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A Loose Collection of Works Thought to Be LA or Driving Poems Dictated to a Small Digital Recorder While Driving from San Diego to Los Angeles at Dusk

“[. . .] the bare fact of movement [. . .] is rarely just about getting from A to B.” — Tim Cresswell The day’s temperature was hitting 46.2 degrees according to my mercury-in-glass thermometer, and Boulevard Bourdon was all but deserted. M and I lived on Rue Arthur, between Paris’ tenth and eleventh arrondissements. It hadn’t been long since we arrived in Paris when M, drunk and overly excited, insisted on running along the Canal Saint-Martin. M didn’t seem to mind the overbearing heat; the few Europeans scattered about on the other hand looked dazed and lost. The fountain in front of Palais de Chaillot had turned into a swimming pool. Meanwhile, I was dreaming up a story-slash-essay on the flâneur, or the idly strolling observer, not that writing the essay was my only reason for coming to Paris. But I was behaving as if it were the primary reason I came to Paris, which was why I could often be found blathering on and on about Louis Aragon in the company of others. Because I had no real affection for Louis Aragon, however, I was making zero progress in my writing. 1. Runtime Error The reason I don’t like fiction is because the medium fails to properly describe the act of walking. So does poetry. Poetry tends to characterize the act of walking as a timeless activity, one that goes on forever. Either that, or the walk is over as soon as it has begun. The act of walking must exist together with the act of running. Most of the problems in contemporary civilization stem from the original sin of having separated these two activities. For instance, we’re not allowed to run where we should be walking, and we cannot walk where we should only run. We cannot go jogging in walking attire, and we cannot stroll in runner’s clothes. Should we make the mistake of doing so, the violation would be tantamount to a crime or intense public humiliation; it would be a pronouncement of inefficiency and ineptitude. Here is a scene involving a stroll. In Flaubert’s Sentimental Education, the protagonist Frédéric engages in a duel to win the heart of a woman. Duels were not uncommon in nineteenth-century Europe. Historically, many foolish men have gone to their deaths after an ill-fated duel. These included Pushkin, Galois, and others. In the novel, Frédéric and his rival Cisy agree to duel in the forest of Boulogne. When M and I arrived at the forest, we surveyed a crowd of people in various stages of undress, suntanning or jogging, and between the trees we caught a glimpse of the silver Louis Vuitton Foundation shuttle bus plodding by. M and I spread a striped beach towel on a spot near the lake and began discussing Robert Bresson’s The Ladies of the Bois de Boulogne. “Have you seen it?” “No.” “Neither have I.” With the following paragraph, Flaubert describes the scene with Frédéric and Cisy walking to their intended dueling ground: Occasional wayfarers crossed their path. The sky was blue, and from time to time they heard rabbits skipping about. At the turn of a path, a woman in a Madras neckerchief was chatting with a man in a blouse; and in the large avenue under the chestnut-trees some grooms in vests of linen-cloth were walking horses up and down. Cisy recalled the happy days when, mounted on his own chestnut horse, and with his glass stuck in his eye, he rode up to carriage-doors. These recollections intensified his wretchedness. An intolerable thirst parched his throat. The buzzing of flies mingled with the throbbing of his arteries. His feet sank into the sand. It seemed to him as if he had been walking during a period which had neither beginning nor end. Director Lee Man-hee’s film A Day Off was completed in 1968 but the military dictatorship at the time banned it, purportedly for being too indecent for society. The film was soon forgotten—or more accurately, it was never properly remembered—until August 2008, when the reel was discovered and re-introduced to the world. Its plot was simple. While his beloved girlfriend Ji-yeon is getting an abortion, Huh Wook, the main character, leaves the hospital and fraternizes with a woman he meets at a hostess bar. They end up having sex at a construction site until the church bells toll, whereupon Huh realizes what he’s done and runs back to the hospital. On his way, he crosses paths with a friend he owes money to, who proceeds to beat him to a bloody pulp. Huh manages to make his way to the hospital where he learns that Ji-yeon died during the surgery. He leaves the hospital and runs into the night. Seoul’s neon signboards blink and buzz around his face as happier memories of Ji-yeon float to the surface. The act of running as committed by incompetent, immoral men is romanticized in the steel gray streets of the contemporary city. What’s interesting is that the camera doesn’t pan down to show the rest of Huh’s body but remains focused on his face. His act of running is one brought upon by the grief that is clearly etched onto his face. The term “running time” refers to the duration of a movie. “Runtime” refers to the period of time when a computer program is running. Movies are by definition mobile and always moving—hence, the term “movie.” The word “cinema” and the German word for films, Kino, both come from the Greek word kī́nēsis/kinētikós, which describe movement. Motion pictures. In fiction, a book’s running time hinges on its readability. This means that the running time of a work of fiction is variable and subject to the reader—but not entirely. Those who construe this phenomenon as a means for liberation are old-fashioned elitists, while those who take it as a chance for participation are old-fashioned market capitalists. Political engineering is targeted at multiple people, while artistic planning is marketed to the few; this is fated to be “academicized” or oxidized. Art as a political plan and politics as an artistic plan will reach the destinations of their relevant genres, regardless of the intent. Can art as a political project survive on its own merits without catering to capitalist or populist notions? Can art be free from the shackles of readability and running time, while also managing to avoid the pitfalls of academia and obsolescence? Consider a theater screening of a sixteen-hour-long film, or a stage performance of an eight-hour-long play. Lev Dodin’s works were nothing more than brazen classics. M said there were tons of movies on Netflix that were ten hours or longer, and that viewers had no problem binge-watching eight straight episodes of the new season of Stranger Things. Meanwhile, to watch a ten-hour-long film in a theater in Berlin, we must buy four tickets that cost twelve euros each. And the idiot artists who exhibit those ridiculously long films in art museums are nothing more than hucksters. Their work is simply a grand façade of gestures put on by famous contemporary artists. The concept of running time is therefore nothing more than a hostage to a goal-oriented linear movement. The Stockholm Syndrome of narrative. 2. Zeno’s Paradox The most decisive film in Phase Two of Marvel’s Cinematic Universe is the 2014 hit Captain America: Winter Soldier. Netflix describes the movie with this tagline: “He is always prepared to fight in the name of justice. But the world has changed. The lines between justice and injustice have become blurred. In such a world, who is he to trust?” From that description, it’s impossible to tell what the movie’s about, M complained. M once said that they didn’t care for Marvel films, and that they couldn’t understand why anyone would choose to go see an MCU movie while in Paris. Couldn’t they go see a film by Xavier Dolan instead? M asked, and I retorted that I’d rather gouge both my eyes out than watch a Xavier Dolan film. As a studio, Marvel is consciously making the effort to reshape the audiences’ general attitude toward movies, which largely centers on heterosexual males. This was what led to the release of Captain Marvel. M didn’t much care for Captain Marvel either. But I persuaded M that watching Winter Soldier would change their mind. Blonde, white, and clad in Star-Spangled spandex (and a soldier to boot!), the original character of Captain America was a perennial headache for Marvel, given the conservatism he represented. Screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely agreed that the Captain was an issue. No one’s going to wax nostalgic about Captain America’s days, except for the neocons. Captain America makes Clint Eastwood look progressive, lamented the Russo brothers, who had taken the helm of the franchise. We need a spy film, goddammit, a good old-fashioned 1970s spy flick! A few months later, producer Kevin Feige reached a decision. We were sitting at a café in a museum in Philadelphia. We could see a statue of Rocky from where we sat. As if speaking from one mind, Markus and McFeely took turns rapidly finishing each other’s thoughts. Then we got a call from Kevin. We knew this was the call. Okay. I think I’m ready to take down S.H.I.E.L.D! They ultimately decided to pit America against America itself and have a blonde white man (Chris Evans) attack another blonde white man (Robert Redford). What followed was an inevitable conflict between the Captain and the Avengers’ primary agency, S.H.I.E.L.D. In the movie, America turns out to be a police state. But America can also overcome its problems through the sheer force of its free will. It was a dazzling resurgence of liberal humanism, or rather, a weak attempt to mask what was going on in the real world (George W. Bush Barack Obama Donald Trump). So basically, the theme in Captain America is the act of running, I explained. M and I were strolling down the Marais district. The weather was proving to be highly unpredictable; the formerly oppressive heat had given way to a cool breeze. A man in Satisfy running shorts jogged past. His long curls tossed in the wind and a musty aroma, whether from sweat or cologne, hit our senses. He winked at M and, without giving them time to react, dashed past. “This may sound crazy, but I think everything in life is connected. Just as with Markus and McFeely, and with Anthony and Joe Russo, I believe that running and humanism are connected, and that liberalism and realism are connected, to create liberal humanism, and ultimately Captain America. Walter Benjamin obsessed over strolling because he was a Communist, so any blanket statements that try to connect walks to the idea of humanism are plain wrong. My story is going to conclude with ideas about the posthuman and the human body, racial discrimination and misogyny, entropy and singularity. That’s my big picture idea, anyway,” I concluded. “Do you ever think you might be a little too old-fashioned?” M asked. “That’s rude.” “Look around you,” M said, gesturing broadly. “Paris has been taken over by Lime scooters. We’re up to our necks in the shared economy, and you’re sitting here going on and on about the flâneur?” M was right; Paris was overridden with electric scooters. Gone were the bicycles with loaves of freshly baked baguettes tucked into their baskets. Parisians no longer had to pump pedals or own cars or even walk on their own legs. Bus stations, parking lots, and arcades had all become unnecessary. When the British newspaper covered the story of Lime arriving on its shores, its headline read: “Anarchists of the Streets!” Transportation is a political system. Representative democracy and the nation state will be destroyed by the shared economy. And big corporations will bring the world together? Elon Musk declared that, by 2020, Robotaxis would be servicing our streets. Level 5 autonomous vehicles will soon become commercially available. We won’t even have to touch the steering wheels anymore. It would be crazy to buy any car other than a Tesla. That would be like buying a horse when you can buy a car! Of course, come 2020, Elon Musk will declare that 2021 will be the year for commercial self-driving vehicles. And in 2021, he will pronounce that 2022 would be the year. The singularity is the turtle. We are Achilles. A few months ago, a man who was riding in a Tesla using its auto-pilot function died in a car crash. The auto-pilot remained operational even after the driver had died; the Tesla continued spinning down the freeway with the dead body strapped inside. How could this happen, you ask? How horrible, you might say. Well, actually it isn’t. The issue is simple. The driver being dead has no bearing on the car’s ability to drive, so it keeps driving on. The important thing is not why it drives—it’s whether or not it can. If it can drive, it will continue to drive, even if it has no reason to. As William James once wrote, “A man does not cry because he is sad, he is sad because he cries.” Or, take Vseveled Meyerhold, “We do not run out of fear, we are afraid because we run.” Question: Are the thirteen children in Yi Sang’s “Crow’s Eye View” afraid because they are running? Or are they running because they are afraid? Captain America: Winter Soldier opens with a jogging scene. Running is one of the actions that define Captain America. When he runs, he seems at once distinct and different among the other superheroes, who are seen soaring through the skies on telekinetic wings or teleporting to distant worlds. Compared to that, the act of running is humble, dynamic, physical. In contrast, his antagonist in the film, the Siberian-made cyborg Winter Soldier never runs. The main character in A Day Off is seen running, but the camera never shows his body in the act. Audiences are therefore made to believe that this self-deprecating misogynist doesn’t have a physical form, and therefore can never be completely free. A thoroughly modernist take. On the other hand, the character of Captain America is grounded in realism, while the Winter Soldier, in social realism. Body 1. Sound body and sound mind: Captain America Body 2. Weak body and unsound mind: Huh Wook Body 3. Weird body and insane mind: Winter Soldier Ever the brooding walker, the Winter Soldier is nothing more than a puppet,1 devoid of free will that was forcefully taken away from him through hypnosis. Russia = fascism. To this formula, Marvel adds the element of machinery. The anti-humanist idea of the machine is combined with fascism. It is not too difficult to see the shadows of fascism across Iron Man and the Helicarrier (S.H.I.E.L.D/Hydra), which insist they are working for the sake of the common good while depending on extensive algorithms and the use of AI. Iron Man leaves his suit behind to start a family with Pepper Potts. Humanism taking off the Iron Man suit family. The moment Iron Man is seen at his most humane and vulnerable, he dies. Captain American returns as an old man. The strongest basis for free will and humanism is that all humans eventually die, and that humans can make the choice to die of their own free will. (Christianity also clings to the belief of free will because of the concept of judgment after death./Literature’s greatest obsession has always been death.) The reason many of us are uncomfortable at the thought of transhumanism and life beyond death is that the idea seems to imply the end of free will. (Incidentally, all dictators hope to live forever, as history and narratives have repeatedly told us is the case.) The end of free will = the loss of all meaning. Two questions: 1. Can masculinity ever manage to overcome self-hatred and misogyny without leaning on human free will? 2. Can the dynamism of the human body be recreated without coming into the fold of liberal humanism? Additionally: All meaning has the ability to withstand contradiction . . . Contradiction is represented by the moment when meaning complies with its self-conformity. Because meaning, by definition, also includes the possibility of its own denial. Additionally: Method acting and biomechanics During his stay in Moscow, Walter Benjamin sat through no fewer than fifteen plays. Of these, some had an anti-revolutionary message. One of the most well-known of these plays was Konstantin Stanislavsky’s production of The Days of the Turbins (December 14, 1926). After watching Stanislavsky’s performance, Benjamin wrote: The audience was noticeably different from the ones I had seen in the other two theaters. It was as if there were not a single Communist present, not a black or blue tunic in sight. [. . .] A waft of perfume greeted me as I entered the theater. [. . .] The entire production was done in the style of a dusty court theater. Stanislavsky’s theater and acting concepts were introduced to the American Laboratory Theatre by his protégée Maria Ouspenskaya. At the Theatre, actors such as Lee Strasberg and Stella Adler developed the concept of method acting and applied it to Hollywood productions. This anti-revolutionary acting style caused a revolution in film acting and became the prototype for contemporary acting. Meyerhold, for his part, refused to comply with Stanislavsky’s realistic portrayals of characters’ inner psyches, and instead created a new method influenced by the notion of biomechanics proposed by Aleksei Gastev. What he refused above all was realism, or the embrace of reality. He believed that theater shouldn’t present a literal representation of reality but rather its highly sophisticated stylization. To him, the actor’s body was a biomechanical device used to express emotions and ideas. Consider it an inversion of acting as media. What is a theater actor? She is, after all, an artistic engineer who uses her body in keeping with the scientific principles of time and movement. What about the most physically well-trained, disciplined actors? They are actors who have achieved a near-perfect unity between the mechanisms of stimuli and response—that is, those who have cut the time it takes for a stimulus to produce a relevant response down to the barest minimum, so that any stimulus produces a nearly instantaneous response. So it was only natural for the Turkish immigrant Elia Kazan, who studied method acting from Stella Adler, to go from being a Communist to becoming a proponent of McCarthyism. The anti-revolutionary body becomes a revolution; the star of capitalism and the affected humanist leads anti-Communist Fascism. The revolutionary body influenced by Taylorism becomes a machine and is branded as an elitist and Soviet counter-revolutionary, before ultimately disappearing in the Great Purge. 3. Running is a Question of Class M decided to make a movie. They had majored in English literature and dabbled in poetry for a while until they learned they couldn’t write poetry forever. To write poetry was to punish themselves—and others—continuously. In a different time zone or a different country, perhaps it might have been possible to write a different kind of poem. But not in Korea. The bigger concern was that M loved to run. M boasted that they had come in first place in long-distance running and in the two-hundred-meter dash while in junior high. It may be hard to believe, but it’s true. “That’s why I can never write poetry. Because poets don’t run. Only novelists run.” I had to agree. I’m not much of a runner, but I admit that novelists are the real runners. In school, they probably came in last in all the relay races. But the act of writing fiction and the act of running are all a lonely race. Running requires much physical stamina, more so than walking. Likewise, writing a novel is a physical struggle. Philip Roth once stated, “Work is important. Only amateurs are waiting for inspiration.” “That’s why I hate Philip Roth.” M said they couldn’t get through The Human Stain, neither the film version nor the novel. “Why do people even read American novels, anyway?” We were in Paris, the city of racial discrimination. Paris is also the city of misogyny. Paris is also the city of walkers. Therefore, it stands to reason that all walkers are misogynists. Samuel Beckett liked to frequent the brothels on the Rue Godot-de-Mauroy in the ninth arrondissement of Paris. One day, a woman—probably a sex worker—approached Beckett and asked if he wanted her services. When he refused, the woman sneered, “Of course you do. So, who are you waiting for then? Godot?” M looked shocked. “Wait, so that’s how Beckett got the inspiration for Waiting for Godot? Wrapped in the arms of a hooker?” Well, we couldn’t jump to any conclusions. Beckett may have gone to a brothel but decided not to have sex. Maybe he felt a certain blissful irony at the thought of seeing God in his conversations with prostitutes. “Your problem is that you consider that ironic.” M’s favorite place in Paris was the Louvre and their favorite movie scene was from Bande à part where the three main characters race across the Louvre in record time, finishing at nine minutes and forty-three seconds, only to have this record broken, at nine minutes and twenty-eight seconds, by a similar scene in The Dreamers. Another was the recreation of this scene by Agnès Varda who strolls across the Louvre in a wheelchair. I recalled reading a post on an online community site for people interested in traveling across Europe. The author of the post had written that he wanted to pay homage to both Bande à part and The Dreamers by breaking their record of running across the Louvre. Seeking two companions who want to join me at the Louvre tomorrow morning. Contact me if you’re a dreamer! My KakaoTalk ID is XXXX lol “I thought it was awful! He wanted to run across the Louvre with complete strangers. Why would anyone want to do that?” M told me to stop visiting those travel community pages. “The focus should be on Agnès Varda. Ignore those washed-up losers living out their 1968 revolution dreams.” The Louvre race was noteworthy for the fact that Agnès Varda didn’t run. While the male artists, Godard and Bertolucci, were busy setting records, Agnès Varda is seen strolling leisurely through the space with the aid of a machine. “That’s where Varda and Donna Haraway meet,” said M. “Running is a tool of the oppressors! Machines are the tool of liberation! Therefore, cars are to our freedom what the typewriter was to women’s liberation!” “But you like to run. And you don’t even have a driver’s license.” “So? I can still be an oppressor, can’t I?” M argued. “And I’m going to name my movie Running is a Question of Class.” That night I thought of Jack London. Specifically, of Jack London and his short story “To Build a Fire.” Of the seaman Jack who wrote a thousand words a day. M had only a cursory knowledge of Jack London, but knew he had overdosed and died. They also knew that the protagonist in “To Build a Fire” had frozen to death while crossing Alaska. “There’s something strange about that,” M said. We discussed other works that were set in Alaska. I brought up Park Min-gyu’s “Rudy,” while M spoke of Harold Pinter’s A Kind of Alaska. “Whoa!” M shouted, while reading “Rudy.” “Rudy” is about a fear of things that never stop moving. A Kind of Alaska is about the chaos one feels at having stopped all movement. “As a well for ideas, the theme of movement is basically bottomless.” M and I fell into the delusion that we would soon create a masterpiece. I would write a novel much like an essay film, while M declared they would use the filmmaking styles of the Laputan people from Gulliver’s Travels. In the book, the people on Laputa island believed language to be unnecessary, and that everyone could communicate using real objects. With bags slung over their shoulders, they would take out objects from the bags and point to them every time they needed to discuss what was on their minds. M announced that their movie would be the film version of that ever-important bag. I had no idea what M meant, not having read Gulliver’s Travels, but I was struck by their idea. Exhilarated, we rushed out into the street. It was past eleven o’clock, and Paris was gripped by a sudden, bitterly cold wind. Sang-woo, who lived in Berlin, said he had put on his HEATTECH shirt. How’s the weather in Paris? It was scorching hot yesterday . . . “Europe’s crazy. It’s the craziest continent in human history.” We were afraid of possible attacks by people of other ethniticies but still decided to run in the face of the cold and discrimination. Our goal was to pass the fountain and enter Villette, then cross Belleville and run straight to the Père Lachaise Cemetery. M struck out first. Their pale legs gleamed in the dark, and thinking I could easily overtake them, I started out slow. The streets were empty, save for an Arab man in a black leather jacket sitting on the railing of a café with his dog, slowly eyeing us. I had already crossed the intersection but hadn’t caught up to M yet. I speeded up. M glanced back at me then raced ahead. The distance between us grew. I ran faster, and so did M. We were growing farther and farther apart, and I was getting out of breath. By the time we reached Chinatown, I was about to faint. Except it only felt like we’d been running for five minutes at most. “I think I’m going to die!” I yelled. At that, two young men in nylon tracksuits turned to stare. Panicking, I kept running. M looked to be at the end of the road. They seemed to be merging with the vanishing point on the horizon, and my heart was beating so loudly it was drowning out all other sounds. But I couldn’t stop. If I stopped now, I would be easy prey for the city’s pickpockets. Besides, M would be in danger too, alone in the streets at night. We’re going to dream about running and images and movement and stopping . . . I thought. Let’s just power through to Père Lachaise . . . There we’ll collapse and be buried . . . Hopefully next to Balzac . . . Running is peculiar for its ability to reduce the sensation of time. By shortening the time it takes to cross a certain distance, our experience of that distance is also cut short. Time is experience. Running is goal-oriented. There is an event, and it is to solve the event that we engage in running. The runner is oblivious to everything else, and therefore, experience is limited to the event itself. On the other hand, walking lengthens the sensation of time. Walking doesn’t seek a clear purpose; nor is the act particularly desperate. The walker can change direction at any time, or even come to a full stop. Walking is by nature a scattered, distracted act. “To Build a Fire” is about the struggle between humans and nature. What’s interesting is not the inner conflicts as depicted in the story, but rather the clash between form and content. “To Build a Fire” is critical of something the story itself is guilty of in its form. The story is critical of the goal-oriented, aggressively direct tendencies of humans, but its own style is goal-oriented and direct. This conflict is due to Jack London’s own contradictions, himself a Communist who wanted to be rich. London’s 1909 novel Martin Eden, a spin-off of The Great Gatsby, describes the distorted views of women held by men riddled with contradictory ideologies. They mythologize love and/or women. From there, death is born. In his anthology of world literature, Yi Mun-yol selected “To Build a Fire” as a work that deals with the “aesthetics of death.” According to Yi, some civilizations invested too heavily in death and therefore collapsed, while others focused only on living pleasures and withered away. Neither civilizations could be free from death. This is why literature, particularly fiction, is so gripped by the subject of death. Since ancient times, death has been both the gravest of literary themes and the most emotionally resonant device. 4. I May Not be Happy Forever but Tonight I am Satisfied We were sitting across from each other on the bed, each staring into our own laptops. M was drinking wine, while I drank coffee. M liked Bordeaux wine, and I had no problem falling asleep while caffeinated. The reason I drink coffee at night is not because I like it, but because I can still go to sleep even after I’ve had some, I said. M said that made sense somehow, oddly enough. “Want to watch this?” M turned their laptop over so I could see the screen. It was set to a YouTube channel. “Bonnie Bremser?” “Yeah.” M said that they had come to know about Bonnie Bremser only recently, and that they were unsure of how to make sense of that fact. I for one had never heard the name before. M of said that was normal. In Korea, when people talk about the Beat Generation, they mostly mention male authors like Allen Ginsberg or Jack Kerouac, so it was only natural. In fact, there were tons of women who were part of the movement. “Bonnie Bremser was a Beatnik and a poet. And female.” Bonnie was the wife of the Beatnik poet Ray Bremser; her maiden name was Brenda Frazer. As with all members of the Beat generation, Bonnie had become disillusioned with college life and society in general when she first met Ray and decided to go on the run with him. Ray was being chased by the police for armed robbery, though he claimed he had been framed. Bonnie didn’t seem to care. No matter if it was true, that would be so cool, a real criminal, a revolutionary, a terrorist, the Jean Genet of North America. But life is a treacherous journey. It’s sickening, and trite, and sentimental, but it’s true. With their infant daughter Rachel, Ray and Bonnie crossed the border into Mexico, where, having no other means to make a living, Ray forced Bonnie to turn tricks. Bonnie wandered the streets of Mexico City and Veracruz prostituting herself, and used that money to take care of Ray and Rachel. Ray was her pimp, her lover, her teacher, and a father. Disgusting piece of shit. Vile human. Total asshole. People spat on Ray, but Bonnie believed she had made her own choice. No, Bonnie, that wasn’t your choice. You were being used. Yes, Bonnie later came to realize that she may have been used by Ray, that she was being cleverly manipulated by him somehow. So it was true. But what could she do? Ray was arrested by the Mexican police and thrown in jail. Bonnie and Rachel were cast out onto the streets of Mexico City in the 1960s. Bonnie put her daughter up for adoption and continued working as a prostitute. In the mornings, she smoked a joint, then sat before a typewriter where she wrote a letter to Ray. At night, she donned a short corduroy skirt and headed out to the street. Troia: Mexican Memoirs is a collection of the letters Bonnie wrote while wandering around Mexico City. It begins with this paragraph: . . . First off I want to tell a few really important things about me. I know that continuity is necessary [. . .] but I believe in distortion—I believe that if you get to a place where something is taking shape and want badly to comprehend the thing that you have created [. . .] then any old thing to fill the gap will do [. . .] what’s important is not the technique or lack of it, but those few minutes when you overcome the frustration, bridge the gap, and hold something incredibly beautiful to you [. . .] The book, though published in 1969, was completely forgotten until it was reissued in 2007, whereupon it created a small sensation. Theorists and artists who had lived through the Third Wave of feminism were unsure what to do with this woman, who was both a whore and an artist, a provider and a lover, who dreamed of monogamy but had no qualms about sexual deviation and prostitution. She was too problematic to be touted as a hero, but too independent to be cast as a victim. “Have you read the book?” I asked. M said that they had, a little. But her life was much too difficult for M to comprehend. M didn’t want to paint her as an Other and put her on a great remove from themselves, but that’s how M felt. The YouTube video M wanted to show me was shot in 1997. It was filmed by Jerome Poynton, a Beat researcher and amateur filmmaker, who meets Bonnie, who is living in Alpena, Michigan, and has a conversation with her. The video had only 350 views so far. “He’s not going to make any money off this,” I said. “I heard you only get paid after four thousand views.” “Thieves,” M said. It was the dead of winter when Jerome went to Alpena, Michigan to meet with Bonnie Bremser. The entire village was covered in snow and the streets were empty. Cars crawled along slower than horse-drawn carriages. Sunlight, when it could peek out from between the thick clouds, shone feebly down on the rooftops. Poynton, who lived in Athens, was used to bleak weather, but he says even he was surprised by the bleakness of this Michigan winter, where the atmosphere was foggy and chilly, and where no one came and nothing existed due to the cold, with the train stations empty of vacationers and full of nothing but drunks. Bonnie doesn’t respond. Although she was living in a city that was the polar opposite of Mexico, which is where she spent her youth, she didn’t seem to think that her life had turned upside down, or that her life was a pile of shit. She didn’t seem to like others commentating on her life. You’ve heard this before, haven’t you? Jerome asked. And what about you? What made you crawl here all the way from the Mediterranean, you sucker? She seemed to want to say, but to speak requires energy, which she didn’t want to waste. Jerome and Bonnie go for a walk towards Lake Huron. A walk in this weather? Bonnie thinks but Jerome looks so excited at having met the legendary poet Bonnie Bremser that she keeps it to herself and guides him to the lake while doing her best to talk about things unrelated to poetry. It’s approaching dusk, and the sun can be seen setting beyond Lake Huron. The orange sun is hanging on the horizon, and to their left and right lay thick piles of snow, hardened and firm and looking as if they’d been there for decades. A lone, skinny dog appears in front of them. Jerome seems to like dogs. Excitedly, he waves the camcorder around and runs toward the animal. The dog prances around the snow then disappears in the forest nearby. Great place, huh? Jerome laughs. Bonnie mutters, Fool, what a great place this is, hah! But Jerome, lost in his reverie, doesn’t hear her. The last of the Beat generation ends here . . . Jerome murmurs, as he stares across the Huron, as expansive as the sea. You’re the Beat generation’s true lost poet, aren’t you? he asks. Bonnie responds that she hasn’t lost anything. I don’t want to be cynical towards life, but if people say this attitude is cynical, then I guess that’s what I am. She says that all words, evaluations, and values seemed empty and ridiculous. If the people on my side are disappointed to hear this, well then, there’s nothing I can do. If the people on the other side are emboldened by this, well then, that’s too bad but there’s nothing I can do about those hopeless people. I am not on the side of any words, and I am not on the side of any meaning. I am on the side of all existence. After walking along Lake Huron for a long time, they climb into a car. They drive past a snowy village, warehouses, and factories during a time of day that isn’t quite nighttime or daytime, in a place that looked as if things that were neither fully human nor beast might rush out at them, but their conversation, along with the sounds of the wind rushing past, seem normal enough. The video ends at a parking lot in a 7-Eleven. At one point, Bonnie throws back her head and laughs, and it looks like she is missing all her teeth. Maybe we’re exaggerating things, I said. Like Bonnie said, there was no meaning to words. The words themselves don’t give meaning; only the fact that the words exist give meaning. Bonnie seems to be at peace, and not at all like the last remaining Beat generation poet who used to sell her body for sex while on the run from the law. “It’s better that way,” M said. 1To run, one must demonstrate the will to run. Meanwhile, walking has always been an activity characterizing people who have lost their minds, or are confused and unsure of their surroundings. This is also why Fascists were compared to zombies, who were seen to have lost all free will. But then, the zombies began to run. Contemporary Fascists are no longer devoid of free will or subject to others’ control (or at least, they don’t believe they are). This crossover between walking and running points to a confusion in the concept of free will. Translated by Amber Hyun Jung Kim Illustration ©OMSCIC COMICS

by Jung Jidon
Dream of Me

Every time we sang “When You and I Were Young, Maggie” in music class, the same lines piqued my curiosity. The green grove is gone from the hill, Maggie, Why Maggie, though? The song likely wasn’t referring to the wide-mouthed, whiskered catfish we called megi. Sitting in that music room where the sunlight did not reach and under those fluorescent lights that were dying out, I opened my mouth and sang, The creaking old mill is still… Maggie, The song seemed to plunge as though it were suddenly falling off a steep cliff and my heart skipped a beat every time. The American name “Maggie” was written phonetically in Korean but the music score didn’t include the original song lyrics, so there was no way of knowing anything about Maggie or the person who missed her. I didn’t look for answers nor did I ask anyone about the mystery behind the name. I left it alone, an unsolvable puzzle. A similar question came to mind when I sang “Oh! Susanna.” I come from Alabama With a banjo on my knee I’m going to Louisiana My true love for to see. A banjo on the knee of a person coming to see Susanna. What’s a banjo? I wasn’t sure, but the word seemed to be held together by stiff hinges and gave off a whiff of rusted iron. Like a confession one overhears while half-asleep, the words “banjo” and “Maggie” were shrouded in secret shadow. I meandered to my heart’s content in the maze of those songs. I didn’t come from some city in some state in South Korea—didn’t the place I come from have a clear stream flowing through it and scarlet alpenroses? Das Berner Oberland, Oberland. As I mumbled words in a foreign language I didn’t even understand, I imagined Maggie and Susanna running away to “beautiful Bern.” In my fantasy, Maggie met Susanna, who lived in another song, and headed to the alpenroses with a banjo on her knee. “Well, you came,” I said to Chamba. The snow on the trail came up to our calves and Chamba was trying not to fall. Chamba smiled reluctantly, as if to say, How much longer are you going to make me walk on a road like this in this kind of weather? Snow was coming down in thick, beautiful flakes. The two of us walked and headed up Namsan trail in search of a Coffee Pori. I remembered the last place I’d had coffee milk like that, and so, we arrived at Namsan trail’s last supermarket. Namsan Trail’s Last Supermarket—that was the name of the place. Coffee milk in round plastic containers or in square paper cartons could be found anywhere, but I only wanted the kind that came in a triangular plastic pack. “You have to roll me down. I can’t walk anymore,” Chamba said. Chamba was standing under the awning of the supermarket after finishing their coffee milk. We could no longer see the footprints we had left on our way up; they were already covered by the snow. Unable to withstand its own weight, a load of snow fell from the tin rain gutter that was affixed to the wall. I looked up at the mountain ridge where the snowflakes were falling. The sky was blue and still. In the far distance, a blue surf washed over the land, slowly diluting until it reached the ridge of the snow-covered mountain and turned completely white, like a shallow wave flooding a beach. Near and far, the land was completely covered in snow; even the asphalt on the road and the branches of the roadside trees were thickly blanketed. It was almost as if the trees, tired out by exhaust fumes and relentless neon signs, had covered themselves up with snow and were now resting. Is my dead self resting like that too? I wondered. I told Chamba that I would get started first. “Oink oink, follow my lead.” I made pig noises and folded both of my hands over my chest. Like a dry leaf pierced through by an irrevocable wind, I fell into the snow. * When I was dying, Chamba showed up and had sung me a song. They’d played an instrument that looked similar to a guitar but wasn’t a guitar, an instrument that was like a great-great-grandmother to a guitar’s second cousin or something, and they’d sung “Oh! Susanna.” I come from Alabama With a banjo on my knee I’m going to Louisiana My true love for to see. Even though Chamba—whose hair was combed back neatly and cut so short that their widow’s peak stood out—was dressed smartly in a navy-blue china jacket and handkerchief, they were dreadfully tone deaf and, at first listen, didn’t seem to know how to play the banjo. All they did was sweep their fingers up and down the metal strings of the instrument with its round body and copper-colored hooks, not even keeping to the key or the beat of the song. “Are you going to keep staring at me?” Chamba asked. By then, we had levitated off the ground and were floating near the ceiling. Below me and Chamba, my dead self lay unconscious on the ground. At some point, I had left my body. I felt exactly like I did when the music led up to The green grove is gone from the hill, Maggie, as if the rhythm enveloping me had transformed all at once into a different kind of current, without a single word changing. Like how a volleyball might feel when it skips the stages of receive, toss, and spike and instead flies directly over the net in an unorthodox attack. I wasn’t scared or in pain. It’s just that there seemed to be a vague caramel scent between my out-of-body self and my prone self. That was probably because of the caramel in the Almond Crunch Cranberry Choco Bar I had been eating just before losing consciousness. The moment that crushed-almond confection—its dried cranberries with that hardened nugget of chocolate—took the wrong path to my throat, the ligaments of my trachea swelled and seemed to pierce through the husk of my body, like a seedling sprouting from its growing point. Even while lying face down on the foam mat, choking, I was aware that this situation could end in my death. Did that mean that on my death certificate the cause of death would be noted as “respiratory obstruction and suffocation due to a foreign object”? Then what about my first attempt, when I tried overdosing on pills? What about my life’s chokeholds, one after the other; those small and large humiliations of the past that made me want to tear myself apart and set myself on fire? My biorhythm, in a word, that was different during the summer and winter? My bipolar psyche? My disordered and fitful sleeping, caused by my willpower having run completely dry? My relationships, roiling like the jigger valve of a pressure cooker, splayed like a sideways number eight? Relationships, that is, when someone asks to “Explain the causal relationship” in this case, what was the cause? Without having any way of explaining the reason I had become a jobless, thirty-something-year-old woman living alone; or this world in which I, bracing myself for the end, swallowed a bunch of sleeping pills and, waking up three days later, thought, I can’t die like this, (How is it that during those three days of oscillating between life and death, not a single person contacted me, except for the credit card company texting me about some promo?) and where absolutely no one was curious about my well-being; or the black comedy of my choking to death on a buy-one, get-one free chocolate bar that I had eaten too quickly, just as I had made up my mind to pull myself together and live; or the cause in this twisted causal relationship that, although nobody’s life or death exists to make others laugh, made even me, the one in question, laugh bitterly . . . . . . my body oozed from one point to another, just like paint being squeezed from a tube. Soon after, Chamba showed up and started singing to me. “Excuse me, are you an angel?” I asked, polite even in that bewildering situation. I figured they were an angel or something similar, given that they had shown up at that specific moment. “I’ll introduce myself later. You have thirty seconds left. In fifteen seconds, your heart will stop beating, then the oxygen supply to your brain will be cut off. After that, you’ll turn into a Traveler and be on your way,” Chamba said, moving their feet slowly in midair. My feet, too, swayed like seaweed in the ocean current. I lay unconscious below, my face turning blue from cyanosis. Scattered on top of the foam mat, which was stained with splotches of hot sauce, there were years’ worth of prescription medication packets and a square notebook bound in thick thread. Oh, I guess I just left that there. What if they think it’s a suicide note? This was most certainly an accident. I stretched out my arm to try to get rid of that trace of myself: the thing I had written on craft paper with a thick-nibbed pen (“I want to be the one to pull the plug on myself”). That’s when Chamba unfurled an opera-pink handkerchief and covered my face. That is, on my dying body. Then, everything grew bright before my out-of-body self’s eyes and, like a person being shoved while trying to transfer subway lines during rush hour, I was thrust out of the room. Right through a concrete wall. I am afraid of heights, I thought, but before I had any time to feel anxiety or terror, my body was rising up and up, like moisture on the ground evaporating into the atmosphere by the heat of the sun. As if I had become, not a person or a solid mass, but a single, high-speed current. A particle—even with all that was happening, I had come up with a word to describe my situation. Split and split until it could be split no more, a simple, fundamental why why did you do it why did you do it why did you do it why did you do it That’s what my mother had said while wringing my arm, a year ago when she came to see me in the emergency room after my first attempt. Will it be Mother again this time? Did it have to be her? I lived isolated from the world and didn’t expect anything in the mail; I had even signed up for autopay so my utility bills would be deducted from my bank account. My one neighbor had moved out a few months ago, too. Even as I thought, Oh well, this has already happened, what’s one more nail in the coffin?, I still wanted to avoid the worst, so I tried to come up with someone else (not Mother) who could find my body. Then, like being caught in the strong current of a winding river, I felt myself suddenly twisting, flying over something, crossing through cold and warm air, and then going down, down. The cells of my body had already begun to die. * Even with the snow falling, the midday sun appeared high in the sky. The air was just warm enough that the snow didn’t melt and cold enough that the snow crystals didn’t clump together; in this perfectly mixed climate, Chamba and I walked a pace apart. Maybe my moment of floating in midair before dying was some kind of perk, like a discount coupon that new customers get for their first order, but now I was plodding along with my own two feet clad in snow boots. Seeing a crossroad that looked like a polar ice block, I thought of snowmobiles with their skis and snow chains. It would have been perfect to ride a snowmobile down a road like this. But in the city of my imagination, all engine-powered transportation was non-operational. This seemed to be due to Chamba’s influence. Chamba, who’d pulled the plug on themselves in their own car, disliked motor vehicles. They refused buses and motorcycles too, and only wanted to travel by their own two feet. I had my doubts as to whether a person like them could guide a Traveler like me. “Are there a lot of people like me?” I asked as I watched the boot of my outstretched foot bury itself in the snow. Chamba was walking ahead of me, wearing sneakers with crampons attached to them. “Like what?” “Dead.” Dead like me. That is, not dead after actually attempting to die, but dead unexpectedly. Dead by a surprise attack unfairly launched by someone else, even though they might have already planned a death of their own; dead, like squares of toilet paper torn at random, not neatly along the perforated line between mine/someone else’s will. “We say they awoke here. ‘Our friend Lazarus sleepeth, but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep,’” Chamba said, adjusting their goggles. Who’s Lazarus? The name sounds vaguely familiar. Did I see it in a Spanish movie? Lazarus Diego Garcia? As I muttered to myself, Chamba stretched out a gloved hand. “Come forth, Lazarus! You don’t know this? Jerusalem’s Lazarus?” I said I didn’t. “You know about Jerusalem, don’t you? Israel, religion, Taj Mahal.” The Taj Mahal is something else, I thought, and averted my gaze to Chamba’s breast pocket. Unlike when I first saw them, Chamba was wearing thick racing coveralls. The word “chambachamba” was embroidered in yellow thread on their breast pocket; whenever I saw it, I always pronounced it “chamba” in my head. “It’s from the Bible. Since you said you’d been to church.” “A couple times, long ago,” I said. Chamba stopped and pulled off their open-finger gloves. “Or we leave it as parentheses, too, without using specific words. Awakened person, or parentheses.” “Parentheses?” “Neither blame nor praise, just parentheses. Before judgment, parentheses,” Chamba said, wiping the lens of their goggles with those gloves of theirs that exposed the tips of their fingers. In that moment, I saw Chamba’s face clearly. Eyes glinting with indifference, as if to say nothing good would come out of meeting their gaze; below their eyes, marks left by the goggles. Cheeks that were neither narrow nor wide. A chin that could have been used in a physiognomy textbook as an example of a jawline that would bring one good fortune later in life. How old are they? What about their gender? Their voice sounded like that of a middle-aged man, but the curves of their clothed upper body suggested a woman. Regardless of their gender, they were not the type to have been doused in torrents of hormones that caused secondary sex characteristics. In other words, they were simply Chamba, who looked really good in a motorcycle racing suit. “What?” Chamba looked at me. I turned away. “Do you want to know?” Chamba asked, stretching the band of the goggles behind their head. I shrugged. But, unable to hold back my curiosity, I scanned the white zippers hanging from Chamba’s clothing. Chamba’s clothing, which was connected top and bottom, had several zippers (including, it appeared, near the crotch and buttocks, presumably for the purpose of making it easy to use the bathroom) and at their chest and thighs were three opera-pink bands that stood out sharply against the snowy white landscape. “Round parentheses? Or pointy ones?” I asked to change the subject, as if to say, Your gender is of no importance to me. I also smiled slightly, as though to add, But if you want us to grow a little closer, you’d pull down your scarf and let me check if you have an Adam’s apple. “Empty parentheses. They’re left empty.” Chamba raised two hands to chest height and made a sign indicating parentheses. They adjusted their hat which had a fluffy pom dangling from it. Then, they started walking again and I followed suit. From atop the snow-covered streetlights, tiny-winged birds took flight. I kept forgetting that Chamba could sense my thoughts. It’s not that my every thought was completely transparent like water in a glass, Chamba said, but they could pick up on my condition as a Traveler, which was necessary for a Guide to know. They said a simple way to think about it was if I saw myself as a website that we were both accessing simultaneously; in reality, Chamba couldn’t explain in much more detail themselves. When I asked them if they heard my thoughts in their ears like a narrator’s voice in a movie, or if they saw it in front of their eyes like words printed in a book, they responded, Who thinks like that? and then added, It’s unconscious, a natural flow, like how your body moves forward when your foot takes a step. That explanation was even harder for me to understand. How could the neural activity of our separate, individual brains be interconnected as one? Like a math exam I had only memorized the formulas and thus got every applied question wrong, I couldn’t easily grasp the fundamentals of being a Traveler, such as my thoughts being connected to Chamba’s and the fact that I could go into other people’s dreams from my imagination. As we neared the first dream destination, I grew worried that I’d made the wrong choice. I planned to visit Gyuhee’s dream. Knowing her, I didn’t think she would be one to suffer from lifelong trauma if she discovered my body. My middle school friend whom I ate lunch with, both of us glancing sideways at each other’s side dishes to see how much was left. The pastor’s daughter Choi Gyuhee, who came to my house every Saturday afternoon to take me to the church youth group. I wasn’t doing this just to ask her to find my body. Gyuhee and I shared a close friendship during our teens. I was doing this because we were tteokbokki mates—if one of us wanted to go to Dongbaek Tteokbokki, the other came along, no questions asked. Even if it was the second day of her period, even if she hadn’t washed her hair in three days, she’d stick an overnight pad in her panties, pull a hat over her hair, and come along. I was doing this because it was Choi Gyuhee, who knew perfectly well that while you could enjoy samgyeopsal BBQ by yourself, instant tteokbokki rice cakes tasted best when you shared two servings with a friend and had it with some fried rice. Sometimes she’d come on a Saturday I didn’t want to go to church and I would ignore her even though I heard the doorbell ring, but Gyuhee experienced that once in a while anyway while evangelizing kids of her own age. Gyuhee and I were assigned to different high schools and thus grew naturally apart. After we started college, we called each other up to eat seaweed rolls dunked in tteokbokki sauce whenever we grew tired of our social lives as adults. We fretted together over an extra order of glass noodles at Dongbaek Tteokbokki that time Gyuhee said she was going to quit her job, learn how to bake, and open up her own dessert shop; or that time she debated whether to marry her first love whom she kept breaking up and getting back together with. Rather than going with choices that minimized loss, we put our minds together to figure out what would bring her the most satisfaction even if it ended up a loss. Gyuhee was the talker and I was the listener, but whenever I asked roundabout questions to test her (Would you still be my friend if I completely screwed up my life and became homeless? What about if I were falsely charged with a crime and ended up on the run? What if I dyed my hair rainbow and got a tattoo of a dragon on my arms and . . . What if I said I liked girls, would you still be able to see me as a friend?), she’d replied, as if they were the easiest questions in the world, As long as you don’t ask me to be the guarantor on a loan you’ve taken out, I’ll be your friend until we’re both dead and turned to ash. “She said she’d give up a toe for me. She couldn’t give up a whole foot, but she said she’d give up a toe to save my life, no problem.” I sat down on a stool and looked around Dongbaek Tteokbokki. The restaurant, which was in an alley across the street from Dongbaek Girls’ Middle School, hadn’t changed much from the past. The open, wall-less first-floor interior and the plaster surface covered in a mess of handwritten notes left behind by guests; the checkered tablecloth and gas burners on each table. If there was one thing that had changed, it was that the owner of the restaurant, the ajeossi who wore a green fishing vest year-round and took our orders, was nowhere to be seen. Instead, you had to order through an automatic kiosk. “Gyuhee and I are meeting up after a long time and creating memories. She turns into a sweetheart if you give her two seaweed rolls.” I tucked a hand between my thighs and looked toward the kitchen, from which wafted the scent of gochujang seasoning. I was worried that the taste of the tteokbokki had changed but, truth is, I didn’t remember what it tasted like in the past. “You said eating was good, right? Food that we’d eaten together?” I asked Chamba. Chamba set their olive-colored banjo case on an empty seat, removed their hat with the pom on it, and placed it on top. “There is a high probability of success, yes,” Chamba said and then asked, “Apron?” On the opposite wall, there were several gochujang-colored aprons hanging on a peg, one on top of another. Staring at the blue flame surging from the burner, I thought, How should I tell her? Should I spill the whole truth and plead with a plaintive expression on my face? Gyuhee-ya, please come to me. Please help me. Or should I create a nightmare and scare her? If you don’t find me in twelve hours, a member of your family will die! Maybe a dream where all her teeth fall out as she’s eating tteokbokki, or her apron catching fire from the gas burner, or a ferocious beast running into the restaurant. How should I tell her? I thought as I tasted the simmering tteokbokki. “She’s filled with the Holy Spirit, so she’ll be fine. She was born Christian,” I explained to Chamba, who was filling a stainless-steel cup with water. After handing me the cup, Chamba brought back a dish filled with white pickled radish. The melamine dish was chipped and singed black at the brim. “She drinks a little, too. She’d hide soju bottles in her desk drawer without her father knowing and have it with crushed-up dry ramen. She said being drunk was good for repenting, too. So even if I scare her, she’ll be fine after she has a drink and prays.” I kept thinking about Gyuhee finding me. No matter how strong her faith, wouldn’t seeing a dead person be a shock to her? Had Gyuhee ever seen a dead person? Were her mother and father well? Last holiday, she had said her mother had gotten knee surgery and couldn’t even go to the bathroom by herself. I suddenly recalled a memory of me screaming at the sight of a dead baby mouse in the toilet of our middle school restroom. I was the one who had discovered the mouse. Gyuhee, who was doing her business in the next stall over, was so startled by my scream that she took off running to the security office, without even realizing that the hem of her skirt was rolled into the shorts she wore underneath. Any time I was sick or my mind was troubled, I would dream of that dead mouse in the toilet with its two eyes closed. I would dream that I was going up and down the school stairs again and again, looking for a clean toilet. Would Gyuhee have dreams like that? What memories did she return to when she was sad or sick? “I think it’s done.” Chamba tilted their head to look under the pan in order to adjust the flame. The well-cooked tteok were simmering in a sauce containing plum extract. “I once asked Gyuhee, ‘Do you really believe the Virgin Mary gave birth to a child she conceived on her own?’” I told Chamba, who was stirring the glass noodles with their chopsticks. “And?” “She said she didn’t know because she’d never been pregnant herself.” Chamba filled my dish with tteok and seaweed rolls, and handed it to me. I looked down at the steaming dish. Does Gyuhee know now? Would Gyuhee, who was raising a five-year-old son and a three-year-old daughter, remember the question I asked her after poking her in the back with my pen? During study hall, when I hadn’t wanted to study and couldn’t disturb the others, I had nudged the pastor’s daughter Choi Gyuhee and pestered her to talk to me about the Bible. Gyuhee stopped the diligent work she was putting into memorizing English vocabulary, so much so that her white paper was turning black with scribbled words, and turned around to look at me. She said, I believe it, more or less. What are you curious about? I tested her with the contents of a school library book (There Is No Bible) that I had found in a large sack meant for scrap material. The Bible says that if you do it with a man when you’re menstruating, both the man and the woman should be put to death, and at church they say the woman should keep her mouth shut and obey the man? And then last time, the pastor said that if you die by suicide, you go to hell. Do you think that’s right? Wouldn’t you think you’d treat a person who died because they were suffering even better? What did Gyuhee say back then? Did she laugh? Did she get angry? Did she tell me to shut up and get back to memorizing English vocabulary? “The problem is . . .” Chamba began. They had put two pieces of tteok in their mouth and, perhaps finding them hot, bitten into some of the white pickled radish and, still finding it hot, gulped down some water. “You need to eat all of this before you can have the fried rice.” I used my chopsticks to divide the swollen seaweed rolls into two, then three, pieces. Was that really so hard? She said she’d give up her toe for me. This was much easier than cutting off a toe. About as hard as telling someone to tear the sticker off a package and dispose of it? Was it too much to ask for something that simple, like tearing off the invoice sticker because I didn’t want the paper with my name and address to be spread out all over the world? Because a person’s body, their corpse, is more important than their personal information. Who should I ask, what words should I use, to beg for someone to find me before my body starts rotting, before it becomes damaged, so I can quietly move on from this world? “I just remembered why we shouldn’t have gone to Gyuhee,” I said, looking at Chamba whose cheeks were flushed from the heat of the pan. “She was tall, you know. When our music teacher told Gyuhee to take a look at the fluorescent lights and stop them from flickering, Gyuhee said anyone could be as tall as her if they got up on a chair. So it didn’t have to be her specifically.” * There were no cars coming or going, but still we stood at the crosswalk and waited for the light to turn green. Snow gathered on the narrow leaves of the yew trees next to the traffic light. Snow settled on top of the fallen sycamore leaves that had blown in from somewhere, on top of the thick iron nails that were driven into the telephone poles for climbing, and on the small heads of those nails, too. It covered the cars’ glass and metal alloy exteriors, so you could only make out the vague shape of their roofs and bonnets. Snowflakes descended along herringbone tracks made by rubber car tires. Next to them, Chamba’s and my shadows lay crookedly, our waists stretched long. As we crossed the street, its lanes completely covered up by the snow, I asked Chamba, “What were the other parentheses like? Did you ever visit someone else’s dream?” After Gyuhee, I was thinking about Semo, whose name meant “triangle.” I wondered if a lover whom I’d been naked in front of would be better than a friend whom I’d exchanged greetings with three or four times a year whenever the seasons changed. In any case, I thought I wouldn’t feel as bad if it were a lover, someone who spewed curses like a competition whenever we fought. When I thought of who it would be okay to hurt a little, who would have more memories of us loving each other than of us hurting each other, Semo was the only person who came to mind. “There was once an old granny in her eighties. We visited her nephew, in a memory where they were eating banana-ppang. The granny’s memory was hazy so we wandered around for quite a while.” “Is that like bungeo-ppang?” “It’s a bit different. Bungeo-ppang is a fish-shaped pastry with red bean paste or cream in it. Banana-ppang is banana shaped and has no filling, just dough. Now the nephew lives near a market that sells banana-ppang.” “Nice foreshadowing. Was that granny alone too?” “She was alone and she awoke.” “Awoke” meant pulling the plug on yourself. Or was it used in situations when you died alone and there was no one to let the world know of your death? Or maybe anyone could become a Traveler when they died? “There are criteria,” Chamba said. “Like what?” I asked. “I don’t know for sure. This is only a guess, but some Guides say people who need a light become Travelers. Other Guides say people who turn into light for this world become Travelers.” I definitely wasn’t the latter. “What do you think?” At my question, Chamba stopped walking and stared far into the distance. It was as white as the fur of an albino rabbit in every direction. Standing on a road that was blanketed in a white light that simplified the chaotic urban landscape, without turning around to look at me, Chamba said, “People who are sad.” After that, they started moving again. As we passed through a particularly snow-packed area, I walked, twisting my body at large angles like a person wearing a splint on their leg. Why did the granny in her eighties become a Traveler? Did she need a light? Had she been sad? Did she need someone to walk with her once she had died? Still, at least she lived long enough. As I was thinking that, a dark shadow fell over my head, like someone had altered the stage lights on a ceiling. The sunlight that had been following us was now obscured by a building supported by tall columns. The snow that had gathered on top of a gas line gave a sound like crumpling paper and fell on top of Chamba’s head. “No one in the world has ever said they’ve lived long enough,” Chamba said, and then shook their head, like an animal ridding itself of moisture. As we took a winding road between buildings, the familiar sights of Sogong-dong unfolded before us. Along the path lined with huge advertising billboards, we saw hotels and buildings of large corporations. The glass windows of the buildings, which all looked somewhat similar, were illuminated even brighter than the snow. Standing in front of a high-rise with a helipad, I counted the floors from the top and worked my way down, until I reached the floor where Semo’s office was located. I wasn’t sure if Semo had moved further up from the time I knew her. To reach the highest floor where no one would be able to invade her privacy—that was the life Semo wanted. When I started seeing Semo, I was a full-time employee who’d been issued a new credit card without a strict screening process. From time to time, I’d go to the hospital for symptoms of insomnia and would receive a prescription for antidepressants, but I considered them emergency medication you kept at home like fever reducers or pain relievers. Semo was a consultant at some company that planned to acquire the company where I worked, as well as an attendee of a regular meeting where I readied the table and prepared refreshments. Semo always arrived first, wearing a monotone suit and a gray backpack, and quietly made conversation with me as I stood in the corner of the room. If anyone needs anything, they’ll let you know. Please sit down and wait, don’t just stand, she’d say to me. Even though Semo wasn’t someone who could easily change her tone of voice whether she was in a meeting or on a coffee break, when she was with me, she had many facial expressions and showed her emotions. When she was sulking, her eyelids would go up as far as they could and her eyes developed straight edges. I liked seeing that. She was fourteen years older than me and looked over complicated documents about patent proceeds, but when my foot swelled because of wearing high heels or if I had to respond with a smile to an executive talking to me with a grip on my arm, her eyes became triangular and revealed her disapproval. Semo’s lower belly stuck out and she alternated between pairs of glasses that were all similarly designed and, when she kissed me, sometimes I smelled her wisdom teeth rotting. I liked that smell, too. Because I was the only one allowed to smell it. I liked the crescent mark on her left cheek and even the lower molar that had grown like it was lying on its side. I called the crescent scar, which looked like a smiling mouth, “Smiling Child.” I named the crooked tooth, “Lying-Down Child.” When Semo treated me badly, I pestered her to show me the children. Show me Smiling Child. Show me Lying-Down Child. No one knows about this except me, right? You wouldn’t show this to anyone else, right? Back then, I would walk around Sogong-dong while waiting for Semo. If Semo told me she would finish up within the hour and come down, I would walk from her building to City Hall and wander around Deoksugung Palace across the street. Not knowing when Semo would arrive, I didn’t go inside the palace and instead went to the museum garden on the opposite side to look at the outdoor sculptures illuminated by floor lights. If Semo still hadn’t called, I would walk along Jeongdong-gil and roam about in front of the theater with all the posters of upcoming plays. I even walked up the hill leading to the US Embassy and along Doldam-gil, where the Salvation Army Headquarters was. Even though I’d left work right on time, as I walked around, the night had grown dark; exhausted and starving, I would make up my mind not to forgive Semo easily when she showed up. I won’t stop being mad even if you show me Smiling Child, even if you show me Lying-Down Child. Even though I was determined, as soon as Semo showed up, my displeasure vanished for the simple reason that she had come to me; Semo, after spending less time with me than I had spent waiting for her, pulled out her laptop and went back to work. The Semo I remembered: a comfortable shoulder to rest on, breath that smelled like ripe, sweet persimmons if you faced her and inhaled, thin hair that split easily, an upper lip like the number three on its side, the sound (like the cry of an archaeopteryx) she made when I took her in my mouth. A hand with joints that puffed up like frog legs if she worked too much, the pickle she picked up and ate with said hand, matching pajama pants of Keith Haring’s artwork, the line from The Little Prince that we repeated like a spell whenever one of us wanted to be demanding like a child. If you please, draw me a sheep! If you please, draw me a sheep! How else can I describe Semo? A fraidy-cat who didn’t like seeing the premature gray hairs below her ears and was scared of lying down with her mouth open at the dentist’s. A closet I might tell my mother about if my father ever died, but one I’d completely hide from the public arena. A divorcee. A person who said, An identity isn’t something you discover for yourself, but something that makes itself known, even if you don’t say anything aloud. Worrying if someone will find out is actually a big strength because you’re forced to read people. Strength as an identity. If I said to Semo, You’re not some herbivore prey in the Serengeti, why do you view the whole world as your enemy? Semo replied that that wariness was her only defense mechanism. After all, shouldn’t I have at least one horn to attack with when I’m about to be eaten? Would Semo have gone to the dentist? Did she get her wisdom teeth removed? What kind of reaction would she have if I showed up in her dream? “I guess I should start with a text,” I told Chamba. A man with steam rising from the nape of his neck moved past us pushing a snow shovel. Behind him, another worker scooped calcium chloride from a sack and scattered it on the ground. Chamba moved where the stiff, white kernels were scattered and scurried over them. “A notification will go off in her dream. And then she’ll see my text.” Good night to you too. Just like the text Semo sent me after our second date. Good night to you too, as though I had been the one to say good night first. “I’m going to tell her I’m doing well, that she shouldn’t worry. That I’m in heaven with an angel…” “That you’re where now?” Chamba asked, their footsteps crunching. “Aren’t we in heaven?” “This is City Hall.” I looked up high in the sky, as though Chamba had arrested my gaze. The old City Hall building with its dome-shaped central roof stood in front of us. A light layer of snow spread evenly like cream along the stone masonry part of the building, its thick wooden door shut. There were wooden signs that read Keep Off Grass, Mind Garden, Music Fountain leaning against the snowy stone steps, like someone’s idea of a joke. Snow settled into the Gungseo font engraved into the wood. When did we arrive here? I was lost in memories of the saag curry I had eaten with Semo. I was thinking of the garlic naan and the thick lassi that she liked so much. I turned around and looked at the path we had just walked. The people who had been clearing the snow had disappeared. Along the path they had followed was a semi-circle of arborvitae planters. A dark pink light came from the planters’ circular edge, like it was tearing through the white of the snow. Before I knew it, Chamba had gone to stand in front of the light. Where in my imagination did such a color come from? It was a gaudy, garish, outrageous opera-pink, like artificially colored candy or rubber gloves drawn with pastel crayons. Snowflakes fell into the light. As soon as they landed, they looked briefly like flower petals, and then melted from the light’s heat. That light, that glare of color that made that light, that song coming from a jukebox dunked in acrylic paint—they were all beautiful and unrelated to me. Scarlet alpenrose, blooming after it sips on dew. Das Oberland, Oberland. Berner is beautiful. It was a habit, not my imagination, that made me recall the lyrics and music that followed just by listening to one measure of that song. A familiar line of thought that my thirty-something-year-old self had walked along with. I still did not know the meaning of Das Oberland nor did I know exactly where the Bernese mountain village was, but after I died, I learned that the scarlet alpenrose in the song was a rhododendron that grew in the Alps. A wooden sign stuck under the pink light: Alpen rhododendron (alpenrose). As a member of the Rhododendron genus, it grows in the alpine regions and is known as Rhododendron ferrugineum or the snow-rose . . . If I didn’t even know that, how did my imagination know about it? It’s over for me, so what was I doing here right now? I was dead, so what was I still afraid of? What if there are feelings that won’t die even though I’m dead? What if a melody still lingers on the tip of my tongue even after the song is over? What if I had to visit someone’s dream and say something? I looked at Chamba. Chamba was standing next to me, goggles perched on their forehead. “What if she thinks I died because of her? That it’s her fault, that because she and I lean this way, because we’re of this orientation, that this was the only way things could end?” I took off my gloves and wiped my eyes. Blocked by the stone building of the old City Hall, the breeze blowing from the sprawling plaza surged over the arborvitae planters that we were standing next to. Chamba’s hair, which lay in the direction of their widow’s peak, grew rumpled in the wind. “Can’t you go tell them that I’m dead? Just one call to the police station,” I asked, rubbing my eyes. The more I rubbed my eyes, the more clouded my vision grew, turning into a spectrum of alpen rhododendrons in pinks, yellows, greens, blues. “I’m a Guide. I sleep so deeply that I don’t even dream,” Chamba responded. Without opening my eyes, I raised my voice like a sudden note in a yodel. “Sure, Mx. Chamba Pumba! Look at you in your performance wear, and me in this windbreaker that barely covers my butt! All you did was put dried seaweed on your fried rice and gobble it down, you didn’t care whether I choked or not on that tteok!” So many colors swam before my eyes that I felt faint. I grabbed Chamba’s arm. “Your arm has a zipper pocket too. Where did you get these clothes?” Chamba stood for a moment without saying a word, then walked up close to me. They blew away a bit of the powdery snow on my face. “I’m sorry, but I left my banjo back at the tteokbokki restaurant.” * Chamba said their duty as a Guide was to make sure Travelers didn’t get lost in their own imaginations. But before they were a Guide, they too were a Traveler and, back then, in the sultry weather of an impending monsoon season, they walked along the border of city and province to reach someone. “I went to a red chili pepper field,” Chamba began. “My mother’s field, where she alternated harvesting peppers and onions every year. It was summer so the soil was red and fertile. Mother wore a floral sun hat with a visor and was pulling weeds. She was bent over in her rubber boots, digging at the soil with a hand plow. I took charge of a furrow behind her and started pulling weeds too. Insects buzzed and buzzed while sweat rolled down my skin. Then Mother said we should have lunch and pulled out frozen barley tea, brown rice, and yesterday’s grilled mackerel from the cooler bag she had brought from the house and we made lettuce wraps. We ate them with the red chilis we had just plucked. We had been eating for a while when we heard an oink-oink sound coming from the end of the furrow. A black piglet was running toward us, scattering soil everywhere with its hooves. It launched itself into my mother’s arms and rubbed its flat, wet nose all over her face. Like it was kissing her all over. After that, she woke up.” We were walking back from City Hall, through Sogong-dong and toward Namsan Mountain. As always, Chamba and I walked an arm’s length apart, each of us leaving our own set of footprints. “It’s a dream suggesting that you buy a lottery ticket, isn’t it? A pig dream.” “That’s right. After Mother had that dream, she went to a lotto shop. She called me to ask whether she should get one from the automatic lottery machine or the semi-automatic one, but I didn’t pick up, of course. I wanted to create a nice dream for her. A dream that would make her smile when she woke up. A dream that would make her want to buy a lottery ticket. I was born in the Year of the Pig, you see.” The two-tiered, snow-covered tile roof of Sungnyemun Gate looked close. The cars that used to move along its five-pronged road had disappeared; in the middle, stonework that supported the pavilion remained isolated like an island. Looking at the snow packed in white lines between each stone, I asked, “So what do you do after you’re done visiting someone’s dream?” “Is there something you want to do?” “What have other Travelers done?” “Most of them keep doing what they were doing,” Chamba answered. And then, as if to say, It’s okay to mention this much, they added, “To take a well-known person as an example, Van Gogh is said to have painted. Virgina Woolf and Jeon Hyerin kept writing. Deleuze read books, Leslie Cheung watched movies.” “Who?” “Famous people. You might know them.” “I’m not familiar. Though I do know Van Gogh and Leslie Cheung.” I didn’t turn my head but I felt Chamba’s gaze on me. “When a singer awakens, they sing and dance. Because that’s what they loved best. Farmers plant crops and merchants sell them. There was a Traveler who was a fund manager before they awoke and they sat at a desk and used the computer and made phone calls.” “Why did that person become a Traveler, I wonder? The fund manager.” “Parentheses,” said Chamba. We walked along the wall of Sungnyemun Gate. On the opposite side, we could see the arched gate of Namdaemun Market. Somewhere beyond, there would be people selling goods, doing some window shopping, and eating doughnuts and fish cakes, but to me that sort of hustle and bustle felt like something that had happened a long time ago. The road grew narrower as we began our ascent up the mountain, and Chamba, looking at me, asked, “It’s up there, right?” I told them about an autumn day when I walked along Namsan trail, covered in fallen gingko leaves, the memory of my mother and I going inside a supermarket and drinking coffee milk. I wanted to see my mother drink in her own unique way the Coffee Pori she had enjoyed so much. Namsan Trail’s Last Supermarket, just as its name said, was at the end of the Sowon-gil slope. When I pushed open the frosty glass door, a rusty bell dangling from it let out a ding. The shop owner, cocooned in a faded blanket, saw us and turned down the TV volume. When I told him that we were looking for coffee milk that came in triangular plastic packs, the shop owner pointed to a refrigerator that sported a Pepsi-Cola sticker. I walked past, a low wooden shelf stocked with bread, snacks and chocolate, and opened the refrigerator door which had another rusty bell hanging from it. The moment I pulled out the coffee milk, I realized how I’d be able to visit someone else’s dream. The spirit of my dreaming mother, my spirit visiting her dream, and Chamba’s spirit that connected us both, came together like three straight lines at the top vertex of a triangular pyramid. The planes of those spirits, stretching in three different directions, looked like the triangular pack of coffee milk sitting in my hand. The feelings that had led me to this place—the sadness that was both darker and brighter than me—supported us like the base of the pyramid-shaped coffee milk. “Here, a straw.” Chamba tapped me on the shoulder and handed me a straw they had gotten from the shop owner. “Now, look carefully. Not everyone can get this right.” I crouched in front of the shelf and removed the straw wrapper with my teeth. I angled the pointy part of the straw downward and aimed at the sloping polyethylene film containing the coffee milk. Pierce the plastic and stick in the straw in one fell swoop, before you can blink, just like Mom! “It didn’t work. Mom was good at this.” I straightened out the crooked straw and tried again, but managed only to ruin its shape further. Beside me, Chamba used scissors to cut the corner of the milk carton. “Let’s make things easy for ourselves. Use a tool.” Chamba put the carton to their lips and drank without using the straw. Their clothes rustled as they raised an arm and cracked their neck. Snow melted into pools of water around their black sneakers. Behind them, a knee-high kerosene stove radiated heat; on top of its steel plate, a dinged-up brass kettle let off steam. “Please make it stop snowing now,” Chamba said, stepping outside. The awning we were standing under was bulging under the weight of the snow. Chamba noted the footprints we’d made on our way up were already covered up by the snow and that they might as well be rolled like a snowball because they couldn’t walk anymore. “It’s not cold, though. Should we have a snowball fight?” I sat down and started packing snow. “I hate getting my clothes wet more than any—” Before they could even finish, my snowball hit the nape of Chamba’s neck and exploded. Making sure to still maintain dignity even in the face of injury, Chamba removed their gray polka dot scarf. I could see their throat. I checked whether or not they had an Adam’s apple. But the first thing I saw was Chamba’s wound. There were scars on their neck from when they had pulled their own plug. Alone, in a car, so they wouldn’t wake again. Just like listening to one measure of a song made me automatically think of the next measure, Chamba’s time drifted toward me. I went up to them while they were dusting off their scarf. “I have a question.” “My clothes? I got them when I started as a Guide. I don’t know where they’re from.” “No, I mean, when I’m visiting the dream, what will you do?” “What will I do? Nothing, that’s what. I’ll rest.” I suggested we go back to the tteokbokki restaurant to get the banjo, but Chamba said to just leave it since they didn’t know how to play nor did they have any aptitude for music. “Then I’ll rest, too,” I declared. I bent down and rubbed snow into my face like I was washing it. The snow smelled of rusted iron. A piercing cold spread from my throat to the crown of my head. It felt like I could be buried under the snow and erased in one go. I realized that even in death, I hadn’t been able to rest. Because I had been searching for the reason, clinging to the cause in this causal relationship, that I hadn’t even fully enjoyed the effects of death. I wanted to put the existence of me in empty parentheses. I didn’t want my dead self to be found anymore. I didn’t even care whether the details of my death or the accomplishments of my life would be concluded without misunderstanding. Instead, I wanted to visit the dreams of the people I had ties to and show them a good time. I wanted to visit Semo’s dream and see Smiling Child, then open her mouth and see Lying-Down Child. Then I’d take her to the dentist and we’d get her wisdom teeth extracted completely without pain. I’d apply ice to her swollen cheek and then melt her frozen cheek with mine. Like the time Semo ran to me after I had been waiting outisde for a long time, and melted my frozen cheeks with her own. I’d meet Gyuhee at Dongbaek Tteokbokki and we’d put sweet corn and rice in the tteokbokki sauce and eat stir fry. Should I make a high chair and a kids’ menu for Gyuhee’s children? With the strength of my imagination, for the joy I remembered. It felt like those dreams had already arrived and were just waiting for the right person to dream them. Perhaps those dreams would linger even longer than me, floating through their hearts. Could I make a dream like that on my own? Wouldn’t coverall-wearing Chamba mark my location in pink stripes? My snow boots are completely soaked and my socks are damp too, I don’t want to walk anymore. Chamba and I rolled down the snow-covered ground. Like snowballs, we rolled and tumbled all the way down. Like a dead leaf that didn’t fear the wind, like a snowflake that didn’t have to worry about what happens to it once it fell, we rolled and rolled and rolled down the slope. I went first, Chamba followed. We were two round billowing pigs, adding more snow to the snow. So I hope you have a joyful dream of me. Tonight, I’ll go to you, Mom. I’ll visit your dream. I’ll bring coffee milk with me. So please, stick the straw in for me the way you usually do. Translated by Archana Madhavan Illustration ©OMSCIC COMICS

by Kim, Mella
From Sisun

Every once in a while, I wonder where Mother’s binyeo could be. The hairpin had been made of low-purity silver with a small amber stone embedded in it. Oxidation had turned the silver black, but Mother had treasured it and intended to give it to me one day. It makes me wish the hairpin had been stolen by someone because the thought of it being buried in some unknown place with Mother makes me want to tear my heart from my breast. I heard that a tech industrial complex was supposed to be built on that land. What will become of this country if the ground where dozens of people are buried can simply get bulldozed over? I have never heard of a community that moves forward without remembering. That is why, at daybreak, when I write petition after petition against the development, I think of Mother’s binyeo. Now, I even become nostalgic for the women whose names I have forgotten. Those ladies made a living recreating Jinju food, Suncheon food, and Haeju and Anju food in Hawaii. Even though I have forgotten their names, the flavors of their cooking sometimes linger on the tip of my tongue. The food I ate during that time was some of the best Korean food I have ever eaten. How could I forget their hospitality? They who made familiar foods with such different ingredients to strengthen the bodies of those who had just arrived in that place; they who sent money back to their home countries even as they worried about making rent. I’m older than those women now but, since I’ve still remained a woman who cannot cook, even if a young person came stumbling to me with hunger, there would be nothing for them to eat. I always thought I would naturally get better at cooking as I grew older, but no. I realized nothing like that is guaranteed to emerge, but I wanted to find my own way to fulfill my role to a young person. I am like bruised fruit, but if my failures and flounderings were to be considered nourishment so that the next generation stumbles less, then it will have had meaning. — From What I Lost and What I Gained (1993) * Sangheon was certain there would be no fruit. After all, they were the kind of people who, while in search of things that were unusual and impressive, would forget entirely about the basics. On his way from the airport to the lodgings, he stopped at a shop and loaded up on a variety of fruits. He expected that the chocolate sapodillas, in particular, would elicit a good response. “It won’t be easy.” That was what Taeho had said when Sangheon first brought up wanting to marry Hwasu. At the time, Sangheon hadn’t understood what Taeho meant. He thought it was needless intimidation, for Hwasu was the kind of partner anyone would dream of having. Her family left nothing to be desired, either. Sangheon deemed Taeho someone of refined character and had followed in his footsteps for a long time; and while Myeong-hye was a bit scary, she wasn’t a difficult person. Speaking straight from the heart made things simple. Maybe he worried a little bit about Jisu’s Bohemian lifestyle? But he need not have, for Jisu’s shock value was something he found himself welcoming. Someone who would not fall, that was who Hwasu was. She had a great sense of balance. She was gentle but resolute; mindful of the past but not buried by it. She was the type to have plans for the future while still remaining flexible; she could judge exactly how much distance to maintain with whomever she met; she could sense the right amount of energy to allot to both her work and her life. She was, in other words, like the calm voice from those meditation apps that were in vogue those days. She had the face of someone who focused deeply on the present. I never thought Hwasu could fall. Even if she did, I thought she would get up right away. I didn’t think that she would stay lying prone because of some crazy bastard’s tackle. “Look, just tell yourself that you were bitten by a crazy dog and move on . . .” “If you’re going to talk to me that way, I’d rather you didn’t talk to me at all.” Hwasu buried her head under a large pillow as though she really did not want to converse. Although Sangheon knew it wasn’t the case, he couldn’t help but wonder if her strangely long, drawn out sleep in their bedroom with its blackout curtains always lowered were excuses to deny him. He used to think that sexless marriages were other peoples’ problem; he had never imagined it would become an issue for him. It wasn’t that things were bad and he wanted to have sex. He wanted to become the subject of Hwasu’s desire. The subject of her life. But because he had not found a way to make that request without sounding selfish, he kept pouring salt over a barely healed wound. “That bastard’s the one who splashed hydrochloric acid on you, so why take it out on me? Why did your love for me have to die?” He hadn’t meant to whine, but he did. “Lots of things died inside of me, not just love. Give me time to recover, please.” He had thought she would tell him her love hadn’t died, but when she acknowledged that it had, he was hurt. “If I wait, will it live again?” Hwasu didn’t answer. Sangheon loved her because she wasn’t the kind of person to make empty promises, but now he only wished that she would. He didn’t have unreasonably high expectations of marriage. He knew that everything would eventually change and he thought he would be able to handle the breadth of that change . . . but this wasn’t within a range he could handle. He had thought it was turbulence, but they were in a nosedive. Days in which he felt more dead than a dead man stretched on in a kind of vague despair. He thought he could understand why people of old used to dig up corpses just to mutilate them. He wondered whether his mother-in-law’s plan to travel to Hawaii was for Hwasu’s sake. It seemed to be a secret plan to inspire some kind of change in her. That’s why, even though he could have adjusted his schedule, Sangheon had decided to arrive rather late on purpose. He supposed that to undergo a change, one required freedom of space and, besides, he wanted to meet Hwasu after that change. But the day before his arrival, he suddenly stopped being able to contact her; it was only after Jisu told him that he found out Hwasu’s cell phone had been stolen. He grew insecure, thinking that someone should have told him that much at least, without him needing to ask. Through Jisu, he could only tell them hastily when he was going to arrive at the lodgings. His in-laws were not the kind of people to stay behind at the lodgings because their son-in-law was coming, so only Hwasu was waiting for him when he arrived. She opened the door and, for a moment, her lips parted and then shut, and her unspoken questions could almost be heard. Was the plane trip exhausting? Aren’t you tired? Was it hard finding the place? The old Hwasu would have asked those questions. “Do you want to go on the cruise?” “The cruise?” “It’s not humpback whale season but it might still be nice to get on a ship, don’t you think? We could watch the sunset, too.” If Hwasu wasn’t interested, he had planned to blow off the cruise reservation he’d already paid for. But, unexpectedly, Hwasu willingly followed him and Sangheon was careful not to overinterpret this to be a sign of her recovery. The ships weren’t left to idle because there were no whales; instead, they were set up with a seafood buffet and an open bar. An unexpectedly large number of people wanted to watch the sunset from the ship’s deck, although it wouldn’t have looked much different from the coast. The wine glasses looked slightly larger than the ones in Korea. The ship had sailed far enough from the shore, and its passengers from all over the world had, without any pretensions of self-control, drunk heavily and then stretched out in their cabins or on benches outside their cabins here and there. Many people had also fallen asleep to the gentle swaying of the ship. He wondered what the point of getting on a ship was if they were just going to fall asleep snoring, and wouldn’t they burn under the last remaining rays of the late afternoon sun?; He had many thoughts but it wasn’t something he could interfere in. Hwasu and Sangheon walked the deck holding plastic cups that looked like glass. “Are you okay not postponing your return to work?” “Yes.” The answer came faster than he expected. Hwasu leaned comfortably against the railing. The railings in Korea had always felt too short for Hwasu, who was on the taller side, but the ones in Hawaii were just right. “I don’t want to be remembered as someone who quit because of that incident. I want to belong with the people who go back, and if I’m sitting there, it’ll be a reality check for everyone. Our company needs a reality check.” Hwasu began to explain, methodically, the cause and effect that needed to be remembered; Sangheon felt he could understand and not understand at the same time. “So you’re going to keep working there?” “While I’m working there, I might quit simply for a different reason. But for now, I don’t know. No matter how hard you hold onto something you don’t know, you’ll keep not knowing it.” “Was that written in your grandmother’s book?” “It’s not that. It’s more like, I learned that I can’t have this amazing field of sight all at once. That all I can do in the dark is keep searching while fumbling around and falling down.” “With me?” Sangheon was embarrassed that his quiet question came out so childishly. Hwasu pretended that she hadn’t noticed. “With you, I think I can answer with a line that my grandmother quoted, that I’ll quote too. ‘Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new.’1 Do you want to continue doing that?” “Why would you answer a question with a question?” “I do want to continue but . . . I think the things you want in life change over time. I think I might want to make bread with a different shape, not the shape I had planned. Would you still want to make bread with me even if that’s the case?” “Why does it have to be different from before? Why does our life have to change because of that bastard?” Hwasu nodded crookedly, as if she agreed with only half of his words. “I don’t like it either, but what life isn’t affected by external shocks? Still, my brooding after that day isn’t because of my unhappiness or my injury. It isn’t because I think I’m pathetic or pitiful. It’s that I can’t go back to the time before I saw up close such a twisted and corrupt side of this world. Until I find a language to describe it. Does that make sense? Do you still want to be by my side until I find what I need to find? Can you do that?” “I don’t know. I don’t know anything.” Sangheon sank onto a bench. Hwasu came and sat down next to him. Among all the sleeping people, the two of them spoke to each other in hushed voices. “It’s okay if you don’t know.” “How is that okay?” “Tell me when you do. It’s all right.” Why won’t you fight for me? Sangheon wanted to ask, but he held it in. Nothing is all right! He wanted to shout, but lost to his quiet voice. Hwasu stroked his wrist slowly and he grew calm. He shouldn’t have married a girl from a family that believed marriage was a contract to be renewed every moment. He knew and still he dove in. He was stupid, he grumbled to himself. Still, there was brilliant sunset. “Don’t you love the word sunset? The letter s is in it twice,” said Hwasu. Her side profile looked nice for the first time in a long time and Sangheon softened. He already knew his answer, but he decided to drag it out for some time. After all, the word sulkiest also has the letter s twice. * At some point, I started talking like Aebang, laughing like Aebang, arguing like Aebang. But above all, I started loving people like Aebang, so I constantly brought them together, formed connections, set things up. I wonder when it was that I started wearing my friend’s ghost like a suit of armor. Even when I felt like I was wandering through the streets in the chill of winter, not wearing anything, I was wearing ghosts. The ghosts became a soft scarf for me. Sometimes, they turned into a transparent membrane that kept my tears and laughter from mixing. My tears stayed tears, my laughter stayed laughter. Nothing grew blurry or tarnished. Even when other people thought I was a naked lady with no shame, I paid them no attention for that reason. 1 The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin, translated into Korean by Choi Jun-young, Golden Bough Co., 2010. Translated by Archana Madhavan

by Chung Serang
Bright Night

“Is this child Miseon?” the young woman asked my grandmother, pointing. Her cheeks were flushed, maybe from walking for so long. An old woman stood beside her. “May I ask who you ladies are?” my grandmother ventured. “I’m Namseon’s ma,” the old woman answered, looking at my grandmother before turning her gaze to the child. “I beg your pardon, but what are you talking about?” The old woman motioned toward the young woman. “And this is his wedded wife.” The words elicited an awkward laugh from my grandmother. “What do you mean? I’m Namseon’s wife.” “The wind is cold. May we come inside?” the young woman asked. My grandmother nodded slowly despite not properly registering what was happening. She trembled. The two visitors sat on the warm section of the ondol floor and looked up at her. “Our Namseon was wed at sixteen. He went down first in the war and lost touch with us.” The old woman paused. “We went to live in Sokcho. We recently heard tell of him and came to find him here in Heeryeong. And now, he’s going to join us in Sokcho.” My grandmother listened without interrupting. She found out that Namseon had already fathered a son—Juseong, born in the North. Namseon had welcomed his mother and wife to Heeryeong and promised to accompany them to Sokcho in the near future. He’d also given them a local address, with the directive to explain the situation to a woman named Park Young-ok. The young woman, his wife, said, “You may raise the child if you like,” as if granting her permission. “True, things would be different if it were a son,” said the old woman. “What are you after?” my grandmother asked quietly. “We’re here to tell you, don’t you ever think about seeing Juseong’s pa again.” At that, my grandmother laughed softly, and the two visitors looked at her in surprise. “If you’ve finished what you have to say, then leave.” With that, my grandmother opened the door and sent them on their way. They’d expected her to beg for her man. They thought her eyes would widen like a surprised rabbit at the sight of the true wife. Watching them go, she realized that her marriage to Namseon had lost meaning for her. She didn’t want to claim ownership of him and get into a competition with them. Her heart felt colder than it ever had. At that moment, she couldn’t even muster much anger at the man who’d concealed his marital history and taken her as his second wife. My grandmother wrapped the child snugly in warm clothes, lifted her onto her back and went to the market where Namseon worked. He was moving a box when he saw her and stopped. As she approached, she could smell his familiar odor of cigarettes and skin. “Say what you have to say,” she said. “If I’d known Juseong’s ma had come south, this wouldn’t have happened. I thought she was in the North. It’s true. If I’d known she was in the South, why would I have gone and tried to get married again?” “Did my pa know?” “Yeah.” His voice trailed off. “He said it wasn’t no problem.” “So you and my pa were in it together.” “Don’t you get excited.” He looked around helplessly. “Juseong’s ma spent the war caring for my sick father and mother, and raising Juseong all by herself, on top of that. I’ve got to go to Sokcho where my pa is.” “What do I care if you go there or not,” my grandmother said. His eyes flashed with contempt. “So what would you have me to do?” On her way over, my grandmother had expected he’d be surprised or scared to see her, at least. She expected he’d fall to his knees and ask for forgiveness. But he didn’t. He only justified his actions. She couldn’t see any remorse in him. She couldn’t see that he felt guilty for having deceived her. Years later, when she wondered to herself how he could have done it, she still came to the same conclusion. He did it because he could. “In two days, I’m leaving for Sokcho.” “All right, go. But you can’t take Miseon.” “There are some things you should know. Keep her if you like but understand that you can’t never be her ma. The law says a child can’t be registered to a woman without a husband.” “I said you can’t take her, and I’ll say it again. I won’t let a bastard like you take Miseon from me!” It was the first and the last time my grandmother yelled so loudly at anyone. She told me she would never again be able to defy someone that boldly, even if they threatened her life. He wiped his hands on his apron and went back into the shop as if he hadn’t heard. He never gave her a sincere apology. “I never got an apology either.” I let this slip out while listening to my grandmother’s story. “I found out he was seeing another woman behind my back, but he blamed me.” My grandmother was quiet. “He said it was my fault because his heart was no longer in it, and if only we’d broken up earlier, he wouldn’t have had to be unfaithful.” I choked up at this point and had to pause briefly. “He screamed, ‘Sorry, sorry!’ and called it an apology, but I wanted him to mean what he said.” “I know, I’ve been there.” “I couldn’t stay after that.” “No, you couldn’t because you’re my granddaughter. You could leave and not look back.” “Grandma, how did you live? How did you get through it and keep on?” I covered my face, unable to hold back the tears. “You may not believe it now, but a day will come when this means nothing to you,” she said. The next morning, a call came from the vet. Oats had passed away in the night. “I didn’t think things would take a bad turn so quickly.” The vet could not hide his discomfort. If only I’d taken him home the previous evening and laid him to rest on his favorite checkered blanket, then I wouldn’t have felt so terrible. I wish he hadn’t met me in the first place. If only he’d just weakened and died a natural death, then maybe he’d have suffered less. I knew it was useless to speculate, but I couldn’t get rid of these thoughts. I’d thought I’d rescued him, but perhaps I’d only inflicted more pain. Oats was lying on his side on a disposable pad. I opened the door, hoping that he would look comfortable, as if he were sleeping, but the pain of his last moments radiated from his lifeless body. The edges of his mouth were dark, and his teeth and tongue were visible between lips that couldn’t close. I felt him and he was cold. For a long time, I stroked the body that had been Oats. If I’d known the outcome, I’d never have sent him to the clinic. Or at least I’d have taken him home for the final night. “I’m sorry,” I said aloud. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” I placed Oats in a carboard box and came out and paid the bill. I couldn’t stop crying even in front of the vet. “He was suffering from the time you rescued him. But thanks to you, he got treatment—and love, even if it was just for a short time.” “How did he come down with this disease? And how did he get so thin and end up in the apartment flowerbed?” I was rambling on to the vet, unaware of what I was saying. He looked awkwardly at me. My question meant nothing to him, and he wasn’t obliged to answer. I bowed my head in farewell and left. My heart was calm even if I couldn’t stop crying. In my mind, I was planning the work ahead. I thought I would wrap Oats in his beloved checkered blanket and bury him near the observatory. When I arrived home, I placed the box in the living room with him inside and sat and gazed at it for a long while. I checked my cellphone to find I’d missed numerous calls from my grandmother. Only then did I remember her offer to accompany me to the clinic and back. I called her, and it wasn’t long before she came by with a trowel. For some time, she looked at the box without speaking. I told her he must have spent his final minutes alone in a dark room. Maybe he’d felt abandoned, waiting for someone who never came. “Maybe, but maybe not. They say dogs don’t want the people they love to see them in pain, so when the time comes for them to die, some leave home.” She paused. “We don’t know. Please don’t think Oats was lonely at the end.” She handed me the trowel. “Shall I come along?” I shook my head. “I want to do it myself.” “All right. Go and say your farewells.” I lay beside Oats briefly. I’d cried so much that day and hardly slept the night before, so I was overwhelmed with drowsiness. Before I knew it, I’d fallen into a deep sleep, and by the time I awoke it was late afternoon. I wrapped Oats in the checkered blanket and placed him back in the box before adding in a bunny toy and a box of his favorite snacks. Then I carried it to the car and got in. Was time a frozen river, as my ex-husband believed, with the past, present and future all set in advance? From the time before I met him, was it already foreordained that Oats would die in a clinic? I couldn’t quite bring myself to believe it even though it was a thought that could give me some comfort. On an impulse to show it to Oats, I went in the direction of my grandmother’s old house. For some time, I stood there hugging his box, watching the sun drop below the horizon. I picked a bouquet of daisy fleabanes that were growing tall on the property. Then I drove slowly to the observatory, where I parked the car in the lot and walked to a spot beneath an out-of-the-way tree. I could dig there quite easily, perhaps because it had rained in the afternoon. After removing two fist-sized chunks of rock, I had ample space. I placed him there, wrapped in the blanket, with the bunny toy and snack box on top, and covered him with dirt. I trod over the earth several times until it was firm, then laid the daisies from my grandmother’s on top. I sat there quite still and remembered that in the morning when the vet had notified me of Oats’ death, I’d felt relief as well as sadness. Part of me was relieved that Oats was no longer in pain, and that I’d no longer have to endure seeing him suffer. I couldn’t deny my own self-interest. I brushed the dirt off my hands, stood up, and went to the parking lot. I started slowly making my way down the dark mountain road. Halfway down, I saw the headlights of a car in the distance, picking up speed. It was only when we approached each other that I realized the other car was crossing the center line and heading into my lane. I quickly veered to the right. At that instant, there was a tremendous flash of light. It was an accident, so why don’t I feel any pain? I felt a gentle breeze and opened my eyes. It was night at the time of the accident, but now it’s day. My grandmother fills a basin with water in the courtyard and washes my big sister’s face. We are at her old house. She places a hand on my sister’s tiny nose and asks her to blow. This scene puts me at ease. I hear the giggling of a very small child, and when I go closer to look, I see it is me making the sound, a child riding on my mother’s back. I peer into the child’s face, but everything fades to black. My sister and I ride a bicycle down a hill. My sister’s feet are on the pedals, and I’m riding behind, hugging her tight. She smells like strawberry bubble gum. I feel such comfort and tranquility that I forget ever feeling sorrow or pain. Don’t go, I scream, holding on to the moment. Don’t leave me, Unni. Then the sky turns upside down and I see myself as a middle school student hanging from an iron bar on the school grounds. The child I see is trying to drag out the time before she has to go home. I can read her mind like the print on a page. She thinks she’s an embarrassment to the children hanging out with her. She’s whispering to herself, I’m too ugly and no one likes me. I try to tell her, That’s not true, but someone catches me from behind and pulls me away. When I open my eyes, it’s late at night once more. I’m on a bus, sitting next to the man I love. I’m twenty-one, and aching with desire for him, but I know he’ll soon tell me he’s leaving. At last, he speaks. I know, I know. I already know you’ll say this. I know, I know. Even after he gets off, I’m still saying it. I know, I know. Everyone leaves in the end. I want to wake up. I ring the bell, but the bus doesn’t stop. I call to the driver, but no matter how hard I pummel the exit door with my fists, the bus doesn’t stop. No one looks at me. I hear the front door closing behind my back. I know it’s the sound of my husband closing the door, leaving me. You . . . you were the only one I didn’t expect to leave. I sit on the floor crying, shaking with tears. Jiyeon. My seven-year-old sister approaches, minus her two front teeth, and pounds on my back. Jiyeon-ah, Ji-yeon-ah. The world gets brighter every time she calls my name. It looks like the sun’s getting bigger. I forget what I was crying about just now and talk to her. It’s so bright I can’t see. How can it get so bright? When I say this, my sister laughs out loud in the brightness, as if she’s heard a funny story. Silly, she says. Silly. I haven’t ever left you. Translated by Kari Schenk

by Choi Eunyoung
Nameless

The hospital director asked Lee Sun-il if she was aware that they were hiring Korean nurses in Germany. I know a Catholic priest who helps people get there. I’ll arrange for you to meet him if you study English and become a proficient nurse’s aide here, he said. Germany. Where on earth was that? Lee Sun-il had gotten a glimpse of Germany through the pictures Han Se-jin showed her after her trip there: the angels of Berlin with their wings spread out, holding weapons in their hands; the bullet-marked Victory Column; the wheat fields of Bochum and yacht riders in the Ruhr River; the black steeples and iron bridge of Cologne; the arched ceiling of the Frankfurt station; the red roofs and attic windows of Munich. Listening to Han Se-jin talk about the places and things she had seen, Lee Sun-il thought about how different they were from what she had pictured in her mind, and in what ways. Germany. What kind of a place was it? It was a place where all—educated and uneducated alike—could start over from the beginning; a place where no one asked or cared whether or not you were married, whether or not you were a virgin; a place you reached by going higher than the clouds and faster than the wind; the place that, in Lee Sun-il’s dreams, rose high like a cliff, then sank low like a mire. After about a half a year, Lee Sun-il saw her uncle standing in the hospital yard as she came out carrying a bucket of lye. Spotting her, he immediately seized her and dragged her back to his and his wife’s place. Her aunt punched her on her back and shoulder as she stood there looking pale, going on and on about the fragility of her grandfather’s health. Your grandfather was worried sick about you! The poor old man, he was so worried because you disappeared! Lee Sun-il sat cooped up in a room starving herself, tearing her aunt, uncle, and grandfather to pieces over and over again in her mind; then she wondered, Who told them I was there? Who knew I was there? Two weeks went by before she saw Sun-ja again. She came in while Lee Sun-il was sitting by the well, peeling a potato she had scooped out of a pail of water. Sun-ja said she couldn’t draw water from the well anymore. That’s what Aunt said, actually. What did she say exactly? ‘That girl isn’t allowed here anymore. That nasty girl will no longer be coming to see you,’ she’d said. Sun-ja just stood there. She just stood there without talking to me, not asking what I was doing there or saying she was sorry or telling me what had happened. I didn’t want to see her standing there like that and wished she would leave, but she just kept standing there. I didn’t know what to do so I slapped her on the cheek, hoping she’d go away. I slapped her on the cheek. She didn’t even cry. * Fires often broke out in those days because houses stood side by side with no space in between; houses whose walls were made of oiled strawboard and wood, and whose roofs were made of fabric; and oil lamps still served as night lights in many homes. Back then, a lamp knocked to the floor would bring down with it all the shacks in the area, turning them, as well as the people, to ashes. Once waterproof paper and fabric caught fire, the fire spread instantly, not leaving a second for anyone to throw a bucket of water over it. Fire! someone would cry, and everyone in the neighborhood would wake up at once like magic and come running out of their houses. That’s exactly what happened that night. Fire! No one was seriously injured or died, but several houses vanished in that fire. So did the house that belonged to Lee Sun-il’s aunt. Lee Sun-il sat for a while in the small square with others who had evacuated, waiting for the day to break; then she went to the plot of ground where the house had been, only to find that there was nothing left except a well surrounded by debris. Lee Sun-il saw Sun-ja lift an ash-covered board and pull out something that looked like a sweater from underneath. Next to her, Sun-ja’s mother was trying with all her might to scrape off a tiny bit of gold stuck to the remains of a burnt drawer. Most of the people who had lost their homes and possessions in the fire were market vendors, who generally managed somehow to continue their businesses after the fire. That wasn’t the case with Sun-ja’s mother. She sat at her market stall looking tired and ill, then one day, she went off and disappeared with her daughter without telling anyone where she was going. Lee Sun-il’s aunt and uncle set up a tent where their house had once stood and lived there for a while, then made plans to leave for Busan where the uncle’s family ran a business. Shrinking at the thought of continuing on with her aunt and uncle, Lee Sun-il became determined to get married. She met Han Jung-eon through a market vendor and made a snap decision to marry him. Like her, Han Jung-eon had grown up as a war orphan without a family or possessions; but he was literate and even knew some Chinese characters, had an easy smile, and was hardworking. That was enough, Lee Sun-il thought. Hardworking, that was quite enough. Her aunt and uncle opposed the marriage, but Lee Sun-il was in her twenties now and they couldn’t come up with a legitimate reason for their opposition. They declared that they wouldn’t be attending the wedding since she was set on going through with it despite their disapproval, but then they invited people to the wedding and took all the cash gifts for themselves. Lee Sun-il went on working at the market. Her aunt contacted her once in a blue moon, but there wasn’t much of an exchange between them. It had been many years since her aunt died. Lee Sun-il heard that she died while going around everywhere trying to find a way to fix her second or third daughter’s wrecked marriage; it was something she ate, which led to a sudden death away from home. The news reached Lee Sun-il’s ears long after she had died. In the process of confirming her domicile to transfer it to that of her husband, she learned that her name was recorded on the original domicile certificate as “Lee Sun-il,” and that the name of her younger sister, born in 1948, was Eun-il. Lee Eun-il. On the records, her sister was alive; she hadn’t died. Her father, mother, and sister—none of them had died. Names that no one knew existed, neglected like a little plot of ground deep in the woods, were still on that piece of paper. After crossing out her name for marriage registration and the names of her family for death reports, Lee Sun-il had forgotten that she had ever seen the paper. She forgot about the X marks drawn neatly over the names, and the Chinese character meaning “naught (媜)” written on the paper. The forgotten names would indeed become things of naught when Lee Sun-il’s life came to an end. Lee Sun-il was the one who put away the paper. She had no intention of revealing to anyone the things those names had been through. She told no one about them. She knew that people could leave something behind in the world, through spoken or written words, and that some had succeeded in doing so; but she didn’t want to. All those awful stories . . . do I have to think back on them and talk about them? she wondered. She hoped her children, Han Yeong-jin and Han Se-jin and Han Man-su, would never have to experience those things even as stories. Lee Sun-il’s grandfather died in the late 1970s. When she received the call, the elders of the village had already buried him on the mountain. Lee Sun-il was enraged when she heard the news. She thought it was rage that she felt. What else would you call it? Dead? She thought. That old man is tormenting me to the end. Nevertheless, she placed a bowl of cooked rice and a bowl of water on the wood-burning stove for half a day so he could eat and drink before he made his final departure. She hadn’t thought much of him during her life, but she never forgot the yellow envelope of money he’d brought on her wedding day and thought of it from time to time. I kept it in my hanbok sleeve and then lost it. Well, you must’ve had a hard life too, Grandfather. So rest now, rest in peace where you are, she prayed. It was after the mid-1980s when she began to tend to his grave. In 1986 . . . when the Asian Games in Seoul were in full swing, she received an international call. A woman called out her childhood name in a somewhat rough, high-pitched voice. Sun-ja? Excuse me? Sun-ja! Who is this? Isn’t this Sun-ja, the daughter of Yun Ok-yeong who used to live in Cheorwon? Who is this? Lee Sun-il asked repeatedly, feeling anger and fear toward the woman who was addressing her by her childhood name without even identifying herself; the woman then said that she was her aunt. It’s me, Bu-gyeong, your mom’s younger sister—Ok-yeong’s little sister. Yun Bu-gyeong said she had left her home in the countryside, fed up with poverty and ignorance, and lived in Seoul for a while under the US military government; then she evacuated to Geoje Island right after the war broke out, and married a US soldier she’d met there. I came to America with him after the war. Her hometown was Baengmagoji, she said, which was close to the bloodiest fighting, so she had assumed that everyone had probably died anyway. Not speaking a word of English, she had a hard time adjusting to living in her husband’s country and just had to live each and every day the best she could. Her children were all grown up now and she had been thinking more and more of home when she happened to run into someone from home, who told her that there was only one left now. There’s only one left. One who’s still alive. That aunt, too, was dead now. She passed away in June 2003, from the worsening of a liver disease. She'd visited Korea five times during the seventeen years since that first phone call until she passed away. In the meantime, her American husband died of a stroke while on a solitary fishing trip out to the lake on a holiday, and her son now had a daughter of his own. Her son accompanied her every time she visited Korea; he took more after his father than his mother, was a soldier like his father, and didn’t speak Korean. He made a telephone call to Korea to inform Lee Sun-il of his mother’s death. Sun-ja? He asked. Then he said in Korean, Mom, died. Died? Died. Translated by Jung Yewon

by Hwang Jungeun
The Man Who Touches Waves

1 Trying to see, The desire to see. These things remain inside me. I don’t know what it means to stare. Is someone else there? (facing forward and in a bright, gentle voice) Hello. (tilting head slightly) Hello. Is no one else here? 2 I’m standing. And I’m imagining a door. Do you see me? The window is far away. The window is so far away. It is both in my room and far away. Am I, too, far away? And from what am I far away? I only know after it is passed. And… I only feel after it is passed. The desire to see remains. I know what it means to see. I don’t know what it means to see well. Look over there… When someone says this, I unknowingly look. After all, I once could. I sometimes fool myself into thinking I’m actually seeing. When I hear a door opening, I turn toward the door and stare in its direction. I think to myself that I am looking at someone entering the room. 3 Ah, I can picture waves. I can picture waves… I’m on my way to the ocean. But I’m not on my way to see the ocean. I can’t see it. We can’t see it. What we saw wasn’t the ocean, but waves. Waves break, foam, swell, come in and go out, rage and die down, and create sea spray… Waves are white. I know the color white. There is no white in ROYGBIV. White is cotton, notebook, bunny. I wanted to take white on a walk. At the time, I could still see the letters with my left eye and the help of a magnifying glass. I had failed the college entrance exam and was spending all day at home alone. Back then, I was more frightened than ever to leave the house, but at the same time, I often felt the strong urge to go far away. On days like that, I would go to the subway station near our home and take Line 3 all the way to the last stop and back again. It was one Monday when my older brother, who was in college at the time, suddenly gifted me white (a bunny). I gave light green (lettuce) to white. I listened to white eat light green. The sound was like rustling colored paper. White ate light green and turned white again. I couldn’t touch white. White was alive. I was too afraid to touch something living. Instead, I touched a different white (duck stuffed animal). That night when the lights were off and I lay in bed waiting to fall asleep, I could hear white hopping. On Tuesday, I again gave white some light green. White ate light green and turned white again. I wanted to take white on a walk. On Wednesday, I gave white some more light green. The light green of Wednesday was more light green than that of Monday. It was also more light green than that of Tuesday. I wanted to take white on a walk on Saturday. I gave white more light green on Thursday. I could hear for a short few moments the sound of white eating light green. The unfinished light green was lying in front of white. It wilted and turned brown. That night when the lights were off, I fell asleep quickly as I didn’t hear white hopping. I gave white more light green on Friday. Then it was Saturday morning. The light green of Friday had turned brown and was lying in front of white. I was about to put fresh light green next to brown when my father said, “It looks like white is dead.” Only then did I try touching white. My father and I went to the dike on Yangjaecheon Stream, near our home, to dig a hole and bury white. Brown dirt stained my hands as I held the shovel. Why is there no white in ROYGBIV? There had been white in our home. The white of that home was in a cage and had one leg. I am forgetting white. Even if I forget white, white exists. Even if I forget white, white dies. 4 I know the color red. I don’t know bright red. Red is red. To me, colors are their names. Red bloomed and became a red carnation. It transformed into a red motorcycle, and then a red telephone with a rotary dial. The red telephone bloomed into a green digital telephone. The green telephone cried at 3 AM. I heard a voice over the green receiver. “Will you let me hear your voice?” If you let me hear your voice, it might visit my dreams tonight. 5 Stairs aren’t important. And… Stairs don’t frighten me. I went up five steps. I passed the door and went up six more steps. Then four more. I want to go down on my own. I want to go up on my own. There was no wind on those steps. I went to find those stairs. It was past midnight on a cold winter’s day. All that came to mind were those stairs. At that late hour, that was the only place I could walk to on my own. I was twenty-six, and they were the stairs at the subway station. I don’t remember what exit number they were. Being stairs that connected the underground shopping center to the department store, they were often noisy with the sound of footsteps, but the last train had already left, and there were no footsteps to be heard. I stepped down onto the stairs. One, two, three, four… ten steps. The stairs that unfurled beneath my feet were so long that it felt like I could keep descending all night, but I couldn’t bring myself to go any further. I crouched down on the stairs and started to cry. I was the only one there. The wind was raging in the streets, but there was no wind on those steps. I use the stairs at Gyeongbokgung Station every day on my way to and from work, but I don’t know how many steps it has. I don’t count them anymore. I used to. But after I started using my white cane, I stopped. I used to avoid using a white cane, even though I couldn’t see telephone poles, trees, and signs that blocked my way. I didn’t want my parents to see me walking with one. That changed one day while job searching as a new college graduate. I was on my way back from an interview. I was standing on the platform at Bongcheon Station waiting for the train. Then suddenly, the ground dropped, as though someone had pulled my feet out from under me. When I came to, I realized I had fallen onto the tracks. I raised my hands and groped around, looking for the place my feet had been standing just a moment ago. The platform was about shoulder height. As I used all my strength to pull myself up, no one extended a helping hand. I didn’t tell my parents what happened. After that, I started walking around with a white cane. But I still didn’t want my parents to see me using it. And I continue to picture a door. A door above the stairs. A door beneath the stairs. Glass door, iron door, wood door, paper door, open door, opening door, closed door, closing door, brown door. There was a door in front of me. I didn’t know its color. I tried opening the door. But it didn’t open. I continued trying to open the door. But it continued to resist. I tried push open a sliding door. The iron door was closing. But my eyes couldn’t see this. I only learned what was happening when my hand got stuck in the door. The sound of the train’s wheels rolling on the tracks drowned out the sound of the door. I boarded the Mugunghwa-ho train. I was on my way down to Nonsan. There is no yellow door. Yellow is kind. Yellow is three chicks, I must find it. It’s a secret. What color was that door? I greet the door. I greet the wall. I greet the empty chairs. I greet the empty desks. I greet the empty classroom. I greet the empty hallway. I greet the empty elevator. I greet the mirror. I greet myself. I greet the clock. I am not greeting the time. I pause in front of the revolving door. 6 I want to touch the waves. For a few days now, I have wanted to touch the waves. I haven’t told my mother that I’m going to the sea. I’m going by myself. I can get close to the sea on my own. Close to the sea… Ah, close to the sea. … When I leave the house, my mother is folding origami tulips in the living room. The folding of colored paper into tulips sounds like blooming flowers. My mother also makes deer with green paper. A green deer stands next to a pink tulip. The pink tulip is larger than the green deer. It isn’t long after I leave the house that it starts to rain. The sound of rain drowns out the sound of birds. It drowns out the sound of footsteps, too. The sound of rain drowns out the road. I lose my way and stop. Snow doesn’t drown out the sound of birds. It doesn’t drown out the sound of footsteps. It doesn’t drown out the road. I don’t lose my way when it snows. When my hand touches the waves, the waves unfurl before me. The sea is blue. The sea is not blue. The sea is many colors. I remember the sea at Jumunjin, which I saw with my older brother thirty years ago, as the color blue. There is a young boy in a blue swimsuit and blue goggles floating on the waves in an inner tube. Cotton-like clouds, a golden sun, grey rocks floating near the horizon, people sitting and staring out at the sea, blue-and-white striped parasols, plastic white beach chairs, plastic white tables, yellow balls… I couldn’t see seagulls. I can’t see things that fly. I have to chase them with my eyes. But before I find them, they fly away. Tubes are black and donut shaped. A young boy is carried toward the horizon on his inner tube. I saw the horizon. I couldn’t see the land. The boy with his innertube is carried farther and farther toward the horizon. It’s possible I didn’t see the horizon. It is as far from me as my bedroom window. I couldn’t see faraway things. Had Gaeul sensed that I was going to the sea by myself? It was two weeks earlier. Third period English had ended, and Gaeul came up to me in the hallway: “Teacher, are you sure you can go by yourself?” 7. 4th Grade English - 1[1] It’s ten past twelve, but the hands of the clock hanging on the white wall of the classroom point to 8:24. Sitting in the middle of the room are six children[2] in pairs of two with their desks facing each other. They are all nine years old, and five of them are completely blind, unable to even see light. The remaining child, Yuri, is just able to make out objects. Each of the six children looks in a different direction. Misol, who has her head dropped and turned outside of the group, suddenly shoots up from her chair. Me: (in a higher-pitched and faster voice than usual) [in English] Long time no see, everyone. Children: (in bright, high-pitched voices) [in English] Long time long see. Me: I missed you all. Did you miss me? Jiwoo and Minhee: (as though singing a duet) No. Gaeul: (raising hand above the desk, and in a faint, somewhat halting voice) I missed you, Teacher. Misol sits back in her chair. Her shoulders droop like a deflating balloon. Gaeul: Teacher, I moved yesterday. Misol shoots up from her chair again. Gaeul: I moved far away. Misol steps back from her chair as though jumping from it. Gaeul: Well, not that far. Jeong-wook mutters something to himself in a slow, deep voice as he drops his head. Me: Today we’re going to practice buying and selling things in English. Did you all remember to bring something you want to sell? Shall we go around and share what we brought today? Let’s start with Misol. Misol: (flapping her arms as though she’s dancing) I brought salt to sell. I brought salt to sell. Yuri: (sitting up straight, looking forward, and in a voice as though she were scolding a cranky child) Misol, Misol. (petting her blue dolphin stuff animal) I brought my dolphin stuffed animal. Gaeul: I brought a four-leaf clover keyring. Jiwoo: I brought a hand towel. Gaeul: There’s no key on the keyring. The key… is missing. But I didn’t lose it. Minhee: (holding colored paper with both hands) But Teacher, I think time is almost up. Me: Everyone, repeat after me. [In English] This is my skirt. Gaeul, Yuri, Minhee [in English]: This is my skirt. Me [in English]: I like this skirt. This skirt is seven hundred won. Minhee: That’s so cheap! Me: Jeong-wook, would you like to try? [In English] This is my sweater. Jeong-wook’s grumbles louder. Misol stands behind her chair and pouts. Yuri: (looks toward Jeong-wook like a mother trying to coax her whining child) Jeong-wook, Jeong-wook… Try it. Minhee: Teacher, what is saekjongi in English? Me [in English]: Colored paper. Everyone, repeat after me. [In English] Colored paper. Misol: I brought salt to sell. I brought salt to sell. Yuri: Misol, Misol. Misol flaps both her arms as though she were about to take flight. But she doesn’t go anywhere, she can’t. Minhee: (in an anxious tone) But Teacher, I think time is almost up. Me: Everyone, repeat after me. [In English] This is my colored paper. Gaeul, Jiwoo, Yuri, Minhee [in English]: This is my colored paper. Jeong-wook purses his lips and stares down at his desk as everyone speaks in unison. There is nothing on his desk. Me: So, who wants to go first? Misol: I brought salt to sell. Gaeul: Me, Teacher, I’ll go first. Me: Shall we say it in English? In English, yeolsoigori is ‘keyring.’ [In English] This is my keyring. Gaeul [in English]: This is… Jiwoo (in a coy tone): Me next. Gaeul: But, Teacher, about my key… I wasn’t the one who lost it… You see… The keyring was in my jacket pocket… I was on my way to school… I remember clearly seeing it when I put the keyring in my pocket. I remember clearly seeing the key dangling from the keyring. But when I returned home and took out the keyring from my pocket to open the lock to my bedroom door, the key was gone. The key was the key to my bedroom. Where do you think my key is, Teacher? Me: Good question. Where could it be? Gaeul: I remember clearly seeing the key dangling from the keyring. Me: Well, keys aren’t snow. They can’t just melt and disappear. It must be somewhere. I hope you find your key, Gaeul. Gaeul: Actually… It’s okay if I don’t find it. Well, what I mean by that is… The reason why I don’t need to find it is… The key is to my bedroom door. But I have a new bedroom now that we moved. The reason why I lock the door to my bedroom is because my younger sister always sneaks into my room to steal my stuff animals… My duck, my puppy, my bear… That’s why I lock my bedroom door…. She sneaks into my room and steals my stuffed animals… Misol: I brought salt to sell. Minhee: But, Teacher, I think time is almost up. Gaeul: My mom had to call a locksmith to open the door for us. She asked him to make us a new key, but we moved before he got to it. Minhee: But, Teacher, I think time is almost up. Me: Okay, everyone, shall we ask Gaeul together? Eolmayeyo? [In English] How much is it? Gaeul: Um… 500 won. Minhee: That’s so cheap! Me: Yigeoseunobaekwoniya. How do we say that in English? Yuri [in English]: This is five hundred won. Me: Shall we say it together? [In English] This is five hundred won. Gaeul, Jiwoo, Yuri, Minhee [in English]: This is five hundred won. Jiwoo: Me next. Me: Gapsissaneyo. [In English] It’s cheap. Yuri, Minhee [in English]: It’s cheap. Gaeul: (rising from her chair) Teacher, I’m going to go to the bathroom. Me: Are you sure you can go by yourself? Gaeul: Yes. Gaeul gets up from her chair. She walks toward the classroom door. She slides it open and goes out into the hallway. Gaeul’s footsteps are so quiet that they disappear in the hallway. Across the hallway in a cavernous classroom is a black piano. The white keys are as quiet as day. And the black keys are as quiet as night. Minhee (puts down on the desk the colored paper she was holding): Teacher, I’m going to go to the bathroom, too. Yuri (turns her head toward Minhee, who is getting up from her chair, and says in a warm tone): Minhee, don’t take too long. Minhee leaves her chair and walks toward the classroom door. She feels around, checking to make sure it’s open, then exits into the hallway. Jeong-wook: Me, too… Bathroom… Jeong-wook leaves the classroom, and a moment later, Gaeul returns. Yuri (mistaking Gaeul for Minhee): Minhee, you’re back. (Pats the empty seat next to her) Minhee, get over here already and sit down. Gaeul hoists up her brown pants and finds her seat. Yuri: Minhee, get over here already and sit down. Minhee enters the classroom. Yuri: Minhee. Gaeul (sitting in her chair): Teacher, what are you going to sell? Minhee (as soon as she sits down): But, Teacher, what time is it? Me (checking the time with the braille information instrument): Would you look at that. It’s already 12:30. Gaeul: We only have 10 more minutes. Jiwoo: Me next. Minhee: Teacher, it’s Yuri’s turn. Me: Yuri, what did you bring to sell? Yuri (stroking the dolphin stuffed animal on her desk): A doll. Inhyeong in English is ‘doll.’ [In English] This is my doll. Me: Shall we all ask Yuri how much her doll is? [In English] How much is it? Yuri [in English]: This is three thousand won. Me: Is that expensive or cheap? Minhee: Expensive, expensive! Me: Expensive. Bissayo in English is ‘expensive.’ Jiwoo: Me next. Me: Who wants to buy the doll? Misol: I’ll buy it! Misol repeatedly rises and sits in her chair. Each time she does, the feet of her chair scrape the ground. Minhee (looks directly to her left): But, Teacher, who just came? The hands on the clock are still pointing to 8:24. They don’t move, as though held in place by invisible hands. Yuri: Teacher, I can’t sell my dolphin. Me: Why can’t you sell your dolphin? Jiwoo: Me next. Yuri: My dad gave it to me as a birthday present. He’ll be sad if I sell it to someone. The breaktime bell rings. Jeong-wook has yet to return to the classroom. Minhee: Teacher, class time is over. Me: That was quick. Sorry, but we’re going to have to end it here today. Next time, we’ll talk about the rainbow in English. Misol (going out of the classroom the first): I brought salt to sell, I brought salt to sell. Yuri and Minhee hold each other’s hand and walk out of the room. Jeong-wook has yet to return. Only Gaeul and I remain in the room. The hands on the clock point to 8:24. Gaeul (feeling the top of her desk with both hands): Teacher, I’ve lost my stylus. Can you help me find it? Me: Oh, Gaeul… I can’t find it either. I can’t see. Gaeul: You can’t see? Me: That’s right. I’m blind just like everyone else. Gaeul: You’re blind, too? Me: I am. You didn’t know? Gaeul: No. (pausing for a moment) Teacher . . . Take your white cane with your left hand and grab my hand with your right. I’ll guide you to the hallway. Gaeul and I hold hands and stand in the hallway. Gaeul: Teacher, can you go by yourself? Me: Yes, I can go by myself. Gaeul: I want to help you more, but I need to go to my next class. I have music next. Gaeul and I are still holding hands and standing in the hallway. Me: Gaeul, I told you. I can go by myself. Gaeul: Teacher, you must find your way. Gaeul and I are still holding hands and standing in the hallway. Gaeul: Teacher, you must find your way on your own. 8 * I can’t tell how many students are in the classroom. I just can’t. I can’t because I can’t count them. It’s just not possible. Just like stars in the night sky. I’ve never seen stars before, but I know it’s impossible to count stars. I thought the students knew I couldn’t see. I can’t see them. I can’t see their hands in the air when we play rock, paper, scissors during class to decide who goes first. On the first day of class, I introduce myself to the children. “I’m just like you. That means I can’t see what you all look like. So would you all let me hear your voices?” And then I wait. I wait for them to speak so I can hear their voices. I wait for all the children in the classroom to speak. And then I say: “Let’s remember everyone’s voices.” There are no terrible voices. * I am drawn to Gaeul. I only found out that she was much smaller than other children her age after I held her hand for the first time. After all, I couldn’t see what she looked like, because I can’t see. Her voice sounds like she’s playing house. After I told the children that I was blind like them, this is what Gaeul said to me: “Teacher…Take your white cane with your left hand and grab my hand with your right.” I could feel her extending her right hand toward me. I hesitated for a minute, but sensing how pure her heart was, I extended my left hand and spread my fingers to grab her hand. But it wasn’t there. She spoke again to me: “Teacher, grab my hand. I’ll guide you to the hallway.” Her hand was far beneath me. Beneath me… It was below my knee. Finally, when I held her hand, I realized that she was incredibly small. * The child didn’t return Even after I left the classroom, the child didn’t return. * I don’t think about what the children look like. I don’t think that I want to see what they look like. Did that child not return? 9 Is it open? Is it opening? My face. Is it in front of me? Is it behind me? My face right now. I’ve seen a green apple. I want to put a green apple on my desk. Playing on the radio was “Yesterday” by the Beatles. In the fish tank were two goldfish, one red and one pink. I sat at my desk and with a magnifying glass peered into the picture on my junior high school student ID card. I was fourteen then. My chin was sharp… A different place… My right eye is looking at a different place. My right eye has never seen light. When I was in the incubator, the ventilator supplied too much oxygen, damaging the blood vessels in my retina.[3] I was brought into the world at seven months and was immediately put inside an incubator. I was standing. I was just standing. I just continued standing. I was five years old and standing in front of the eye chart with a yellow cloche hat on my head. I could see the number four. That was all I could see. I couldn’t even see the stick pointing at the number four. When I was eight and in Gyeongju with my family for summer vacation, I was standing in front of a gigantic gray rock. And when I was twenty, I was standing at a bus station near Seoul National University of Education subway station. It was a cold day in winter. And it was late on Sunday night. At that time, I was living at the dorms at the college I got into after retaking the college entrance exams. I was on my way back to the dorms after spending the weekend with my family. I needed to take the 5001. There was quite a large number of people waiting at the bus stop. A bus came up, and two or three people ran to catch the bus. The bus left in a hurry, and then the next one came. Several people boarded it. I don’t know how many. The bus left, and three or four more came, bumper to bumper, but I couldn’t board any of them. I needed to take the 5001. I couldn’t see the number plates, which I had been able to see up till I was seventeen and on summer break. I was afraid of getting on the wrong bus. I stood and looked on as buses and people came and went. I couldn’t ask people which buses were stopping in front of the bus stop. I didn’t want people to know I was blind. Another bus came and stopped. It seemed like this was the 5001, but I didn’t get on. After all, I could have been wrong. I stood there for more than an hour and a half watching the buses and people come and go. The buses started becoming less frequent. When the next bus finally came, all the people got on and left, leaving me alone. Another one came and stopped in front of me. I could hear the rattling as the door opened. It seemed to be waiting for me to get on. I couldn’t see the people riding. It seemed like there were only empty seats. I stepped toward the door. I wanted to get on. I wanted to be caressed by the bus’s empty chairs, close my eyes, and fall into a deep sleep. Hoping the sun would be shining brightly when I woke, hoping the bus would take me to the sea, hoping I could get off the bus, extend my hand, and touch the waves, I attempted to get on the bus. But I couldn’t. It had already left. I looked at my surroundings. I could vaguely see a very tall, slender person standing behind me. I walked up to this person and mustered the courage to speak up: “Hello.” There was no answer. I spoke again: “Hello.” Still, no answer. Finding this strange, I tap the person with my hand. But it wasn’t a person. It was a telephone pole. I’m still standing. Where should I be standing? It’s not that I’m waiting for someone. I’m waiting for the sound of birds. Birds I’ve never seen, Birds I can’t see. The sound of birds will show me the way. I wait. When I go to an unfamiliar place, I wait for its sounds to show me the way. The sounds of the world show me the way. Cars on the street, shop music, footsteps, announcements from the digital timetable at the bus stop, restaurant fans, a noisy construction site, shutters being raised, shutters being closed… When I hear high heels descending stairs, I realize I am near the entrance to a subway station. It’s confusing when they come at me all at once. I pick out sounds. I pick out one sound like picking out a single strand of thread from a tangled mess of yarn. I wait. Until I can’t hear any sound, in front of a crosswalk with no signal, until the sound of zooming cars cuts out and there is silence. I stop. When I walk and listen to the sound of cars, I stop as soon as I hear people. And when I hear people running, I unknowingly start to run. When I hear a bus but don’t see it, it feels like the bus is racing toward me. When I hear a subway train but don’t see it, it feels like the train is racing toward me. I like the paths that the sound of birds paves for me. I like the paths that the sound of small birds, like sparrows, paves for me. The path that sparrows pave for me are narrow. I want to walk narrow paths. It’s hard to walk straight down a wide path. 10 I didn’t see the sparrow. It was too small to see. I didn’t see the bee, either. The pigeon flaps its wings and takes flight. There is a java sparrow at our home. When I open the door and enter our home, I hear a bird. The chirping is loud, so I think it must be a large bird. But it is smaller than my hand. They say the java sparrow is white. I imagine the color white as I imagine the java sparrow. I touch white inside the cage as I imagine a java sparrow. But it only has one leg. They say it had only one leg before coming to our home. I saw the wings of a dragonfly. I didn’t see the face of the dragonfly. I can’t catch things that fly. I don’t want to catch things that can fly. I wonder, can birds be blind, too? I wonder, can birds be born blind, too? Blind birds can’t fly. They can fly, but because they can’t see where to land, they can’t fly. Birds that are born blind stay in the nest. Their siblings leave, their mother leaves, and birds that are born blind are left alone in the nest. All by themselves, they cry in the nest. They fall asleep, grow old, and die alone in the nest. There is no nest. I’ve never seen one. So, they don’t exist. I wonder, are there birds who go blind while flying? What if a blind bird flew to me… 11 It’s a sound that’s always there. A sound that was there every time I passed by that place. But one day, I couldn’t hear it anymore. I heard an unfamiliar sound that hadn’t been there before. What could it be? 12 At what should I be looking at? After I lost the ability to see light, I would often forget the fact that I couldn’t see. When I used to be able to vaguely see the silhouette of objects out of my left eye, I would look at trees, people walking toward me, and empty chairs in front of me and think to myself that I didn’t see anything. I was envious of my brother who had normal eyes. He asked me to lend him an eraser and scissors once. I hid them in the drawer and told him I didn’t have them. I didn’t want to share. He went to the school supplies store and bought two erasers and two scissors, one for each of us. I’m not blind because I’m lacking. I’m not blind because I’m being punished. I didn’t know. I don’t know. I need to find it. I must find it. 13 One day, her voice came to me. Then one day, it left me. 14 “Will you let me hear your voice?” And wait… And believe… “Who do you want to see the most?” Just before she left, this is what her voice asked me. Now that I’ve lost the ability to see faces, people enter my dreams as their voices. When someone visits my dream, I tell them: “I heard your voice in my dreams last night.” And… I’m afraid your voice will leave me. Just one voice… just one… I’m not sure. 15 The sea is made of four dots.[4] I know how to write the word for sea, but I don’t want to write it. I’ve written it before. I can’t see the sea I’ve written. My mom cherishes that sea. The sea I wrote is together with the wave I wrote. And it’s together with the moon. Today, I wore a new T-shirt. My mother laid the new T-shirt she bought for me on my bed. It has three buttons, short sleeves, and a collar. I don’t know what color it is. I’m forty, but I still wear the colors my mother buys for me. I vaguely remember the color scarlet. I saw a full moon. I didn’t see a half moon. I think I know what purple looks like. But I’m not confident when it comes to the color emerald. As my left eye went dark, and after I lost all sight in my left eye, I made up colors that didn’t exist. Rose gold was one such color. People say it’s a mix of gold and red. Roses are red. I know red. Gold is a dazzling yellow. In my head, I mix the colors red and gold to imagine a new color. According to the eye examination I took when I was five, the vision in my left eye was 20/200. When I entered elementary school, I could see the green chalkboard, but I couldn’t see what was written in chalk. So, I sat in the front of the class and wrote in my notebook what the teacher said. ‘Sketchbook’ when the teacher said sketchbook, and ‘gym clothes’ when the teacher said gym clothes. I didn’t write with a pencil. Handwriting in pencil is fuzzy. I can’t see fuzzy things. I wrote with a black pen. Black was easier to see on white than blue or red. I transcribed the contents of my textbook into my notebook one letter at a time. To see the letters, I had to bring my eye so close that my eyelashes would brush the paper. As the letters of my textbook got blurrier and squished, they started to look liked dark smudges. I couldn’t see the chalkboard. My left eye dropped to 20/1000 in the vision test. With magnifying glasses for lenses, I read words one by one. The letters I saw beyond the magnifying glass swelled to five to six times their normal size. I remember staring at the Chinese character for heart (心) through the magnifying glass as I transcribed it into my notebook. I haven’t forgotten the letters I saw through my magnifying glass. When I was seventeen, I had to get an operation to reattach the retina in my left eye. After the procedure, I couldn’t see words even with the help of a magnifying glass. So I just listened during class. I just sat there without moving and listened. While my left eye could still see light, I avoided going out during the day because the sun blinded me. I walked by following the light from the streetlamps. Their light showed me the way. Over the course of twenty years, I slowly lost sight in my left eye. Like a lamp slowly being dimmed, the light in my left eye became fainter and fainter until it disappeared. Faces became squished and distant until they vanished. Even though I knew things were becoming more distant, I never imagined I would completely lose sight in my left eye. The thought never crossed my mind. I didn’t want to think about it. I hated the thought of losing my sight completely. 16 Only she left… She’s the only one who left… 17 I don’t know how many people are sitting in front of me. I don’t know how many people are walking in front of me. Is there a reason for losing my sight? Perhaps losing the ability to see light is for a reason and an answer. And perhaps there’s a reason my prayers weren’t answered… Pray for me, Keep your prayers as late as possible. People exist because they think of someone, People exist because they love someone. I want to feel what it’s like to exist. I want to live life feeling what it’s like to exist. Do you see me? “Why am I here?” 18 I want you to look at me like I’m a person. I want you to look at me like I’m one whole person. Do you see me? I believe people, I want to believe the people I meet. The year I graduated from university, I sent out about twenty different job applications, each a welfare center for the disabled. I was twenty-five at the time. I was interviewed at six of those places. I was hired at the very last one I interviewed at. It was a newly opened welfare center for the disabled. I had entered college through the Department of Public Administration and double majored in social welfare. I wanted to become a social worker and help blind people like myself. I didn’t know how many people were sitting in front of me at the interview. There was only one person asking the questions. The voice asking questions was always the same. “Are you sure you can do it?” the voice asked. “I can do it, I can do it,” I answered. It took more than two hours to get to the center from my home. At 6:30 in the morning on the day of my interview, I rode the subway for four stops. Then I got off and rode Bus 1007, which went from Seoul to Gyeongi province, for an hour and forty minutes all the way to the second to last stop. I fell into a deep sleep and when I woke up, I was at my destination. The building was located far away from the city center. On my first day, a single empty desk was waiting for me. I went to the desk and sat down. I had no way of knowing what was in front of my desk. Although I couldn’t see out windows, I wished I had one. Even though I knew windows were distant from me, I wished I had one. I sat at my desk until it was time for lunch. No one gave me any work. They didn’t give me anything. There were about forty employees at this center, but I was the only one who was disabled. I sat at my desk as I listened to the sound of people running around busily, talking about work, and joking with each other. I sat there listening to the office clock’s second hand and the ringing of other people’s phones. There was a telephone on every desk. There was even one on mine. But mine didn’t ring. As no one gave me any work, I just sat at my desk until it was time to go home. On my second day, I again just sat at my desk all day as I listened to the clock’s second hand and the ringing of telephones. No one gave me any work. They didn’t give me anything. An entire month passed like this… The sound of the clock’s second hand felt so slow. Each second was like an hour. Why am I here? One day I arrived at work and sat down at my desk. I just sat at my desk all morning. Someone’s telephone started to ring. And it kept ringing. I reached out toward the telephone on my desk. I picked up the receiver and brought it to my ear. “Hello?” From that day on, I started taking other people’s phone calls if they weren’t at their desks. “Hello?” I found work for myself. Once I did this, they finally started giving me work. What I did was writing letters to sponsors. Then one day when the entire office was out for drinks, I heard my team manager’s drunk voice: “You shouldn’t be here. We have no work for you. Go somewhere else.” After drinks, I went to Suwon Station even though I knew the last train had already left. This was the only familiar place to me. I would come here to ride the subway whenever I worked late. I sat on the steps and cried. There was no wind on those steps. I quit after working for four years at the welfare center. But I didn’t leave because I was told to leave. Years after I left, I contacted my old team manager, who had been kind to me, and asked a question: “Why didn’t you give me any work?” “I didn’t know what work to give you.” The year I turned thirty, I started working at the Department of Special Education at a local university in Nonsan. I wanted to teach blind children like myself. One day when I was out, I lost my way in a place where I knew no one. Then suddenly, I heard a voice calling my name. “Let’s go together.” From that day on, I was no longer afraid of going to a place where I knew no one. Let’s go together. These words were bright yellow. Whenever I went to an unfamiliar place, there was always at least one person there to help me. They would come to me and extend their hand, even if I didn’t ask. After a while, I realized something. It was like magic… I now believe that no matter where in the world I went, there would always be someone waiting there to help me. 19 The desire is still there. The desire to see hasn’t left me. No matter how much I feel and touch, the desire to see hasn’t left me. Touching and seeing are different. Perhaps I think this way because I used to be able to see. Because I used to be able to see. When I’m alone, I sometimes touch my face. My forehead, eyebrows, eyelids, nose, cheeks, lips, chin… No matter how much I feel and touch, the desire to see hasn’t left me. “Whose face do you most want to see?” If she came back to me and asked me this, my answer wouldn’t change. I want to see my own face. Right now, I most want to see my own face. 20 For whom do I live? For whom am I living? I want to live for myself. And I want to live for someone else, too. I’m still standing. Do you see me? I feel the hand that leads me. The hand that leads me is a hand as small as Gaeul’s. I’m afraid of letting go of the hand that leads me. 21. 4th Grade English – 2 It’s already past 12:25, but the hands on the clock on the classroom wall point to 8:24. Minhee: Teacher, my chair is too high. Yuri: Teacher, my chair is too high, too. Misol (lifting her drooping head and without raising her voice): My hair’s dangling. My hair is dangling. Me: Today, we’re going to talk about the rainbow in English. Do you all know what a rainbow is? Gaeul, Yuri, Jiwoo, Minhee: Yes. Me: Have you seen a rainbow before? Gaeul, Yuri, Jiwoo: No. Minhee: Me neither. Misol: I’ve seen a rainbow. Me: Where have you seen a rainbow, Misol? Misol: I don’t remember. Misol feels the chair next to her. Realizing the seat is empty, she gets up and sits down in the empty seat next to her. Me: How do you all know what a rainbow is if you’ve never seen one? Minhee: I just know they exist. Yuri (in a downtrodden voice): My mom told me about them. Me: We all know what rainbows are even if we haven’t seen them. So, what is a rainbow? Minhee: ROYGBIV! Me: Ah-ha, so rainbows are ROYGBIV. What is ROYGBIV? Everyone: Colors! Me: Ah-ha, colors… Gaeul: Teacher, why is there no white in ROYGBIV? Me: Good question. Why isn’t there white in ROYGBIV? Jeong-wook starts stomping on the floor. Yuri (in a scolding tone): Jeong-wook! Your feet… stop it. Me: What is mujigae in English? Yuri and Jiwoo [in English]: Rainbow! Me: Good. Correct, mujigae in English is ‘rainbow.’ Let’s say the colors of the rainbow in English. Everyone, pick a color. Minhee: Purple. Yuri: Yellow. Gaeul: Hey, I want yellow. Misol feels the seat next to her. She thrusts her face into the empty seat and sniffs it. Me: Shall we talk about red? Bbalgang in English is ‘red.’ What do you associate the color red with? Minhee: Cherry tomatoes. Gaeul: I think of kimchi. Really spicy kimchi! Yuri: Apples. Gaeul: Blood! I think of Blood! Me: And how does red make you feel? Jiwoo: Red feels angry. Gaeul: What is anger? What is sadness? Misol (gets up from her chair and walks around the room): Let’s go there. Let’s go there. Gaeul: Teacher, I have a question. Gaeul: Teacher, I have a question. Gaeul: Teacher, what is anger? Gaeul: Teacher, what is sadness? Jeong-wook continues to stomp on the floor. Me: Juhwangsaek in English is ‘orange.’ Everyone [in English]: Orange! Me: Shall we talk about orange? Yuri: Orange reminds me of umbrellas. It reminds me of when it rains. Gaeul: It reminds me of rain. Me: Ah-ha, so it reminds you of rain. Why does it remind you of rain, Yuri? Yuri: Because people wear bright clothes when it rains. People are happy when they wear bright clothes. Orange feels happy. Me: Jiwoo, what does orange feel like to you? Jiwoo: It makes me proud. Gaeul: Teacher, why didn’t you ask me? Minhee: Gaeul, you already answered. You said it reminds you of rain. Me: What does the color orange feel like to you, Gaeul? Gaeul: It reminds me of rain. Me: And why does it remind you of rain? Gaeul: It reminds me of rain because… orange is… really… similar to rain… like… it just feels like that… Minhee: Ducks, ducks, ducks! Me: Why does it make you think of ducks, Minhee? Minhee: Because duck bills are orange. Gaeul: Chicks! Me: Why does it remind you of chicks? Why does it remind you of chicks, Gaeul? Gaeul: Because… Chicks make me think of yellow. I started liking the color yellow because chicks are so cute. Jeong-wook continues to stomp on the floor. Yuri: Jeong-wook! Your feet. Stop. Jiwoo: Teacher, what did you say? Misol sits down in the chair. After looking out into space with a sullen look on her face, she lies face down in her desk. She draws something on her desk with her finger. The hands on the clock point to 8:24. Yuri: Trees. Jiwoo: Tree leaves. Yuri: A forest. Gaeul: Green… I’m not sure. Yuri: I think of the sea. The sea is blue. And so is the sky. Minhee: I think of the sea. Gaeul: Me too. Me: Why do you think of the sea, Minhee? Minhee: Because the sea is blue. Gaeul: It makes me think of the sky, too. (Talking to herself) I don’t remember if I said the sea or the sky. Me: The sea and the sky are slightly different colors. Gaeul: Teacher, I don’t remember. Whether I said the sky or the sea… Me: The sea is deep blue. Gaeul: Teacher, did I say the sky? Me: The sky is lighter than the sea. Gaeul: Teacher, did I say the sky? Me: Yes, you said the sky. Misol lays face down on her desk as she draws something with her fingers and mutters to herself, “Indigo, indigo.” Minhee: Indigo… I’m not sure. Gaeul: Me, too. Minhee: Chocolate isn’t indigo. Jeong-wook (dropping his head and stomping on the floor): I don’t know. Minhee: Violet is kind of sad… like… Jiwoo: Violet tickles… like… Me: Okay, shall we each pick a color we like? Yuri: I like yellow. Jiwoo: I like violet. Gaeul: I want yellow. I want yellow. Minhee: I’ll take red. Jiwoo: I want red, too, Me: What about you, Gaeul? Gaeul: Yellow. Me: Someone already took yellow. Minhee: Gaeul, take something other than yellow. Yuri: Teacher, Misol says she’ll take blue. Gaeul: Such babies… Minhee: Gaeul, do you want orange? Me: Gaeul, how about doing orange? Gaeul: I don’t want any other color but yellow. I don’t want any other color but yellow. Yuri: Gaeul, are you angry? Gaeul (in an angry tone): I’m not angry. Yuri: Gaeul, then you can have yellow. The breaktime bell rings. The hands of the clock still point to 8:24. Gaeul: Teacher, why is there no white in ROYGBIV? Me: I don’t know why white isn’t in ROYGBIV… I’m sorry I don’t know the answer to that question. Gaeul: I have three chicks. Their names are… I forgot… I named them… It’s a secret, it’s a secret. The hands on the clock point to 8:24. 22 I want to look at a different place. A different place… A different place than where my right eye is looking. Have I passed that door? What color was that door? I’ve seen a black door. I’ve never seen a yellow door. There are no yellow doors. If there were one, I would want to put it next to my bed, so I can see it all the time, so I can open it whenever I want, so I can close it whenever I want. And I want to put the yellow door next to the sea. It is next to my bed and next to the sea. At high tide, the waves will carry it away. The boy on the black inner tube was carried out to the horizon, then at low tide, he was carried back to shore. I would get up from my bed, open the yellow door, and go to the sea. There, a man is touching the waves. Waves are white. White is neither hot nor cold. White is cotton, notebook, bunnies. I don’t want to raise white. A yellow moon is like the full moon. I’ve seen the full moon. I’ve never seen a half moon. I imagine a half moon. I can’t see what I imagine. And I haven’t seen a rainbow. Because I only imagine them. I haven’t seen a rainbow, but I know what rainbows are. Rainbows are ROYGBIV. Why is there no white in ROYGBIV? I must find it. I must find it. And… Do you see me? I’m still standing. Do you see me? 1 I was teaching English and massage theory and practice to blind children at a special-education school. 2 Misol, Gaeul, Yuri, Jiwoo, Jeong-wook, and Minhee. 3 retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) 4 In Korean braille, the word for sea is constructed of four dots. Translated by Sean Lin Halbert

by Kim Soom
The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work

We left the cafe. It was well into spring and approaching summer. The mornings and evenings had been chilly up until yesterday, but now I felt sunlight warming the nape of my neck and my back becoming damp with sweat. Office workers with employee ID badges around their necks milled about with light trench coats draped over an arm, a cup of takeout coffee in hand. This was the only time of day they could get any kind of exercise and soak in the sun. A group of workers from the web portal company where Kevin used to work passed by us. Personally, I was only working here because the agency I used to be at went belly up and this was the only place that made me an offer, but I wondered why the oh-so very clever Kevin had joined this company. He couldn’t have been tempted by the pay; our CEO had a habit of saying he’d “start paying us a decent salary once we started running ads.” Apparently, the ace up the CEO’s sleeve had been to tell Kevin that he would have the opportunity to do “all the kinds” of dev work he wanted to do. It was strange enough that the CEO thought something like that would convince Kevin, and stranger still that it actually did. Though I wasn’t sure if Kevin was, in fact, getting to do “all the kinds” of work he wanted to do. It looked like he was just fixing bugs all day. TurtleEgg said she had an offsite today and needed to get to her car that was parked in the lot near Pangyo Station. We went up a pedestrian overpass to get to the other side of the street but once we got to the top of the stairs, we noticed something strange. The overpass didn’t connect to the opposite side of the street, it connected to the same side of the street we were already on. An overpass was supposed to go across a road but this one ran parallel to it. “Weird,” said TurtleEgg. “How is this an overpass?” “Not sure. Maybe they read the blueprint wrong.” “Maybe it was built so people could stand in the shade under it to avoid the sun or rain.” “Or so office workers could get some exercise since they’re at their desks all day.” “It could just be an art sculpture. Every single building has to have one by law, so there are tons of them that have no soul.” “What should we do now?” “Go back down, I guess.” Then she added, “The view’s pretty nice from up here.” TurtleEgg went up to the railing near the center of the overpass, leaned both arms against it, and propped up her chin. I stood next to her and looked at the view before me. There was a dense stretch of buildings with exteriors that glittered like mirrors—buildings that looked overly futuristic, as though they had taken the name “Techno Valley” a little too literally. When I first came here, I had thought that this place looked like some cold galactic city I had seen in a sci-fi movie. Turns out even in Techno Valley, rivers melted once winter passed, spring arrived, cherry blossoms bloomed beautifully, and summer, too, would come in time. TurtleEgg pointed to something. “Whoa, the NC building looks so cool.” That was where the biggest gaming company in Pangyo, NC Soft, was headquartered. The immensity of that building reflected the size of the company. “I’m pretty sure I’ve paid for a windowpane or two on that building,” I said. “So you play Lineage?” “Back in the day.” “There are a lot of startups around here, aren’t there?” “Oh yeah. There are five or six in my building alone.” “I read somewhere that only three percent of all startups succeed in the end. You think Udon Market will make it?” I looked back at the NC Soft headquarters. There was a hole right in the middle of the giant building in the shape of a stretched-out “仃.” Through it, I could see the blazing afternoon sky—a square piece of sky that anyone walking around with an employee ID badge around their neck and a coffee in their hand might look up at once or twice. Every time I saw that perfectly square, enframed piece of sky, I imagined something flying through it. A dragon, a flock of birds, a hot-air balloon, a helicopter. “Who knows. The CEO and the board probably think about it constantly. How to raise money, how to earn money, how to be part of that three percent that makes it to the end . . . They probably worry about stuff like that all day long. Personally, I stop thinking about the company once I’m off the clock.” “Me too. As soon as I leave the office, I pull the plug on all thoughts about work. I only think beautiful thoughts and look at beautiful sights. For example, turtles, or turtle photos, or turtle videos.” When I turned to look at TurtleEgg, she had already pulled out her smartphone and was scrolling through her photos. She showed me a close-up of a turtle’s head in profile. There were vivid orange markings under its eyes. “Cute, huh? This is my pet turtle. His name’s Lambo.” Then she added, “Lambo as in Lamborghini.” I nodded to show that I understood and she held out her phone to show me another turtle photo that didn’t look much different from the one earlier. “And this is my second turtle, Masé.” “ . . . as in Maserati?” “Ooh, you got it.” Excited, she picked out yet another photo of a turtle (that again looked pretty much like the other two turtles) and showed it to me. “This one’s the youngest.” “Let me guess, Ferra? As in Ferrari?” “How clever of you, darling!” I pulled out my wallet and asked TurtleEgg, “So, the item you listed on Udon Market . . . could I possibly buy another one?” ©Yeji Yun * I had, in fact, cried at the office, although I had not admitted that to TurtleEgg. I was once so bothered by the sound of Kevin sighing behind me that I cried, just a little, as I kicked the bathroom door with force. In that moment, tears gushed out for a split second, that was it, but still you couldn’t say that I had not cried. I bought the small LEGO set that had been in the trunk of TurtleEgg’s car. It was part of the same Star Wars series that Kevin had on his desk. I had known Kevin liked LEGOs since even before he started at the company. Since the CEO knew him personally, it was all but decided that Kevin would get the job, but because it would not do to skip the interview process entirely, we arranged one as a formality. That was when I found out. After asking Kevin three or four questions about software development, the CEO posed one final question. “We’re a small company, as you know, so it’s not enough to be a good developer, you also have to be a good culture fit. We’re less than ten people so if things go south with someone, you won’t be able to avoid them. You’ll have to face them every day. So, it’s important to have social skills. Do you think you’ll be able to gel with the rest of the team?” That was when Kevin offered, as evidence of his sociability, his experience being secretary of the KAIST LEGO club for three years. I was seated by the CEO’s side and feeling invisible, but at Kevin’s words, I stifled a burst of laughter. KAIST, LEGO, secretary. Not a single one of those sounded sociable by any measure. I’d be even more skeptical if he’d said he had been the president, not the secretary. People said introverted developers look at their own shoes when they speak while extroverted developers look at the shoes of the person they’re speaking to. In a world like that, who knew what it meant to be part of a LEGO club? Maybe you were considered a crazy party animal or something. At 1:10 p.m., I went up to the roof of the office building. Kevin had a cigarette at that time every single day. I had no idea how the man could be so mechanical, so robotic, that even his smoke breaks were like clockwork. Just as I predicted, I ran into Kevin after he had finished up his cigarette and was on his way back to the office. Kevin started when he saw me, but when he saw the LEGO Star Wars Darth Vader Transformation kit in my hands, he trembled in shock. I held out the LEGO box and said, “Happy early birthday.” He looked like he was debating whether he should take it, but his hand was already reaching toward the box, like a robot that had developed an error in its algorithm. “Please tell me you don’t already have this one?” “No, I don’t. I was planning to get it . . .,” Kevin answered without meeting my eyes. With the box in both hands and pressed against his stomach, he traced a finger across its edge. I walked slowly toward the edge of the rooftop where Kevin had smoked his cigarette. Then I stepped up on top of a brick in the flower bed and took in the view before me. The building with the rectangle shape in it was visible from here too. I could recognize the weird overpass that TurtleEgg and I had been on. Turning around, I said to Kevin, “How about you try distancing yourself a little from your code?” Kevin stared wordlessly up at me. “You aren’t the code you write. I hope you know that.” Then I added, “A bug is just a bug. It’s not going to eat you up.” Kevin had his gaze trained on my sneakers. I jumped down from the flower bed and pulled out a capsule coffee machine box from the shopping bag I’d left on the ground. “I’m putting this in the break room. The two of us should get coffee sometime. I’ll ask Daeshik to get the capsules.” At that moment, Kevin and I received a notification on our smartphones at almost the exact same time. Each of us pulled our phones out of our pockets and looked. We smiled, the exact same expression on both our faces. * I was alone in the office when the CEO, who I thought had left for the day, suddenly came out and started talking to me. He wanted to know why I hadn’t left yet even though it was a Friday. I lied and said I still had some work to finish up. Looking impressed, the CEO said, “As soon as we start running ads, I’ll make some money and then hire you another project manager.” “Maybe we can hire an iOS developer first. I’m dying here.” “Why? Is Kevin still butting heads with Anna these days?” “You could say that.” “Goddammit, I need to stop giving in to him. It’s getting us nowhere.” All of a sudden, the CEO kicked Kevin’s chair hard. The swivel chair careened toward the entrance of the office. The CEO could have never done that in front of Kevin. If Kevin ever said he was quitting, the CEO was the type to get on his knees and beg him to stay. “It’s probably really tough on him since he’s working on something that’s hard enough for two people to take on all by himself. Even if he is a genius. It’s not like he’s Steve Jobs or something.” “Fine. Once we start running ads, I’ll for sure hire another iOS developer and someone to work under you.” I gathered up the four or five paper cups on the desk neatly in a stack and threw them in the trash. “David, let’s stop drinking instant coffee now and do capsule coffee instead. I’ll bring the machine.” “Hm . . . Is that expensive?” “Obviously it’s more expensive than instant coffee. But won’t it just be that much more efficient? Like even for cars, there’s a difference when you fill up with regular gasoline versus premium.” The CEO didn’t answer right away. He crossed his arms over his chest and hesitated for a moment before saying, “Let me look into it. I’ll think on it as positively as I can.” And then he added, “You know how much I care about what you think, Anna, don’t you?” As if. The truth is, I wasn’t staying behind to work late. Ticket reservations for Liubov Smirnova’s recital opened at 9 p.m. but I guessed that by the time I arrived home, it would be just slightly past 9 p.m. So I figured I would kill time at work and then, after successfully making my reservation, leave for home stress-free. I pulled up the server time for the reservation site and, while waiting until 21:00:00, I connected to “Silent Cho Seong-jin,” a photos-only public chat room about pianist Cho Seong-jin. As soon as I logged in, someone uploaded a photo of Cho Seong-jin with the words “Please send HD Carnegie Hall photo” written on it. I opened the “Chopin” folder on my MacBook. Thousands of jpg, gif, and avi files of Cho Seong-jin unfurled one after the other across my monitor. I double-clicked on one of them. It was a gif of Cho Seong-jin playing piano, his mouth pursed like a duck, his bangs undulating. There was no sound, but I knew he was performing Debussy’s “Clair de Lune.” He was flawlessly handsome. How could someone be that graceful? This time, I opened the folder with the Carnegie Hall photos. I chose a few that were of good quality and uploaded them to the chat room. Not long after, another photo arrived: Cho Seong-jin’s profile photo which showed him with his chin propped up against his hand on a grand piano. On the margin scrawled in crooked handwriting were the words, “Thank you so much. I wish you very little work and lots of money.” There was one more thing I had to do before 9 p.m. Cho Seong-jin’s Hong Kong recital, which I had reserved tickets for months ago, was coming up next month. With a public holiday, the weekend, and one precious day of PTO, I planned to take four days and three nights off to explore Hong Kong and attend the concert. I logged into an airline ticket reservation site and paid for a round trip to Hong Kong. It was a bit expensive, I thought, but that was fine. Today was payday, after all. Translated by Archana Madhavan

by Jang Ryujin
Van Gogh’s Light

The farmhouse in front of our house was demolished and replaced with a two-story building. The elderly couple who owned the building lived on the first floor, and they rented out the basement and the second floor to foreign workers. Late at night or before dawn, I could hear their strange languages and melancholy songs. People who left their poor motherlands behind often gathered in the yard and shared stories in languages only they could understand. It sounded as if people were speaking in tongues from somewhere afar. I kept thinking that Abul the Bangladeshi might be there among them. Or in the usual everyday scenes, or the dark alley, or at the factory. What used to be alive did not vanish that quickly. Blocked by the two-story building, the sunlight that used to stream into our house was halved. The wallpaper and the furniture seemed drained of their colors as they were unable to receive any sunlight. The entire house was dark all day long. I placed a narrow, long-necked lamp by the window and kept the light on day and night. When the soft yellow light illumined the walls and the furniture, bringing colors back into them, I felt at peace. One day, I brought back plants that had been left at the dumpster and put them on the windowsill. I took great care of them, changing their positions in the sunlight as the sun moved throughout the day, but soon their leaves turned yellow and withered. The plants I’d put out on the veranda froze to death within days. I couldn’t keep plants at home anymore. Eight-year-old Jaeyi wanted a hamster, a cat, and even a rabbit. But I couldn’t let her have such pets in this cold house plagued by backflow. I bought her two fish instead. Jaeyi put the blue and rainbow-colored fish in a fishbowl on the windowsill. “The fish are gone!” Jaeyi shouted in surprise the next morning. The two fish that had been in the fishbowl had vanished without a trace. Jaeyi and I scoured the room. But the fish were nowhere to be found. It was rather eerie. Jaeyi’s dad came home for the first time in days and held Jaeyi in his arms. Jaeyi told him about the vanished fish. “They must have eaten each other,” he said. Jaeyi covered her eyes, saying that she was scared. His words sent a chill down my back as well. If that had been the case, shouldn’t there be fins or bones left behind? It was impossible for two living things to devour each other whole without leaving a trace, at least in this world. Unless some god had something to do with it. He’s just pulling her leg, I thought. I emptied the fishbowl into the toilet. Gently scolding me for keeping the light on during the day, my husband turned off the lamp. When the light went out, it felt like all the colors in the house had drained. Startled, I turned the lamp back on. My husband looked perplexed as if he didn’t understand what I was doing. I didn’t understand myself either. How could I understand everything around me going black as if the light had taken away all the colors in the house? The wallpaper that had been dangling from the ceiling for days suddenly peeled off. The exposed cement ceiling was damp and covered in fungus. “Looks like we need to get some wallpaper,” my husband murmured in passing, glancing up at the ceiling. Without the wallpaper, the ceiling looked so grotesque that I couldn’t stand looking at it for a minute. As if it didn’t bother him, my husband sat on the windowsill and clipped his toenails. “They look like raptor’s claws!” Jaeyi looked curiously at her dad’s toenails. Not having been clipped for a long time, they did resemble dinosaur claws. “Could we wallpaper the ceiling ourselves?” I wondered loudly on purpose so that my husband would hear me. ©Yeji Yun My husband, Jaeyi, and I went into town to buy wallpaper. My husband suggested grabbing dinner before going home since it was our first outing in a long time. It was a late winter day, and the sunlight was bright and warm. Snow was still piled up along the shady edges of the alley, while the center of the path was slushy. My husband picked Jaeyi up in his arms. “She’s a big girl now,” I said to Jaeyi’s dad, looking at him sideways. “Let’s buy wallpaper with flower patterns.” Jaeyi seemed to be in a good mood. “Sure, let’s buy floral-pattern wallpaper,” my husband answered, keeping up her spirits. “Should we eat pork belly?” asked Jaeyi. I opened up my wallet to count the bills inside. My husband took a couple of ten-dollar bills from his pocket and handed them to me. We bought a roll of floral-pattern wallpaper. We decided to make flour paste glue and wallpaper the ceiling only. One roll didn’t seem enough to cover the entire ceiling, but neither Jaeyi’s dad nor I said we should buy more. It was a little early for dinner, but the winter sun set rather quickly. My husband took the lead with quick steps, and I followed behind at a slower pace as my mind wandered. The barbecue restaurant had a courtyard in the center, and the tables were laid out in a big circle around the courtyard. Further inside the restaurant there was raised floor seating where people could take their shoes off and sit on the warm floor. Lights lit up the courtyard here and there, allowing plants to grow lush and verdant even though they didn’t receive direct sunlight. My spirits fell for a moment, as they reminded me of the plants that died in my house. There was a small pond in the middle of the courtyard. When a white plaster cherub peed into the pond, music flowed. Smoke rose from the tables. Adults were grilling meat, while children were gathered around ice cream tubs. Jaeyi took off her shoes and stepped onto the raised floor seating. Her dad neatly arranged her shoes and placed them so that they were facing outward. I did the same for his shoes and went to our table. My husband ordered two portions of pork belly and grilled the meat until it turned golden brown. He cut them up into smaller pieces for Jaeyi and put them on her plate, and even wiped sauce from the corners of her mouth. Jaeyi only ate the meat her dad wrapped in lettuce to give her, not touching the ones I wrapped for her. “Hon, have some meat,” I said to my husband and pushed some meat and vegetables toward him, but pretending not to have seen them, he kept on spooning rice and soybean paste soup into his mouth. Wondering if he was going to say something, I waited. All four hundred grams of pork belly were on the grill, and some of the pieces began to char. “They’re getting burnt!” When I raised my voice, Jaeyi got up discreetly and headed to the ice cream tubs. I spoke to Jaeyi’s dad about Jebu Island. “My friends went to Jebu Island. They said the sea parted to reveal a walking path to the island around noon. The last path opens around 6:00 p.m. tomorrow. They said they’d wait for us to come. Hon, let’s take Jaeyi to Jebu Island. It’s just for a day. Let’s go and stay somewhere where it’s bright. But um, the lawsuit . . .” Even before I finished my sentence, my husband nodded. He said he’d come home once the negotiations with the company were finished the next afternoon. He said we should go to Jebu Island afterward. “And . . .” “Yeah?” Just as he was about to say something more, Jaeyi returned with a bowlful of ice cream. He fell silent. We were almost done eating, and it was growing darker outside. Suddenly the courtyard lit up with light, and streams of water gushed from the fountain. As the cherub statue peed into the pond, music flowed. My husband glanced behind him toward the courtyard, then lowered his head and cautiously said, “They’re the ones siding with the company.” When I followed his suit and turned around, he signaled me to stop looking. “Don’t turn around.” There were two men in gray uniform sitting at a table by the courtyard and grilling meat. They looked familiar. They were wearing the same work uniform as my husband, but theirs looked different. Well, I suppose they are different. On my husband’s thirty-seventh birthday, they’d come to our house with a potted money tree as a gift and ate cake together and drank alcohol. When Jaeyi enrolled in school, they’d bought her a backpack, and they’d even prepared documents to submit to the Ministry of Employment and Labor together. The money tree they’d given us as a gift was now dead. “They’re uncles!” Jaeyi also remembered them. My husband waited until Jaeyi finished her ice cream and got up from his seat. The uneaten pieces of meat were left to harden on the grill. There were still lettuce, mushrooms, and other vegetables left on the table. Thinking it a shame to leave them uneaten, I walked away begrudgingly. As Jaeyi and her dad were putting on their shoes, the men in gray uniform approached us. They nodded at me in acknowledgment and held their hands out to Jaeyi’s dad. He didn’t shake their hands. The men grinned and patted Jaeyi on the head once each before leaving the restaurant ahead of us. I paid for the meat, got a cup of coffee from the coffee machine and sipped it, grabbed a fistful of candy from the counter and handed them to Jaeyi, and finally headed outside. For that entire time, my husband sat on a chair in the smoking section and burned through his cigarette. Since the first trial began early last autumn, my husband came home once in two or three days or even a week. It has been six months since. Abul. If only it hadn’t been for Abul. Or actually, if only the two-story building hadn’t been built. Or if only that dumpster hadn’t been overflowing with discarded junk. If only the junk from demolishing, rebuilding, and renovating buildings had not awakened the factory at night. If only Abul’s motherland had not been so poor. If only Jaeyi’s dad hadn’t read a book like Workers, Unite around that time. Goddamn it! I didn’t know what needed to be undone for all of this to not have happened. As for Abul, he was an honest and quiet young man from Bangladesh. Whenever he had lunch at the restaurant where Jaeyi’s friend Ann’s mother worked as the only server, he helped her serve dishes to other customers. On those days Ann’s mother packed him side dishes to take home behind the restaurant owner’s back. Elderly men and women in town were very fond of Abul, who always said hello to them in awkward Korean. The children weren’t afraid of the dark-skinned foreigner Abul. The recycling factory was thriving. Foreign workers like Abul worked the night shifts at the factory. In the wee hours of the morning, when they were the only ones awake while the entire town slept, Abul’s hand was shredded by an industrial shredder. The company fired Abul. With his one hand wrapped in bandages, the twenty-one-year-old Abul hung himself from the factory shredder. Everyone mourned and lamented his death, but no one could help poor Abul. Several months after Abul’s death, my husband and other factory workers received a “certificate of the establishment of a labor union” from the Ministry of Employment and Labor. It had to be done before another Abul came along, and of all people at the factory, my husband took the lead. Everyone was excited, and they recalled Abul’s tragic death. They didn’t think anything worse could happen. With the certificate of the establishment of a labor union in their hands, they gathered together in the yard of the two-story building where Abul used to live to grill meat, drink alcohol, and sing together the songs that Abul used to sing with his friends. The melody carried to the far end of the alley, and even to the dirt path above the church that led to the recycling factory. A month later, nothing happened at the factory, but my husband and the factory workers who created the labor union were all laid off. In a mere month. Since it was wrongful termination, they fought, and while fighting, they broke through the factory gates, and each of them received a document titled “Claim for Obstruction of Business and Damages” issued by a national agency. In the meantime, the company donated money to the elementary school in town for scholarships and built a new community center as part of its efforts to give back to the community and serve its people. The townspeople who had sworn at the company for Abul’s death immediately turned around and said that it was wrong of the workers to break the factory gates, that the town would be ruined if the factory shut down. The workers who had filled out the documents to form the labor union sided with the company. Those who joined the union didn’t last long against the company’s threats and coaxing. They feared that they would receive some threatening claims, blamed Abul for what happened to him, and said that the labor union they wanted wasn’t this aggressive. Soon the only members of the labor union were my husband and five other workers. Together they filed a lawsuit to nullify the termination of their employment contracts and set up tents in front of the broken factory gates. No one supported them, just like no one had supported Abul. Before the end of the autumn, the court ruled in favor of the factory. Jaeyi’s dad and the other laid-off workers appealed the court’s decision and spent the winter in tents. If they didn’t win the suit or folded up their tents and stopped protesting, they would be too ashamed to shed even a tear for future Abuls, for losing a hand in the shredder. “If we do that, then it’s like cutting off one of our own hands. We have to see this through to the end.” That was what my husband said on the day they filed the appeal. That happened three months ago, and the winter was coming to an end. Translated by Stella Kim

by Lee Soo Kyung
Then What Shall We Sing?

It was 8 p.m. on a Thursday, at a café with wide tables near UC-Berkley. I remember the night air feeling crisp and dry. The language exchange meeting was going more or less according to schedule. The format was for the day’s speaker to present on her choice of topic and explain Korean terms in English and English terms in Korean. It was Haena’s turn. Haena had a Korean mother and American father. Her mother had died ten years ago, and her father was now married to woman from Seattle. “So, are you living with your parents now?” “No. My dad and his wife are in LA. I’m here in Berkley on my own.” She began telling me this and that even though she hadn’t met me before. “My grandparents came to America, and my mother . . .,” she continued. I didn’t know what to say. I just listened to her talk and nodded and expressed interest. After she was done, she turned to the others smiling, and said last week’s presentation was on such-and-such, and this happened. It was to fill me in. The others agreed. Yes, that’s right. That was funny. Haena had stapled some handouts together which she brought out of her bag and passed around. She said they were about “May 18,” and I was surprised by the obvious. In Korean, we said “5.18.” I said, “Oh? I’m from where that happened.” Haena said, “Really?” and looked at me. I wondered why it was so surprising, why her eyes had grown big in astonishment. “Yes, I was born there,” I added. Come to think of it, it was May when I was vacationing in San Francisco that year. I hadn’t expected the subject to come up in a Berkley area café. For that to be where I’d hear about an event that had happened about thirty years earlier, in the place where I was born. I’d expected other, lighter conversation. Do Koreans really believe in fan death? Like, that you’ll die from a lack of oxygen if you sleep with a fan on? That kind of thing. But here I was, listening to people talking about the events of May 18 as if they were indisputable facts, like the suppression of the people on Bloody Sunday in Ireland, or Pinochet terrorizing Chile. It was as if the English language itself lent objectivity to the incident. Haena’s handout included English information from the May 18 Memorial Foundation and an article printed in the New York Times. ©Yeji Yun After the copies were passed out, we were ready to read. We took turns reading aloud, one paragraph each. We covered three or four large pages of closely spaced print in what seemed like no time. The barista called to say our drinks were ready, and some of us rose to collect them. The long-haired girl sitting across from me had ordered a milkshake, and I a cappuccino. My squat cup stood across from her tall glass. We all took a sip of our drinks and looked at Haena. When everyone was reseated, Haena started her talk by giving some background information about Korea at that time. There was nothing incorrect about what she said, but there were some differences hearing the information in Korean and in English. The differences weren’t there for Haena, just for me. I took a sip of my coffee and glanced at the handout again. The pages dense with print included a few photos—one of a man whose face was mangled, another of young men with bandanas around their foreheads or necks riding on a truck, and another of soldiers looking down at people kneeling. I took another drink. Then someone asked where Gwangju was and so Haena drew a map of Korea. Actually, it was more of an outline. She pointed to Gwangju’s position on it. She knew exactly where it was. “Here, south of Seoul and west of Busan.” Some of the group members nodded, Oh. A Korean exchange student studying in San Francisco asked what “massacre” meant. “What does this mean? It keeps coming up and I don’t know it.” Someone broke it down in simple terms: killing a lot of people by brutal means. “What is it in Korean?” “Haksalhada.” The student underlined the word and wrote the definition below, as if inserting a footnote. Haksalhada. Haena and I exchanged email addresses. And that was the end of the meeting. We must have talked some more, too, but I can’t remember anything from our conversation. Maybe we said: Whose turn is it next? Oh, I’ve something going on that day. Oh, really? I’ll go, then. Where are we meeting? You choose the venue and send me an email to let me know. Okay. Our conversation would have gone something like that. When we left to go home, Haena gave me a few more sheets of paper. “I wanted to share this, but I couldn’t.” I took the papers back to my accommodations. I had to pass through Chinatown to get to my room. The sky was blue that night, and the slender road stretched below it. The traffic signal changed, and as I was slowly crossing the street, I met eyes with a middle-aged white man. He asked if I was Chinese or Taiwanese or Japanese and suggested going for a drink. I was ready to nod, thinking I should acknowledge the right nationality if it came up. An inner voice was urging me to follow this man and drink with him and do as he asked, whatever it was. But even as I waited with this mindset, the chance to nod never came. I missed my moment to respond. Nothing happened, and I crossed without answering. I passed the man, who just stood there on the street, and returned to my room. I lay down on my bed and unfolded the papers. The poem was “Massacre, Part II” by Kim Nam-ju. Typed out in Korean and English, it was like something written by a foreigner. Someone who’d been watching with bated breath as military troops stormed Mexican or Chilean universities in the late 1960s. Someone who’d been there to see people disappearing from the streets. Like a text about Guernica, or Taipei in 1947. A poem in which someone is beaten in an alley at night. A poem in which someone is beating someone. Someone is beating someone and someone is being beaten; someone is killing, and someone is dying. And many people are crying. That kind of a poem. Next there was a copy of something written forcefully by hand which turned out to be a manifesto. I noticed some words: “Guardians of Democracy.” Above it, Haena had written an explanatory note. Year XXXX on the Dangun calendar had been changed to 19XX on the Gregorian calendar. I met Haena three years later, and in that time, I’d been to Kyoto on vacation. I am mentioning this for two reasons. First, because it was the only travelling I did in this time, and second, because someone there brought up the subject of Gwangju as well. I met him at a bar in the Shijo Kawaramachi neighborhood. So, where was it more unexpected to suddenly hear about an incident that took place in the city where I was born—in a café near Berkley or in a bar near Shijo Station? Of course, I don’t remember the name of the man at the bar, but he had a sturdy build and looked to be in his early sixties. He wore glasses and a dark blue shirt. I remember some of his facial expressions, together with the lines around his eyes. Perhaps he didn’t tell me his name, or even if he did, I can’t remember it because I never called him by it. He owned the bar, and I was the only patron, the only patron for some time. I had draft beer and he drank sake warmed in a large pot. I kept looking back and forth from the simmering pot to the man’s reddening face. After a while, I felt as if the alcohol was boiling down to its essence. My beer was cold, but the warmed sake was blazing hot, and the face of the person drinking it looked hot somehow as well. “Where are you from?” “Korea.” “Where in Korea?” “You won’t know it even if I tell you.” “Where?” “Gwangju. It’s south of Seoul and west of Busan.” “Oh.” He took a sip of water and picked up a piece of radish that was boiling by the sake. It had been boiling in sauce with an egg. It was dark brown because it had been boiled in the sauce with the egg for a long time. In fact, it was so brown that I should have described it another way. “It was left so long to boil in the sauce,” or “it must have been boiled for a long time” or “only by being boiled so long could it be so brown.” This would better convey the dark color. The man put the radish on a saucer and gave it to me and placed one before himself as well. “I know that place.” “Really?” “My friend wrote the song ‘Koshu City.’ Isn’t this it?” He took a pen and wrote “光州 City” on a thin napkin sitting on the table. I nodded. I asked about the song, and he said it was about soldiers entering the city and killing many people at the time. Oh. I acknowledged what he said and went back to drinking my beer. “Didn’t many people die in Koshu City? And on Jeju Island as well?” He said it like you would say something in passing. While drinking his beverage. He swallowed a sip of beer and talked about many people dying. He came from behind the counter and rummaged through some books that were stacked under a back table. He brought out a photo book that had been stuck in a corner. There was a street café in Kyoto. A young man wearing sunglasses was sitting in a chair reading a newspaper. On the page he was reading, there was a large photo of a man bleeding, being dragged away by a soldier. The man being dragged away was wearing a suit; he looked like an office worker. I stared at the page for a long time and then someone opened the door to the bar and came in. I met Haena again the following spring. After our first meeting in San Francisco, I sometimes exchanged emails with her. We wrote occasionally in English, but mostly in Korean. 안녕, 잘 지내니? [Hi. How are you doing?] Even these words sometimes felt awkward. It wasn’t that Haena’s Korean was that unnatural, but as I was reading along, chunks of Korean got clumped together, and the screen came to look as if it were covered in splotches. This was quite the effect, and it made me think of the email sender as an unusual child. Of course, it was a little petty of me. Haena said she was taking Korean at a university language institute in Seoul. I’m going to Gwangju next week. If you’re there, let’s get together. I wrote back to tell her I was in Seoul, but that I had a reason to go down the following week. Then shall we meet? Call me. 안녕. [Bye.] My reply also looked like trembling clumps of Korean characters somehow. Like compounds made by tearing letters from somewhere and pasting them on the computer screen. It had little clumps in it that didn’t come together. Haena and I were going to hear the Gwangju Orchestra perform Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony, Symphony no. 2, Fifth Movement in front of the South Jeolla Province government building. That year marked thirty years since May 1980. The outdoor concert would commemorate this important anniversary. Haena said she’d come to Gwangju a day early to visit the May 18 National Cemetery. We arranged to meet at the Post Office in Chungjang-ro. People all met there before going to other places. I hadn’t seen her in some time. Her hair was shorter, and she looked calm, maybe because she was dressed in black. We greeted each other and hugged briefly. Haena said the concert we were going to see was cancelled on account of rain. I was disappointed. Now I had the question of what I’d do with Haena, whom I’d only met once some years before. What should we do? When I asked, the answer came back, “Well, how about let’s eat?” Although it was threatening to rain, the night air was fresh and not too humid. We went to a local Chinese restaurant, had japchaebap and came out and walked for a while. It was quiet in Gwangju, and not notably different from other days. In particular, no one was saying anything out loud. It was unusual, but no one around there spoke much. Some days, they talked loudly about things, and other days, they kept their mouths shut and said nothing. Usually they said nothing. We walked towards the provincial building and little by little we started to feel the raindrops falling. “Oh, rain. It’s raining,” we said softly, and stretched our hands up into the empty air. The rain landed on our palms. I shook mine dry as I walked along. The rain soon quit. We walked around the old provincial building that was specially opened to the public only for this period. On the first floor there was a showing of video footage taken that May. Two men in their twenties were standing side by side watching the video. Two men watching it calmly, their hands at their sides. Two men in two white shirts standing side by side. Behind them was a Japanese man who looked to be in his fifties speaking in Japanese with a twenty-something man. The younger one seemed to be a Korean who was interpreting. We left them behind and walked up to the second floor. Nobody was there except Haena and me. We were in an empty hallway. A dark hallway. A gray, heavy gray hallway, and around us were only the smells of the cement building and the peeling paint. Few people can talk about what really happened in that gray hallway. And those who really know what happened there might tell you a different story. I mean, a different story than what you’ve heard so far. Then that will become yet another story. We looked outside. It might rain again. With that thought, we left the building. Translated by Kari Schenk

by Bak Solmay
The Extremely High-Spec Machine That Only Works in This Room

Tae-sik first met Si-on in winter three years ago, when he had just finished university and moved in temporarily with his older brother, Tae-in, in Seoul. Eight years Tae-sik’s senior, Tae-in had steadily saved up his earnings and bought the old condo unit at a relatively young age and lived there alone for several years. Or maybe not always alone. The possibility never occurred to Tae-sik (not because he assumed it never happened, but because he had little interest in his brother) until Si-on entered the passcode to the door and walked in like it was the most normal thing in the world. He was shocked that a stranger knew the code and had let herself in but when he saw her face and the way she carried herself, part of him understood. She didn’t seem the type to hang out with him so much as the type Tae-in probably had a weakness for. Before moving in, Tae-sik had lived apart from Tae-in for a long time and their age difference also meant that when he was in elementary school, Tae-in was in high school, so it wasn’t mutual dislike so much as disinterest. But one look at Si-on told Tae-sik that she was someone his brother loved and also someone he was weak against. In any event, Tae-sik was not alone in facing an unexpected situation but whereas his shock was mild, the nature of Si-on’s response was and still is hard to discern. Was she also mildly surprised or scared or nervous that she might be seen as a creep? He didn’t know, but Tae-sik’s memory told him it was probably the latter. She looked around anxiously and once she was convinced that she had not walked into the wrong unit she took a deep breath and explained herself. There was little in the way of resemblance between they ways Tae-sik and Tae-in carried themselves so most people never recognized that they were brothers but Tae-in must have told Si-on at some point that he had a brother nearly a decade his junior. Then she asked: – By any chance, are you . . . his brother? – That’s right. But who are you? – My name is Kim Si-on. – So you’re . . . Silently imploring for Tae-sik to understand, she added that she was Tae-in’s friend. She brought her clasped hands up to her chest and then released her fingers as though saying friend didn’t really mean friend. She claimed that in any case she was a friend of Tae-sik’s brother, that they were close, and that she had to see him again. The oatmeal-colored curtain behind Si-on who stood by the table caught Tae-sik’s eye like a backdrop that reminded him of his first impression of this unit and how everything was so appropriate and un-excessive as though selected with care and thought. – Actually, he’s off traveling right now. – When did he leave? – Monday. – When will he be back? – Soon. Uh . . . next week. Si-on gave an understanding nod and pointed at Tae-in’s room with a look saying she needed to pick up something and wanted permission and then allowed herself in. Tae-sik seated himself at the table and focused on the sounds from Tae-in’s room. Si-on must be lying on the bed. He heard the frumpling of blankets and something weighty shifting on the mattress. She did not come outside, so Tae-sik began to count the minutes. Twenty minutes later, she was still inside. Lying in a familiar bed with nothing but one door between herself and a stranger, were her eyes open or closed? She couldn’t have fallen asleep. Not actually looking for anything, just lying in another person’s bed with a stranger outside the door. Tae-sik didn’t even feel like drinking tea but he found himself putting the kettle on and placing bags of black tea in a pair of mugs and pouring the hot water into the mugs. The shuffling must have roused Si-on who finally left the room and took the mug Tae-sik held out for her. – Anyway, I know this sounds crazy. Tae-sik didn’t know what she was trying to say but when he gazed into her face, he somehow understood at that moment. That, just like his brother, he would have a weakness for her too. Si-on explained that she would leave for Canada at the end of winter. That she had to see Tae-in because she would live there for some time. She said she would come visit again next week but when she stood, she froze briefly in thought and sat right back down. – It’s not that I have to see him. But I want to. – Sure. That’s fine. At the time Tae-sik should have told her that Tae-in was going to go into cold sleep straight after the trip, and even when he caught Si-on’s pleading gaze asking when exactly he was coming back next week, he did not give her a specific date and looked away. Probably at his phone or the tabletop as he gave vague responses, until he picked up their mugs and put them in the sink. Si-on said little but her thoughts were written in her eyes and on her face so even when she was silent it was like she wasn’t silent but very clear about the things she wanted. He would remember this for a long time, Tae-sik knew: her pensive face as she sat at the table, her head almost imperceptibly bowed and lips pursed in defiance, her face as she suddenly looked up, exhaled, and gave him a clear, demanding look that said she could not accept this situation. He saw her back and shoulders as she left the door. They were wide and erect, with no hint of a slouch. Tae-sik went back to the kitchen and looked cautiously at the seat she left vacant as though she were still sitting there—sitting there and watching him. He would look back into her face. Refusing to turn away from the steepled hands and unflinching gaze, he met her eyes. The day Tae-sik met Kim Si-on was not the first time it occurred to him that he had no idea what kind of life his brother led or what he thought about. In late summer of the same year Tae-in had asked him to be his cold sleep guide. When Tae-sik asked why, Tae-in had replied that it was because he wanted to stay asleep for a long time. He said no more. It had been about two months since Tae-sik had gotten his license. Tae-sik had never been serious about the job and the license was just a fallback for a part-time job he might have to do at some point so the proposal surprised him but at the same time he noticed the exhaustion on his brother’s profiled face. Everything he knew about cold sleep came rushing back and automatically applied themselves to the circumstances of his own brother. But Tae-sik didn’t know how similar or different—or both—his brother was to other people who chose cold sleep. A significant number of people had cold sleep experience by now, with last year’s statistics showing that the number of participants who treated it like a sort of Christmas vacation had increased significantly, now accounting for 5 percent of all participants. Researchers claimed that the majority of this group was composed of people subject to extreme stress at work, such as corporate executives or lawyers, and that regular cold sleep was a way for them to take a brief but restful break. Cold sleep was not a mechanism for escape or an antisocial phenomenon. But admittedly it was not easy to think of an action or choice that was entirely without the purpose of escape or antisocial intent, perhaps with the exception of greeting the server at a restaurant before being greeted, but in any case, Tae-sik was taught that cold sleep was an acceptable way for people to spend their spare time, like travel and exercise, and the steadily-increasing amount of data concerning the procedure supported this perspective, betraying the pessimistic predictions from the past. In spite of this, Tae-sik still thought of it more as a treatment for people who had experienced trauma or suffered from severe fatigue. The 5 percent, he thought, were people who experienced trauma or were fatigued because their work was considered socially important and especially burdensome. It wasn’t possible for heavy workloads to not exhaust someone. In fact, they were precisely the cause of exhaustion. What then did Tae-sik think of the 95 percent? The people who enjoyed novelty, the people who took their friends’ suggestions, and the people who, like the 5 percent, were just as tired and weary? – I have a license, sure, but I’ve never actually done it before. – I have. – What? When? Tae-in didn’t go into the details and instead explained that he had an especially long vacation coming up to celebrate ten years of working at his company and that he would go on a trip and then go into cold sleep afterwards. – So you’ve done it before, but how does that help me? You’re going to be asleep the whole time. – What I mean is that I know I won’t have any side effects, so you don’t have to worry too much. I’m a veteran, and all you have to do is follow the procedures. I’m helping by eliminating variables. Glancing sidelong at Tae-in’s face, Tae-sik decided he did not want to look at his brother’s sleeping face every day. It was an act of such intense closeness that just thinking about it made him want to run. The fact that they were family, the fact that each was someone’s child and sibling and some were even parents on top of that was like a metal spoon with a hefty chunk of overpowering food being shoved between his lips. But in the end he chose to accept Tae-in’s request. Tae-sik didn’t remember clearly how he felt when he agreed, but it might have been because, since his teens, they had been so disinterested in each other and he had known so little about him so he thought he might be up for the task after all. But he knew he should not consider this further because the more he considered it he would find himself thinking it didn’t have to be that way, and that it didn’t not have to be that way, either. That he’d convince himself his first instinct that he’d never want to be a cold sleep guide for family wasn’t so strong an opinion as he’d thought and he would end up taking what seemed like the path of least resistance at the time. And the fact was, Tae-in was right when he said Tae-sik needed the money. Tae-sik had thought in response that he wanted to make money. And in that moment, he ended up considering again. Tae-in went into cold sleep three days after returning from his trip. He said he’d come back from Hawaii but the souvenir he brought could have been from any old airport or even a local department store because it was a box of macadamia chocolates that you didn’t have to have gone to Hawaii for, but Tae-sik quickly told himself he didn’t need to think about that. He told himself to not think. He tidied up Tae-in’s room to dedicate it fully to the cold sleep and moved his own things which he’d left there temporarily into the smaller room. Tae-sik had always slept in the small room but decided to sleep in the living room during the cold sleep so he would hear immediately if something went wrong. At night he laid out a mat and a futon by the table. The day before the procedure Tae-in went to a local cold sleep clinic to register his plans and got another health exam. His company health exam had only been two months ago and it had detected no serious issues but Tae-in chose to get the unnecessary examination anyway since he was there. The thorough exam revealed that he still had no serious health issues or problems that might prevent him from going safely into cold sleep. Tae-sik looked at the chair across the table where Si-on had sat. In the next seat over sat Tae-in. For some reason he hadn’t wanted to say that Si-on had come to visit but he didn’t even want to consider the fact that he didn’t want to say so. Tae-sik wanted to think of her in a different way. – Friend of yours dropped by the other day. She knew the passcode and let herself in. – Yeah? Guess it’s time to change it. As Tae-in got up to change the passcode, Tae-sik stared at his back. Tae-sik was the one who worked out regularly but Tae-in was taller and although he did work out in his own way Tae-in’s work had nothing to do with exercise and he didn’t do it regularly. They were similar in that neither were talkative and if they happened to sit down together, they would either watch TV in silence or do their own things. Tae-in disappeared into his room. It was almost the end of the week Tae-sik had told Si-on about. Tae-sik explained the cold sleep procedure to Tae-in yet again and Tae-in listened with the indifferent nods of a veteran. Tae-sik thought Tae-in might complain that he knew all this but Tae-in listened to the end and took the medication as Tae-sik directed and performed a few final diagnosis tests before he went to sleep exactly on schedule. Tae-sik went over the procedure once more in his head and made a list of things to confirm at the next scheduled check. This was the first time he was putting his license to use. He looked down at his brother’s sleeping face and thought that the face was all too familiar but not from the front, even though they lived in the same house. But the more he stared, the more it seemed like the face of a stranger, the face of some man in his mid- to late-thirties with wrinkles growing on his face, and by the time he found himself saying, But this guy is actually . . . he’s actually . . ., Tae-sik recognized him again as someone he knew intimately. He stood with gaze locked there for a long time before he went back to the living room to set his alarm to go off every hour. It was the first day and that came with risks so he wanted to check in often. Although Tae-sik was worried he might sleep through the alarm, he found himself falling asleep and waking up on time with mechanical ease. It wasn’t until nine in the morning that he finished his checks and let himself have a normal schedule. No more alarms to turn off. Just waking up and living life. He changed and ran for half an hour and went to a nearby hilltop. He warmed up again and ran to the top. Maybe because it was around lunchtime, it was surprisingly deserted. He would keep doing this. Make this climb at the same time each day, then come home for lunch and do work and watch TV in the afternoon and then check in on Tae-in occasionally and have dinner and do another lap around the neighborhood, then wash up and go to bed. For the first little while, he would get up once an hour to check on Tae-in, and in the following week he would check once every two hours. He remembered Tae-in calling himself a cold sleep veteran and considered the word. Veteran. On the way home, Tae-sik picked up eggs, cereal, milk, and meat. Each time he remembered that he was a cold sleep guide, a wave of anxiety crashed over his back. He picked up his groceries a little faster than usual and rushed home and showered and checked on his brother. When he sat down for lunch, he thought of Si-on again, but found that her face was now a blur. But the look of demanding something and her short stature against her unusually wide and angular shoulders seemed to flash with terrifying clarity before his eyes. The second time he met Si-on was a week into Tae-in’s cold sleep. He was on his way back from working out and she stood at the bus stop by the condo, facing his direction. In that moment, Tae-sik felt like something he’d expected and waited for was really happening. With looks of recognition that didn’t need spoken greetings, they walked together to the condo. Tae-sik stopped partway through asking her to wait because he realized it would take him half an hour to wash and change and check on Tae-sik. He almost asked her to come into the unit until he remembered Tae-in changing the passcode as soon as he told him about her. Si-on turned and pointed towards the bus stop and told him she would be at the café across the alley. – It might take a while. I’d like some coffee. – Right. Sure thing. Si-on seemed like a different person outside than when she was inside. In the shower, Tae-sik thought about the strange sense of relief and uncanny tension he felt when he saw her. He hadn’t consciously waited for that meeting, but he did have the thought that what he’d expected had really come true. He went to check on Tae-in before heading to the café. Tae-sik ordered coffee and took a seat across from Si-on and wondered if the things they would talk about could really ever be properly explained, but quickly stopped that line of thought. – I don’t think you’ll be able to see him right now. – He did come back from his trip, right? – Yes. – Is he home? – No. No, he isn’t. Technically, he wasn’t not home, but he also was and Tae-sik wondered who his brother would be all right knowing about his cold sleep. In principle, going into cold sleep was a private matter unless there was an emergency, but Tae-sik just didn’t know enough about Tae-in. Tae-in had claimed he’d told everyone who was supposed to know, but Tae-sik couldn’t even begin to be sure that Tae-in ever talked to anybody and didn’t know if he would ever be able to bring himself to ask. The demanding look from before was gone from Si-on’s face and she looked a little sad but also resigned. Or maybe that was what Tae-sik needed in order to feel better. At the same time, he didn’t want to feel better. He wanted to be uncomfortable and ill at ease. Maybe he even wanted Si-on to interrogate him and berate him. So Tae-sik kept finding himself coming up with reasons for Si-on to enter and scenarios where they went into the room together. Si-on rose, saying she wanted to get some air and Tae-sik finished his coffee and followed her out. They walked down the alley and found a bench at the entrance to the trail up the hill. Sitting there, Si-on silently focused on the condo buildings beyond the trees ahead. – Sometimes I feel so sleepy or exhausted. It’s just like that. – Oh. Even now? – It’s a lot better than before, now. It wasn’t cold yet but the walk up the steep path must have left Si-on breathless because each time she spoke, her breath rose into the air like midwinter. – Do you sleep all right? – Yes, on the whole. On the whole I sleep well. – Me too, but I don’t think Tae-in did. – He did say you were really different, come to think of it. Have you ever gone into cold sleep? Si-on explained that she’d been Tae-in’s cold sleep guide this time last year, and the year before that. Their workplaces were near and someone had introduced them when Tae-in had to go into cold sleep and then they had gotten close and met on occasion even afterwards, she explained. Si-on explained that she had been his guide at the condo where Tae-sik lived now. As though explaining how she allowed herself in without hesitation the other day. That was not good enough of a reason to bring her back to the unit and Tae-sik knew that as well. He knew other things well, too. Strange things and strange feelings. The desire to be interrogated by Si-on and the desire to exchange uncomfortable questions. He was certain he felt the desire for Si-on to make him uncomfortable and outright anxious, and it was like walking a narrow line suspended high up in the air. With the hill and the trees behind them, Si-on and Tae-sik slowly made their way down the slope. He’d already told her he was Tae-in’s guide so Tae-sik said that she couldn’t see Tae-in. The autumn leaves clutching desperately to the trees were beautiful and their feet crunched over the newly-fallen leaves as they reached the condo. At the door Tae-sik said once more that he couldn’t let her into Tae-in’s room. – Can’t I at least see his face? – No, I’m sorry. – Please tell me why. Or just tell me about the past. If you really don’t have a choice. Si-on took a seat in the same chair that Tae-sik saw her in on the day they first met, and for some reason it was only in this house that she wore the face of demanding something from him, her face changing into that look. Tae-sik boiled water and poured it into the mugs with the bags of black tea already inside. Their bare hands were red with cold so they wrapped them around their mugs for warmth. Tae-sik got up to check on Tae-in again and Tae-in was all right so he walked out and shut the door behind him and told Si-on that he was doing fine the night before and the night before that as well. – He’ll probably always be all right. And later—even later—please tell me more. Tell me anything. About what he saw, or if he says he saw anything. – What would he see? You mean, when he’s in cold sleep? – He just might. Tae-sik had heard about it. Past cases came up in the materials he read while studying for his license. People believing they experienced something they didn’t or gaining new memories of places they hadn’t been to. Tae-in hadn’t shown any unusual symptoms or side effects according to Si-on. But it’s common. A lot of people have mixed-up dreams or see things. Tae-in said he saw me living my life. Si-on said that these things weren’t premonitions. They’re just daily life, the way I stand and sit and want things and think, that kind of thing. She said she wanted to think and hear about these things. She wanted to hear from someone who saw her, the story of someone who saw her when she was out of sight. A look of calm serenity came over her face when she talked about this and Tae-sik thought that if his brother could see anything in his sleep, this would be the moment. Tae-sik washed his hands and changed into home wear and went to his brother’s room. If he saw something in the past, there was no reason he wouldn’t see something now, he thought, and laid himself down on the floor parallel to Tae-in. If I look at his face, he looks back at mine. He lay in the room whose only purpose was sleep and maybe it was for that reason he briefly felt as though he would fall asleep so he forced himself back up. He looked down at his brother’s face again and the fact that they had no choice but to look each other in the eye and the anxiety and the pressure of now being unable to look away wasn’t so bad. Responsibly shouldering the burdens they had to bear and not looking away. Tae-sik had no idea what his brother actually saw in cold sleep and he had no way of knowing if Tae-in even saw anything at all but when he looked at him, Tae-sik thought, Maybe he could see something. He leaned in close, scrutinizing his brother’s slow breathing. Finally, he broke off the stare and left the room. Si-on was no longer at the table but leaning back on the sofa. She explained that she’d usually slept there when she was a guide. Tae-sik joined her and pointed at the mat on the floor. A few days ago he’d learned that sleeping on the floor made the fridge sound louder than sleeping in bed. All the low sounds of the room seemed to sink with weight slowly sliding down towards the floor. When he lay on the floor in the dark of night he heard the sounds humble themselves towards the ground. – So what are you going to do in Canada? – My older sister lives there. I’m going to stay with her, get used to living there, learn some English, and then go to school. As though talking about a local neighborhood, she talked about one area in Vancouver and the places she’d gone to with her sister and niece. How her sister attended a Canadian church and not a Korean one and how she had gone along for service one time and on the way back they had scones and coffee and then, as though this place in Korea was connected to the Vancouver neighborhood, she saw the little church plants and theology study group signs behind the condo and wondered out loud why there were so many of these groups in this area. Tae-sik thought of the places he’d never been to but could always visit in the future as a little map in his head, as though drawing a map of some place in Canada. The many alleyways and stores and the roads where he ran and the countless paths that led towards the hill. The alley and the bench from earlier with Si-on too he slowly added to the picture. He turned and as though tracing a path on a map he drew his finger along the contour of Si-on’s face. He followed her hairline with his finger, slowly. Her brows and cheekbones were neither too sharp nor round. Hand trembling almost imperceptibly with his big and slightly rough finger, he slowly traced her face. Then he rose like he’d remembered something and went past the table and to the sink. He turned on the tap and left it running before filling the kettle again and bringing it to a boil. A moment later, he refilled the emptied mugs with the tea bags still inside and put it on the floor by the sofa. Steam rose from the mugs and Si-on with her eyes still closed brought her hands to her face and traced the lines as though following the lines Tae-sik had drawn. Near her cheekbone she sensed the warmth from the mug and she felt as though she could see the mug spill as though it were already set in stone. When I reached out and touched Tae-sik’s face, but not in the way he followed the contours as though sketching them, but my putting my thumb on his cheek then bringing it to his brow and tracing his jaw with my index finger, Tae-sik did not meet my eyes and could not meet my eyes and looked at the corner by the sofa then closed his eyes so we did not look at each other’s faces but I lifted his face with my hand again and slowly stared into his face. – The way you look at my face reminds me of a dentist. For the first time Tae-sik laughed. That day was the second time I ever saw him. That day we slowly talked about the things we each saw and spent the whole time together. Before I left for Canada I visited the house where Tae-in slept many times, but Tae-sik never allowed me in and I was not allowed to meet him. But I know that Tae-in knows my face. What I knew was Tae-sik’s face and although it has been several years since, I sometimes vividly remember in my fingertips the way the lines of his brows and nose came together and for some reason when my fingers remember, his face comes clearly back into my mind. The way you look at my face reminds me of a dentist. I made Tae-sik sit back against the sofa like it really was the dentist’s chair and with his eyes still shut Tae-sik laughed. Feels like my teeth are all better and the mug of hot tea fell over. I took his hand but our feet were already drenched. Translated by Slin Jung

by Bak Solmay
Yuwon

The man seemed determined to feed me something. I tried telling him that I was full, but he ignored me; he pointed to a franchise bunsik restaurant nearby and grabbed me by the wrist as he said, “Let’s eat tteokbokki and sundae.” I usually allowed him to lead me places, but the last thing I wanted today was to sit across from this man while smelling food. The thought also crossed my mind that sundae might weaken my resolve. I pointed to a nearby café. The bright, clean, neat café that smelled of fragrant coffee, as well as the café’s plush couch, seemed foreign to this man. I didn’t have anything urgent to do today, so why, I wondered, had I left school in such an anxious hurry, as though I were being chased? Why did I come out into the hallway and stare at Class 5, which hadn’t yet been dismissed, and at Soohyun, who was from Class 5 and sitting near the window of the classroom? How was it that I had bumped into this man who was loitering in front of the school’s front gate? The only way I could explain these impossible coincidences was to attribute it to a superpower I had gained from many years of being tormented by this man. Regardless of how or why, what was important was that I had found the man before Soohyun had. It was unbearably awkward sitting by myself, face to face with this man. I sat close to the entrance, where I was able to divert my eyes to the ankles of the people entering and exiting the café. The man asked a café worker if they had jujube tea. But the café sold neither that nor black herbal tea. I ordered hot chocolate and placed the man’s jasmine tea in front of him. The man drank hot tea in both the summer and the winter. He said that he didn’t touch coffee for his health, but if that was the case, how, I wondered, would he explain his smoking? After all, he was a nicotine junkie who smoked at least two packs a day. The angriest I had ever been at him was the time I caught him secretly smoking a cigarette on our balcony. As he smoked, he would unconsciously fiddle with the plants, bending their stems. Father watered those flower pots in the morning and at night. How could this man dare to smoke at our house? ©Park Sanghyuk I was self-conscious about how this man and I would appear to others: me in my school uniform, and him in a worn-out windbreaker that was way out of season. A couple sitting across from each other and talking, their fingers interlocked; a middle-aged woman reading a thick book; friends sitting side by side watching movies on their computers. Everyone seemed like they were immersed in their own world, but it was clear that they were glancing over at the man and me with suspicion. I wanted to finish our conversation and leave as soon as possible. In some respects, I probably knew more about this man than Soohyun did: that he had no wallet; that he always kept a wad of fresh bills folded in half and stashed in the inner pocket of his parka, which he wore year-round; that he liked raw oysters and raw beef; that he never allowed his hair to grow longer than a buzz cut; that he never talked about his family. The man kept talking without taking a break—but it was impossible to tell if he was doing this because lulls in a conversation made him feel awkward, or because he actually had a lot to say. What he was talking about was something he had never mentioned until now. “My old boss once introduced me to an unmarried woman because of my status as an old bachelor. That woman was Soohyun’s mother. Soohyun was a sickly child when she was younger. And she has no manners now because she was spoiled.” What did you come here to tell Soohyun? Have you already forgotten that she told you to stay out of it? I scratched at my palm with my keys as I painfully swallowed these words. How could I be sitting across from a person with the same body temperature as me, yet feel such cold emotions toward him? How could my mood be so dreary? “Yuwon, your mom told you, didn’t she? About the shoot?” “Yes.” “I thought about it, and while creating a natural image would be good, I think it would be better to insert at least one scene that delivers a strong message, since it’s a TV program. An emotional scene that really resonates with people. How about we go on a hike up a mountain together? You can help me up the steep slopes, and I’ll show you a deep trail that leads up to a tall mountain. You know, people who overcome hardship and continue to courageously live their lives. Something hopeful like that.” I avoided the man’s gaze and turned my head to look out the window. I met the eyes of a girl who was sitting diagonally to me. Perhaps it was just a coincidence, but I could feel that her gaze had been pointed in my direction for quite some time now. The girl, who looked like a college student, was trying to ask me something with her eyes. Something like Do you need help? She pointed to the man, whose back was the only thing she could see, and kept sending me signs. Are you sure you’re okay? Are you sure you don’t need help? In my mind, she was already my friend. I was thankful that this stranger cared. I blinked twice to tell her I was okay. The girl then nodded her head with a look of relief and went back to her laptop. As I continued to scratch at my palm with my keys, I unlocked a memory that had been locked away deep inside my palm. The view of the sky from the school rooftop, which Soohyun had unlocked for me. The wind I would never have known were it not for Soohyun. A shed filled with dust. A sunset, an advertising balloon, and a long wait. And voices which gave me the courage to hate him as much as I wanted. “We’ll work our way to a high summit and yell out ‘Hurray!’ At the top, we’ll say what we want to say to each other. We’ll make plans for the new year. Isn’t that a beautiful image?” But what would I need to do, I wondered, to not hate this man? Whenever I met him, something inside my heart smoldered, the way skin burns when it meets the sun. I needed to escape. “Mister.” “Hm?” “I don’t think I can do your TV shoot.” “Why? Because of school?” The man said this with an obvious look of disappointment on his face. “No, it’s not because of school. Mister, I want to become confident, too. I want this weight off my shoulders.” I continued talking, not caring about what face the man made. He wasn’t cutting me off, but he was making a look of dismay. He looked like he couldn’t understand what was happening. “Soohyun taught me this way of living.” The man furrowed his brow at my mention of Soohyun’s name. “I was so heavy that day,” I said. “Your legs broke because you couldn’t support my weight. I’m sorry. Sorry for being so heavy, for injuring you, for making you unhappy.” “You . . .” “But right now, that’s how you feel to me. You’re too heavy for me to handle.” I didn’t avoid his eyes. I didn’t know this was how his eyes looked. They weren’t as wide and threatening as his voice. They looked yellow and glazed over. Like someone who hadn’t slept in a long time. “. . . I see.” Only after several moments did the man say this, and with great pain, as though he were trying to collect himself. But his voice was so quiet that I wondered if I had heard only what I wanted to hear. Rain started to fall outside the window. Autumn rains had come and gone for the past few days. My mother had told me to take an umbrella. But because there hadn’t been a cloud in the sky when I left the house for school this morning, I didn’t take one. I should have listened to my mother. The problem of guilt was that it never ended with just feeling sorry; it always led to further complications. Shame, self-blame, depression. In order to protect me, my subconscious diverted the anger directed at myself to others. And every time I faltered from this heavy weight, Soohyun would appear to support me. The man and I just sat there drowning in the café’s jazz music as the seconds passed by slowly. “It’s really started to pour,” the man said. “Did you bring an umbrella?” The man’s tone sounded as though he was pretending he hadn’t heard a word I had just said. As though he had completely forgotten the conversation we had only five minutes ago. “No. I can buy one at the convenience store.” “Wait until the rain lets up a bit.” I knew that the rain was going to continue through the night. But I wouldn’t dare tell him that. I got a message from Junghyun. —Hey, where are you? The man said he was going for a smoke and headed to the smoking room. —Yuwon, you don’t have an umbrella, do you? Are you at school? Should I come get you soon? —I’m not at school. —Then where? —At Sleep. The café at the four-way intersection. —With whom? —Just myself. Can you come get me in thirty minutes? —Ok. When the man returned from the smoking room, he finally realized, it seemed, that this rain wasn’t going to stop any time soon. Once outside, the man unfurled the folding umbrella that was in his paper bag and offered it to me. One of the ribs was broken, causing one side of the umbrella to droop. And the handle was rusty. “Take this.” “No, it’s fine.” The man took a step closer and tried to put his umbrella over me. “It’s acid rain.” “It’s fine. My friend said he’ll come get me.” I ducked out from under the umbrella, afraid that the rusty water dripping from the ribs would get on my clothes. The man stared at me for a second before finally saying, “All right, I understand.” Today, he seemed more willing to accept what I was saying than usual. “Where are you going?” he asked. “The subway station.” “A bus that goes all the way to my home stops just in front of here. So, I’ll take that.” “Okay.” “It’s dark out. Be careful.” “Okay. Goodbye.” The man started walking away then stopped suddenly and turned back to face me. “Yuwon.” “Yes?” The man seemed to be thinking about what to say next. I waited for him as I listened to the rain. “You . . . weren’t that heavy. It’s just that . . . people’s bodies are weak. Forget everything.” After saying this, the man continued walking away, as though nothing had happened. What does he mean “forget everything”? Forget about the TV shoot? Or everything he did while hanging around me? Surely, he didn’t mean everything that had happened since that fateful day? I decided to wait for Junghyun under the café awning. I watched as the man limped away. With one hand he held his umbrella, and with the other he held the paper bag. The paper bag was filled with magazines, but why he had these, I didn’t know. I was a little worried it would get wet from the rain and rip. Should I have held his things and walked him to the bus stop? I could still run and catch up to him. But despite thinking these things, all I could do was stare at the man’s back, which was already soaked. The man ran with his lame leg across the crosswalk, which only had five seconds left on its signal. No matter how fast he tried to run, however, he wasn’t going to be able to cross the street in only five seconds with that limp. Although the cars waited for the man for a second after the crosswalk light turned red, they eventually lost their patience and started honking threateningly. For just that one moment, it felt like those drivers hated the man more than I did. He ignored the honking and crossed the street; once he reached the sidewalk, the trucks and buses took off, hiding the man from my view. My heart ached thinking about how the man was probably used to people resenting him. “Yuwon, what are you doing here?” Junghyun appeared out of nowhere and blocked my view. I couldn’t tell him the truth. “Nothing really.” “Why are you crying, Yuwon?” “Don’t ask.” “Alright.” Junghyun was carrying an umbrella large enough to be a beach parasol. The two of us walked home together. But even though we had a parasol-sized umbrella, my sneakers were immediately soaked straight through to my socks. Because the rain was coming down at an oblique angle, we couldn’t avoid it. I was crying, but thankfully, no one could tell the difference now. Translated by Sean Lin Halbert YuwonChangbi, 2020

by Baek Ohn-yu
The Struggles of a Girl Fated to Die Young

Yian was nineteen years old like Soojung. She said she was headed north. “What for?” “To die.” At Yian’s response, Soojung blushed as if she were ashamed for some reason. Thank goodness she had Tomorrow. Soojung buried and reburied her hand in the dog’s bristly coat. Yian pulled back to put as much distance as she could between herself and the dog, as if she were afraid of it. “So what about you?” she asked. “Me? I dunno . . .” “You don’t know?” “Um, do you want some tteok?” Flustered, Soojung opened her bag and pulled out a snow-white rice cake. Tomorrow let out a small whimper. “Oh, it’s baekseolgi.” “Yeah. Let me know if you want more. I have a lot.” As Soojung showed her the inside of the open bag, Yian asked her abruptly, as if throwing the question at her, “Are you headed there to live?” “What?” “I said, are you running away to the south because you want to live?” Soojung carefully chewed over Yian’s question. She bit into it and chewed it thoroughly, like she did the tteok, so as not to get a stomachache. Then, little by little, like the sweetness spreading through her mouth, she felt herself get angry. I’m not the weird one here, she is. Living is better than dying. She’s not the brave one, I am. I’m not the one who should be embarrassed . . . Even as she sorted through those thoughts, her face began to burn. She almost thought dying would be better than nodding meekly in response to that girl asking her if she wanted to live. In any case, it wasn’t even that Soojung wanted to live in particular. “It’s not exactly that I want to live—” “Mm-hmm.” “—I just don’t want to die.” “Mm-hmm.” “I’m not anxious or scared or anything—I guess it just didn’t seem fair. I just didn’t get it.” “You didn’t get it?” “Yeah. I didn’t get why I had to die. You know what I mean? You’re not supposed to die at nineteen. I’m not even old. I’m not sick, either, so why the heck do I have to die . . .?” “Did you ask?” “What?” “About your cause of death. Someone must’ve told you that you were going to die, right? Did you ask the psychic or monk or whoever it was why you’re going to die?” . . . I didn’t ask. Once again, Soojung’s face grew red. It’s not like she could go back and ask anyway. Just as her heart was growing murky and muddled, she felt something gently bump her palm. With the lightness of a magpie swooping down with both its feet tucked close together, Yian took the baekseolgi rice cake in Soojung’s hand. Soon after, behind the long curtain of her hair, Yian’s thin cheeks started to bulge, then pucker, then bulge again on repeat. As she watched this, the heat in Soojung’s face gradually subsided. Yian, after pondering something for a while, shook the crumbs off her hands and spoke. “It’s fate that we met like this, so—” That was as far as she got before she burst out laughing, unable to hold it in. She thought someone was going to yell, Cut! from somewhere. Saying lines like that was far too corny, Yian thought, and, moreover, it sounded like she was imitating an adult. She had a feeling that if she managed to get out the rest of her words, she’d really bust a gut laughing. Suddenly her skin prickled. Like a balloon ready to burst, like her whole body had become ticklish everywhere. “Maybe we should . . . introduce ourselves?” Soojung, who had been waiting, asked carefully. She glanced at Yian’s face as she turned away from Yian. Soon after, she heard a thunk sound from somewhere. Turning around, she found Yian lying on the ground. Soojung jumped in surprise and gathered Yian’s body into her arms. There was a twisted expression on her face, as if she were in pain. Yian was gasping, clutching her stomach as she laughed. Though she tried to hold back her tears, eventually, a single teardrop coursed down the neat outer edge of her eye. ©Park Sanghyuk They needed to find a place to spend the night before the sun went down. Soojung, who didn’t want to die, and Yian who didn’t want to die that day, decided to spend the night together. First things first, they had to find kindling nearby, as well as roots and berries they could eat. It would be a time for camping, for spending their first and last night together after crossing paths, before parting ways, commemorating their fateful meeting and exchange of names. No. In reality, it was just a game. Soojung and Yian were both well aware of that fact. But they kept it a secret from each other. They kept even their joy a secret, as they looked around the ground with serious expressions. Eventually, Soojung uncovered a bush full of wild berries about the size of the nail on her pinky finger and, beside it, Yian discovered a decently nice house. The lights didn’t turn on, but they had enough candles. The house was full of dust, but there were no insects, and while there was no food, there were plenty of cooking utensils. With a thud, Soojung stepped over the threshold of the door; she had been carrying wooden boards to the fireplace and then had dropped all of them at once, injuring her calf. Yian pursed her lips and, pulling out a Zippo lighter from her pocket, lit the fire. “What are we boiling?” “Huh?” “We don’t have rice or anything. So why did you start a fire?” At Soojung’s words, Yian was lost in thought for a moment. Then, as she watched the fire gradually begin to grow as tall as her frame, she said, “It means this house is ours for now.” Then she got up and dusted off her bottom. Luckily, there were a lot of ways to use a fire; especially because there was a stream nearby. The two of them boiled some water to wash off their sweat and rinse their hair, and then, feeling refreshed, decided to make tea out of the berries and leaves Soojung had picked. When Soojung asked if they might be poisonous, Yian stared at her for a moment. Soojung stared right back into those eyes. They were dark eyes, deep like a well. What if she says, Then I guess we’ll just die together? What if she says, Let’s die together, and what if I say yes? Soojung wondered. Finally, Yian spoke. “It’ll be fine if we boil it.” And so, this was a tea made by boiling, not brewing. They tossed in the leaves and the red berries and boiled them in a cast-iron pot until the bubbles were nearly as big as Yian’s fist and an appetizing red glow started to swirl about. Yian gave it a taste. She smacked her lips and tilted her head for a moment, considering it, and then her eyes began to sparkle. They drank the tart, fragrant tea like a soup; then the three of them, including Tomorrow, sat on the porch, eating three pieces of baekseolgi each. I feel like I’m playing house with my little sister, Yian said with a laugh. Little sister? Soojung pretended to scowl at her. Yian burst out laughing again. She looked nothing at all like a person heading north to die. It was right as they were having a heated debate about whether to lie on top of the musty old comforter that had been in the old wardrobe for ages, or to get underneath it. A small child appeared to be poking his head through the open front gate. “Who is it?” As if in answer to Yian’s question, another child popped up from behind the first. Ah! Soojung shrieked and, in a frenzy, like a sandcastle collapsing in on itself, several more children tumbled forward. She counted seven children in total. The seven children, who were all of equal height, looked like they had been standing in a line and peeking into the house. “I’m hungry,” said one of the children. The other six all nodded. Each one was nodding at a different rhythm until, one by one, their movements began to synchronize; a short while after, all of them were nodding in unison. Wondering if Soojung too had noticed, Yian turned in her direction, but Soojung had gone back into the room and was opening her bag. She presented two pieces of tteok to each child. The children quickly devoured the tteok. Though there were some children who ate both in one mouthful, and others who swallowed in two mouthfuls, none of the children needed three mouthfuls. Soojung hesitated, and then went back into the room and brought out a few more pieces of tteok. Ten pieces. Yian sighed. “Soojung-ah, don’t you think that’ll make the kids fight?” The children fought. It wasn’t even the four children who had one piece of tteok versus the three children who had two pieces, either. With their small palms, the children whacked one another’s heads and elbowed one another’s noses and bit one another’s arms and legs. Inside the wailing children’s mouths, half-chewed tteok could be seen crushed between their baby teeth. This time, Soojung brought the whole bag with her. Yian’s eyes grew wide but as she drew in a breath, Soojung whispered, I set aside our portion, and pressed a finger to her lips. Yian looked around and saw four pieces of tteok neatly laid out on top of the wooden mokchim pillow. “I just told you that people start fighting if you don’t get the number right. Did you forget already?” “But you’re leaving tomorrow, aren’t you?” At Soojung’s words, Yian was quiet. The children rushed forward. A hard fingernail scratched the back of Soojung’s hand and she cried out, dropping the bag. The children grabbed the bag and ran out the gate. They decided to go with Yian’s decision and lie on top of the comforter. Lying side by side, their heads on the pillow, an emptiness stretched from Soojung’s chest through her whole body, almost as if she were nervous about sleeping naked. She turned to glance at Yian, but she appeared unperturbed. She looked like she was lost in a deep, singular thought. From her unfocused pupils to her stiffly pursed lips, to the slight furrow in the middle of her forehead, now she really did look like someone who was going to die soon. “Hey.” “Yeah.” “Why do you want to die?” At Soojung’s question, the furrow in Yian’s forehead smoothed. “I didn’t tell you?” she said with a smile and even turned toward Soojung, propping her head up with a hand. Soojung mirrored Yian, turning toward her and propping her head up with a hand. “Someone told me they wished I would die.” Translated by Archana Madhavan The Struggles of a Girl Fated to Die Young Sakyejul Publishing, 2021

by Hyun Hojeong

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