Do you believe in God?
In the past, all humans worshipped one god. It was unheard of for someone within an ancient civilization that completely forgot the meaning of “god.”
It didn’t have to be God himself. It could’ve been Buddha, Vishnu, hah, maybe even, Yeongdeung Halmang…?
But as time went by, the idea of freedom and sensuality became commonplace. The world advanced and we got familiar with developing cities and inventions. Humans grew to believe that the idea of a god or higher being was scientifically impossible. Those beliefs of science and anthropocentrism got us drunk off our asses, cocky, and terrifying.
The Japanese oppressed our brothers and sisters, and we all forgot god. From the moment we saw our kindred raped of their futures and their bodies diced into pieces, we forgot any semblance or meaning of a creator.
And soon after, President Chun Doo-hwan ordered martial law, and chaos broke out in Gwangju. Our own soldiers, the ones that were supposed to protect and sacrifice their lives for us, started shooting at us. They tried to cover up the bloodlust and the acts of our very own kin by covering bodies up with the Taegukgi. And still, those being shot at and tortured sang the national anthem and remained loyal to their own country.
So what is the meaning of a preserver, if they are never with us, if they don’t hear our cries, begging, and sorrows?
Still, most of us in South Korea were Catholics. But I’ve seen the world advance and the idea of autonomy seduced many.
In the end, we all blamed god for our torments, but what if you still believe in one? What if human society really is desperate for a puppeteer to guide our lives? It’s confusing, because how could children and citizens be killed and sacrificed and we believe it was in the accordance of a higher being?
Those are the things I ponder everyday as I walk to school. Every day, after I dropped a letter off at my best friend Ji-yeon’s mailbox and walked along the stream to my school. Every day, when the walk was half an hour long. Since this walk was so boring, my legs moving in front of me in a dull rhythm, I started to think. I thought harder than any teenage girl could imagine thinking. I don’t have parents to take me to school because they’re busy with work. The cost of luxuries and material items always comes with the absence of parental figures, I guess.
There’s a long, winding creek with dirty brown water. You can still somewhat see your expression, and it always baffles me. How could such dirty water harbor a reflection of a unique human face? But there is a Korean saying that metaphorizes the hope that something good and extravagant can come out of the “kaechon,” which is what we call the stream I walk along.
Both sides of the kaechon are boring asphalt roads. I simply follow the creek, and it takes me to my school. There aren’t any shops along the way, no buildings, no cheerful kids playing The Mugunghwa Has Bloomed or Squid, well they’ll all probably be in school. The street food vendors are only on the way home when I walk a different route back with friends. Still, the biting cold is a reminder that good things don’t last.
I always used to look out towards the kaechon while I’m walking to school. The water is somewhat quick, and it looks deep. Where does the water come from? How is it that so coincidentally, it is here, and it leads me right to my school? If I fell into the water, would it whisk me away? Would I die? How long would it take for the police to find my body and tell my parents the sad tale?
I look up at the cloudy sky. The white clouds are so bright that it makes my eyelids throb with a dull pain. The somber skies make the dirty water even more unappealing, and I can only imagine how much better I would feel if it was a sunny day. The sky is so full of opportunity and energy, which is why my parents named me Haneul, but the cloudy sky and the dirty water don’t make me feel energetic at all!
We eat lunch after third or fourth period. I can’t really remember when, but I remember that the girls in my class and I were always so hungry we would try to eat after second period. We would get caught by that nasty math teacher of ours, probably because she’s too fat and our food made her hungry.
Even if I was practically a starving woman, I thought about my unbearable distaste for her beady black eyes and blunt bob, and it seemed like it was lunch time already. The girls with the best grades were seated in the front row, so they were the ones that got to heat up their dosirak-tongs first on the nanlo. I had one of the best grades in my class, so I would dash over to it and place mine next to Ji-yeon’s. The other girls quickly followed suit and the ones that were in the back row had to place their dosirak-tongs on top of all of ours, making it so they won’t have as much heat in their lunches as we do.
Ji-yeon was number one in the class. She was so unbelievably smart, and I never understood how a girl could be so perfect: double eyelids, a tall nose and straight teeth. She had a great smile too, unlike mine. My eyes would disappear, and my rosy cheeks would look swollen when I smiled. I looked much better frowning. The only thing stopping Ji-yeon from being Miss Korea was the horrible chin-length haircut the school forced us to wear and the absolutely horrific lump of a school uniform. The girls who were wealthy or with loving parents often take their school uniform to the tailor, so it fits their body nicely, just like Ji-yeon and I did. But even when we did alter it, it still looked weird.
After heating up our lunches for a few minutes, I retrieve it from the nanlo and connect my desk with Ji-yeon’s. Like most days, I had some banchan, Asian pears, rice and eomuk bokkeum. Other girls would have the same lunch.
“Haneul-a, are you going to the church retreat next week?” Ji-yeon asked me. She stared down at her lunch, picking out the broccoli and transferring it over to my dosirak.
“The retreat…” I repeated blankly, thinking about the girl I’ve been seeing in my bathroom mirror. Does worshipping God and singing songs with no passion forced praise even help my cause?
“I guess not. I’m busy.”
“Busy? Alright, I’ll just hang around Nayeon-ie instead then…”
The rest of lunch went by quickly. I wish that class could always go by as fast as lunch did. Usually, I’m close to passing out during class, but during lunch I feel awake. Every minute I spend with Ji-yeon speeds by, with that charming smile of hers and that soft fluttering voice, like a butterfly landing on a flower.
After school, students rush out of their classrooms with glee, just to most likely end up in cram school. The education system in Korea is stressful. Coming home at 10 PM from cram school, studying several hours a day, just to barely graduate. Even so, you will still be living with your parents until you’re thirty years old or until you get married.
Today is rare because I’m free today with no cram school or piano classes, and Ji-yeon tells me that she is free as well. She’s smiling very brightly like she always does. Her smile seems to light up the whole classroom, even if the sky is still covered in clouds.
“Haneul-a, today is a cold day. And today is when we are both free. Maybe we should go to the hotteok ajussi again. It’s like we haven’t been there in yearrrssss!” Jin-su laughed like a cherub and covered her nose with a pink blush with her hands to warm it up. I just stared at her, not finding it very funny. Cold smoke came from both of our mouths like a yong’s breath. Ji-yeon’s cheeks always flush during the winter, complimenting her pale skin. Mine are too, but I don’t pull it off as well as her.
“We should eat some,” I agree, taking a right turn on the sidewalk across from the tall business building that I really don’t want to end up working at in the future. I pull the scarf over my face to cover my freezing nose.
When we get to the vendor, I smile at the ajussi who made honey hotteok that melted right into your mouth, the steam and sweet smell coming from the hot black plate. I grin at the sight of Ji-yeon accidentally burning her tongue on the hot treat.
But I still remained listless at my high grades that seem to never be high enough. And I slightly frown at the passing of my great grandma.
I winced at my nail getting caught in the crevice of the white key on a piano keyboard. I felt empty and nostalgic at the half set sun with autumn leaves scooping up the dead cicada, making a skidding noise on the sidewalk. I felt simulated. Looking at the same sky that the wealthy, the dead, and the intelligent look at. Can I imagine a world without a sunset? One where the moon overtakes the sun, the same way the sun overtakes the moon to create a perfect element of harmony… like clockwork.
Shortly before my grandma would replace the yeontan coal briquettes, I would wash my face and brush my teeth. I would get ready to go to bed, just to live the same exact day once more in a tiring, endless loop until the day I die.
I stared into the mirror like I do every night. But for some reason, I looked bizarre. My eyes looked a few shades too dull, my skin was more sickly than usual, and the rough skin on my forehead and under eyes was more noticeable. My lips were chapped and pale pink. My nose seemed to be longer than usual. I rubbed my eyes and the reflection changed into a similar looking girl. But it wasn’t me. More like a similar version of me.
Her eyes were a bit smaller than mine, and they were ghastly. They were somber black, and they were full of pain. The edges of her eyes were rubbed red, burned raw from wiping them too much. Her lips were full and a tender red. She lacked a nose bridge.
She had porcelain skin. It was a haunting pallor, and her dark hair was long, but thin. If she moved a single muscle, her hair would flow in the air from lack of weight. She had a healthily built body with supple skin. Her clothes looked like something from a different country. Something out of this time—advanced, futuristic, and comfortable.
When I stared into this reflection, I didn’t feel any fear. It was calming, even if this was very likely to be a ghost. Instead, a feeling of melancholy gripped my heart. It was so painful, this girl’s gaze. It was so full of pain and suffering that it hurt. Tears excreted from my eyes, dribbled past my cheek, and I instinctively went to touch her face in the mirror, wanting to caress it like a mother caring for her daughter who just scraped her knee while playing rough. Like she broke up with a boy she really loved. Like she was too depressed to even move and ended up in a fate much worse than a simple heartbreak.
“Can we go outside?” The reflection blurted in a soft voice.
“Why do you want to go outside? It’s cold and scary,” I said, now feeling a bit anxious. Maybe this was a demon, trying to lure me out, lure me away from my family and friends, trying to tell me that holiness will mislead me.
“I want to experience the stars with you one last time, please? Just one last time. I’m not going to hurt you. I’m not a demon,” she replied. Her voice seemed genuine, and something inside me was screaming at me to hold her, to comfort her and make her feel love like never before. That she needed this love desperately. That I’m the only one who could give her such pure, unconditional love. Something was plucking at my heartstrings and gnawing at my intestines. If I didn’t go with her, right then- something terrible would happen.
“Okay,” I responded.
I thought about the last time I saw the stars. I realized that even if it is winter, and the sun sets much quicker, and the stars show their blinding beauty, I started to ignore them.
I went out of the bathroom and laid on my floor mattress, waiting for my grandma to replace the coal briquettes so I could go out with the girl. I pulled the blanket up to my chin and saw my grandma come in, open the holes in the floor charred black by flames, put the briquettes in and leave. I waited for her footsteps to dissipate before I got out from under the covers and went across the hallway to talk to the girl.
I looked up at the mirror to stare at my reflection, and there she was. Still waiting for me, with that deadpanned expression of hers and those sad eyes.
“Let’s go,” I said to her, unsure of how she would even get out of the mirror. But suddenly, the mirror seemed to liquify, and her hand poked out. I grabbed it and began to pull without thinking.
She put her leg out and rested it in the basin of the sink, leaning forward slightly. She looked like a strange Japanese ghost, but her face made her look kind and human.
Moments passed, as she stood next to me in the bathroom. I realized she was taller than me by around 3 or 4 centimeters. She wore long pants that looked to be for sleeping and the material was soft and fuzzy. Her shirt was a plain gray made of cotton.
“Where do you want to go?” I asked her.
She walked out of the bathroom without a response, holding my hand. Her touch was cold, and it didn’t feel alive. There was no blood or human warmth from it. I examined her more and the veins on her wrist were purple and blue. Every step I took, she seemed less alive than she was in the mirror, like her life was slowly slipping away. Her skin was now ghoulish and rubbery. She led me to the window and opened it. We lived in a one-story house, so stepping out of the window just meant we would land directly in our sesame leaf garden. You have to be careful, or else you’ll ruin the things my mom grew when she was home.
Nimbly, we stepped on the soil. The air was cold like dry bones. I was wearing a simple set of nightclothes: a robe and a pair of slippers. The girl’s hand made the inky night colder. My heart ached and throbbed with an inexplicable melancholy with every minute that passed. Every time I looked at that awful expression and history in her eyes, I wanted to cry as if I was experiencing more pain than her. I wanted to save her before it was too late.
As we raced into the night, the scenery started to shift. Her skin was getting paler, and she had a hard time moving. Her muscles were starting to stiffen, but she kept walking. Just kept walking, as if she was on autopilot… as if her adrenaline, even after she was dead, started to work all of a sudden and commanded her to keep walking. It faintly reminded me of how a person can blink even after they die.
Throughout the night, she did not let go of my hand, not even once. I grasped her hand firmly , and I felt so much love and compassion for her. Like if I never saw her and she never stumbled into my life, then I would be left empty. That I would have no meaning to my life. That I started to live just for her.
That every day I spend with Ji-yeon and the cold classroom, every time I bow down for New Years and get a lot of money—if this girl wasn’t there for me ever—I would have never bowed down that many times. I wouldn’t have lived the same day so many times. I would be dead too. Floating in the kaechon, watching my mother shriek and my father hide the sight of their dead daughter with a newspaper, because if he saw my corpse he would crumple and fall in the kaechon with me.
The scenery kept gradually shifting, like a dream that was going too slow. Something I couldn’t speed up, no matter how hard I tried. Even if the weather outside was far too cold and my legs were starting to ache from walking, I wanted to stay with this girl for as long as I could. If she stayed alive, we could wake up every morning and look at the same sky together. We could go to the town center, buy new clothes, and laugh over a pastry and a cup of coffee while she drank lemonade.
I looked down when I stepped into something wet. The water was chilly, but it was so clear. Clearer than a sky with no clouds, clearer than my daughter’s eyes whenever she won something. The water came up to our knees, and when I looked out, there was, in front of us, a long, never-ending train track. They seemed to head towards the darkness, and everything was pitch black. From afar, I heard a loud blow from the train. We stood there for ten minutes, maybe even ten hours, and it was so incredibly boring… but I would much rather have been here with her than anywhere else.
I kept hearing the train blow, but the train never came. For all those hours, I stared at her back, watching her paper-thin hair flow behind her and her body slowly stiffen. Watching the rigor mortis kicking in.
The wind was crazy, it was insane, but her hair remained flowing majestically. The wind was persistent, like a dog trying to defend itself after getting hit repeatedly. Like how I walked home from school and saw someone carrying a white trash bag where there was a dog barking… and hitting it with a hammer until the barking stopped. Even with the wind so crazy, her hair eventually stopped flowing. My hair probably looked like a wildfire behind me, but it looked like time just simply stopped for her.
I looked up at the stars, and oh my, they were beautiful. They shone brighter than ever before. I saw the winter triangle, the Beta Librae, and everything else. I could see all the planets from here, a reminder that maybe there is a creator that I should keep believing in. They looked like rhinestones glimmering on a black dress. They looked pure and they were smiling down at me. I tapped the girl on the shoulder.
“Hey, look at the stars.”
She did not respond. I turned her around. It was like she couldn’t move on her own. Her eyes were closed, but she opened her mouth.
“I can’t look at the stars. I can’t see them.” “Well, that’s because your eyes are closed, silly.”
“Even if I open them, I won’t be able to see them.” She said the words quietly. She spoke Korean well, but she had a slight hint of an accent.
“Huh?”
“My neck won’t be able to move, my muscles are all stiff. I can only move my mouth right now, maybe it’s because I want to say something to you…”
“Please, just look at the stars. You won’t have a chance like this again. They’re brighter than ever before,” I begged. “The world will advance, the skies will get cloudy, and the stars will never shine again… maybe it always shone like this, hundreds of years ago.”
“I’m sorry, I just can’t.”
An uncomfortable silence fell upon us for a second, but then she spoke again. I could tell that these were her last words, that this was her final message. That she would never open her mouth again and remain a Sleeping Beauty forever, buried peacefully under the ground, where I’ll make sure to put so many of her favorite flowers on her gravestone. She likes tulips, doesn’t she? Every few springs or so, she would always get so excited when she saw a pair of two orange tulips growing in our garden. They only come out every so often.
“Mom, I love you so much.” She said this time in English. I don’t know how to speak English at all, even if I took English classes in school. But this time I understood her, so clearly.
“I love you too, Bada-ya.”
Something attacked me, and I felt sleepy instantly. My legs buckled and I fell to the ground. My eyelids were about to drop, and the vision of her was blurry. She still stood stiffly, and I felt deeply upset at the fact that she would not see the bright stars tonight. But her head slowly tilted up, I swear. She moved her body finally…. And…. I….
Today is the day of the funeral, and I stare down at my daughter’s corpse. The sight is so unbearable, I seem to have been transported to a memory of my own.
My daughter was just like me when I was her age. Sad, lonely, but a bit hopeful. Her experiences resonated so deeply with mine. Every time I stare down at that cold and unmoving body of hers, I can’t help but think of my own teenage years.
Even if I was miserable, the thought of taking my own life has never crossed my mind. Through all of the sermons we went through, the way we laughed together and shared so many memories—this possibility seemed so out of reach. Whenever she would smile or laugh, it would melt my heart, and I will never forget that sweet and soft voice of hers. That is the only thing I want back.
Looking at my daughter, I hope that she is just sleeping and she will come out of this terrible dream. I want to hug her and kiss her and tell her how I would never ignore her cries.
If my daughter was alive right now, I would not ask her to be a better Christian. I would just ask her to be a happier person. I regret everything I’ve done. If I had done something, listened to her more, or spent more time with her, maybe this day would have never come. The tree growing her coffin would have never been used, or maybe it would have been used for another.
All I want right now is to wake up and hear her yell goodbye to me before she leaves for school. That I could walk her down the sidewalk to her bus stop and take a picture of her lugging around that backpack that was too big for her. I wish she would come home from school again and tell me that she got a good grade on her math exam and she performed the best in her class. That we could have one last shopping trip. I would buy her all the clothes she wanted, no matter how expensive it was. Even if we had the means to afford expensive things, she never wanted me to spend much money. She never asked for brand name clothes. She always looked through thrift stores. She had a good eye and found some good clothes to wear for cheap, because that’s how I raised her… but I will never have that again. I will never have any of those experiences again, and even though those seventeen years felt so long in her eyes, they went by in the blink of an eye for me, and I know her father would feel the same way too.
I was supposed to leave the world before her, but I guess the tables were turned on me.
So, do you believe in God?
Even if you do believe in one, whether it would be Brahma, Shangdi, or if you are trying to follow the Eightfold Path and need to obtain transcendentalism yourself, most of today’s society—the young ones, the ones fighting for rights—have all forgotten a god.
The world demolished every sense that there was one being made of pure good, something so divine you can’t even look at. Every day, at every second, people are being tortured. Even when you’re in the safety of your own bed, drifting to sleep as your grandma replaces the coal briquettes. Even when you’re chatting excitedly with your friends, planning to eat tasty street food\. Even when you receive top grades in your class. At least one or maybe hundreds of people are living at rock bottom.
The one thing I lived for, the girl I would die for, slipped through the cracks of my fingers just like that. Is some god trying to test me? Or is religion a means of escape from reality?