d seen on television several years earlier.Even now she could recall Jeong-woo’s expression as she was gazing at the chicken in a large metal bowl. The whole chicken was placed intact in the broth, and the server lifted it out with a pair of tongs and expertly divided it into pieces with kitchen scissors. Jeong-woo watched closely, her cheeks flushed, maybe from the heat from the tabletop gas burner. She probably hadn’t had the chance to eat proper kimchi for a long time, and when Sumin pushed the side dishes towards her, she looked around and said shyly, “Sumin-a, Korean chickens are small and adorable, aren’t they?”Sumin was on the KTX train bound for Gyeongju when she recalled the sentence, “Enrique Granados disliked traveling.” Was this true about Granados? Perhaps the article was just a biographer’s attempt to give his life meaning by twisting coincidence into destiny. Perhaps he did dislike traveling, but not because he thought a trip would cut his life short. Maybe it was because the uncontrolled variables in unfamiliar environments were an inconvenience.If there was anyone who believed that traveling could change one’s life, it was Sumin. She’d decided to study abroad for this reason. But all that awaited her upon her return to Seoul was her small room and her school, which felt unfamiliar to her now that her close friends had all graduated and left. Whereas the year’s worth of experiences may have constituted an adventure to Sumin, her stories were perfectly ordinary to those around her. Even within her own department, several students had studied a language abroad. She hadn’t had enough time to become fluent in French, and she hadn’t even begun a romantic relationship of the kind her friends had anticipated. The ending had been quite flat. After her return, her professor gave her vague advice to keep both feet on the ground so as not to lose her bearings, which she’d interpreted in her own way, and in the last semester of her fourth year she started an internship, unplanned. For some time afterwards, whenever she had to do a reality check, she would think of the slow, rambling voice of her elderly professor. In the meantime, she regarded her time in Paris as anomalous, and so she pushed the memories out of the circle of her daily life. Naturally, this was followed by a sense of loss, and sometimes she had the impression she’d left something behind. But before long, she had relegated the memories to the back of her mind. While Sumin was surrounded by galley proofs, moaning with the neck pain she developed when she turned thirty, Jeong-woo was graduating from the École des Beaux Arts. She went on to win a prize in a French regional competition the following year. Jeong-woo sent her links to newspaper articles, and much to Sumin’s amusem*nt, gave her advice filled with terms she’d picked up randomly, like “housing subscription” and “term insurance,” things she knew nothing about. Whenever she felt that Jeong-woo was treating her like she did when they first met, and whenever she pictured her shy, childlike smile at the sight of the milky-white chicken, Sumin wondered what kind of adult she was becoming. This feeling was unrelated to growing up. One time, as she was perusing the dictionary, she came across the perfect word—gutae, meaning “old moss.” “Welcome, Sumin. I missed you so much,” Jeong-woo greeted Sumin when she arrived at Gyeongju Station. Five years had passed. Jeong-woo embraced Sumin and kissed her lightly on both cheeks. It was the French style of greeting that they would have been mortified to use when they actually lived together in Paris. You’re really French now. She was wearing a black muslin scarf around her neck in the middle of summer, her long hair in a loose chignon. She had on black jeans and flats. This look was familiar to Sumin, but it somehow seemed foreign to Korea, like oil in water. Behind her, Sumin noticed bushes lining the well-paved road. Small, hard, glossy leaves were piled up in layers under red flowers the size of a baby’s fists, as though they were holding something precious. After winning the art competition, Jeong-woo had been invited to participate in a curated exhibition in Korea, and she arrived a month before the opening. The exhibition was supposed to be held in Anguk at an old bathhouse that had been converted into a gallery, but for some reason she’d gone to Gyeongju directly after arriving at Incheon airport. When Jeong-woo invited her down to see her, Sumin had mixed feelings as to whether to go or make an excuse not to. She hadn’t spoken to Jeong-woo much recently, probably because they were living in different countries doing different things. Jeong-woo, who’d moved to Auvers-sur-Oise, a suburb of Paris, spent her evenings with her boyfriend walking around different sites in the village where she lived looking for traces of Van Gogh, while back in Seoul, Sumin relieved the day’s stress by surfing internet shopping sites and drinking cans of beer with side dishes of blood sausages or mandu she’d buy on the way home. Even so, it was hard to turn down her friend’s invitation. Jeong-woo had given her a lot back then. Also, she found it reassuring to be in touch because Jeong-woo was the one person she could talk to about a time that was fading from her memory. Jeong-woo said she’d been in Gyeongju for a week as she led Sumin to the taxi stand. “Where’s the painting?”Sumin had only ever seen the painting in a photo that accompanied the newspaper article that Jeong-woo had sent her. The work, which covered the wall of a gallery, was out of focus and blurry. When they lived together, all Sumin had seen of her work were a few acrylics done on palm-sized scraps of paper. Jeong-woo had boasted that they were her portfolio. Sumin didn’t know much about art, but had privately doubted whether her friend would ever be accepted to the École des Beaux Arts owing to age restrictions. Afterwards, Jeong-woo only painted large paintings, as if self-conscious about that time. Jeong-woo had been grumbling about how she was going to get the painting into the country in her last email. “I sent the canvas to be re-stretched. That’s why I came all the way down here.” She knew someone in Gyeongju who’d introduced her to a craftsman, she added.“Re-stretched?”Jeong-woo said she’d been very lucky, but Sumin didn’t understand what she meant by this. Instead of explaining further, she spoke in general terms, saying she’d come down to prepare for the exhibition.“Sumin, have you ever tried kong-guk? Warm bean soup? You can dunk rice ball doughnuts in it, or crack raw eggs into it.”Sumin made a face, unable to imagine these combinations, and Jeong-woo patted her arm. Her skin was chilled from the air conditioning in the taxi, and this warm touch gave her goosebumps. “You’re still just a baby.”“That’s impossible.”No one treated her like a child, then or now, except Jeong-woo. “I remember you reciting the verb conjugation page every morning at dawn. You sounded like a child memorizing the Thousand Character Classic.”Jeong-woo went on, adding that Sumin’s voice got louder and louder to the point that she was scared the tenant below would hear and complain. Sumin had never heard this story. Every morning she had written out verb conjugations and memorized them, but she hadn’t spoken louder than a whisper. She couldn’t be sure, though. She realized again that there was no privacy in the house. The apartment had no doors, so from her room, she could hear a fork hit a plate all the way over in Jeong-woo’s room. The only other door besides the front door was the one to the bathroom. She sheepishly turned her head toward the window. Even though they were well beyond the station, empty fields surrounded them on either side. Her gaze was drawn to the continuous row of bushes extending from the station, standing tall in the hot sunlight. The city was neat and notably clean, so clean that it was devoid of buildings.“Crepe myrtle trees,” Jeong-woo said, and Sumin turned towards her. Jeong-woo’s eyeliner had smeared and darkened the area around her eyes, maybe due to the heat.“Aren’t they what you keep looking at?”“Oh.”Sumin turned back, and old houses started to appear in the distance one by one.“Isn’t that a pomegranate tree?”Behind their guesthouse was a garden with a pond and a variety of small trees. The garden was charming, with something of a foreign feel, perhaps because of the pomegranate tree next to the pond. The tree was a nice height, about 2 meters tall, dotted with unripe pomegranates. Sumin had never seen one before. The crown at the tip of the fruit made it look like a deflating balloon. “There are pomegranate trees in Gyeongju?” she wondered aloud, marveling at the sight. She circled around and touched the smooth green fruit hanging precariously from the slender branches. In the meantime, Jeong-woo stuffed Sumin’s travel bags in a corner and sat perched out on the narrow wooden veranda talking on the phone. Judging by the French she overheard, Sumin could guess that Jeong-woo was talking to her boyfriend. She’d heard a few things about him: how he was born to an Algerian mother and a French father, and how he’d trained as a skier until he was in high school when he seriously injured his spine at seventeen and had to quit sports. She’d also heard that he changed plans and became a high school teacher after majoring in mathematics in university. Early in the relationship, she’d also heard many complaints about him. One story she remembered was about how he went to London with a friend for a fortnight, and all that he gave Jeong-woo when he came back was a keychain engraved with a book shop logo. Sumin still associated him closely with this story. “The French are like that. They’re so cheap.”He’d presented the keychain to Jeong-woo with such reverence and care that she was expecting it to be an engagement ring. At the beginning, the more she’d thought about it, the more annoyed she’d been that he’d gone on a trip without her. Then, after a while, she tried to justify why he’d given her the keychain. After all, it might just have been a French custom to exchange trinkets. As more time passed and their relationship stabilized, she changed her interpretation and said that his frugality and his family-oriented nature were his greatest strengths. Other than this, the stories that Jeong-woo told her about him were bound up with her personal feelings, and Sumin often struggled to relate. Jeong-woo said she didn’t love everything about him, but the tragedies he’d suffered made him lovable. Whenever he wronged her somehow, she’d think of him lying in the hospital for six months or so without being able to move after he’d fallen off a cliff while in Switzerland for off-season training. If she imagined him as a boy grimacing in pain at night, worrying that he would never walk again, she felt her heart soften out of guilt. She thought she should have watched over him back then.Sumin was confused, and asked her how she could have watched over someone she didn’t even know. “Sumin, don’t you know? Love transcends time and space.”Whenever Jeong-woo touched the long scar that ran along his spine, it felt like a crack that she could squeeze into. The year before last, they’d entered a civil union and moved in together. In the meantime, Sumin began a short-lived relationship with a business associate ten years her senior. On the basis of his age and relatively high social position, this man tried to teach her everything, making her feel like dating was an extension of her work. It was exhausting. When Jeong-woo asked what his name was, she jokingly told her the name of the male protagonist in a late Joseon period enlightenment novel instead. It seemed like Jeong-woo had never heard the title of this book before. But even if she didn’t know what Korea’s first modern novel was, she knew much more about romance than Sumin did.Jeong-woo’s romance was elevated to a sacred plane, and Sumin’s was mundane by comparison. But after it ended, she had to contend with the aftermath, and this was worse because they were business associates. The exhaustion and suspicion from those rumors went on for a long time and Sumin grew disinterested in any type of blind dates. At this time, Sumin was thirty, and she thought she knew something about life. Monotony washed over her existence like a tidal wave, as if it had been waiting for her. She no longer expected coincidences or relationships ordained by fate. She didn’t think the future would hold any of the moments of the unexpected that she’d known when she studied abroad. However, Jeong-woo finished talking on the phone and took her to the restaurant, and they were immersed in conversation when Suchan opened the door and came in, and Sumin’s eyes grew wide, like someone encountering something new and strange. She’d first met Suchan at a gathering of Korean students that Jeong-woo had known when she was taking language classes in Grenoble. They’d reminisced fondly about a night club van that used to pick them up outside of the language school dormitory every Saturday evening. Sumin was only a new arrival, and they looked socially well-positioned in her eyes. At a Korean drinking establishment, with great bravado, they ordered an overpriced chicken side dish to accompany several bottles of soju that cost 10 euros apiece. Jeong-woo spoke little that day, was stuck in the long, dark tunnel of life as a language student. Maybe this was why she’d pestered Sumin to come along. Sumin remembered Jeong-woo’s ambiguous expression at the gathering long after she returned to Korea. Thinking back on it, Jeong-woo’s most difficult time as an international student must have been when Sumin was there. It was just before she exited the tunnel—people exiting a tunnel, or people climbing a mountain before the final peak, are at their most pessimistic. Besides, Jeong-woo was barely twenty-four years old even if she played the role of an older sister and guide to Sumin. If she could go back, Sumin would maybe pour Jeong-woo another glass of that expensive soju. She’d pat her on the back and tip her off about the future, telling her, “Hold on just a little longer and you’ll enter the school you have your sights on, and in a few years, you’ll come home triumphantly to your own solo exhibition in Anguk.” But Sumin knew none of this at the time, and was silent as a tree.Sumin was even more uncomfortable after they moved to the noraebang, and she was scanning her surroundings looking for a chance to get up. There was a guy downing bottles of Orangina and talking quietly with his neighbor. She noticed him take the remote control and carefully punch in a number. She’d exchanged names with him, but that was all, as they weren’t curious about each other. Actually, she could sense that no one in the group wanted to get to know her. Gathered there were big sensitive egos, a mixture of accomplishments and hopes, and they swayed like a pendulum from self-confidence to worry about the future. No one had any reason to be interested in Sumin, who had yet to prove anything. The song started and the guy straightened up from where he’d been slumped on the sofa. He was someone her age, who clutched the mic in both hands and sang a heartfelt rendition of Boa’s “Amazing Kiss.” This was Suchan. “What was the name of that Chinese girl who liked jangjorim? Was it Rangrang?”Suchan glanced at Sumin as he corrected Jeong-woo. “It was Ringring.” Sumin looked at him from the side and then turned her gaze to the kong-guk on the table. Suchan had sat down beside her quite naturally upon arriving. He wore a polo shirt with jeans, and he reeked of sour sweat. Suchan glanced at the makgeolli and pajeon that had been pre-ordered, and expertly went through the complicated process of ordering kong-guk. The menu was posted on the wall, divided into different sections according to the many possible options: sticky doughnuts, black sesame seeds, sesame seeds, honey, and raw eggs. Sumin looked out of the corner of her eye at the watery kong-guk that came out in quite a large ceramic bowl. Suchan asked, “Would you like some?” It was the first thing he’d said to her. As if given the signal, she started to feel attuned to Suchan’s presence. She listened carefully to the conversation the other two were having, as if she were straining to make out their voices from across the room. And she learned a few things; for example, that to “re-stretch a canvas” was to put a painting on a canvas frame after it had been removed and rolled up in a tube for safe transport, and that it was Suchan who’d introduced Jeong-woo to a craftsman renowned for his skill in this art. Suchan had worked at a landscaping firm in Seoul before moving down to Gyeongju a year ago. She listened to them talk about Suchan’s girlfriend Ringring, who’d liked jangjorim because it was reminiscent of food she had in China. While Suchan was sleeping, she’d eaten up the precious stores of it he’d had sent from Korea, and Suchan had called Jeong-woo about it and cried over the phone. Finally, their relationship came to an end when he returned to Korea to do his military service. Sumin also heard this, but it went in one ear and out the other. “Let’s not talk about it. It’s been a long time since we broke up.” Noticing that Suchan had lowered his voice, Sumin took several sips of makgeolli. Suchan filled her empty cup and pushed the pajeon dish towards her. Now that he was older, everything seemed to come naturally to him. This was likely true for Sumin as well. But maybe because she was tipsy, these bits of information were fragmented, quick to disappear or randomly jump to the fore. This state of mind was very different from her usual one as an editor who prioritized context. Unimportant words like “girlfriend” or “I fell asleep” would clump together in her mind before slowly dissolving away.Sumin’s first date with Suchan was in the late fall, about two months before she returned to Korea. She’d heard that the first snow had fallen in Seoul, but in Paris it rained miserably, day after day. In the period just before she left, she’d wake up in the morning and think, I can’t believe such a dreary place exists. I just want to go home. Her coat was getting heavier and heavier with moisture in the tiresome weather. Owing to the high calcium in the water and the nagging of her language teacher, it seemed like half of her hair had fallen out, and if things kept on, she’d end up bald. Suchan was studying horticulture in Strasbourg, and he took her to the place he knew best in Paris, the Jardin des Plantes. Sumin still remembered her disappointment at seeing all the withered lilies when they reached the pond. After that, her relationship with Suchan cooled off to the extent that when she was returning to Korea they barely texted each other farewell. She blamed this entirely on the one lame date. Suchan, oblivious to her feelings, pointed to the shallow, dirty pond where dry flower stalks remained here and there like bent wire. It looked like a wasteland. He said, “I cleared those away yesterday, too.” Sumin asked, “What?” and he replied, “They’re called ‘bu.’ These days, I clear away bu from the school garden every day. When it’s all cleared away, then that’s the start of winter for the garden. It’s teeming with dead leaves and gastropods, and seeds that will sprout into something, we don’t know what.” Then he gently tugged on the stiff sleeve of Sumin’s wool coat and whispered, “Would you like me to show you a little slug?”“Someone called to say they were selling a Zelkova tree. The owner boasted that the tree had been carefully tended for generations by a family whose ancestor had passed the first round of the national exam. So I didn’t think it would be anything special.” The place where Suchan worked was technically a landscaping company, but a large portion of their business was in buying and selling trees, perhaps because the owner had been doing it for a long time. Sumin wondered how Suchan went from studying horticulture to coming down to Gyeongju and selling trees, but she didn’t ask. When you got to this age it was natural to have deviated a bit from your starting point. Sumin was used to this by now. Suchan said that the hardest thing about buying trees was going out to view them. The houses of the families selling mature trees were either abandoned or close to collapse, and most of the time they were located in mountain forests or on isolated tracts of land. Often, the location couldn’t be found by using GPS, or worse, the area wasn’t accessible by car. This was true for the client selling the Zelkova as well. “They told me to sing in a loud voice when I came. They’d come out to meet me when they heard me singing. Doesn’t it sound crazy?”However, Suchan did sing as he climbed the mountain. It wasn’t until he entered the forest that he understood his client’s instruction to sing out loud. The terrain was rough, and the forest was so deep that his cell phone didn’t have a signal. “So what did you sing?” Sumin joined the conversation at this point.“Ponyo.”“Ponyo?”“Yes. The theme song to that Studio Ghibli film, Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea.”They came out of the restaurant and were met by the warm, stuffy night air. While Jeong-woo was in the restroom, Suchan stood in a corner, took out a cigarette, and put it between his lips. There were no street lamps behind the restaurant, so it looked as if part of the village had been cut off. The cicadas made a high-pitched buzzing sound in the darkness. “Would you like a cigarette?”It seemed as if Suchan had forgotten she didn’t smoke. Or perhaps he was asking in case she’d somehow picked up smoking in the meantime. A lot of time had passed. Their conversation was stuck in a loop: cautious when they held out for the possibility of change and then quickly becoming more intimate when they recognized the same person they knew from the past. For example, the image of Suchan in the forest, shaking with fear, shouting out, “Ponyo, Ponyo, fishy in the sea,” was not drastically different from him as a student singing K-pop songs in the noraebang. Perhaps that was why she said yes. When he replaced the cigarette back in its pack and cautiously asked, “Would you like to go for a walk with me tomorrow?” Sumin nodded eagerly. Perhaps it was that the ordinary guy who’d taken her to the botanical gardens in Paris in early winter when there was nothing to see had appeared to her through time and space. Sumin’s attitude was the only thing that had changed. That night, lying next to Jeong-woo on a mattress rolled out on the floor in an outbuilding of the guesthouse, Sumin thought about patterns repeating themselves in life. She thought of her favorite music. In general, all music, whether it be sonatas, concertos, or orchestral songs, was supposed to return to a theme. The key to the repetition was not the repeated melody itself, but the long musical journey between repetitions, resulting in two entirely different interpretations of the same melody. Sumin believed that this principle of musical form applied to life as well. Many years later, she would reflect on that night and deem it all a superficial rationalization for getting back together with Suchan, but until she was interrupted by Jeong-woo’s sleepy voice, her head was filled with abstract notions like the forms and principles of life. “Hey Sumin, it’s the first time we’ve ever slept together under the same blanket, isn’t it? Even though we lived together for a year or so.”“Why would housemates have a reason to sleep with each other?” Sumin would always regret things after she spoke, thinking her answers were too short and logical. “But every night I could hear you breathing as you slept. We didn’t have doors to our bedrooms, you know.”“Right. Thank goodness for that. That’s why we were never lonely there.”Even in the years after she married Suchan and then divorced him, she sometimes recalled the hike they took together that morning in Gyeongju. A cloud of morning fog was gradually clearing in a place with the sacred name Gyerim, which meant “forest where the rooster crows.” The trees in this place had long branches that drooped down, supported in places by stakes, and they looked to Sumin not so much like plants but animals, moaning in pain, unable to manage their large girth. They were spaced at regular intervals as if by mutual agreement, but their dense foliage blocked any light from coming in. This was probably why the only thing growing nearby was moss, covering the ground like a carpet as if tended by human hands. The forest felt magical, but dreary at the same time. Suchan told her that the forest used to have a large concentration of hackberry trees, and since jewel beetles had the habit of laying eggs in crevices in the hackberry bark, it was a jewel beetle habitat as well. But because craftsmen at that time were using jewel beetle wings as ornamentation on saddles for horses, the jewel beetles there had all died out. As she listened, the earth, wet with morning dew, rose around her feet, and she felt as if she would sink into the ground at any moment. “I know it’s strange, but when my mother died, I thought of you.”Sumin turned her head at these unexpected words, and Suchan fixed his gaze on the only pagoda tree in the forest and continued. “I wanted to call you, but I couldn’t. You would have thought I was crazy. We weren’t even seeing each other.”That day remained etched in Sumin’s memory, but it was not because of the bashful look on his face when he confessed his love. Nor was it because of the firmness in his voice as he told Sumin, who was awed by the size of the tree, that a forest dominated by a giant tree like that would have no future. Rather, it was because of his profile as he pointed at a round empty hole they’d come across in the middle of the forest. She couldn’t guess the purpose of this pit. The sun beat down on it, and the light looked like water pooling around it. Suchan said that he often stared at these holes. When he’d look at the pits that were left after he removed trees, he’d imagine throwing into them all of the senseless anger that flared up within him. Then the anger would fade, he said, his gaze slightly downcast. Sumin’s most striking memory from that day in the forest was his profile as he said this. After they were married, Sumin encountered this look many times. At first, she thought that he was pondering something. He was absorbed in thought, keeping one ear co*cked, and if given enough time he would arrive at an answer on his own. It wasn’t until they started to talk about divorce that she realized it was just his characteristic way of defending himself in a crisis. He just pretended to be listening carefully or thinking when he really was just biding his time. He’d probably been doing this for a while. When his mother suddenly died of a stroke right after he finished his military service, and he gave up on going to graduate school as a result; when he interned at his first landscape architectural firm and had to work nonstop on CAD design projects while his manager tapped him on the back of the head with a ruler; when his father became obsessed with family after his mother died and forced him to sit with his older brother at the meal table every Sunday afternoon even after he was married; when he had to endure his father’s complaints about Sumin, who didn’t attend church, bear children, or even call to say hello—then he would adopt this posture, pretending to be listening, while he was perhaps imagining the round hole left by an uprooted tree. He would cast his anger into it until he eventually became the hole himself. But Sumin had no way of knowing this and she just gazed at the circle of light, like a miracle, in the dense forest. Translated by Kari Schenk

by Kim Eugene

The Phantom Schoolgirl Army

The married couple next door invited me over for dinner last month. I had only ever exchanged silent greetings with my eyes, when one day we started talking; I was unable to refuse their sudden invitation. This was my first time exchanging names with anyone since moving down to Suncheon. Her name was Bo-kyeong Bu, and his was Mok-won Park. Both beautiful names. They had skipped the wedding, and said they had no plans for children. Like an idiot, I said they’d be even happier with kids—something I didn’t even believe. I wondered if an idiotic comment like this was the consequence of getting older or just a product of awkward interactions between strangers. I’d lived close to twenty years with a man myself; I didn’t have children, and I used to believe that I didn’t need them.They prepared some pollack roe pasta and a dish of stir-fried tomatoes and scrambled eggs. I chewed the food slowly as we sipped beer and conversed quietly. The food didn’t taste as good as it looked, and whenever I needed to laugh because they said something cute or funny, I had to be careful not to let bits of food escape my mouth.“I like that album, too,” Bo-kyeong said as she turned toward me.“Do you really?” Mok-won asked her.“Why are there so many things you don’t know about me?” Bo-kyeong glared at Mok-won with slivers for eyes.“There are a lot of advantages to being ignorant.” Mok-won laughed sheepishly as he looked at Bo-kyeong.Seeing these two bicker over my T-shirt, which had an Andy Warhol banana on it, I took out my phone, opened YouTube, and started playing “I’ll Be Your Mirror” from The Velvet Underground & Nico. They turned to me once the music started and smiled.Bo-kyeong brought over a Marshall Bluetooth speaker and connected it to my phone. As the two bobbed their heads and asked me a slew of questions, I became a DJ and played for them “Chelsea Girl” by Nico, “Chelsea Hotel No. 2” by Leonard Cohen, “I am a Fool” by Gilli Smyth, and “Hurt” by Johnny Cash. Mok-won got up from his seat and went over to the window. As soon as he opened it, a refreshing evening breeze entered the room and washed over us.“Do you mind?” Mok-won asked as he pulled out a cigarette. I shook my head.Bo-kyeong went over to the window as well.“Smells like summer. I think the air’s gotten cleaner. It must be because of COVID. Give me one.”He stuck a cigarette between her lips. The smoke consumed their heads. Unable to control myself, I went over to the window, too.“If you don’t mind—” As I exhaled a steady stream of smoke I continued: “My doctor told me I’ll die if I keep smoking.”They looked at me with wide eyes.“I’m just kidding. I quit four years ago.”“Maybe we should quit, too.”“You think so? Or maybe we just continue living this way till we die.”My doctor once told me I needed to quit both smoking and drinking. “What about the smell?” I asked the doctor. “Can’t I at least smell them?” The neurosurgeon frowned. “I’m not sure what to say. I don’t think I’ve ever had a patient ask me that before—”After staring out into the darkness for a while, I returned to my seat and played “Night Flight” by Affinity.“Can I call you Unni?” Bo-kyeong asked me as she came back with another beer from the refrigerator.“Of course not.”Bo-kyeong and Mok-won were both documentary filmmakers. They started living together after co-directing a film about Suncheon Bay. They’d moved their home and business to Suncheon earlier this year. Bo-kyeong’s hometown was in Incheon, and Mok-won’s in Seoul. I’d been born in Suncheon but left a long time ago; I only came back just two years prior. When I told them this, they batted their eyes, oohing and ahhing in admiration.“What did you use to do?” they asked me.“This and that. Whatever I could find.”“You seem like you have a lot of secrets. When I first saw you, I was a bit wary of you.”Bo-kyeong’s face was flush, probably from all the beer.Mok-won picked at the green tablecloth for a while before speaking up again. He was a bit tipsy and his voice was louder than before.“People are so strange. They criticize our experimental works for being too experimental, and our nature documentaries for having too many landscape shots. I wonder if they’ll accuse us of being too political this time.”“Why are you worrying about that already? We haven’t even started.”“What kind of documentary are you filming this time?” I asked.“Have you heard of the Phantom Schoolgirl Army?” Mok-won asked.“No.”“Don’t you have any older relatives in Yeosu or Suncheon?”“None.”“Stop it. You sound like you’re interrogating her,” Bo-kyeong said, critical of her husband’s tone.“It’s fine. What’s the Phantom Schoolgirl Army?”“You know about the Yeosu-Suncheon uprising, right?”Seeing the look on my face, which was saying neither yes or no, he began to explain.“In 1948, after suppressing the uprising in Yeosu and Suncheon, the government made something called the Writer Investigation party, which they dispatched to the area to ‘document’ what happened. The group was made of authors, painters, photographers, and illustrators. Among the things they found was a story of female students who’d fallen prey to communist ideology. According to these stories, the girls would lure soldiers to them with water and then pull out a carbine from their skirts and shoot the men. These stories were serialized in the papers and later made into a book titled Uprising and the Resolve of the People. Oh, that reminds me, Bo-kyeong. We must find that book. Anyway, the book was used for political purposes, to fear monger and justify the massacres. It was recently revealed that the story, which was referred to as the Phantom Schoolgirl Army, was actually a made-up story—it never happened. But they didn’t know that at the time, so it continued to be told and embellished. There were also stories of schoolgirls who seduced soldiers, calling them oppa and what not, before shooting them with a Type 99 rifle. All of these were different versions of the same story intended to frighten people about the threat of communism.”“They say some schoolgirls were arrested and interrogated,” Bo-kyeong said, adding onto her husband’s explanation. “We want to interview those who are still alive. But COVID has made that difficult. Perhaps we could do it virtually. Of course, we’d need to be cautious when approaching them, as it’s probably a traumatic experience for them. I’m positive that the stories were influenced by the war films and novels of the time. I want to find those sources. It’s a really strange and terrifying story.”“I think my mother must have been attending school in Yeosu around that time.”“Really?”“She died, though. When I was young.”Silence filled the room. After turning on the song “I Hate You” by Jung-in—like a person who believes there’s a song for every situation—I played one last song: “Restless” by Bibi, which was one of my favorite K-pop songs at the time. Bo-kyeong vibed to the music, and Mok-won cleared the table.“How about we go to your place next time,” Bo-kyeong suggested as they saw me out the front gate.“Of course not.”“Then it’s settled,” Bo-kyeong said in a cutesy voice while she locked arms with Mok-won, as if to say she understood my sarcasm. “Treat us to some more good music.”That night, I went back to my place and searched up the Phantom Schoolgirl Army. There were only a few articles. I used my finger to select an article published way back on October 24, 2001 by OhmyNews titled “What’s the truth behind the Phantom Schoolgirl Army?” I perused the article before my eyes stopped on a picture. A group of schoolgirls wearing jeogori, sailor blouses, and overcoats were huddled together. The caption read, “Students from Yeosu Girls High School apprehended for conspiring with insurgency forces.” I tried unsuccessfully to zoom into the picture with my fingers. I used Google Images to find another image of the photo. Some of the girls in the picture were very young. I carefully examined each picture, wondering if my mother was among them. Eyes staring into the camera, drooping heads, and faces outside the frame.I hadn’t quite realized it before, but not having a single picture of my mother was a large void in my life. The irritated person who refused to open up to me and would only protect her own territory. The person who remembered every birthday and death anniversary of my older brother, whom I’d never met. The person who would talk back even as her own mother grabbed her by the hair and called her a commie bitch. The person who threw a wooden ash tray at her husband, who was four years younger than her. The person who’d told her daughter, who was bleeding in the head from being hit by the ash tray, “It’s all right,” and “It didn’t break.” The ash and cigarette butts had scattered across the floor.“But it did break. Don’t you know?”The violet curtains hanging from the window rustled from the silence of my voice. As I touched the scar above my eyebrow, now nothing but a faint memory, I got ready for bed earlier than usual.I made a quilt for the couple next door, but I can’t meet them to give it to them. I put the quilt in my bag whenever I go out, thinking I might run into them on the street. It’s been more than a month. I ring their doorbell, but there’s no answer; I never hear the sound of the door opening or closing. Even as I think to myself that they must be out of town because their blue Chevrolet Spark is missing, I sense something is off. So, whenever I go out of the house, I knock on the door and peer through the window, but the blinds always prevent me from seeing inside.Why didn’t we exchange numbers? I start to wonder if they ever existed at all. As I do this, I realize that there’s no one to call me affectionately by my name. My name is Cha-jeong Lee. But my name isn’t Cha-jeong Lee. I have no name, no friends.My friends, there are no friends.That’s what Coco Chanel said. And before her, there was Aristotle. Deleuze and Derrida, even Agamben quoted Aristotle. After reading Agamben’s essay “The Friend,” I was going to send him an email. I was going to declare that we should break up, but our relationship had long been over. Thinking to myself that we could maintain a long-distance phantom relationship by exchanging letters of friendship, I wrote an email so light-hearted you might think we’d broken up only yesterday. Only after sending the message did I learn that his email address had been deleted and no longer existed. Was he just a phantom now? Of course, I could figure out what he was up to by asking around, but I abandoned the idea. Ten years have passed since then.Today is his birthday. He is probably slurping up seaweed soup somewhere or burying his face in a cake. Or perhaps he’s staring vacantly out the window at the rain, having forgotten all about his birthday. Idiot. It rains. It’s July 25, a Saturday, and the forecast for the entire country is rain. Is there a reason, a context for why people are attracted to other people, why they get sick of them, why they reminisce about them? I think again about the couple next door. I think about what they said about context.“People read context less and less these days.”“It doesn’t matter. We must make context.”“How about just removing context?”“If that were possible—”“And what if it is?”“It’s not.”“There are lots of things you can’t explain with context.”“There will always be people who search for context, whatever you create.”“So many people get the context all wrong!”“The blind spot of context!”“The context of blind spots!”“Stop! We sound like idiots.”“What if instead of calling it context, we called it Lucky?”“What?”I couldn’t tell if their eyes were drawing me closer or pushing me away. What was the Lucky of that thing called friends? But before that, I had to find my own Lucky. Whenever I thought about things like that, I’d be reminded of Flora Simone’s words.Tell your story. Be true to you. Don’t make a mockery of other people’s lives.With these words, I decided to survey myself and the lucky things that surround me. I wanted to recall things from the past and summon the scenes of oblivion that I’d missed. Even if you call the time that one waits after the doors of memory open until they find the reason for their oblivion, the context of their oblivion, the Lucky of their oblivion—even if you call it time overwhelmed with regret and grief, can regret and grief not create a spark? We’re not holding onto our heads, which might be destroyed at any moment, as we try to tidy up our pasts. In fact, life is impossible to tidy up. Can’t we keep chasing that spark?On the bamboo blanket on my bed are fallen breadcrumbs and fragments of the body. What’s happening inside my body every night? The time of a machine-like body is fair to everyone, so when I get up after lying down for a while, it feels like the right and left halves of my body have swapped, and my two feet, which feel distant, are telling me to go somewhere. This happens even more often on rainy days. I throw the pillow at the ceiling. The ceiling is miles away from me, and the pillow falls back down to me slowly. Some days, the pillow remains suspended in air. I enjoy the destruction of time.The more my body deteriorates, the sharper my mind becomes. With lucid and perceptive eyes, I see through objects and phenomena. My hair stands on end. I imagine a tiny universe being contained within each strand of hair. Every day, universes explode, and new ones are born. A tempest of dust rises. The larger the tornado, the better I see. I dab the physiological tears hanging from the corners of my eyes with the sleeve of my Gucci Mickey Mouse pajamas and realize with a smile that I’m not yet dead. Time enjoys my destruction.“Détruire, dit-elle.”I mutter the title of Marguerite Duras’s film to myself. Destroy, She Said.“Duras will always remain at your side.”I can hear his voice. Spring, 2010. Two months after announcing our breakup, he finally packed his things and left. In September later that year, I saw every film shown at the Duras Film Festival, hosted by the CineCode Sonje in Anguk-dong. I ran into the same people several times during the film festival. And during the showing of India Song, people looked back at me several times because I was unable to stop coughing. The sound of my frequent coughing became a secondary voice-over for the film. I wonder, Were the coughs a form of sobbing? People who chased the traces of the rustling light in that film, that boring and dark, boring and bright, boring and hot, boring and cold, boring and hideous, boring and beautiful, boring and exotic, boring and erotic, boring and close, boring and distant, boring and remote, boring and drowsy film. Among those people who closed their eyes for a second to be transported to another world, some of them must have already erased their bodies from this life.I wake, make my bed, comb my hair, and shower, after which I lean against the window and look out toward Suncheon Stream in the distance, into which rain is falling. I don’t see anyone. Nor do I see any animals. Or phantoms. I hear the footsteps of the people I can’t see, of the animals and phantoms I can’t see. As I follow those sounds, I find in the distance my two feet.Today, I have something to think about, I have somewhere to go, I have something to do, I have something to forget, and I must disappear. I go to Cinema Gwangju. It will be a lengthy excursion. I haven’t been to the cinema for a long time because of COVID. This is my first time going to Cinema Gwangju since coming to Suncheon. I’d had plans to go there once I moved here even before the pandemic, but I never got around to it. I got exhausted just walking around the city.Once a month, they hold a “One Day Cinema” event in which they play long movies that aren’t possible in regular theatre settings. The first One Day Cinema will feature Miguel Gomes’s Arabian Nights trilogy. There are some movies that you must watch in theatres to get the full experience. This is especially true for ultra-long films. Last year, after two back-to-back viewings of Miguel Gomes’s Tabu on my laptop, I was unable to sleep, and once I saw the news about Arabian Nights through Cinema Gwangju’s Instagram page, I started counting the days. Even though I was worried that I couldn’t make it to the end—I was afraid that my brains cells would become overloaded and my eyes would become blurry until I was trapped in darkness—before I knew it, my two feet were already walking about the cinema.Yesterday, I took out my favorite pair of Twin Peaks-themed socks, which I’d shipped to Korea. Because my feet are always cold, I always wear ankle-high socks, even in the summer. There’s nothing better than the feeling of putting on a new pair of socks—a feeling so sublime I can’t even put words to it. I’m a member of a group that believes that changing socks can change your mood. Who was the person who first invented socks? And were they the first person who wore socks, too? Or had they invented socks for someone else? I wonder what it must have felt like for them, that first person who put on socks. Were they floored by their invention? I wouldn’t be surprised if I was that person in some past life. So, who was the first sock-wearer in history? There are so many questions about humanity that will never be answered. A life spent slowly and methodically trying to answer these questions would be an interesting life. If possible, I’d like to make the act of putting my feet into socks something that can be repeated endlessly, until the end of time.Sewn along the top of the pair of socks are the words “FIRE WALK WITH ME,” a famous quote from the movie. When the socks stretch around my calves, the text warps. A fire of language ignites. I imagine for a moment watching Twin Peaks season three with him, the two of us wearing matching socks. The more impossible and vain an imaginative thought, the better.I first met him in 1992, at the occasionally held “Progressive & Underground Music Concert” in the Koa Musical Gallery on the second floor of the Koa Art Hall in Jongno. I’d seen him several times there and finally decided to make a move. We had tea, ate, watched movies, went on walks, explored each other’s bodies, and then decided to live together. His family was living in Toronto, Canada. On the other hand, I barely talked to my father after leaving Suncheon, and was currently working at a company after graduating from college with both a degree and a patent attorney certification. Teaching French language education at a university, he was two centimeters taller than me, but because of his small frame, we wore the same size clothes. We were like sisters who liked the same music and shared the same clothes, and we spent our time like arcade brats once our soul-sucking labor responsibilities to society—a.k.a. our jobs—finally ended. We traded off sleeping at each other’s place for a while until we got a house in Seongbuk-dong near Simujang—the historic house of the poet Han Yong-un—with a small courtyard that bloomed with beautiful trumpet flowers.We watched Twin Peaks, which aired on KBS 2TV in 1993, without missing a single episode. We would turn off the lights in the living room and watch those strange, absurd, and nightmarish videos on a red television set, and sometimes we’d make love on the hard floor when the show ended. One time when I mounted him and wrapped my hands around his neck, he curled his lips and said, “Le feu marche avec toi.” His facial expression looked like it belonged to a loveable idiot—perhaps someone like Robin Gibb from the Bee Gees. I answered this with a line from Yi Sang’s poem, “I Wed a Toy Bride”: “You smell, dear, just like a newborn babe.” After that, I wrapped my fingers a bit tighter around his neck and rocked back and forth. As he struggled, he accidentally kicked the TV stand, causing the TV to come crashing to the ground, sending sparks everywhere and filling the air with smoke. Despite being naked in a room that smelled of burning electronics, we couldn’t stop laughing. Fire was always walking alongside us.The next day, we went to Hwanghak-dong, bought a used TV, stopped by Dol Record Store to say hi to the owner, picked out a few old LPs, ate a bowl of anchovy noodles, then came back home. Despite not liking alcohol that much, he drank a whole can of beer, then with a flushed face, he placed on the turntable an album of the Norwegian band LeopoldLeopoldobeach, music which brought us great jouissance. He placed the needle on the song “beach B.” Did he want to start another fire? I wondered. I took a marker and wrote “No Fire! No Sound!” on one of the cathode ray tubes from the broken TV that we’d left out as decoration, and then hugged the TV. He lay down with his stomach on the floor. He wriggled his body. He crawled on the floor like the unnamable moving voice from Samuel Beckett’s novel L’Innommable, which he’d once tried unsuccessfully to translate into Korean, just for me. A while later, he came toward me, rubbed his face against the TV, then started to cry. “What’s wrong? Why are you crying?” I asked him as I played with the cord like a whip. There was a candid reflection of the two of us in the mirror. I wrinkled my eyebrows as if I was watching that nonsensical experimental play we saw together in Toronto, which was the first and last time I would see his parents; I then spread my legs and tried to hug him and the TV tighter. I thought to myself that one day in the future, when I became overcome with insanity and melancholy, all of this would feel like a distant dream. Even then, we would be nothing.After we broke up, I worked for four more years at the company, then quit to travel South America and Europe for two years. When I came back, I felt pain in my head, as though something was bursting, and collapsed on the street. After receiving cerebral aneurysm surgery and being discharged from the hospital, I packed up my life in Seoul. Before changing my name to Cha-jeong Lee and moving to Suncheon, I bought myself a pair of Gucci Mickey Mouse pajamas, either to compensate myself for past time or to buy a shroud to cover myself. I had a lingering quiver in my left eye from the brain surgery, and sometimes my vision would suddenly blur, making it hard to see what was in front of me. My doctor told me that in bad cases, people lost their sight completely. The doctor warned me to be careful, that if I damaged my optical nerve again, I could have a cerebral hemorrhage.While watching the third season of the Twin Peaks TV series, which came out twenty-five years after the film, I thought to myself that I wasn’t the only one who was getting older, that I wasn’t the only one with a hole in my head. I cried as I watched David Lynch’s Weather Report on YouTube, in which he’d wake up every morning in LA, don the same clothes, and say, “Beautiful blue skies and golden sunshine.”After going through a transition period, I started a new daily routine in which I would go on the internet to read, watch, or listen to the bizarre things that I used to enjoy. I welcomed the various changes in visual and auditory media brought about by the accelerating age of electronics, and experiencing and enjoying the new forms of functional and aesthetic material consumption was an act that breathed life into my dying flesh. I figured time for me would stop once the balance in my bank account reached zero, but as I spent more time as an idle loner, I began to look forward to the moment that I would accept the future that would be extinguished as a Lucky for my life, to the time of another change and the end of the world.I put on the T-shirt I had custom-made for me with a picture of the score of John Cage’s “4’ 3”” printed on it, throw over a green cardigan, a pair of cream-colored linen slacks and sneakers, then leave the house with an umbrella. There are several letters in the mailbox next door. I ring the doorbell. No sign of anyone. I kick the front gate. My leg slips through the bars and trespasses into their courtyard. I pick up a rock from the alley and throw it at the window. The rock disappears as the window absorbs it. I pick up another rock and throw that. The rock is again absorbed by the window. I throw several more rocks, but the result never changes. I stride over to a large, sharp rock in the distance, feel its edges for a moment, then stick out my tongue to have a taste. Electricity jumps from the rock to the tip of my tongue.When I exit the alley, a stray, rain-soaked dog is loitering about. Our eyes meet for a moment. If it’s still here when I come back, I’ll take it in. “You can’t come back,” the stray says, as if reading my mind.I take my time walking to Suncheon Terminal and get on a bus for Gwangju, about two hours away. There are three people sitting in the bus with masks on, and in a few more seats are phantoms without masks. As I stare out the window at the thin streaks of rain falling from the sky, I think of the first time I went to Gwangju with my father, all those years ago.One Sunday morning in late autumn, 1980, my father suggested we go to Gwangju.“Why?”“To see a movie.”“But we have Cinema Mammoth here in Suncheon.”“Hurry up and get changed.”“I’m scared. I heard a lot of people died.”“Who said that?”“Everyone.”“It’s fine now.”There was a Hyundai Pony pick-up truck parked outside. My father casually opened the car door and told me to get in. He said that he was borrowing the truck from a friend, but as far as I knew, he didn’t know how to drive. He took out a pack of Taeyang cigarettes from the pocket of his leather jacket, stuck one in his mouth, and started the car. Soldiers stopped us several times to question us on our way through Hwasun to Gwangju. Whenever this happened, he grabbed my hand and contorted his face into a smile as he kowtowed. As soon as they motioned us on, he let go of my hand and sucked on his cigarette until his dimples appeared. I played with the window, rolling it up and down, until my father threw his cigarette out the window and spoke to me.“Quit it.”Gwangju city center was quiet, probably because it was Sunday. And the streets were clean, unlike the rumors I’d heard. I wondered if I could glean any information from people’s faces. I had to turn my head left and right to see the signboards of an unfamiliar city. My father patiently surveyed the surroundings before turning the wheel and parking the truck on the corner of the street next to the cinema. I followed him into the building. He greeted the woman at the ticketing booth as though he knew her.“How are ya?”She chewed on gum as she gave him an unimpressed stare.Once we were in the lobby of the cinema, there appeared a passageway that continued outside. On the wall of an empty lot were several layers of movie posters. My father opened the rusted iron door to a warehouse; once inside, a strong smell of paint hit my nose. A man was painting the sign to the cinema, and when he saw my father, made a look of surprise and got to his feet. My father took out a cigarette and offered it to the man, who came over and clenched my father’s leather jacket.“How are ya?”“Don’t get me started. My tongue might fall off.”“Well, we can talk outside.”My father glanced over at me.“She’s looking more and more like her mother,” the man said. “Do you remember me? I was at your mother’s funeral last year.”He was wearing a camo jacket with blotches of paint everywhere. He touched my head. His body was giving off a smell that I couldn’t quite place my finger on.“Is this movie suitable for kids?” my father asked.“It’s an oldie. You haven’t seen it? I’m sure it’s okay for middle school students. It’s a good watch, and she can learn a bit of history, too.”“Enjoy the movie,” my father said to me.“Can I go to the bathroom first?”Without answering, the man and my father opened the door to the theatre and pushed me inside through the thick curtains. It was pitch black. I stuck my head into the darkness in front of my eyes. Smelling cigarettes, perfume, and mildew, I started groping around for an empty seat, but lost my footing and almost fell over. I lowered my head, sat down, and then waited for my heart, which was racing for some reason, to calm down. Towards the middle of the movie, the actress wearing a blue qipao shot beastly men with a gun.“Listen carefully,” she said. “Are you going to put words into your brain, or are you going to put lead into your brain?”Once my eyes adjusted to the darkness surrounding the projection screen, I was able to see the inside of the auditorium and found that most of the seats were empty. And even though the current scene was anything but sad, someone was sobbing. No one was saying anything to them. The heroine taught the bandits how to read and write, became the head of the band of thieves, killed her father, and was seeking revenge on the Japanese soldier who hurt her, but in the second half, there was more and more contextless violence and sex, and the movie eventually turned adulterous and primitive, with scenes of men forcing themselves onto women. Only when it ended did I learn the title of the movie: The Lady Bandit. My father wasn’t in the cinema lobby. A small number of shadowy faces were leaving the theatre, and bright faces were coming into the theatre for the next showing. Seeing me loitering, the woman from the ticketing booth spoke to me.“I guess you’ve been abandoned.”She gave me a smile and a stick of gum. I just nodded and didn’t accept her token of consolation.A while later, my father and the man from earlier came into the theatre.“Good movie, huh?” the man asked me. “Take care of your dad and study hard to become a good woman, just like the one in that movie.”I gave him a look that said neither yes or no.“Let’s go home.”My father smelled of booze and onions. He handed me a bag with a bun inside.He didn’t say a word on the drive home. I ripped off pieces of the red bean bun to eat as I stared out at the blazing sun, which threatened to lay waste to the horizon.A few days later on my way home from school, I stood in the middle of the bridge above Suncheon Stream staring at the ripples in the water as I recited to myself one of the lines from The Lady Bandit.“Listen carefully. Are you going to put words into your brain, or are you going to put lead in your brain?”Nor did I forget what her father said to the spy for the Japanese army.“Shut your mouth before I put a lead bullet in your gut. If you try something, your entrails will be crawling out of your side.”This reminded me of something my mother had said.“There were entrails crawling on the street.”My mother would sometimes mutter this to herself without context. Something light hit the back of my head. I turned around, but there was no one there, no crumpled-up piece of paper on the ground, no waterfowl that had been flying too low. But that was obvious. Waterfowl didn’t come here.“Where the ocean waves wash away the waterfowl tracks, the song of the conch digs deep into my heart and the sound of the waves carries it away. Aaaa, Aaaa, Aaaa.”As I walked slowly through downtown Suncheon, I thought of the song “Sea, Conch, Waterfowl” by Jung Mijo which my mother used to sing, squatting on the back porch as she stared out into the distance.I went into my father’s photography studio and immediately picked up the kettle to drink some water. The water dribbled down my chin, wetting my school uniform and neck. He was nowhere in sight. The turntable had reached the end of the album, and the needle was now spinning vainly about the middle of the record and making scratchy popping sounds. This was the record that contained one of my father’s favorite Bee Gees’ songs, “I Started a Joke.” I stared down at the exhausted record for a while before lifting the needle and placing it back on the rest. There wasn’t a picture of my mother to be found anywhere in the studio. I pulled back the velvet curtains of violet and went further into the recesses of the studio. The passageway was only a few strides long, but it felt like I was walking forever. I pressed the black button next to the door outside the dark room. A moment later, the door open and my father stepped out.“What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be headed home?” he asked. His eyes were bloodshot. He pulled out a Taeyang cigarette from his pocket and stuck it in his mouth. I asked him a question.“Is it true Mom died?”After I left home to attend university in the capital, some of the upperclassmen showed me the Gwangju video. After seeing that, I was positive that my father had taken me with him to Gwangju so that he could pass the checkpoints with ease. The memories returned to my head one after another, all the way up to the point when I ran out of the music club room because the upperclassmen demanded I tell them my reaction after watching the video. For a long time, I’d mistakenly thought that the place where I watched The Lady Bandit was the real Cinema Gwangju. When I told him I had been to Cinema Gwangju in 1980, he looked at me in surprise and told me to tell him everything that happened that day. As I told my story, I embellished, probably to fill all the holes in my memory. In August of 2003, we went down to Gwangju because he said he wanted to watch the films that were being shown in memory of João César Monteiro at the Gwangju International Film Festival. We got a room at the Gwangju Mudeung Hotel and wandered through downtown. Only when we finally arrived outside Cinema Gwangju did I realize it wasn’t the place that existed in my memories. But then at which cinema did I watch The Lady Bandit?After that, I always went down with him to Cinema Gwangju when they were showing rare movies. We’d sit in the empty show rooms and make love with our lips and hands. In 2015 after we broke up, I watched Tsai Ming-liang’s Goodbye, Dragon Inn by myself; I hadn’t been back to the Cinema Gwangju since.When I saw the sign for Cinema Gwangju, my heart started to race. I stood across the street and stared at the entirety of the building for a while before walking toward the ticketing booth. After someone took my temperature, I wrote my name down on the visitor log, only to realize I’d written down my previous name. I corrected it to Cha-jeong Lee. I bought tickets to all three movies and went inside. I perused the cinema’s souvenir shop then went up the stairs and examined the historic pictures hanging on the left side of the second-floor lobby. There was a picture titled “1971 Prayer Room” and a caption explaining that the men in the picture were thugs hired to maintain order at the theatre. Feeling like I recognized one of the men, I took out my phone and snapped a picture. After that, I went to the second-floor balcony and waited as I stared outside.“Ahh, the smell of Cinema Gwangju—”As soon as I went into the auditorium, I was hit with that distinct smell. There were a few people dispersed throughout the seats. I sat down and took out my glasses from my bag. The lights went out and the movie started. It seemed like there was a technical problem because I had to squint to read the subtitles toward the right of the screen. This seemed like a premonition of the migraine to come. I saw someone sitting in the first row of the second level of the auditorium, adjusting the subtitles with their laptop. I wondered if I would be able to make it to the end. After successfully watching all of Arabian Nights – Volume 1: The Restless One, I came out of the cinema, entered a restaurant in Chungjang-ro, and ordered a roll of kimbap minus the pickled radish. When I was done, I went over to Gwangju Stream and stared at the nearby ripples in the water for a while before heading back to the cinema to watch Arabian Nights – Volume 2: The Desolate One. When my eyes started to feel strained, I would close my eyes and doze off for a bit. I’d made up my mind to watch each film to the end, even if it meant my head would explode with pain. When I came out after finishing volume two, the rain had stopped. I saw the person who’d been fixing the subtitles ride past on his bicycle. I went to a local convenience store to buy some vegetable juice, and then I went to Gwangju Stream again to stare at the distant ripples for a while before heading back to the cinema, perusing the souvenirs again, and then going up to the second floor and taking my seat. There was a new person working on the subtitles.Volume 3: The Enchanted One ended. All the subtitles disappeared, the lights turned on, and I became the last viewer in the seats. I finally stood up and headed down to the first floor. The person who had been adjusting the subtitles for volumes one and two asked me if I saw all three parts. When I said I had, they gave me a card and told me that next time I came to One Day Cinema and made it through all the films, I would receive a small gift. On the card were the words “Arabian Nights (July – 6 hours 21 minutes)” as well as a list of the up-coming showings, complete with miniature film posters and running times: Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Happy Hour (August – 5 hours 17 minutes), Wang Bing’s Tie Xi Qu: West of the Tracks (September – 9 hours 17 minutes), Béla Tarr’s Sátántangó (October – 7 hours 18 minutes). This alone felt like a gift.I went outside. Night and the front of the cinema. The only people on the sidewalk were moviegoers who had just left the theatre and were dispersing in both directions. But my feet wanted to stay put. Just as I wondered to myself how I was going to disappear, someone poked me in the back.“Unni, is that you? It is you!”“Oh, Bo-kyeong.”“Mok-won! Over here!” Bo-kyeong called out to her husband, who was late coming out of the cinema. He’d changed his hairstyle into a crop cut since the last time I’d seen the two.“Wow, what are the chances of bumping into you here?” Bo-kyeong said.“Did you watch all three movies?” Mok-won asked. “We got here late and were only able to see volumes two and three.”As we waited for Mok-won to bring the car over from the parking lot next to the cinema, I took out the quilt from my bag and handed it to Bo-kyeong. She exclaimed several times about how beautiful it was and how she loved it. She explained that they’d been staying in Seoul because Mok-won’s mother had passed away. On their way back to Suncheon, they stopped by Gyeongju and now Gwangju.I sat in the back of their blue Spark. It smelled of eucalyptus. There was a Snoopy doll clipped to the air vent. Bo-kyeong reenacted her excitement from earlier as she showed Mok-won the quilt.“Isn’t the pattern beautiful?”Mok-won turned to me and bowed his head in thanks.“Mok-won,” I said. “I’m sorry to hear about your mother.”“Thank you,” he said in a low voice.There were several black books lying in the back seat.“We finally found them.” Bo-kyeong turned around once she noticed me touching the books. “That’s why we stopped in Gyeongju. They were at the library at Dongguk University’s Gyeongju campus this whole time.”“Can I take a look?”“Knock yourself out. You can have one, if you want. We made several copies just in case.”There was nothing written on the front or back covers, which were plain black. When I turned past the first page I found the title written vertically in a mix of Chinese and Korean characters, ÚäÕ¯°ú ÚÅðéÀÇ ÊÆçö, beneath which was the trace of a label that read “Donated by Professor. . .” I recognized the characters immediately as “Uprising and the Resolve of the People.” Inside the darkness of the car, I had no problem seeing the disturbing yet blurry images.“The original was in such poor condition. A lot of copies had been printed and distributed initially. But most of them have been thrown away, I guess.”We exited Gwangju and got onto the highway.“Do you want to watch Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Happy Hour in August together?” Bo-kyeong asked.“Sure.”“Have you seen Asako I & II, as well?”“No.”She handed me a headphone jack which was connected to the car’s auxiliary port.“Treat us to some music.”I took the cord, connected it to my phone, and thought for a moment before opening YouTube and playing “Say You, Say Me” by Lionel Richie.“Hey, wasn’t this song in volume two?” Mok-won said.“I thought I’d heard the song before. Is it famous?” Bo-kyeong asked.“When this song came on, I laughed out loud,” I said. “It was just so out of context.”“Oh, I remember hearing someone laugh.”“Have you seen Miguel Gomes’s Tabu?” I asked.“Yes.”“No.”The two of them gave their answers simultaneously.I played for them “Fade Into You” by Mazzy Star, “Over” by Portishead, and “Lumbini” by Oh Ji Eun. They listened to the music as I stared at the music videos on my phone, which all happened to be continuous black-and-white images. When the music ended, Bo-kyeong continued to sing one of the lines from the last song: “. . . but I just walking walking. . .” I didn’t need to turn on any more music at this point. They must have been exhausted because they were quiet, too. If I was able to return home, and if that stray dog was still hanging around the alley next to my house, I would name it Dixie, after the phantom dog from Arabian Nights. After an extended silence, Bo-kyeong opened the glove compartment and pulled something out.“Want some gum?”“No thanks.”It was almost 11 pm when we passed Songgwangsa tollgate and it started to rain again. The car continued straight past the exit for west Suncheon. Bo-kyeong stared at the side of Mok-won’s face. He was gripping the wheel with two hands, and a black, sparkling light was falling on his short cut hair. The Snoopy doll on the air vent fell to the floor. The quilt I’d made for them was lying on the dash. Bo-kyeong and I met eyes through the rearview mirror. The front wipers were making the sound of Squeegees. One by one, the vehicles on the road disappeared, and before long I couldn’t even see the lamps above the highway. My left eyelid started to quiver. I opened the window and stuck my head into the darkness before my eyes.“I want to find them, too. The Phantom Schoolgirl Army.”Bo-kyeong and Mok-won looked back at me.*Translated by Sean Lin Halbert

by Kim Tae Yong

Daydreams of a River

The new workshop at the factory was built on what was once the paddock at the old ranch. At the end of the paddock, two animal sheds stood in a boomerang shape. Instead of being torn down, these plastered, concrete structures were now used to store saw blades, oil drums for machinery, and stacks of imported wood. One could easily guess the number of blocks that went into each shed. Some rattled loose, as if they hadn’t been laid cleanly. The ventilation windows near the roof were exactly the size of those blocks. Throughout the village were these types of bare-bones sheds, assembled like LEGO houses. A tour bus and several cars with Seoul license plates traveled along the unpaved road to the factory. Red dust, as if bricks had been ground to powder, wafted up from the lane. Rolling hills spread beyond the pasture. Here and there, short trees grew sparsely. Someone sitting at the front of the bus boasted it was an ideal location for a ranch, adding that if a cow happened to escape, you’d be able to find it easily enough. The red dust clung to the black dress shoes of the Seoul staff, even to the bottom of their carefully pressed trousers. The director and factory manager stood side by side at the factory entrance to hang up the sign. Since the young CEO from the main office was on an overseas business trip, he couldn’t attend the sign hanging ceremony. The wooden placard on which the factory name was inscribed in large cursive letters still reeked of varnish. The main office and factory staff stood in a circle and clapped. The director was so short his head barely came up to the shoulders of the tall, skinny factory manager. The difference in the length of their arms was the problem. It wasn’t easy to put the two men at both ends of the sign in one camera frame. If the focus was on the director, everything above the factory manager’s forehead was cut off, as well as the first letter of the sign. But if the focus was on the manager, the director’s stomach would be cut off. In the end, symmetry was barely achieved with the director holding the bottom of the sign and the factory manager holding the top. The manager didn’t shake hands with the people from the main office, though he was meeting them for the first time. He walked hurriedly, hands jammed inside his pants pockets and his torso leading the way before his feet. His unusual gait made him stick out from the rest of the people. A saw blade had taken off two segments of his left middle finger, as well as his right ring finger and pinky, when he’d learned his trade at the sawmill. The director was a vigorous man in his early forties. He always had a hard-sided leather briefcase in his hand. The weight of it was something. Several employees complained of having had their knees or thighs stabbed by a corner of his briefcase while passing him in the hallway. All year round, he carried his suit jacket squeezed under his armpit. He gave off the tired air of a traveler who had just stepped off a plane. Even when going between the CEO’s office and his own, or coming back from the bathroom, he took short, hurried strides, as if late for a meeting. There were too many people at the ceremony to fit all of them in one picture. About a third of the seventy or so staff ended up with the backs of their heads taken, and out of those whose faces were captured, five or six had their eyes closed. A few had taken their sweet time, not realizing the ceremony was beginning, and were caught running belatedly toward the entrance. The hands of those applauding enthusiastically were blurred, as if they’d been rubbed out with an eraser, or were clasped together, as if in prayer. Caught also on the bottom right corner of the photo was a dark smudge. A black dog had come out of nowhere. There were many stray dogs in that area. But it was the woman and not so much the dog that ruined the photo. The woman stood three people over from the director, alongside the other female staff from the main office. As though conscious of the camera, her gaze wasn’t directed at the director or factory manager hanging up the sign, but at some point beyond the frame of the picture. And those eyes glowed red. Much later, in a book titled The Basics of Photography, she learned what causes the red-eye effect. In short, her eyes had been looking directly at the camera when the flash went off. And while she’d been gazing at Y, Y had been gazing back at her through the viewfinder. Y wasn’t in the picture. He’d been holding the camera, pressing the shutter button some five meters away. It had been Hanil Trading’s most prosperous year. Every six months, the company posted a recruitment advertisem*nt in a trade newsletter. On the day of the sign hanging ceremony, all the employees from both the main office and the factory had attended, except for the CEO who was away on a business trip. During this period, Hanil Trading had the most employees in its history since its founding. Among the staff lined up on the factory manager’s side stood a man with a white Yankees cap set crookedly on his head, his long legs spread like the pegs of a clothespin. A was a year younger than the woman. He didn’t look at all interested in the ceremony. Not only was his face hidden in the shadow of his cap brim, but the camera had captured only one side of his face. He was the last young man left in that village. Everyone who worked at the factory was from there, except the manager. There were two middle-aged women responsible for making lunch for all the factory workers, cleaning the factory, and other odd jobs, four men with Class 1 commercial driver’s licenses, and nine men who operated the machinery at the workshop. Over fifty workers from the main office trailed the factory manager like a herd of cows, ambling around the two sheds, workshop, and office. At sunset, the rancher would have opened the paddock gate and led the cows scattered around the ranch back to the sheds. The sheds had probably been arranged in a boomerang shape to prevent the cows from going astray. The workshop was as spacious as a hangar. To allow large trucks to come inside, a wide opening was created in one wall and double doors installed. The director and a few female staff members cheered in front of oversized machines equipped with circular saws about a meter in diameter. A plank of wood was placed on a machine workbench for a demonstration. Judging from the deep reddish brown of the heartwood, it looked like a type of cherry wood. When the manager switched on the machine, the conveyor belt started moving and the stainless-steel saw began to rotate. They had to shout above the noise. The wood moved closer to the blade. The noise grew louder. The cherry wood slipped back a little, resisting the saw, but the spinning blade only whirled faster, its edge drawing dozens of circles in a blur. The woman felt dizzy. “Cherry wood is a dense hardwood, so it isn’t easy to cut. And this is a cross grain piece, which makes it hard to plane. Even veterans get nervous handling this.” The manager barked in a near shout, as if angry. “But there’s no better wood than this!” The blade dug into the wood. Dark sawdust flew out from both sides of the blade. Her nostrils tingled. But the director was more interested in business than in the type of wood or its characteristics. “I hope you’re not planning to throw all this sawdust out. You can still use it, can’t you? Maybe mix it with a kind of glue and make things like particle boards?” The manager laughed silently, showing his yellow teeth. “Sure, it’s got lots of uses. But I don’t recommend making particle boards out of it since the boards are flimsy and bend too easily. Pretty low quality, I have to say. But in the winter, burning sawdust for heating is the best.” Meanwhile, the wood was cut in two and came to a stop at the end of the workbench. However, her ears continued to ring, even after the machine stopped and the workshop grew quiet. The two concrete columns seemed to have been hastily erected to meet the date of the ceremony, for there wasn’t even a gate, let alone a chain link fence. Elderly folk from the village, as well as the stray dogs, flocked into the yard. Most of the old people were related to the factory workers. Straw mats were laid down between the sheds and workshop, and tables of all shapes and sizes were set up. The middle-aged local women who’d been mobilized for the ceremony rushed about, carrying foil-lined plates of boiled pork slices and layered rice cakes with red beans, the slapping of their plastic sandals especially loud. The elderly folks became tipsy off just a few shots of liquor. A few rose to their feet and started swaying back and forth, though there was no music. Whenever they lifted their legs, their white socks flashed, stained with reddish dirt. The faces of the elderly who were seated were also ruddy with drink. An old man poured liquor for another old man, who was actually his nephew, and this nephew, observing all formalities, politely received the drink with two hands and then turned away to swallow it. Dogs circled the tables, eyeing the people. The elderly showed their few remaining yellow teeth or danced with their eyes closed, as if listening to distant strains of music, occasionally flying into a rage at the dogs who tried to sneak some food. They’d stamp their feet or hurl a rubber shoe at them. The dogs arched their backs like bows, their tails raised and rigid like poker sticks. If a woman serving food tossed them a slice of pork, they’d all rush to pounce at the dirt-covered scrap of meat. They shoved their snouts into the dirt, planting their paws into the ground so that they wouldn’t get pushed back. A cloud of red dust rose. But it was the black dog who managed to get the scrap of meat each time. It had long legs and a pointy snout. An old man pointed at the black dog. “Now that’s a clever dog. He came from our dog and that one over there.” The old man next to him tossed back his shot and shook his head. “How can your dog be the daddy? Your dog isn’t even the right breed.” “Look at those eyes,” the first man said, not wanting to lose. “They’re definitely from our dog. I saw it with my own eyes, saw your dog jump over my fence to get to my dog.” “You can’t even tell the difference between a piss pot and somebody’s head without your glasses.” “Who cares who the daddy is?” a third man said, interrupting. “They’re just dogs for crying out loud. You just worry about yourselves.” An old man slapped his knee. A man seated near him stuck his foot out and poked him in the side. Then another old man sitting amongst them raised his cloudy eyes and glanced about, and began to snicker. Low laughter escaped from between his crooked teeth. The boiled pork smelled bad. Men who could stomach it topped it with garlic, wrapped the whole thing in lettuce, and then crammed it into their mouths. Even before they swallowed, they opened their mouths that were still full of food and knocked back some soju. With a low Formica table between them, the people from the main office and the factory workers were standoffish with one another, like groups holding a labor-management negotiation. Assistant manager Lee from the main office got to his feet, rattling an empty soju bottle into which he’d stuck the end of a metal spoon. He stabbed the end of his necktie into his shirt front pocket. A flush had spread down to his neck from the drinks the factory workers had poured him. A factory worker who’d exchanged a few words with him shouted, “Hey there, looking sharp!” Laughter burst from the people sitting down. Caught off guard by the sudden noise, a dingy dog that had been lingering by the tables started barking at no one in particular. Of the seventy plus people in the group photo, Mr. Lee, the assistant manager, stood out. He wore a navy-blue double-breasted suit, with gray pinstripes and gold buttons embossed with an anchor. If he had a pipe in his mouth, he would have looked like a sailor. Comments about Mr. Lee’s suit erupted all over the yard. Someone gave a long whistle. He waited for the laughter to subside and then rattled the soju bottle again. The factory manager and director had been whispering with each other for some time, their heads close together. Urged by Mr. Lee, Miss Kim from the trade department stood up. She was nicknamed Kitty because of her big eyes and unusually small mouth. “Sing! Sing!” the men hollered, loosened by drink. Flushing a deep red, Miss Kim introduced herself briefly and sat down. The men cheered. She kept tasting dirt in her food. A yellow dog was watching her, crouched down on the ground across from her. The dog had baggy skin, as if she’d recently given birth to a litter, and the corners of her eyes were crusted with sleep. The woman tossed her a piece of meat, but the black dog appeared out of nowhere and intercepted it. Instead of lunging for the food, Goldie cowered and shrank back. Her ten sagging teats swung in different directions and came to a stop. Holding out another piece of meat, she called Goldie over, but only after quite some time did she come, swinging her teats. Instead of snatching up the food right away, she licked the woman’s hand for a long time before she took it. Her teeth seemed weak, too. Bits of meat fell out from between her teeth. When she finished, Goldie went and sat behind a young man, her teats swinging from side to side. He was wearing a Yankees cap pulled low over his face, drinking quietly. It was A. Several older men sitting across the table from him scolded A for not removing his cap before his elders. A woman who’d been bringing over some meat and soju glanced at the men. “Everyone’s got their reasons, all right?” One of the men glared at her with bloodshot eyes. Since A’s expression was hidden by his hat, she couldn’t see his reaction. The water tap was behind the sheds. Goldie followed the woman, her flesh swinging. As she moved forward, the baggy flesh on both sides struck each other, causing ripples to break out on her skin. She looked uncomfortable, as if she were wearing a coat several sizes too big for her. If the woman were to pull down a zipper somewhere on that hide, a small puppy just might spring out. It seemed the tap was supplying water to the sheds. A long rubber hose, filled with sand, was connected to the tap. Inside the hose was a tiny maple leaf. She twisted open the tap and waited at the end of the hose for the water to come out. The water was so cold her hands went nearly numb. Piles of junk lay behind the sheds. Bricks and Styrofoam pieces mixed with silt. There were also pots, rubber tubs, and a deflated child inner tube. She turned around, but Goldie was gone. She clicked her tongue, but she didn’t appear. It was dark inside the shed, even in the middle of the day. A pile of North American walnut logs was stacked on one side. When they first started at the company the previous year, Y and the woman had spent all winter at the Incheon Port. Forklifts roamed constantly between the huge containers. It was so cold that her skin bloomed red under her pants. Lumber arrived from North America once a week. Logs as long as twenty meters and as wide as an entire arm span were heaped like a mountain on the loading dock. From the top of the logs, she could see the Incheon pier. Ships carrying containers were anchored. The pier was chaotic with constantly moving cranes, trailers, and longshoremen. She and Y’s job was to check the number and type of logs against what was written in the invoice. Y hopped from log to log. The woman followed. For a moment, when her body was airborne, the pier seemed to loom closer. The soles of her shoes wore down quickly. That winter, she went through three pairs of shoes. Though she wore gloves and boots, her hands went numb and she couldn’t feel her feet either. If she couldn’t bear the cold any longer during log inspection, they’d leave the docks. Instead of walking all the way to the overpass to get to the food stall across the street, they’d jaywalk. Y held her hand. His hand was lukewarm. When she drank a hot cup of oden soup, her skin began to itch as it thawed. She wanted to see Y from that time, but Y wasn’t in any of the pictures. The shed smelled of animal excrement and tree sap. Under the dark ceiling, sockets without lightbulbs dangled from cords both long and short. You could see the village across the street through the brick-sized ventilation windows. When night fell, the cows locked up inside the sheds would have watched the blinking lights of passing cars through the windows. There were many animal sheds at the base of the mountains. She could easily tell they were no longer in use. A tongue licked the back of her hand. It was Goldie. Further inside the shed on the pile of walnut logs sat A. How long had he been inside? He was smoking. “Don’t get the wrong idea. I wasn’t following you. You see those old farts out there? I can’t even have a smoke around them. They’d all get up in my face if I did.” He flicked the cigarette butt from between his fingers. Drawing an arc in the air, it flew out the window. “There was an outbreak here. White spots showed up on the cows’ brains, like the holes of a sponge. All the dairy cows died. We dug pits to bury them and used excavators to transport the bodies. For two weeks, the excavators went around here. The spots where they’re buried are spongy. We filled the pits and tamped the dirt down, but as the cows rot, the pits keep sinking.” A got up from the logs. He was much taller than she’d thought. Goldie went to him, her flesh swinging. A heaved a deep sigh. She caught a whiff of liquor on his breath. “I’ll be on a boat by next February. A tuna reefer. Once you set out to sea, it might be two years before you come ashore.” He walked toward the shed entrance with Goldie. Before he stepped out, he turned and looked at the woman. He heaved another sigh, as though drunk. And then without any explanation, he said he was the type to see a thing through if he put his mind to it. The elderly men caused a commotion trying to find their shoes. There were over twenty pairs of white rubber shoes in the yard, turned over and lying askew. Even when the men flopped down on their behinds, drunk, they snickered like children frolicking in the water. Since every one of them was dressed in a white hanbok, it was difficult to tell them apart. They looked different, and then all at once like the same person. “Aigo, Father!” Daughters-in-law, who were elderly themselves, came running, wiping their wet hands on their baggy trousers. Red dust rose from where they’d dragged their sandals. The factory manager accepted every drink that his staff poured him. Drunk, he kept urging more liquor on the director who sat across from him. Liquor sloshed out from the shot glass he held with his four fingers. The finger that had its tip severed was blunt, with new skin having grown on top of it. The director stubbornly turned down every drink. He blamed it on the meeting he had to attend the next day. Though he hadn’t had a single drink, he looked tired, as though he’d just gotten off a long-haul flight. A fine layer of reddish dust covered his hair that was slicked back with pomade. Every time, the manager slurred, “Ah jeez, not even a single drink?” The director’s car was the first to leave the factory. Those returning to Seoul by bus scrambled to the entrance where the tour bus was parked. The yard offered a clear view of the people climbing aboard. Drunk men staggered to the side of the road and urinated for a long time. Their suit trousers were wrinkled and the shirt collars grubby. Darkness was moving in from the direction of the bus. The stray dogs from the village roamed the yard and thrust their noses into the ground, sniffing for meat. The rest of the city people split off into different cars. The woman and Y were supposed to catch a ride with Mr. Lee, the assistant manager, but Y was still snapping photos of the factory. Loosened up with drink, the factory manager had taken his hands out of his pockets and now went so far as to wave at the camera. In less than a year, he would lose two more fingers out of the remaining four on his left hand. The circular saw was cutting through cherry wood when it hit grain running in a different direction and jerked up. In the blink of an eye, two of his fingers flew off, spraying like sawdust. The accident threw the main office into chaos. As soon as he heard about the accident, the CEO called the factory manager, a man twenty years his senior, a “f*cking idiot.” He then made countless calls to check if the manager had broken any laws by neglecting to use a safety device. He also asked Mr. Lee to secretly investigate whether he’d been drinking on the job. The woman called out to Y, who was taking his time. As she was getting in Mr. Lee’s car, she looked toward the sheds and workshop, but A was nowhere in sight. The village women were clearing away the mats from one side of the yard. The stray dogs swarmed toward morsels of food that had dropped on the ground. The factory workers stationed on one side of the yard would probably keep drinking well into the night. The tall young man in the Yankees cap wasn’t by the entrance either. The bus pulled farther away from the factory. The woman continued to scan the surrounding area for A, like a farmer looking for a cow that had escaped from his paddock. Wondering if he was hiding, she scrutinized the trees and then laughed at herself. Being so tall, A wouldn’t be able to hide behind such small trees. She’d wanted to wish him good luck at sea. She’d even clicked her tongue for Goldie, but there was no sign of the dog either. It quickly grew dark. Animal sheds flickered in the darkness. There wasn’t a single streetlight along the road. They had to go slowly, since the headlights lit only a short distance ahead. Mr. Lee kept sticking out his tongue to lick his dry lips, as if he were thirsty. The road had many sharp curves, and Mr. Lee hit the brakes at every bend. Y seemed tired. Sitting in the backseat, he slept with his head bowed. Though they were unable to catch up to the tour bus that had left much earlier, they should have been able to see at least the lights of the other cars. At first, they thought nothing of it, assuming they couldn’t see the cars ahead because of the bends in the road. But after driving for twenty minutes, they realized they must have taken a wrong turn somewhere. The road was completely empty. They were the only ones on the road. It was pitch black everywhere, with no houses in sight. They had no choice but to keep going until they came to a sign. Mr. Lee started driving a little faster. Just as they were going around a bend, a white object darted out from the opposite side of the road. Mr. Lee slammed on the brakes, but it was too late. The object hit the bumper and flew into the dark rush field. The car stopped after it had hurtled forward for another five meters. Mr. Lee peered at the road behind them through his rearview mirror. He could hardly see anything in the glow of the taillight. Y, awakened by the impact, glanced about with puffy eyes. Mr. Lee made a face. “sh*t.” He rolled down his window and spat outside. He left the engine running and climbed out of the car. Through the rearview mirror, she saw him move farther away from the car. He was soon swallowed up by darkness. Y said it was most likely nothing and yawned. “Probably a badger or a squirrel.” She’d caught only a flash, but it had seemed much bigger than that. The object in the headlights had been white. About ten minutes later, Mr. Lee came back to the car. Instead of getting in the driver’s seat again, he stood beside the car and smoked. When he climbed inside, he reeked of liquor and cigarettes. “It was a dog,” he said. The village had an unusual number of stray dogs, but the woman’s gut feeling was that it hadn’t been a dog. Back at the factory, the elderly people had been wearing white. They flashed across her mind, and then vanished. Mr. Lee scrubbed his face with both hands. “No, actually, it’s too dark to see anything.” The bottom of the hill about three meters below was as black as a well. It was impossible to search every spot with a flashlight. “Mr. Lee, are you sure it went in that direction?” Y called out from the dark. “I don’t think it was over there.” The dark was disorienting. They couldn’t tell where they’d hit the object. After crashing into the bumper, it had hurtled off the road. It wouldn’t be easy to find where it had landed. Mr. Lee raised the flashlight above his head and raked the light over the field. The light punched holes in the darkness that was like a vast carpet. Dense clumps of rush grass. Dry bushes. Animal sheds no longer in use. The flashlight moved over the field again. Right then in the light, the woman saw the grass shake. “Over there! It’s alive!” She started moving before she finished speaking. The slope wasn’t steep, but the soil was so dry she slipped and tumbled down. “Don’t move the light!” she shouted without looking back. “Yes, there! Keep shining it there!” Because it was the dry season, the rushes were dry. They wrapped around her legs. She heard Y come up behind her. The ground was firm underfoot, but it would give way suddenly into spongy spots. She recalled what A had said. That there were many holes throughout the village where the dead cows had been buried. As the bodies decomposed, the holes that had been covered with dirt turned soft. Maybe it had been a joke to scare a city girl. She walked toward the spot the flashlight revealed, a flattened area. The broken rushes shook. It was a dog. Thinking it was Goldie, she brought her face close, but it wasn’t her. It was panting. The tongue that lolled out of its open mouth looked unnaturally long. “So it actually was a dog?” Y said, catching his breath. He then yelled in Mr. Lee’s direction. “It was a dog! A dog!” It was still warm. When she touched it, its breathing grew quieter. She buried her fingers in its ruff and stroked its fur. It must have been hit in the stomach. Every time her hand went near the stomach, the dog silently bared its teeth. The rushes were sticky. She felt something mushy next to her. The entrails that had spilled from its stomach were splayed on the trampled rush. “Let’s go.” Y said, turning around. That second, the dog’s eyes that had rolled back into its head flashed toward Y. The dog shot up and clamped down on the woman’s wrist with every last bit of strength. Its fangs pierced the woman’s flesh. Her arm turned numb. When she raised her arm, the dog’s head came up as well. Her arm felt so heavy she felt as if it were going to snap off. Once the dog had latched onto her wrist, it refused to let go. She saw its eyes then. Rolled back to show mostly whites, its eyes were welled up with tears. Its saliva seeped into her veins. She remembered those eyes about ten years later, when she herself bit down on someone’s arm. The man clobbered her repeatedly in the face with her purse. The buckle on the purse whacked her in the eye. She tried to get a good look at his face, but she couldn’t, because one of her eyes had swollen shut. Even as she was dragged along the side street, she bit down harder and refused to let go. The dog’s fangs seemed to have pierced through her muscle to the bone. She couldn’t help thinking that if she continued to stay this way, her hand may have to be amputated. The factory manager’s blunt fingers crossed her mind. She shook her arm frantically, but the fangs sank deeper into her flesh. Y, who had been on his way back, heard her scream and came running. Though it was dark, she saw Y leap through the rushes. The dog’s saliva seeped into her bloodstream, and she had the thought that she’d perhaps become half dog. Like a dog, she stared into the darkness. It seemed she could hear, even see, the rustling of a small insect inside the rushes. Y kicked the dog. Her arm was also kicked in the process. The dog would not unlatch from her. Y felt around the rushes. There was a large rock inside his hand. The woman was dragged deeper into the side street by a man whose face she couldn’t see. She lost a heel along the way. Her socks ripped and her skin scraped along the cracked sidewalk and started to bleed. The narrow street that led to her house was always deserted. Even though low-rises with basem*nts lined the street and every detached home was filled with people, she was always the only one in the street. The security light had gone out a long time ago, but no one had replaced the bulb. When she’d sensed someone behind her, it was already too late. The man had been hiding behind the stairs of a low-rise and had come up silently behind her. A strong hand clamped over her nose and mouth. His other hand grabbed at her purse that was slung over her shoulder. She couldn’t breathe. She tried to twist away, but his hand only tightened over her nose and mouth. His palm reeked and was damp with sweat. She had no choice but to bite his hand so that she could breathe. Ahh! He clutched his hand and jumped back. Right then, she could have fled in the opposite direction. But she dashed toward him and bit his arm. Her teeth didn’t sink easily into his muscular arm. She bit down with all her strength. Her teeth pierced his flesh. His muscles seemed to be crumbling between her teeth. He jumped up and down in pain. His blood flowed between her teeth and down her throat. It tasted fishy. The man bashed her face with her purse. The buckle on the purse hit her in the eye. Still she didn’t let go of his arm. His fist pummeled her face. Her nose collapsed and something hot gushed down her face. The crunch of several top teeth breaking off reverberated in her head. Strangely enough, she remembered the eyes of the dog that had bitten her wrist and would not let go. She felt no pain. He dragged her along the street while smashing her head against the stone wall of a low-rise. Once, twice, everything turned white. She wanted to open her mouth, but she couldn’t. She believed her dog nature had finally shown itself for the first time. “Once a dog bites, it rarely lets go,” said H, whom she had run into ten years later. He rolled up his pant leg. She saw the pink keloid scar that was shinier than the rest of his skin. It was a dog bite wound. The man whose face she hadn’t been able to see threw the woman down at the end of the street and hurled the purse at her face. “You f*cking bitch!” As if still angry, he stomped on her stomach and thighs with his boots. He then spat on her. H scratched at the keloid scar. “If I got this hurt, can you imagine what happened to the dog?” “Why didn’t you just let him take your purse?” Everyone who came to the hospital said the same thing. They shook their heads, as they gazed down at the woman lying in bed with a mashed eye, fractured nose, three broken teeth, and bruises all over her body. Some asked if there had been valuables in her purse. However, she’d had only a single ten-thousand-won bill inside her purse that day. No one could understand. Each time a visitor offered a comment, her mother, who had been caring for her, added, “Stupid, stupid girl,” and let out a big sigh. The woman looked down at her feet which were sticking out from under the sheet. Her skinned heels were oozing blood and a toenail had fallen off. Y frowned as soon as he came to the hospital. Y was wearing snug leather pants that looked uncomfortable and boots that came up to right below his knees. He glanced at her face a few times and sat on the end of her bed. “You look like a different person.” She gave him a small smile. “Don’t worry. The swelling and bruising will go away. The doctor straightened my nose and as for my broken teeth, I can get implants.” “See?” Y said, slowly shaking his head from side to side. “You still don’t understand.” Until then, the woman had no idea that Y had joined a motorcycle club. She came home a day earlier than her discharge date. That night, Y didn’t come home. Y, who returned late the next morning, didn’t wash up or eat, and went straight to bed. As though he had roamed about all night, she smelled on him the winter wind she’d smelled at the Incheon Port. “You’ve changed too much. You’re not the same shy girl who couldn’t even look at a boy.” Her bruises disappeared and she got dental implants, but Y’s complaints continued. When she asked him why he was always out, he said it was because he was bored. Soon, Y no longer came home in the morning. The office of High Speed, the motorcycle club, was located at an auto body shop right outside Seoul. A sign that said, “We remove dents!” stood in front of the shop, the ground stained with grease and motor oil. The garage owner was around Y’s age. He said that in the daytime he restored vehicles that had been in collisions with the help of his two employees and then on holidays or late at night, he took out his motorcycle. Y wasn’t there. Even the club members couldn’t get a hold of him. Once members were notified of the date, time, and place by email, those who were able to make it gathered and rode their motorcycles together. The owner added that they liked to go on the newly built road in front of Munhak Stadium these days. In one corner of the body shop was a bulletin board for High Speed members. “I need to talk to you, so please come home.” She put up her note where it would be most noticeable. Y didn’t come home. The woman’s uterus, which had been as small as an apple, became the size of a melon. Blue veins spiderwebbed over her breasts. When she rose to her feet or sat down, her groin strained. As he was doing the ultrasound exam, the obstetrician let slip, “What a handsome fella!” It was a boy. The baby inside her belly grew hair, as well as fingernails and toenails. They said that around this time, fingerprints formed on the fingers. As soon as a stethoscope was placed on her belly, a fetal heartbeat echoed in the examination room. The body shop owner recognized her. He said he’d seen Y once on the new road near the airport about two weeks before. On the bulletin board was a message from Y. “Please let me go. Stop hanging onto me for Christ’s sake. I’m so sick of it.” It was his last message to her. While staring at the note, she thought about what Y had said about being bored. According to the body shop owner, Y had gotten a new bike recently. She headed for the road the owner had jotted down for her. The new road in front of Munhak Stadium was connected to the Yeongdong Expressway. The taxi driver stopped several times and asked where exactly in front of the stadium she’d meant. She also went looking for Y around the Jayu Motorway, but there weren’t any spots for the taxi to stop. Motorcycles sped along the night road. There were many that crossed the median line. The cab chased after them, but they were too fast. It wasn’t easy to find Y’s motorcycles from the others. Many members of the club stored their bikes at the body shop. The owner had pointed at one in the corner. “That there is Y’s new girlfriend.” Y’s girlfriend was a 1,450cc model, made of light titanium. If Y had gone around with a woman in the backseat, perhaps one with long hair, she would have been able to catch Y. She stuck a new message on the bulletin. “I’m so bored. Come back.” More than a week passed, but Y didn’t call. The clinic that had been recommended to her on the phone was small and shabby. There didn’t seem to be any women of childbearing age in the town where it was located. The clinic’s only patients were pregnant women who’d traveled from far away and a few bargirls. When she’d called, the nurse hadn’t bothered to ask her the basic questions, like how far along she was. But she added the woman would have to pay for the disposal of the specimen in addition to the surgery cost. She didn’t tell her mother. All her mother would say was that she was a stupid girl. The operating room had missing tiles and holes in the floor, like an old bathhouse. Perhaps her feet had swollen, but she felt better once she’d removed her shoes and climbed onto the operating table. There were metal containers containing bandages by the head of the bed. She placed her feet in the stirrups and lay down on the table. She saw black mold growing in a corner of the cement ceiling. Everything felt so surreal, as if it were someone else’s life. The stirrups felt cold. As her belly tightened, something squirmed inside. She decided to think it was a melon that was inside her belly. How could she have carried such a big thing around? The crash of stainless steel came from the consultation room, as if the staff were handling metal tools. She whispered to herself: “It’s okay. You tried your best.” The factory was quite far from Seoul. The reason she was able to get the job was because all the local young girls had left for the city. The boss added that there was no such thing as a maternity leave because of the worsening recession. Power saws operated non-stop from nine in the morning to nine at night. At first she couldn’t hear the person on the other end of the line because of the saws, but she got used to the noise soon enough. Naturally, her voice grew louder, too. When she would lie in bed at night, she’d hear the saw. Sometimes when she called, her elderly mother would complain and say she was about to go deaf. The factory was always full of itinerant workers. The boss didn’t care about the backgrounds of the workers, but she didn’t like dealing with them. Afraid she’d come across the man she’d bitten, she developed the habit of examining the arms of the new laborers. Even if no one else knew, the one bitten and the one who’d done the biting would no doubt recognize each other. A trailer loaded with North American oak arrived. The laborers who’d been scattered around the sawmill swarmed toward the trailer. A red pennant flag was attached to the end of the longest log on the flatbed. The center of the oak was light pink or dark brown. Compared to cherry wood, oak was easier to cut and nail down. The driver’s door opened and a giant sack of a man hopped down. His hair was disheveled, as if he’d had the windows rolled down. “Ah jeez, you were bitten by a dog?” After observing the scar on her wrist, he suddenly pulled up the hem of his pants and thrust his knee at her. “Look, a dog bit me, too. When they get a hold of something, they don’t let go,” he said with a wince. “If my scar is this big, imagine what happened to the dog! I made sure it would never chew meat again.” The logs on the flatbed matched up with the invoice. While she checked the flatbed, the man joked around, shaking his leg. “Excuse, but do I know you? I feel like we’ve met before.” She started heading back to the office, but he blocked her way. “I’m sure I’ve seen you before . . . Are you sure you don’t remember me?” His face was unfamiliar. He walked back to his trailer, hitting his gloves against his leg. The flatbed tilted up and logs spilled down onto the ground. The noise of the saws coming from the workshop was deafening. The driver came running, his belly bouncing. Very briefly, she recalled Hanil Trading’s sign hanging ceremony. But the man recognized her first. “Hanil Trading, right?” She recalled the Yankees baseball cap. “A?” The man looked disappointed. “You asked me how I’d gotten bitten by a dog. You were so cold you were shivering, so I even lent you my pullover.” It was H. But his face was unfamiliar. “It was a green waterproof pullover . . .” In the group photo, she’s wearing a green pullover. She has red eyes, for she’d been looking directly at the camera. So fixated on her red eyes, she must have forgotten about the borrowed pullover. She’d remembered A as being the only young factory worker there that day. He went on a reefer ship that February, just as he’d told her. About a year later, the company received a letter saying all traces of A had disappeared from an island in the South Pacific archipelago when his boat had been anchored at port. When the wooden sign was unwrapped from the newspaper, it smelled of fresh varnish. Some parts of the sign were sticky since the varnish hadn’t completely dried. People around the yard started to gather. The director raised the sign with a sly expression. Exactly ten years later, he had a heart attack. He always had the air of a traveler who had just stepped off the plane. The CEO was eventually conned by the assistant manager who’d looked like a sailor. Assistant Manager Lee had conspired with a friend at the American branch to steal some imported lumber. A year after the sign hanging ceremony, Hanil Trading began to fall into decline. The seventy plus employees dispersed and the name of the company disappeared from the trade newsletter. The factory’s sign that had been carved out of walnut wood was probably burned up a long time ago, used as firewood for some house. While learning photography, she learned that the red-eye effect tends to happen when the pupils are dilated. Why were my pupils dilated? Was it really me that Y had been watching through the viewfinder? Other female employees from the company had been standing next to her. Miss Kim, who resembled a cat, was very popular with the men. The woman’s gaze had been directed at some point beyond the frame. Was I really looking at Y? She couldn’t even remember borrowing H’s pullover twenty years ago. Y may not be the one she’s watching. Y takes a few steps back with the camera in his hands. He puts the camera up to his eye, hesitates, and backs up some more. Now he’s standing about five meters away from the group. The pasture spreads out behind him. As seventy plus people scuffle about, red dust rises to their knees. Above the pasture is the deep autumn sky. The workshop was built on what was once the paddock. The workshop door opens and a cow makes its way out of the paddock. Soon other cows come out of the paddock. The dairy cows amble toward the sheds. The woman blinks. The cows vanish and only their mooing lingers in the air. There is no pasture or workshop. What she is looking at is herself in twenty years. Her pupils are dilated. That’s when Y presses the shutter. The assistant manager, who’s dressed in a suit with gold buttons, backs up the car and parks in front of the factory entrance. The woman is looking for A to say goodbye. But she can’t find A or Goldie who had followed him around. Y looks as young as he had at the Incheon pier when he leapt between the logs that had arrived from North America. Several cars carrying the main office staff leave the factory and a cloud of red dust rises around the tires. She and Y cannot fathom how much they will change in twenty years. Her wrist is still smooth, unmarked with the dog’s bite. Nothing has happened yet. At this point, her belief that biting and being bitten is part of life has not yet taken root. In the pictures that Y has taken, a young H is wearing a green pullover—the same green pullover she’d borrowed and is wearing in the group photo. H’s face is still a stranger’s face. He leans forward, listening to what the factory manager is saying. When Y raises his camera, the factory manager waves his seven fingers. A part of the shed wall is showing. The white brim of a hat pokes out from the shed. Goldie’s tail seems to be showing below. A is hiding, watching the woman leave. She cannot remember H’s face for the life of her. It’s as if a man from the distant future has leapt into the past. She can’t remember the keloid scar H said he’d shown her. She calls out to Y, who is taking his sweet time. Her round forehead is smooth. She was at her most beautiful then. Translated by Janet Hong

by Ha Seong-nan

The Enemy of Capitalism

Here is the true enemy of capitalism. This is not a statement about my parents who were socialists. As known to all, my parents were not theoretical or armchair socialists like some student activists in the 1980s, but real warriors who fought against capitalism in actual warfare, armed with carbine rifles and operating all over Jirisan Mountain during the Korean War. After I was born, however, they did little to stand up against capitalism. At most, they spent long, long winter nights longingly reminiscing about their early days when they had been the living enemies of capitalism, whispering under their comforter to avoid being eavesdropped upon by others. To be exact, therefore, they might well be called former socialists. They were eternal socialists at heart, though. But who gives a damn about heart? Apart from their fight against capitalism during the Korean War, they didn’t have any skill, money or even youth, and after their release from prison, came back to the world ruled by capitalism, where they barely made ends meet as inexperienced farmers at the bottom of capitalist society until their deaths. They had a great cause in their minds, but didn’t reveal it to others, and even if they had revealed it, the great cause would have become a dagger that would end up stabbing them. Thus, since my parents were already old when I was born, they were merely the dead enemies of capitalism. All they left me were persistent poverty, a considerable amount of debt and an abstract concept called socialism that was as persistent as poverty. Nonetheless, the word socialism, which was only an abstraction that I was fed up with, was imprinted on all the memories of my life like a branding mark, and inevitably I ended up having a peculiar interest in its enemy, namely capitalism. Holy crap! While the name Jeong Ji A will remind most readers of the partisans’ daughter, I am repeating this obvious story over and over again while sober, since I would like to show my real self in order to help readers believe that the unbelievable and unreal story which I am about to tell is, in fact, based on absolutely real facts, just as my parents’ story was based on reality. Thirty years ago, I began to feel the urge to write the story about my friend and her family who were deemed the true enemies of capitalism. They were rare human beings in the capitalist age, whom I termed the “autistic family.” Being a realist, however, I dared not write about them because their life seemed too unreal to be true in the eyes of others. Only recently have I made up my mind to write this story, but not because I have some noble and brave aspirations to tell the world about the emerging true enemy of capitalism in this age when socialism, the only former enemy of capitalism, has collapsed. Rather, I write it because I just want to play, free from being the partisans’ daughter and also from being a realist, more and more lightly, like the dust or like the wind, into thin air and without a trace. Now, let us proceed with the story. But first, I would like to ask for understanding on one point. The story of this family is unbelievable, but not exciting. Otherwise, they would not be the autistic family. There is no narrative in the life of this family. It is highly likely that this story will end up as a monotonous report on their everyday life. The inability to dramatize their monotonous everyday life shows the limitations of my capabilities as a writer, which I deeply regret, but this task is beyond my capacity at the moment. Hence, I would appreciate it very much if readers could read it through, feeling a sense of wonder or relief in the fact that these human beings were also our contemporaries, and taking comfort in these small feelings. The pillar of this is my friend, Bang Hyeonnam, who was born the second daughter of a family desperately longing for a son because her father was a fifth-generation only son, as observant readers may have already guessed from her name. Her parents were sincere enough to name their first daughter Hyeona, which was quite an elegant name for a girl at that time, since eldest daughters were considered to be fundamental to the keeping of a household in Korea. Faced with the tragic reality of having another daughter, however, they were overwhelmed by the pressure to have a son at all costs, and when naming their newborn daughter, could not help using the word nam, which means “man” in Korean, in obvious hopes of having a son the next time. In short, the birth of Hyeonnam was a sheer tragedy totally unwelcomed, which didn’t need to happen and should not have happened. It is uncertain whether her self-consciousness as a purposeless being was the primary cause that drove her to become an enemy of capitalism or not. Still, it is certain that it inevitably affected her growth. Having unintentionally aggravated the conflict between her paternal grandmother and her mother with her birth, Hyeonnam mastered the mysterious secret of going unnoticed wherever she was early in her childhood, since her grandmother used to lose her temper whenever she saw her face. Due to her mysterious secret, I also could not notice her existence even though both of us had gone to the same college and taken the same courses in a class of only forty-six students in the same department for three years. I clearly remember the moment when I first became aware of her existence. That day, drinking with several other students, I had one glass too many and kept swearing at the dictatorial government to go with my drink and finally made arrogant verbal attacks on my friends, seniors and juniors who were there with me, all of whom were greenhorns just like myself. While the unfortunate victims were trying to calm their anger with a glass of cheap maksoju, my eyes were searching for the next victim. Then, Hyeonnam came into sight, who seemed half invisible, disappearing into the background. I immediately sobered up. My drunken bravado was only for those who were used to it and I even regarded it as my strong point, like an occasional charm performance for fans, and therefore, the mere appearance of a stranger instantaneously made me feel ashamed of my act. While I was blushing and perplexed under the influence of alcohol and shame, she faintly smiled at me. It was a really thin smile that I’d never seen before. I used the word ‘thin’ to describe the sparse and watery nature of her smile, although I was unsure if it was a proper adjective to describe it, but I felt like her smile might turn into something like clear water at any minute. With that smile on her face, she spoke to me. “I like college. . .” She said this, although I could not understand how it was related to what I’d just rattled on about, and then I replied to her despite myself because her low voice, which always required an ellipsis as I would later discover, had a magnetic pull that drew in listeners in a weird way. “Why?” “Because we don’t change classes. . .” I was, and still am, burning with an unsatisfiable desire for the unknown world, and couldn’t understand what she’d said at that moment. For many readers feeling like myself, I’d like to make a superfluous interpretation about the meaning of her words that I finally deciphered years later. Hyeonnam has a fear of all that was new. In addition to her natural timidity, the primal experience of her birth, had developed into a fear of all new things. Thus, she lived in fear for twelve years, from elementary to high school. Since she was afraid of having to meet strangers, she had diarrhea every day and also had indigestion whenever she ate something, and consequently, weighed only 36 kilograms at the time of high school graduation. For reference, she was 163 centimeters tall, the same height as me. She’d weighed even less, but gained about three kilograms by the end of the semester. She’d relax a bit around December, but the winter vacation began at the same time, and then the school and classmates became unfamiliar to her again. She felt awkward when school started again in February, and to make matters worse, had to change classes again in March. Her priority wasn’t studying, as her school life resembled a fierce battle for survival. In college, however, time passed by while with familiar faces. It was almost a miracle to her. The first sign of the miracle was revealed in the form of weight gain. She started gaining weight in her sophom*ore year. She even weighed as much as 53 kilograms when I first met her during my junior year. College life was as good to her as the Garden of Eden. Without clearly understanding what she meant, I thought that her remark was just a symptom of shyness, and asked back with a giggle. “By the way. . . Who are you?” She casually answered as if this were a common reaction. “I also started my undergrad in creative writing in ’84. . . My name is Bang Hyeonnam. . .” It was a dreary fall day in my junior year, but I didn’t recall that name. Her face was also unfamiliar, of course. I hadn’t even heard of her name, and it was not because of her secret skill, but because of my laziness, since I didn’t remember when I’d attended any class for the last time. However, her next words were another story. “I’ve seen you often at drinking parties. . .” Even at this historic moment when Hyeonnam and I had our first conversation in three years, the others were enjoying their drinks as if we weren’t even there. All seemed to have completely forgotten about my existence even though I’d just made a fiery speech in front of them. This was absolutely due to her secret skill. Then I finally realized her secret of camouflaging her existence. There’s nothing special about it. As with all secret skills, however, she’d put great effort into mastering the method over a period of years. First of all, her facial expressions and gestures never showed any anxiety or fear. If so, all eyes would have been on her immediately. Then, without a word, sound or move, she vaguely mimicked the behavior of the others, such as laughing and drinking. When done simultaneously and naturally, people weren’t aware of who was right next to them. It turned out that she’d shown up at various department events more often than I had. Still, most classmates, like myself, couldn’t remember her. Being her roommate, I was the only one who knew that she never wore a skirt during all her college years. She came from a poor village in Sanggye-dong, Seoul, and spent four winters with a single jacket made of thin cotton. Only I knew about her shabbiness. She was always around others, but like a shadow. I’d never seen such a quiet person. And I’ve yet to meet another. From that day on, we lived together until graduation. She was having difficulty commuting long distances from her home in Sanggye-dong to Anseong. I didn’t know why, but she nodded right away when I asked her to live with me. My cohabitation with her was neither bad nor good. I would rather say that it was weird. I’d never seen such a lethargic person before. My parents lived like ghosts without any power in this capitalist society, but in their hearts, they lived on a battlefield where bullets rained down, with a firm belief that both body and mind must be strong. I lived with such parents for twenty years. Back then, I felt no respect for them, but their way of life must have seeped into my life, like the way many drops eventually make an ocean. I couldn’t understand her lethargy at all. We were roommates for about a year and a half, and I had no memory of seeing her do something. Truly, she did nothing at all. Except for one thing. She read lying on the bed. That was hard to believe. At that time, we were young, only twenty-two years old. Eager to write a good story, I couldn’t sleep well at night when I felt humiliated by a brilliant story written by one of my friends, which was better than mine in terms of metaphor or writing sense or whatever. Then, I started to read anything I could get my hands on, but the great masters of literature drove me to drink out of despair; simultaneously, I also engaged in on-campus protests, marching arm-in-arm with other protesters, sometimes shouting slogans in the street as well. I was constantly doing something, filled with a desire to know more, to do something and to become someone, seething like magma in my mind. Despair and hope repeated like the four seasons during my youth. Meanwhile, Hyeonnam always kept still wherever she was, like at the drinking party. She studied creative writing in college for four years, but never wrote a single story. The only evidence that she was a creative writing student were a few, quite elegant sentences in the three or four letters she sent to me during breaks. She was capable of writing such good sentences, but she never tried. I once asked her why she didn’t write at all, and she just shrugged it off without a word. She was young and did nothing. I thought that it was an insult to youth, and further, to life itself. It somehow felt like an insult to me or to my way of life, too. One day, I could no longer refrain from asking. “What on earth do you live for?” Hyeonnam answered languorously with her typical thin smile. “Well. . . If I stand up, I want to sit down, and if I sit down, I want to lie down, and if I lie down, I want to sleep. . .” Her answers were always like that, either ludicrous or annihilating the question itself. I once asked her if she’d ever write a novel. “Do I have to?” A typical answer. “Why’d you decide to study creative writing, then?” “Just because. . . I thought that all I’d have to do was read books. . .” In retrospect, she was right. You don’t need to become a writer just because you have a bachelor’s degree in creative writing. Becoming a writer doesn’t change who you are. Anyway, in those days, it was inconceivable for me not to become a writer. I also couldn’t understand a person who studied creative writing in college, but didn’t try to become a writer. From my perspective, living meant becoming something different, something better than the present—becoming a writer, a wife and a mother. Hyeonnam didn’t try to become anything. She didn’t want to. Most of the time we lived together, she wanted to sit when standing, lie down when sitting and fall asleep when lying down, as she herself said. While we were living together, she spent more than two-thirds of her time sleeping. She lay in bed almost all day long during weekends. Until then, I hadn’t known that humans could sleep so long, and that it would be all right. Only later did I realize that every moment spent outside was stressful for her, that sleeping was the only way to relax, and that she felt so comfortable with me she could fall asleep beside me. I shook her awake many times, worried about her, since she kept sleeping without eating or going to the bathroom for two days in a row. Her favorite place was her temporary bed made of a metal frame with a plank of wood on top of it. Even when awake, she would lay motionless in bed as still as death. The level of stress she experienced in her everyday life was beyond my imagination. I’ve been friends with her for thirty years, but still cannot fathom the extent of her difficulties, and I can only assume how hard it must be for her. One sunny spring day, I was making gimbap for our picnic lunch. Lying in bed like a still life as usual, Hyeonnam blurted out, “I guess I was a fifth-grader when I had the test. . .” I assumed that it must have been very hard for her because tests were stressful for everyone. “That day, I flipped over the test paper, and the letters were upside down. I freaked out. . .” I had no idea what on earth she was about to say. If the letters were upside down, she could simply turn the test paper upside down, which was no big deal. “I couldn’t read the letters because they were upside down. I thought that I could read them properly if I moved my chair to sit on the other side. . .” If you’ve already understood what she said, you’re either a genius or have an autistic family member. Or you just didn’t think about it. It took me twenty years to fully understand the exact meaning of her words. Anyway, the point is this: in the old days, most test papers were printed on both sides. They were handwritten by teachers, of course. Since the paper orientation wasn’t automatically set by a computer, sometimes you had to flip over your test paper from left to right like turning a page of a book in order to properly read the letters on the reverse side, and at other times, had to flip it from bottom to top to read them properly. It was absolutely up to the teacher. In her case, she flipped over her test paper like turning a page, and the letters were upside down, which was a common mistake. The problem could’ve been solved simply by turning it in the proper direction. Yet, our Hyeonnam couldn’t do it. It never crossed her mind that she could turn it herself, and instead, she just sat there and gave a deep sigh, gazing blankly at the upside-down paper throughout the test; she thought that she had to move her chair to the other side of the desk to read, but couldn’t do it because the seat was occupied by another student, and so she didn’t know what else to do. Toward the end of the test, the teacher finally figured out what was happening, and turned it for her with a sigh deeper than hers. She was finally able to read it. It was a miraculous moment for her. I came close to shouting, “Are you serious?” If her ability to understand had been a little lower, I would have had doubts about her. Her letters sent to me, however, had shown the fact that her understanding and insight were probably better and never worse than mine. Consequently, she was not a fool, but I wondered what kind of thinking process had prevented her from even considering turning the upside-down test paper, and that day’s conversation was to be my big doubt for the following twenty years. Twenty years later, her son resolved my big doubt. Since we lived within a five minutes’ walk from each other, we were on our way to the market one day when we ran into her little son on his way home from school. Seeing us together, he briefly hesitated and scuttled away into an alley without saying hello. He didn’t know how to face his mother’s unexpected appearance in public, and therefore, sheltered himself in the alley in order to avoid the awkward situation. At that moment, the whole story of the test paper incident was finally revealed, which had been a mystery to me for over twenty years. To an autistic person, people can seem like strangers, and they must prepare their hearts or make a firm resolution before facing an unfamiliar situation. Even their own family members can cause unbearable stress, not to mention outsiders. Then, more serious problems can be caused by things or situations, as exemplified by the test paper. Most people feel stress in new situations, but in the case of Hyeonnam, it took at least a year for her to adjust to a classroom and to stop having diarrhea. Things can also be triggers sometimes. When the most technophobic person is faced with a new machine, or when an exceptionally timid person sits behind the steering wheel for the first time, machines are not mere objects but the cause of fear. Yet, Hyeonnam was afraid of a test paper. Test papers don’t go into reverse if touched the wrong way, nor do they delete the manuscript you wrote all night long the moment you click the wrong button. Yet, she thought that she couldn’t move the test paper, just like she couldn’t move other people as she pleased, and that she should move herself instead. Everything was like the test paper, to her. Shy as she was, Hyeonnam didn’t come back home one night toward the end of the last semester. I called her parents in Seoul to see if she’d gone to their place, but she wasn’t there. After four days, she came home nonchalantly, as if she’d left home that morning. “Hey!” I shouted in anger. Her calmness triggered me after being worried about her for the past few days. “What’s wrong?” I would’ve smacked her on the back if she’d been my daughter. We used to share a self-deprecating joke with each other that our faces were our weapons whenever we heard people speak ill of classmates just because they were good-looking. Still, she’d been missing for three days without any notice, and dared to ask back, “What?” “Where have you been? You didn’t even tell me!” She answered in a thin voice, taking off her dark blue cotton jacket and crawling into bed. “The National Security Agency.” “Where?” Her tone was so matter-of-fact that it sounded like she’d been to a friend’s house whose name was National Security. It took a few moments for me to realize what she had just said, and I was even more shocked by the fact that someone like her had done something to be detained by that kind of agency. “What for?” “They were looking for our senior, Gihun. . .” He was a senior student in the same department, allegedly wanted for his union activities. “Why’d they ask you about him?” “I was in his study group. . . A long time ago. . .” Startled by her answer, I pulled the blanket off her in haste. Back then, detainees at the National Security Agency usually weren’t released uninjured. I checked her forearms and back, but her body looked perfectly clean. “Are you okay?” “I didn’t know anything anyway. . .” “Were you in his study group? You of all people?” “He insisted so much. I went there about three times, and just sat there without saying anything, and then he didn’t call me again. . .” In those days, everyone and their mother participated in the student movement, but there were also people like her who was accidentally mistaken for an activist for such an absurd reason. “Did they just believe you and let you go?” In fact, what else could they do but believe her? In addition to her camouflaging secret, she also had a skill in making others believe her completely. Her tricks weren’t that special; those who looked at her face couldn’t help but believe her in the end. She nodded casually. “I told them that I had no money to pay the fare, and they gave me a ride home. They told me over and over not to make friends with bad people in the future. . .” I burst out laughing. I felt like I could understand the confusion of the agent who’d interrogated her. One of her various nicknames was Bang Beobeo. It came from her habit of gawking and stuttering in a very difficult situation. Those who saw her only in this situation regarded her as a simpleton. She must’ve been gawking and stuttering at the National Security Agency, too. They must have sighed heavily, regretting that they’d arrested such a kid in vain. Thus, they just let her go. In those days, she was probably the first to be detained by the National Security Agency for three days and four nights, and treated with such kind consideration when she left the premises. Both the dictatorial government and the National Security Agency couldn’t do anything to her. The activist group that recruited her also couldn’t change anything about her. She was barely noticeable, but turned out to be as strong as a martial arts master if one judged the strength of human beings by their changelessness. Our college life came to an end with the National Security Agency incident. I didn’t search in earnest for a job to become a writer, and she didn’t, either, since there was nothing she wanted to do. Then I started working for the publishing team of a social movement organization and got her involved, suggesting that she should keep up with the changing times, which was silly of me in retrospect. She hesitated without giving an answer. I didn’t understand that her hesitation was a refusal, and made my suggestion stronger. To my shame, it actually wasn’t a suggestion. Rather, I was criticizing and blaming her as an intellectual for living a life that avoided the troubles of our times. And intellectuals don’t know jack about it. For reference, I voluntarily withdrew from the organization immediately before its dissolution that resulted not only from government repression, but also from radicalism and many other organizational limitations which can’t be revealed here. Her insight was always better than mine. Without realizing it, I spoke to her impudently and passionately all day long until she grew weary and finally gave in. “Well, if you insist. . .” She nodded unwillingly. I mistook this for agreement or sympathy. I realized much later that she rarely said no. A refusal would take considerable energy, and there was nothing so hideous that she had to refuse by exerting so much energy. In short, there was nothing she earnestly strived after nor anything she’d rather die than do. Life has taught me a lesson about this. If you’re earnestly striving after something, it also means that you hate to do something else to death. Ironically, it was this aspect of her personality that made her stay in the world one way or another, although she had no intention of getting involved in it. Hyeonnam met her husband in this organization. He was also her first boyfriend. That didn’t surprise me. Having a relationship was too much for her, afraid as she was of all things unfamiliar. At the beginning of any relationship, a lover is only a stranger, too. It would take a few years for her to feel closer to a stranger. Most men wouldn’t wait that long, and usually didn’t even notice her. On the contrary, this man noticed her very quickly, and followed her day and night. He did it over a very long period of time to let her grow familiar with him. Six years later, she told me that she would marry him, but I vehemently opposed it. “You’ll starve to death. At least one of you has to earn a living.” I knew him well. I even liked him. He was, however, too similar to her. He was way too poor, just like her. Furthermore, he was a blue-collar worker. “We’ll take care of ourselves. . .” It was the firmest expression I’d ever heard from her. I still believe that her firmness came from the great power of love. She married a man most similar to her, and had two sons similar to her, eventually forming a family that passes by unnoticed in the world. I’d like to describe the everyday life of this family about ten years ago which isn’t much different even today. I’d appreciate it if readers could understand my inevitable decision to give up the novelistic structure and to make a statement this way. Nothing changes in this family’s life except for the fact that they grow older every year. Thus, I cannot but catch a certain moment in their life on a certain day, which is just like any other day, and show it as it is to readers. Anyway, late one night, her husband is reading Marx’s Capital in the living room of their 600 square-foot apartment. He reads it for no particular purpose. Having graduated from a decent university, he became a blue-collar worker to participate in the labor movement, but eventually stopped being an activist to become an ordinary worker, doing his best to make ends meet. I haven’t asked him why he still reads Capital. I can only vaguely guess. He has been disappointed with something, but still cannot give up the dream that is already in his heart. In this, he’s different from Hyeonnam. It’s very fortunate for her family. Those who cannot give up their dreams, even though they know they’re unachievable, are hard workers. The same was true of my parents. Thus, he works hard to earn money. His annual income is 30 million won. He reads Capital every night, like reading the Bible, which is the only remaining evidence that he’s a college graduate, that is, an intellectual of his times. Around that time, Hyeonnam and I have a drink at a covered street stall in the neighborhood. We go about once a week. Every time we eat there, she receives calls from home. Her ten-year-old and seven-year-old sons take turns calling her. To think that Hyeonnam could have sex before marriage. She was carrying her eldest son at the time of her wedding. Such is the exquisiteness of human life. What’s more, it’s also the beauty of history. Greedy people are not the only survivors. Autistic people also survive in the world, hiding themselves and silently blending into others or into an era, like Hyeonnam, and secretly staying alive to preserve their primordial genetic structure. Maybe owing to them, this greedy world can go on without exploding. Anyway, her two sons call her every five minutes to ask her the same question. “Can I play on the computer for just five more minutes?” “No, you can’t.” I feel so frustrated that I take her phone to talk to them. “Hey! You can play. Your Mom will be home in about an hour.” Even after I tell them what to do, they’ll call her again in five minutes without fail. Whether their mother is watching or not, there’s no way for them to do what is forbidden without her permission. Their honesty is incredible. If I were them, I’d play on the computer, and simultaneously call my mother to tell her to come home right away, blaming her for coming home so late. That way, I could pretend to be waiting for her while at the same time play computer games behind her back without being anxious. All the members of her family, including her two sons, are awfully honest. That much honesty may well be described as such. Their honesty is beyond an acceptable level. Their apartment was once infested with flies, and Hyeonnam devised a clever solution. The deal was ten seconds of playing computer games per fly. They killed flies with flyswatters all day long, counting the number of dead flies. If they got confused by the time they caught the thirteenth one, they would count from ten again. It was frustrating enough to do that all day long only to spend a few more minutes on the computer, and on top of that, they were recounting from ten, which made me worry whether they’d be able to make a living in a world like this. Unlike before, however, I didn’t say anything. I’d worried that Hyeonnam and her husband might starve to death, but they even had children and were still alive and well. These honest children would also survive one way or another. After all, they didn’t have any unattainable dreams. The eldest son’s dream was to become a Yakult lady. “You’ll never be able to become a Yakult lady.” “Why not?” “You’re a boy.” After a moment of distress, the boy gave an answer. “Then, a Yakult gentleman.” He also knew that he needed a job to make a living. Yet, he was afraid that he’d have to get a job working with strangers in an unfamiliar world. A Yakult lady, however, stayed in the background. She delivered Yakult products through delivery slots, and that was it. He didn’t give up his dream of becoming a Yakult lady even after he went to middle school. Later on the same day, the eldest son couldn’t fall asleep in his room. He was afraid of having to go to school the next day, and also afraid of having to join the military someday. After he’d learned the fact that all South Korean men are drafted into the military, he could hardly get to sleep at night, and if he fell asleep, he had dreams about being forced to join the army. In his dreams, he was taken away from home to an unfamiliar world filled with strangers. Having a nightmare every night, he became afraid of falling asleep. The second son, who was only seven years old, couldn’t get to sleep, either, tossing and turning in bed beside his elder brother. He didn’t know what the military was, but being a boy, he knew that he’d be also drafted someday, and his elder brother’s terror got into him, too. Hyeonnam could hardly get to sleep, either, worrying about doing lunch duty at her sons’ school the next day. The school was full of unfamiliar kids. (I’d appreciate it if readers could understand her fear. When it came to kids, she was scared of unfamiliar kids as much as unfamiliar grownups.) In addition, she had to face other parents and teachers. Being near them was frightening enough, not to mention facing them. Still, mothers in general were great. Hyeonnam had changed, too. If it had been her own problem, she would have avoided the situation by making herself almost invisible, but as a mother, she was determined to face them anyhow. As to how she did that, I’d better leave it to readers’ imagination. Her husband fell asleep in the living room, with his head resting on Capital. He was no less sensitive than the other members of his family. His sleep was the result of hard manual labor. After a few more years, they were living in a country house in Yongin. In the end, the family moved there because they transferred their sons, who had trouble adapting to school, to an alternative school. It was a small, combined elementary and middle school with less than thirty students. Located in the mountains, the school didn’t provide school buses, and since there was no suitable house they could rent nearby, Hyeonnam hastily took driving lessons just before they moved. The autistic family’s challenge to driving was so turbulent that I once considered writing a book about it. Whenever she made a right turn at the driving school, her car got stuck in a flowerbed. She was so nervous that the driving instructor gave a deep sigh instead of getting angry. She’d learned from all the instructors of the driving school one by one before she got her driver’s license. A week after her move to the country house, I called her up. “Did you go shopping?” “Not yet. . . “Why not?” “I’m afraid of driving. . .” “What have you been eating, then?” “Just. . . this and that. . .” They were eating “this and that,” as if the Korean War were still going on. I rushed to Yongin immediately. She got into my car to go to the market, making endless exclamations. “You’re so great.” “What do you mean?” “How can you look backward?” When she was behind the steering wheel she could only look forward. She couldn’t change lanes. When she tried, the whole family screamed in the car, looking backward and to the side. “Now! Now! No!” “You’re so great.” It was the nicest compliment that she’d ever paid me. And just because I could look in my rear-view mirror and side mirrors. I was perplexed, not knowing whether I should be angry or pleased. When I won an annual spring literary contest, or when I received such-and-such literary award, she didn’t care at all, showing neither admiration nor acknowledgement. Aside from that, she rebuked me on every occasion. Each time I published a collection of short stories, she called me about two months later. “You wrote again.” What did she mean? I kept silent wondering if she were reprimanding me, and then, her next words sounded ridiculous and heartless. “You keep writing on and on.” She was reprimanding me, indeed. The problem was that this made me reflect on myself. I must have been influenced by her and her family. I kept silent as I did, and then, she threw a stronger punch. “If you really want to write, write in private. Then throw it away.” She was telling me not to waste resources and not to cause trouble to society for trivial things. Holy crap! I might not have looked it, but I was not a prolific writer! I was on the verge of flaring up in anger, but suddenly felt ashamed of myself. Yes, I could have done what she said, and then, why did I insist on publishing it somewhere to be read by someone? Having screwed me over like this, she now told me I was great. She meant that I was great because I could look in the rear-view mirror. Was she kidding me? Anyway, her driving experience ended after a year. I gave her my Daewoo Lanos that I’d bought for 3 million won and driven for three years, and she had many bitter experiences with the car for a year until it met its fate. Her insurance premium was 1,870,000 won at the time. For reference, while the car was in my ownership, my insurance premium was less than 400,000 won. I’ll leave it to the readers’ imagination what kind of accidents might have happened. Still, there was nothing fatal. Meaning that no one was hurt. The reason being that she never drove faster than fifty kilometers per hour. But as I itch to talk about her numerous accidents, I’d like to bring only one of them to light. Her car was approaching the entrance of a parking lot. The driveway was wide enough to be a two-lane road but without any marked lanes, unfortunately. She couldn’t figure out where to go without visible lanes. Trembling in fear, she made a right turn. There was a food stall covered with transparent vinyl on the left side of the entrance. While she was trying to make a right turn on the broad and wide road, her car pulled to the left and hit the stall. She was driving five kilometers per hour. There was almost no impact, of course. Customers in the stall were wondering what had just happened, drinking and watching the incident. She hit the plastic curtain on one side of the stall, and in surprise, backed up her car without turning the steering wheel. Then, she drove forward. She hit the stall again. Even more confused, she backed up straight again. Then, she drove forward again. She hit the same spot three times. Unable to bear the sight of her driving, a meddlesome customer jumped out. “Ma’am! Get out of the car!” That day, thanks to the drunk customer, she safely entered the parking lot. Luckily, there was no claim for damages because she’d only hit the stall’s plastic curtain. We made little jokes about it: “Ms. Bang is scarier than Ms. Kim.”1“Ms. Kim is running, but Ms. Bang is flying above her.”2 Living in a remote area in Yongin, the family seemed to be so helpless that I visited them often. One Saturday, her sons welcomed me by jumping up and down in joy. Only when I visited the family, they could enjoy a barbecue party, namely the taste of country life. Hyeonnam washed home-grown vegetables, while her husband went out into the backyard, saying that he would be the one to fire up the grill that day and call us when ready. The children had made great efforts to grow those vegetables. At first, the backyard was not an ideal place to grow vegetables because there were too many stones. They made a deal: ten seconds of computer games per stone. They picked up hundreds of stones, counting them as usual. If they got confused by the time they picked up the twenty-sixth one, they recounted from twenty, of course. We finished all preparations and waited for quite a while, but her husband didn’t call for us. I got impatient and went outside. In his navy-blue company uniform, he was tearing up a magazine page by page and throwing the pieces onto the grill. I watched what he was doing. Many pieces of charcoal were placed in a row at the bottom of the grill so that none of them overlapped with one another in a truly aesthetic way, and he was tossing flaming pieces of paper onto them. I came close to shouting, “Are you a nitwit? Flames naturally burn upward!” I restrained myself with clenched teeth, since I couldn’t dare call him names as I wouldn’t even dare to do so to Hyeonnam that. Silently, I put charcoal starters at the bottom, and then placed charcoal on them to light the grill. “Wow! There’s nothing Ms. Jeong can’t do!” The novelist Jeong was able to become the savior of the family for such a thing. That kind of compliment always made me feel uncomfortable. My heart was saying, “Who are they?” Behind this question lie my true feelings about them. They admire petty skills that most people learn for living convenience. The family, however, only admires them without bothering to learn them. They’re not desperate enough to make an effort to learn. If I weren’t with them, they’d simply not have a barbecue. Regarding cars, they would simply not drive at all. Thus, it feels like there is a hidden meaning behind their admiration, as if they were saying, “You have so many unnecessary skills.” From the viewpoint of the family, therefore, I am a person who keeps writing banal novels for no good reason and who has many petty skills for no good reason. They have a point. Of all the technologies developed since the beginning of modern times, only two things have attracted the genuine admiration of the family. One is the flush toilet, and the other is the computer, or the internet to be more exact. The former needs no explanation, while the latter has become the best protection for the family. Ever since Hyeonnam discovered a whole new world in online shopping, she has purchased everything online. She doesn’t have to go to crowded shopping malls in this new world. Frankly, it drives me nuts to see her in a shopping mall. She loses her mind in front of a myriad of products. Presumably, it is similar to standing in front of millions of people. Usually, she cannot buy what she wants, and comes back empty-handed. The reason is that she doesn’t know what to choose out of so many products. A local grocery store equipped with basic necessity goods will suit her needs much better than a large superstore. Anyway, after the barbecue party, we were doing the dishes, and her husband was reading Capital while the kids were looking at the new Nike sneakers that I gave them as gifts. They continued looking at them for hours. They didn’t wear them, though. They kept the brand-new sneakers intact in the shoe cabinet, and would get familiar with them slowly as time passed. In the meantime, they’d keep wearing cheap sneakers bought online, which were already small for them and even had holes. I knew that they’d do that, and had bought sneakers two-sizes bigger than their actual size. The shoe cabinet of the family was quite a sight. A lot of worn-out shoes were piled up there, shoes that hadn’t been worn for a long time. They couldn’t throw away those old familiar shoes which had become almost part of them. The absence of desire for novelty is connected with the attachment to familiarity. I get rid of old things very rationally, as soon as they are no longer needed. To me, a new thing means something that I don’t know and also need to discover. As it turns out, there are so many things that I want to become, to have and to do, and therefore, I’m a capitalist human being full of desires. Me, the partisans’ daughter. Once, a student of mine demanded her boyfriend present her with a designer handbag in celebration of their one thousand day anniversary. He flatly refused, saying that a luxury handbag was not for a student, and then, her next remark was on everyone’s lips in the creative writing department for quite a while. “Even the partisans’ daughter has a Chanel! Why not me?” An older female colleague had given me the Chanel for free, since she was fed up with it. Yet, I secretly felt guilty. I like luxury goods. I just don’t have enough money, and just can’t buy them because it’s difficult and bothersome to save money to buy them. If I were rich, I’d buy any amount of Hermès, Manolo Blahnik and whatnot. Someone once criticized me for wearing high heels, saying that perhaps the partisans’ daughter had become a turncoat. “Capitalism is sustainable as long as capital is accumulated. I never accumulate it. Isn’t this a true anti-capitalist life?” Thus, I refuted the ridiculous criticism with a ridiculous sophistic argument. I was ashamed of my inner desires that were unworthy of the partisans’ daughter, but I still didn’t want to give in to the absurd criticism. The family members also have an eye for beautiful things and good machines. Whenever Hyeonnam finds something nice, her reaction is always the same. “It’s nice. Chomp, chomp.” She has turned the onomatopoeic sound of “chomp, chomp” into a word of her own, which implies an immediate renunciation that it is nice, but not hers. It means that she likes it, but doesn’t want to spend her energy on accepting it as hers and giving up the attachment to the previous one. They’re hungry, but don’t want to eat; they like nice things, but don’t want to have them. This is the life pattern of the family. They manage to live a life that is not uncomfortable on a worker’s income. Now, her husband’s annual income is about 35 million won. The couple’s parents are as poor as a church mouse, and they give a monthly allowance of 500,000 won each to both families to supplement their parents’ living expenses. Their eldest son is in high school, and the second son in middle school. They don’t own a house, and the long-term rental deposit for their house increases every two years. Still, they manage to scrape by. I’m sure that there are people in worse economic condition than theirs in this country. What matters is not the economic status but the self-sufficient status of the family. They do not have difficulty in the status quo. Their only hope is to live as they are without being bothered by anyone. The eldest son is so stressed out by school life that he is 172 centimeters tall but weighs only 46 kilograms, suffering from chronic indigestion and diarrhea, just like his mother. For health reasons, he doesn’t even think of going to a cram school, far from making his parents worry about paying for his extracurricular lessons. It’ll be okay if he goes to whatever college accepts him, and it will be also all right if he does not go to college. Their priority is his survival. The second son is no different from the eldest, except for the fact that he’s still young. What about expensive imported cars? Fearful of driving, they cannot drive any car, imported or not. What about traveling abroad? They may well try if they travel with a friend like me, who’s very close to them and has many petty skills, but it’s highly likely that they’ll give up after dwelling on it for two or three months, and they would not dare to dream of it on their own. Their only hobby is reading books, and they can borrow a lot of them from the library. They want to own a house because they’re tired of moving, but don’t dream of it, either, since their income is nowhere near enough to buy one. They hate big houses because cleaning is tedious, and also hate big gardens because they’re difficult to tend. A 700 square-foot apartment is good enough for them. These days, every day is sunny for Hyeonnam, apart from a little suffering that she inevitably has to interact with the world. One day, when we were about forty-three or forty-four years old, Hyeonnam was getting a cup of coffee with home-ground beans, and talked to me in a languid voice. “It’s so good.” “What is?” “I used to wonder if I could live like others.” “Me, too.” (I agreed with her in the sense that I also wondered if she could do it, of course.) “But now, I drink freshly brewed coffee, live in an apartment that is warm, have a husband that gets paid every month and also have a duck down parka. . .” So-called duck down parkas first came to the market during my college years. I didn’t know how much they cost. I only remember that they were too expensive for me to even think about buying one. Shivering with cold in cotton jackets, Hyeonnam and I felt envious of other friends in duck down parkas. Today, goose down parkas are in fashion instead, but it doesn’t matter. Duck down is warm enough for me. I don’t know what Canada Goose is, which allegedly costs way over one million won per jacket. If Hyeonnam knew about it, she would surely just pass by, saying, “It’s nice. Chomp, chomp.” Today, as usual, she’ll drink coffee and read a book at home, and whenever a delivery person rings the doorbell, she’ll nervously stutter and receive her package. Her husband will work all day for his family, come home to have simple dinner and read Capital. Their grown-up sons now want to become freelance programmers who are deemed better than Yakult ladies, and will pester their mother for five more minutes on the computer. Presumably, they won’t be much different twenty years from now. Maybe there are some readers who think that they’d rather die than live such a life, frustrated and driven almost insane by the story of this family, just as I did when I was young. To those readers, I’d like to say that suicide is a kind of desire, too. A frustrated desire causes a suicidal impulse. The family members have no desire, and therefore, feel no suicidal impulse. I’d like to ask readers to focus on this point. I’ve seen Hyeonnam’s life for over thirty years. She’s my dearest friend, but I have to confess that she frustrated me sometimes, and baffled me at other times. There were times when I seriously agonized over what meaning such a life had. I could have easily concluded that the life of her family had resulted from social maladaptation. Whenever this idea occurred to me, however, something troubled my mind. It wasn’t just because her words made me feel somehow uncomfortable by hitting the nail on the head: “Do you really have to write?” “Write it, and throw it away!” It’s not clear which came first, whether it was the insight to objectively see my inner desires, which I gained as I grew old, or the lessons that I learned from her life. Whichever it might be, as soon as I identified my desires, I finally realized the truth. The autistic family is the true enemy of capitalism. How can I define capitalism in a word? I’m not an economist, just a writer. Hence, I will follow the definition that common sense tells us. Driven by boundless human desires, capitalism is expanding like a monster in the system of reproduction on an enlarged scale based on mass production and mass consumption. People voluntarily throw themselves into unlimited competition for a slightly more convenient life—for a bigger refrigerator, a faster car and a new smartphone whose functions are hard to grasp. Socialism, the traditional archenemy of capitalism, propagates the idea that it is better for us to share old things together than to own new ones individually. At which point, the family will probably ask a question: “Why do we have to own these things?” Humans can live without a bigger refrigerator, a faster car or a brand-new smartphone. The family members deny desires, that is, the driving force of capitalism. Without gasoline, cars cannot move and boilers will not operate. Socialism suggests that we should keep our desires in check with our rationality in order to enjoy equal rights together. More fundamentally, this family turns off the power of capitalism by the absence of desires themselves. There is no stronger enemy of capitalism than this family. May these desireless humans be prolific! Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, they do not perceive themselves to be the enemies of capitalism, nor do they want to be. The desire to do something is absent. Ah! There exists only one desire. It is the desire to stay still as they are. This family can be the enemy of capitalism due to the absence of desire, but cannot be an actual threat to capitalism due to the absence of desire. I cannot tell whether I should be sad or glad. Nonetheless, I think of them when I feel tired of unlimited competition, or when I get knocked down by my own desires. One may live the same way as they do. Sometimes, I take comfort in the very fact that they exist in the same world as I do. Hence, I would like to recommend readers to recall Hyeonnam and her family when your kids pester you to pay for their language training abroad for their future careers, when you are passed over for promotion by a younger colleague, when your wife compares you with her friend’s smart husband or when you feel like your life sucks for such-and-such reason. If you ponder over the difference between our frantic lives in the midst of the formidable waves of capitalism and the ordinary life of this family, you will find out that the gap between the two is smaller than expected, feeling strangely relieved and consoled. If you can take small comfort in it, I’d like to ask you to do as follows: on your way home from work on the subway, if you run into members of an autistic family, looking like war refugees and lowering their heads toward their antiquated cell phones for fear of facing strangers, please maintain a distance, neither casting uneasy glances nor giving an encouraging look, so that they can carry on incognito. They’re commas in the miserable life of humankind that can never stop running forward with burning desires, and therefore, deserve to be left alone by themselves to rest. Translated by Sohn Jung-in[1]Ms. Kim is a byword for an unskilled female driver in Korea.[2] There is a Korean proverb that says, “There are those who run, and there are those who fly above them.” It means that there is always someone else who is better.

by Jeong Ji A

Martian Child

I was the only survivor of the twelve lab animals sent to Mars.We were launched into the future, frozen at -270° C in liquid helium.While my shipmates changed course for the afterlife as they dreamt, I continued to faithfully send my healthy vital signs back to Earth. My duty was hibernating inside this pulseless, frozen body. And as I crossed the solar system, Mars metamorphized into red bugs, red clothes, red clouds, as it danced about in my subconscious. I was a bowl made of ice; only my dreams remained animated. Multiple centuries passed like a long nap.I was discovered lying down—by only myself.I could feel the slow pulse of a planet that was matching my heartbeat. How long had I been like this? When had the spaceship arrived? Was I alive? Or was this the afterlife and not Mars?As questions filled my head, my brain commanded me to close my eyes and open them again. But nothing changed. I probably wasn’t hallucinating. I squeezed my eyelids once more then peeled them apart. Centuries of time screamed out between my eyelids. I made eye contact with the spaceship’s black pupil. I could still remember the shrinking image of Earth outside the circular observation window. Memories crossed the vast expanse of time, docking with me in the present. Soggy feed and fresh fruit. Sweet meat dripping with juice. We were the pride and jewel of our research center. I was given the royal treatment leading up to the day of the launch, like a sacrificial lamb being fattened up for the gods. We were clones, the result of years of experiments that killed countless lab animals in the name of science. We were humanity’s dream.And humanity was our dream. My language, my intelligence, my thought patterns, my longing for home—everything about me seemed “human.” But were these things, was my longing for home, the result of natural processes? Or was it only something that had been transplanted inside me like a chip? I was born in a lab; I did not know what kind of organism I truly was.I received tests and training all the way until the day of the launch. I never got to properly say goodbye to Earth. All I remembered of my last days on that blue planet were but a few snapshot images: people waving their hands at me; powerful vibrations at launch; the pressure on my chest and ears; the heat of the engine, which was so intense that we thought the ship had caught fire; cables floating in space.Men drenched in conceit.Houston.Countdown.Ants slowly circling the observation window.If everything went according to plan, this wouldn’t be Earth.If everything went according to plan, this would be somewhere on Mars.If everything truly went according to plan, this would be the future. After all, the clock was set to five hundred years in the future.I turned, and a harness constricted my body. I forgot they had tied me up to protect me from the impacts of takeoff and landing.My instincts kicked in. I had been trained on how to free fall, how to move in zero gravity, how to take care of my excrement in space, how to find the button and release my harness.Button. Where was that button?Before I could even finish this thought, my fingers found what they were looking for.Just because I was awake didn’t mean I was completely on. I had released my harness, but I didn’t have the courage to get up. My body wouldn’t be as awake as my mind was. Something might have been damaged in the process of being frozen and thawed; it was possible my nerves might never come back to life. The low gravity could have weakened the valves of my heart, and my vision might not be as good as it used to be. I needed to move slowly and carefully, like a fish just thawed in early spring. I inspected each body part one at a time. After all, I was the only one who could conduct this process.Right arm. Check.Left arm. Check.Two legs and two knees. Check.My sense of vision, hearing, and touch were coming back to me.It was now time for me to lift my body and get out of this capsule. And yet, despite knowing what I had to do, I just continued to stare up at the ceiling of the spaceship.Bark.Bark, bark, bark, bark.Bark, bark.Bark.I could hear a dog. The barking lasted too long to be a hallucination. The dog was barking clearly and in rhythm. It also sounded like only one dog. Was there an open hatch on the ship somewhere? I realized I couldn’t lay here any longer; I had to get up and check the ship. When I stood up, my vision went dark from the sudden drop in blood pressure. But I was an expert in surviving in the dark.I breathed in and visualized the pain spreading throughout my body. As soon as I pictured the synapses and neurons reviving, the black cloud began to lift.When I opened my eyes, there was a Siberian husky in front of me wagging its tail.Laika.The dog casually opened its mouth and spoke. It talked in a foreign language that I didn’t understand. When I didn’t respond, it barked once, then switched to English. “Welcome. My name is Laika.” Her English had a thick Russian accent.“How—”I pointed to the closed hatch behind Laika but was unable to continue speaking. I couldn’t tell which was more surprising: that a dog was talking to me, or that it had opened and closed the hatch on its own.“You want to know how I got in here?” Laika asked, reading my mind. “There’s not a door in the entire universe I can’t open.”Later, I learned Laika could pass through walls. And not just walls. She could pass through entire planets and stars. Not even gravity affected her. Laika was dead. When I asked her what happened, she said it was a long story. But she did tell me about the moment she was reborn and what happened after that.“When the spaceship blew up, my body disintegrated and fell to Earth like a spritz of consecrated holy water. I’ve been wandering the cosmos ever since. But damn. Once I was dead, I realized there was no god, no heaven, nowhere for me to go.”Something about Laika seemed familiar. An image appearing on a monitor. I knew Laika. She was one of us, the first lab animal sent to space. On October 4, 1957, the Soviets launched her into space with the Sputnik 2, making her the first living creature to leave Earth.“I was born three centuries after that,” I said. “That makes me your successor.”“Where are you from?”“I was made in the US. I launched from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.” “I’ve seen many Americans before. I think it was when I passed the wrecked spaceship around Venus. I saw an old, white-haired astronaut at the window. He was licking the walls like a crazy person. When I asked why he was doing that, he said it was because he was afraid of the moon. This to me seemed ridiculous for someone floating in space to say. He said that he’d heard people would go crazy if they went to the moon. And then just as he arrived on the moon, POP! The engineer exploded, but the machine he was operating was perfectly fine!”“What a fascinating story.”“Right?”Silence fell between us for a moment. It was the talkative dog who broke the silence.“These all seem related. A crazy astronaut, a test animal that wanders the cosmic afterlife in death, and a frozen mammal resurrected in the future.”I realized the last one was referring to me. I crouched down, looked Laika in the eye.“Tell me, Laika. Am I a machine?”“No.”“Then do I look like a human?”“Well, you talk like a human. You walk on two legs. But you’re not one hundred percent hom*o sapiens.”“Am I dead? I mean, you’re dead, not to be rude. So does the fact that we’re talking like this mean I’m dead, too?”“I’m not sure what you’re trying to say.”“Where are we? Is this space? The afterlife?”Laika stared into my confused eyes. If she were human, she would have shaken her head. But instead, she did the equivalent in dog mannerisms by turning in place twice.“It seems like by asking where we are you’re asking who we are.”Laika elongated her body as if she were stretching. She preoccupied herself to give me time to dwell on the profound nature of what she had just said. It took a while, but eventually I came to realize that Laika was similar to a theater actor in many ways. She was a dog with a strong ego. In fact, she seemed high on her own ego sometimes. Perhaps it was because she had wandered alone through space for such a long time, just like me. I didn’t know how to react to what she said, as though I’d just heard a bad joke.“Do you want to see my pet fleas?” Laika said, suddenly changing the subject. Laika showed her back to me. At first, I didn’t see them, but Laika directed me to each of her pets one by one—on the back of her neck, on her right front leg, three fingers left from the center of her back, and on top of her tail. The fleas were able to jump and stay in the air for a long time, probably because the gravity on Mars was less than on Earth. Each of the four fleas had been given the name of a former astronaut: Collins, Irwin, Schweickart, and Aldrin.“You used to be a pet yourself,” I said to Laika. “And now look at you. Raising your own pets.”“Do you know what the two conditions of a good lab animal are?” Laika put the fleas back in her fur, where they started sucking on her blood. “They need to be intelligent and healthy, and they can’t have a master. I ran away from home to wander the streets of Moscow. I considered myself lucky when I was taken into the lab and fed until my belly burst. But the next thing I knew, a million wires were hooked up to my body and I was being sent into space. Damn, it was just like that David Bowie song, ‘Space Oddity!’ You know rock and roll, don’t you?”Laika started humming as she crinkled her eyes. I didn’t know rock and roll; I didn’t know what this had to do with raising fleas; and who the hell was David Bowie? And yet I nodded anyway. It was weird; I was accepting everything without any resistance, as though I were in a dream. A ghost with fleas for pets? Where did she get the fleas anyway? Had they been on Laika when she disintegrated in the atmosphere? Did they turn into cosmic particles and re-form into fleas so that they could suck on her nonexistent blood?“We don’t know where here is. We believe we’re on Mars, but we don’t know which dimension this Mars belongs to. Don’t think about it too much.”Laika stared lazily at the dancing fleas. * It was now Laika’s turn to ask questions. She wanted to know the latest news from Earth. Unfortunately, the latest news I had was several centuries old, but that was more than enough to shock her.Laika hadn’t known that the lab where she’d come from was gone, and that all the scientists who’d launched her into space were dead. In fact, all the animal rights activists of the world who used to protest unethical experiments on animals had also died off. And Laika’s friend, Albina, who had been chosen alongside her but eventually failed the last test, had also died. And so had the Soviet Union.“The Soviet Union is gone?”Laika looked like an exile who’d just learned she was the last of her kind. She’d been homesick. The astronauts of the Cold War era had waged a proxy war, and as a result, Laika had been sent to space. Laika at one time had been a symbol of Soviet triumph.“There were even stamps with my face on them—”Laika looked dispirited—which was ironic because she was nothing but spirit.To lighten the mood, I asked Laika how she got all the way to Mars from the moon.“It was easy once I died. I just walked here on four legs. The moon was crawling with astronauts, both alive and dead. There was no peace or quiet. When I first arrived on Mars, it was a perfect hideaway, not one footprint on its surface. And then it occurred to me that I might be in purgatory, stuck somewhere between heaven and hell.”“Purgatory? What’s that?”“Don’t tell me you haven’t read Dante.”Laika stuck out her long tongue and clicked it in a disapproving manner.This Siberian husky, whose head barely reached my kneecap, was unbelievably smart and snarky. And the way she liked to show off her mental acuity by acting surprised by other people’s ignorance was an act of great arrogance.“Well, you’re the strangest animal I’ve ever seen,” Laika said. “You may not be human, but you’re just as dumb. Oh, excuse me.” But the look on Laika’s face hardly looked sorry. Laika’s facial expressions were as plentiful as her vocabulary, and I was getting sick of it.“But how can you stand this stench?” Laika suddenly became serious as she started sniffing the air. She then began growling in the direction of the capsules with eleven corpses.“You need to have consideration for my canine nature. My sense of smell is thousands of times better than yours, and the smell of rotting corpses is pure torture. Plus it’s disrespectful to leave your fallen comrades like that, you know. If we’re going to be together, we’ll need to make this place more hygienic.”I didn’t know when she and I had become “we” or when “we” had agreed to live together, but I just nodded. This was something I would realize with time, but Laika was good at giving orders, and I was comfortable with taking them. We got to work. But by “we got to work,” I meant Laika wagged her tail and barked while I did what she told me to do. Because she only had four legs and had come to Mars first, and because I had two arms and still didn’t know what was going on, I had no choice but to do as she said. I opened the capsules to find eleven clones that looked just like me, each at a different stage of decomposition. It seemed like there had been a critical failure with the capsules’ temperature regulation system. It wasn’t an easy sight for me to look at. On display were eleven different variations of death all in my image.The corpses that were only skeletons were easier to deal with. I shuddered when I touched the corpses that were oozing with bodily fluids. But I forged ahead and cleaned every inch of the spaceship’s interior, which was the size of a medium-sized Starbucks. And as I did this, I was also organizing the last few centuries. As I busily moved my body about the ship, my old senses finally returned to me.Outside the window, the orange sky was starting to darken. I opened the hatch to bury the bodies before the sun set.That was the first time I’d stepped foot on the surface of Mars. The scenery wasn’t much different from the wastelands of Earth. Jagged rocks, silhouettes of boulders on the horizon, and an apricot-colored sky without a speck of cloud. Was this really Mars? Without any clouds, the sky was like an expressionless face—the face of someone whose mind I could not read.I picked up my shovel and started digging. The Martian sand, which was finer than Earth’s, remained suspended in the air for a moment before slowly falling back down to the ground. I dumped all the bodies into the same wide, shallow hole, and covered it back up with dirt. I then cut a large piece of cloth from the airbags that had deployed during landing and covered the grave. I picked up four heavy rocks, which looked like pieces of olivine, and placed them at the corners of the tarp. And with that, the burial was finished. In the end, these eleven clones, my shipmates, had travelled all this way just to be buried on the surface of an alien planet.Floating in the Martian sky were two lifeless satellites: Phobos and Deimos.When I returned to the spaceship, Laika was sleeping under the co*ckpit chair.I went into my capsule and lay down. It was still a good bed. When sleep mode was turned on, a soft sheet filled with air would wrap around my body. But this device had another use that its inventor hadn’t intended: it would comfort me when I yearned for human contact. When the air tubes connected to the sheet pressed down on my body, it felt like some invisible person was hugging me.Out in the bleak expanses of space, could there be anything more useful than this? I wanted to let Laika experience this feeling, too, but because she was so proud, she hated anyone’s hands touching her. * It was about ten days after arriving on Mars that I was first able to hug Laika. That was also the day I met Deimos, so there was extra reason for celebration. That day, we’d traveled farther than ever from the ship to see “Eden.”“It has the most beautiful sand ripples on Mars. The name Eden was my idea. When you see it, you’ll know why.”Laika marched ahead as she proudly wagged her plump behind. I’d never walked so long through the desert, but I followed her without complaint, even though I was out of breath.After walking for the better part of a day, we began to see structures in the landscape reminiscent of clam shells. On low hills, geometric patterns were carved into the sand, as though they’d been etched by a master sculptor. And scattered throughout the sand were shimmering stones of gold, blue, and black.“It’s breathtaking!”I picked up some orange-red sand with my hand, and the fine, dry grains slid between my webbed fingers. Laika looked at my hand and clicked her tongue in pity.“What were they thinking, giving you webbed hands and sending you to a planet with no water?”As Laika said this, I noticed a strong wind blowing in the distance. But soon, I realized it wasn’t just a strong wind, and it wasn’t that far off in the distance.“Sandstorm!”No sooner had Laika shouted this than the storm reached us. I held onto Laika out of fear, huddling close to the ground and waiting for the storm to pass.Perhaps because of Mars’s thin atmosphere, the sandstorm looked more powerful than it actually was. A thick layer of sand covered us, but other than that, we were unscathed.When the storm finally passed, Laika, who was still in my arms, said to me in an irritated tone of voice, “Get permission next time before you put your hands on me.”As Laika freed herself from my embrace, she paused. “Oh my.”“What’s wrong?“You’re pregnant. And you’re a female! Humans are so cruel. How could they send a mother into space with her unborn child.”My mind went blank. And then forgotten memories started flashing through my consciousness. A lab. White lights converging into a single point. People in gowns staring down at me from inside the light. Dr. Lichnowsky. A syringe in his hand. As terror and unease seized me, the movie-like images started to blur, as though masked by a dense fog. I tried to close the door to my memories, but I’d already remembered most of what had happened.I’d been inseminated without ever having mated with anyone.“What kind of experiments did they do to you back on Earth?”More images. Graphs and monitors. Nurse Cecilia, who cried as she tied me down. The painful shot into my ovaries. The insemination took more than a few torturous attempts before they succeeded. But that was the last thing I remembered. Laika saw that I was unable to speak. She nodded her head in a knowing manner.“They erased your memories.”Laika really did know everything. She also knew how to comfort me. “But it might’ve been for the best,” she said with a bitter slant to her mouth. “Just look at me. I remember everything. There’s not a single moment I’ve forgotten. Wandering the streets of Moscow; being taken in by a family only to be chased out of the house again; my real name and the metal cage in the corner of the lab; barking at them to let me go; the researcher who called me a dumb animal too stupid to talk (I mean, have you seen a more eloquent dog?); the cramped co*ckpit with all that heavy equipment; the terror when the fire engulfed my spaceship and me. I was burned alive! Just five hours after liftoff, I was turned into space dust. I’d rather be a blank slate than have to remember all those terrible things. Erasing your memories was the humane thing to do.”Laika growled as she relived the horrors of her life. Even as I listened to her resentment, I instinctively grabbed at my stomach. I didn’t feel anything inside me. Was I really pregnant? It felt so strange. I didn’t know whether I was human or animal, and yet I had somehow become a mother.“I was once a girl, too,” Laika said bitterly. “I bet my descendants are still living on Earth.” As we made our way back to the spaceship in silence, each lost in our own thoughts, I stopped when I noticed a strange object.The sandstorm had uncovered something buried in the ground. It was an inconspicuous hunk of metal, something I wouldn’t have noticed had I not almost tripped over it. At first, it looked like a washing machine. As I bent over to look at it, Laika lowered her voice and told me to quickly dig it up.I didn’t have any tools, so it took a while to get it out of the sand, but when I finally managed to pull it out, what we discovered was a robot, about half my height and twice as wide as my shoulders. It must have been made of ultra-light material because it was almost weightless for its size. The edges were dented, and its tracks had fallen off the sprockets. The robot had no power. I said I thought it was beyond salvaging, but Laika pointed to the rear of the robot.“Hey human—or whatever you are—you have two hands, you know. Do you see that shiny board on the back? Wipe it off.”The place Laika was pointing to was a solar panel covered in a thick layer of dust. Laika was like a first-generation immigrant to Mars, and I was fresh off the boat. But I had no problem with following the orders of a dog. I didn’t have a strong sense of self as a human, and Laika didn’t have a strong sense of self as a dog. I liked her ordering me around and giving me things to do. And when I used my hands, I felt like I’d finally had respite from the thoughts threatening to make my head explode. I took off one of my gloves and used it as a rag to wipe off the dust on the robot. * The robot was only about half my weight, so it wasn’t surprising that it had been flipped over by the wind. After we dusted it off, we brought it onto the ship and set it up next to a sunny window. We soon forgot about it, like one forgets about a flowerpot of dead plants.One day, as we were in the spaceship listening to Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 at full volume, the robot’s lights came on. Technically, the only thing that had changed was the electricity flowing through its circuits. But somehow it felt like the robot was overflowing with life now, as though the electricity had transformed it from an inanimate heap of metal to a living, breathing organism.“Belated greetings.”The robot’s polite voice had an electronic buzz to it. Not only were its vocabulary and intonation human-like, but it also had a light at its front that mimicked a human face. The face didn’t have a mouth, but it did have a pair of neon eyes, which expanded and contracted to express emotion. I bent my knees slightly and gazed into what would have been its eyes.“I am Deimos, named after one of the moons of Mars.”“Does that mean there’s a Phobos?” Laika asked without any preamble.The robot’s eyes became long and thin and turned to the color of tungsten. After a slight pause, Deimos said Phobos had fallen into a ravine, and it had been a long time since Deimos had heard its twin’s signal.The twins Deimos and Phobos were pioneers, laboratories, and photographers all at the same time, and they’d explored every inch of the red planet. As an eternal duo, one would come to the rescue whenever the other was in trouble. Upon completing their mission, they’d lived five times longer than their expected lifespan, and over that time, they’d become close to one another and very intelligent. They explored canyons, traveled to Elysium Planitia and Valles Marineris, and searched for traces of water, sending back all manner of pictures to Earth, even ones of their own tracks.After sending the pictures, they’d collect sounds from space and play them back to listen together. Deimos said they were so happy when they got a signal from other ships. The twins held a vague fondness for the blue planet they’d sent images to. They knew the word “fondness,” and they knew the phrase “to long for.” To them, it meant sending data endlessly in one direction.The scientists who received these images would save them to a folder to be used to develop helmets, gloves, and boots that humans could wear on Mars one day. The photographs would increase, and there were plans to create a mock Mars environment somewhere in Arizona or New Mexico. Humankind would prepare to go to Mars there. They would put on boots, practice walking, and get their bodies used to Martian gravity, using tools and equipment designed from the data that Phobos and Deimos sent.The twin robots would talk tirelessly amongst themselves about the mock Mars environment, like two people who’d bought a house on a distant planet. They’d even made retirement plans to live there as monuments to their mission once they returned to Earth. They would be worshipped, and they would live out their lives in a cozy model home they designed and built. And—“Don’t tell me, you’ll be put on stamps?” Laika said, cutting Deimos off. Laika’s mocking tone shattered Deimos’s daydream. “I don’t mean to burst your bubble, but that won’t happen. Most humans die before they live to be one hundred. You really think they have the patience to carry out a migration to Mars that could take several centuries? Dreamers always make up a first generation of human explorers. They get on boats, chase dreams of freedom, sail to distant lands in search of gold. When they settle down in their new home, their sons inherit the land. Their people prosper from the bountiful soil. Their sons, and their sons’ sons, grow fat and weak from the successes of their forebearers. Success to humans is like reduced gravity. You might get taller under one-fifth Earth’s gravity, but your bones become weak. In the end, they stop exploring. They lay waste to the world they inherited and begin to wage wars. And in the blink of an eye, everything turns into a desert wasteland like Mars. Tell me, Deimos, what do you think your role in this story is? You were born from the ambitions of the first generation, and are busily sending messages to the second generation. By the time the third generation comes around, you’ll be all but forgotten. I bet the funds for the mission to Mars have already been reappropriated for war. All your messages are probably collecting dust on a hard drive somewhere. No one’s listening anymore.“The truth of the matter is that we need to escape from these pointless duties. Let’s not waste energy setting up high-powered antennas. Our effort would be better spent cleaning up the surface of Mars. Let’s stop wandering the desert and just stay here.”“But it’s in my nature to wander,” Deimos said in a tiny voice. It looked overwhelmed by the length of Laika’s argument.“You talk just like a human! Nature. Wander. Words like that don’t apply to robots. If you want to go out there and continue ‘wandering’ through a sea of rocks, be my guest. But this one’s pregnant. Speaking of which, do you have any medical supplies?”“I have a bio-protocol designed for any biological organisms I might discover. The protocol’s name is Doctor.”“Great. Show us this Doctor of yours.”Laika nudged me forward. I didn’t know what to do. Deimos extended its hose-like arm and pulled me toward itself with a clamp.“I just need one drop.”I felt a small prick as Deimos drew my blood. I could hear a fan whirring inside the robot.“Twelve weeks and healthy. It looks like you’re due seven months from now.”“Just great! How’s a baby supposed to grow up in a lifeless desert?”“Try not to go to the lower regions of Mars. There are high levels of radiation there. The radiation is so high, in fact, that it was melting the subterranean ice and sending vapor into the air.”“Vapor? Ice? Does that mean there’s water on Mars?”“By my calculations, there is about a sixty-seven percent chance of there being water.”Confronted with this shocking news, the Siberian husky shook her body and fell silent. A chance. A chance of there being water. And sixty-seven percent, at that. After regaining her composure, she began giving orders like someone in charge.“Deimos, this is vital information. If there’s water here, that means this planet can eventually become like Earth. And there’s nothing good about that. But that can wait for later. I’m a ghost and you’re a machine, so it doesn’t affect us; the same can’t be said for this one. She needs to eat and drink. And soon we’ll have a baby. Goodness, this is giving me a headache. Anyway, while I’m away, you need to look after this one. You’ll become a good nanny because you don’t complain and you act fast. By the way, is there anything else you can do?”I felt uncertain as I watched this large dog analyze information and make decisions so suddenly. Once she learned I was pregnant, Laika took extra care of me, as though I were now her daughter. I had been born without a mother, so when I thought about the love Laika was showing me, I wondered if Laika was a gift sent to me from heaven. Of course, the scientists who’d made me wouldn’t agree with such theological thinking.As soon as I learned I was twelve weeks pregnant, I noticed my body starting to change. I vacillated between states of extreme fatigue and severe insomnia, and I spent more and more time lying in my capsule. And when I looked at my slowly ballooning stomach, it felt like I was observing a waxing moon. Had I not known I was pregnant, I would have just thought my body was adjusting to the Martian environment.My friends took naps several times a day in the hammock hung under the spaceship. When the baby moved inside my stomach, joyful vibrations filled my body with warm concentric circles. As the waves exited my body, a smile formed on my lips. That smile created a new map on my face. But this only lasted for a short while before tears rolled down my cheeks. When I observed my rapidly swinging emotions, I was unable to tell if they were the results of experiments or just something all pregnant mothers experienced.Deimos said my condition was due to hormonal changes. When the morning sickness started, Laika complained that my sense of smell had become even more sensitive than hers, but Deimos explained that it was just vertigo and had nothing to do with my sense of smell. I couldn’t hear the rest of their conversation because I was clinging to the toilet bowl and throwing up.“Lue’s estrogen levels are thirty times higher. It’s to be expected.”“I’d accept that if she were just a normal human. But she’s evolved. She shouldn’t have to suffer from morning sickness like this.”Was I really an evolved form of female primate? Were these strong emotions really just the result of hormones? Regardless of their origin, my emotions were real and true to me. As a mysterious being sent to a mysterious world, this was the only thing I could tell myself with certainty. These emotions were real. And this truth belonged to me and me alone.One day, Deimos let me hear the fetus’s heartbeat. There was nothing that Deimos’s arm couldn’t do. Half-immortal, it was programmed to work for eternity. Right now, it was doing everything in its power to take care of us, and now it was letting me hear my baby’s heartbeat. The sound was like a small spaceship racing toward us at close to the speed of light.“I’ve never heard a sound so loud,” Laika said as though she were a poet. Over time, Laika and Deimos finished digging the well for water and once every four days went down to put ten liters of water in the tank. Deimos’s tests determined the water to be safe, but Laika wasn’t ready to let me drink it. She always worried about me. In fact, she was so concerned for my and the baby’s health that she took her pet fleas from her body and stored them in a container, even though I wasn’t due for many more months.“I can’t get rid of you guys, but you need to stay here for now. You might not be good for the mother and baby. I’ll let you drink my blood occasionally, so don’t be sad. We must prepare for the baby!”The desolate landscapes ceased to look as hostile because of the daily love and care that Laika and Deimos showed me. * I was taking a nap under the canopy.I was drifting in and out of consciousness as several dreams flashed across my mind. I could hear two voices, both in my dreams and outside them. In the dream, I see a cloud. It’s shaped like a fluffy feather, not like the clouds that form in the Martian atmosphere. As I stare up at the blooming cloud, I can hear my friends talking.“There are three ships.”“I know. But how many people do you think that is?”“A lot.”“Are they landing?”The cloud changes into the shape of a spaceship, and outside the observation window astronauts with pacemakers prepare to land. The images in my dream continue to change based on the conversation. Laika asks most of the questions, and Deimos answers.“Are they human?”“Yes. Humans. One, two, three, four. . . About seventy of them in a line.”Humans are coming to destroy the planet. Seventy humans split between three ships land on Mars. Humans are terrifying when alive. I remember steel bars. What will happen when they discover me, a lab animal? Will they kill me and dispose of my baby? Is that why they have come all this way? How can I stop this future from happening? How much time will it take for humans to get here? Something is pounding inside my body, either my racing heart or the baby’s kicking.“What about the well?”Long tire tracks appear in the sand. They morph into the shape of a whip, and then change again into Deimos’s robotic arm. And then I am open. Deimos cuts the umbilical cord. “I will cauterize it to prevent infection.” But in a daze from the birthing, I feel no pain.We’re at the coast. A glacier falls, letting out a loud sound like a gunshot. The glacier, which has grown for the last several centuries, falls into the water, and the baby exits my body. The newborn is covered in its own bright-red blood. Laika leaps with joy and licks the baby.“A child has been born unto us!”“What do you mean?”“The most glorious and succinct sound? Haven’t you read Hannah Arendt?”Patronizing Laika.We go down to the sea. We wash the baby in the water where the glacier has fallen. When the baby touches the cold water, it begins to cry and buries itself in my breast. I look at the thin, translucent, sail-like webs between the baby’s small fingers, then suddenly jump into the water. I put the baby on my stomach and wash away the blood. Fish dance. The newborn baby swims like a fish. I know this is all a dream, but not wanting to wake up, I squeeze my eyelids tighter.“What if they discover the well?”A low voice that comes from reality. I wanted to return to the dream, just one more time. To a world with no humans.White wrinkles appear on the sea. The wrinkles move toward me, and I float over their white ripples. “Waves.” “What?” “Sea wrinkles—they’re called waves, dummy.” Suddenly, Laika is continuing my dialogue. This is my dream in another place. A me from a different place is dreaming. The dreams of two people overlap.“If this were really Mars, you’d be jumping around like a kangaroo. And your eyesight would be deteriorating. And how could you survive -62° C? This place only looks like Mars. Even if something bad happens, it’s not real.”Another Laika is telling me this. Another universe, another Laika—a planet where several dimensions superimpose, where time and space bend, where the line between dreams and the afterlife blurs. I am moments away from being split in two; I have no choice but to wake up as I am pushed out of the dream.When I woke up, Laika and Deimos were still by my side.“I had a dream. A dream about giving birth.”When I told them about my dream, Deimos explained that it could take more than a millennium for an ocean to form on Mars. Did that mean I had seen the future?“What about the spaceships? There were seventy humans on three spaceships that landed on Mars.”“You must still be half-asleep. Don’t worry. We’re the only ones here right now.”Hearing this, I let out a sigh of relief; it felt like I was being embraced by my capsule’s air tubes.I picked up a rock of beautiful azure, placed it in my palm, and stared into it. Off in the distance, I could hear something that sounded like a plastic bag being dragged through the air by the wind. I could see the faint silhouette of a small volcano beyond the spaceship. This scenery—my nest comprised of familiar things and friends—relaxed me. Once this happened, I wanted to say something to my baby, I wanted to say something loving, words of mine generated by you.“You’re the only one I care about in this universe. My child. Every star in the cosmos is a mother, and we aren’t cold.”The baby will be born. I am here with your two aunties, so there is nothing to worry about. When I repeat this to myself and rub my large stomach, Deimos asks me if that means it’s a female robot. Laika perks one ear up as if to wink at me.My stomach wiggles in response. Translated by Sean Lin Halbert

by Kim Seong Joong