by Daju Lee
Cruise of Wonder
- Da Ju
ISBN............ 9791196041007 45810
Copyright ⓒ 2017 Eojin Ai
email........ [email protected]
A missing father
The morning form time was almost over, the girls busy chatting together in a gathering and the boys were messing around. With the slow squeaking sound from the classroom door, the vice-principal came in, with his bulldog-like droopy cheeks. He shouted, in his phlegm-filled voice,
"Be quiet, please! Everyone take a seat."
Sweeping his hair up, straightened from hair gel, and with a long face, he continued, "As your homeroom teacher cannot be here today for personal reasons, I am, instead, covering in his absence." With a look of disdain from his announcement, the kids hurried back to their seats, straightening their bodies into perfect posture, as no one wanted to attract his attention.
They knew that if for whatever reason they got caught doing something out of line by the vice- principal, it was for sure that he would humiliate them. He was the type of person who would pick up on a student who unknowingly passes by a piece of litter, branding them careless and irresponsible. His treatment of students was always seemingly unfair.
"Why are you yawning? What makes you so tired already?"
By the time the meticulously prepared announcement was finished, he had caught his first victim of the day, and he was scolding them in his usual manner.
"What a lazy student!" He continued, tutting, "Get your act together! This class is so hopeless!" The vice-president stepped down from the teacher's platform, muttering to himself. He opened the door with an unsatisfied look, and half way out the door, he abruptly turned around.
"Jinho Kim, I would like to see you outside for a moment.".
With his words, all eyes fell upon Jinho. Jinho swallowed his saliva, as if he did something wrong.
"Please step outside, quickly!" The class president, Juna Jung, sitting next to him gestured him to hurry, as she put her hand to her mouth. Jinho walked out, his shoulders drooping more than usual. As classes had begun already, the hallway was silent. The vice-principal grimaced down at Jinho, who was following him.
"Why didn't Mr. Kim come to school today? God, I can't even reach him on his mobile phone." His irritated tone was felt in Jinho's neck even as he followed behind in the hallway. He shuddered a little, but wasn't able to figure out whether it was because of the vice-principal's husky voice or because of the fact, that his father had not come to school.
"You mean, my dad?" Unaware as to what could have happened, Jinho blinked his eyes. "Didn't he come to school before me? He always arrives before me."
The vice-principal made an uncomfortable look upon hearing his words.
"'My dad'? You should say 'my father'. Even though your father is a teacher, it clearly doesn't help!" After tutting again, he demanded: "Anyway, call your mum and ask her what happened. How on earth could he just be absent without any sort of notice?" Ending his remonstration, he turned back and walked away coldly.
Being left alone, Jinho waited until the sound of the vice-principal's footsteps faded through under the staircases, and took out his phone from his pocket.
"Mum? This is Jinho, where is dad?"
~
After the last afternoon class, Juna grabbed Jinho, standing up from his seat.
"What's going on?"
Taking back his sleeve, held by Juna, he answered with a bored tone: "I don't know."
"Has Mr. Kim contacted you yet?" She asked with a puzzled look on her face: "What did mum say?"
Juna had always called Jinho's mother 'mum', and not 'Mrs. Kim'. They were neighbours from childhood, but since Juna lost her parents in an accident, she had lived in a small house belonging to Jinho's mother. Jinho's mother took care of Juna, more so sometimes than her own son. Despite her traumatic past, she was brave and affable.
Irritated, Jinho raised his voice: "You call her yourself, if you are so worried!"
Though he shied away for a moment, thinking that it was too much, he walked out of the classroom without even looking back.
Senior students in sports uniforms were running in the playground. Passing through them mid- lesson, Jinho bumps into them, knocking one of them over, completely preoccupied by his thoughts.
"Watch your step, dude!" The 3rd grade senior student who he upended stood up and dusted off his clothes.
"I'm sorry," Jinho apologised many times and left the area as quickly as he could. Running to the school gates, his phone in his trouser pocket started to ring.
"Has your father come to school yet?" He could feel the worry in his mum's voice. "And still no contact? It's very strange. It's not like him, disappearing like this without a word. I went to see the police and the doctor just in case. Now I am clueless."
"Have you contacted his friends?" Jinho asked.
"How many friends do you think he has? Home and school are the only things he knows." She moaned.
Hanging up the phone, Jinho kicked the blameless playground. Gritty dust arose.
"Where on earth has he gone? …Without even a call."
Besides the anger, feelings of fear gradually crept into him.
Someone will call us if something bad happens. It must not be a big accident, if there is no news. Still, it is so weird not being able to trace his whereabouts for a whole day. Run away, maybe? No, like mum said, my dad is not such a person who just 'runs away' from home. For now, I just have to search at the places dad would normally go to. I should look on the way home, like mum suggested.
Jinho started from studying the stores by the street; Yeonji stationary, Dalho pharmacy, Cacamuri hair salon, Domi snack stand. Although he passes by these shops every day, they somehow looked foreign today. Kids from behind swarmed around to get into the snack stand, shoving Jinho. The stores with a few customers before soon became crowed. Usually Jinho would eat Tteok-bokki or Soondae sitting next to the other kids. But today, a lack of appetite meant that he passed it without hesitation. Normally, the trip from school to home is only a ten minute walk, but on this occasion it took him one hour as he looked all around carefully. His world was the same as it had always been; People busy on their way, doing their things, stores filled with many things to see. For Jinho, however, it all felt somehow different from yesterday.
Jinho's father was always a very restrained man. His behaviour was so 'by-the-book' that Jinho often wondered if he even had any emotion whatsoever. Even once, when the same nasty vice- principal made unreasonable demands in the same way he treated students, his father could only nod his head with a modest look on his face.
Although he was a respected teacher and a good father, somehow Jinho had uncomfortable feelings around him for some time. Apart from the love they felt, they were awkward toward each other. There were times when Jinho wanted to break the uncomfortable tension. He wanted to be able to openly approach him, make jokes and play around but his father only made a forced smile to Jinho's trivial jokes and did not join in with his playfulness. When mum was not at home, they only shared a few words then entered each other's room. It became more like this since Jinho graduated from primary school and they gradually became distant without any known reason. Jinho was not able to see what the problems were as they were blocked by invisible mental walls and it seemed his father had the same problem trying to communicate with Jinho.
When they occasionally ate together, Jinho choked on the rice from the stuffiness he felt, whilst his father ate naturally, as if oblivious to the issue.
From the appearance outside, he was always stable. He was always faithful to his family. However, he changed little by little since then. He would sigh with a somewhat secret dissatisfaction whilst watching usually entertaini
ng TV programmes or become blank, completely zoning out for a while. At those times he was not who he knew his father to be. Jinho felt a feeling of darkness from him so strongly, that he became unfamiliar and unapproachable. This gave Jinho an ominous feeling at times. Perhaps, his mother already knew this side of him.
Finally arriving home, and seeing an empty house, Jinho didn't want to be alone. He decided to go and wait for his mother in the park, who was at the time speaking again to the police. As dusk began to fall, the wind became colder. Playing with his phone on the bench, Jinho turned his head to see his mother trudging towards him from a distance.
"How did it go?"
She just shook her head, staring at Jinho running to her.
~
As more days passed by, his mother's face became darker. As the police only repeated, that there is no way of knowing what happened, she turned in the application of leave for her husband. Since then, Jinho's homeroom teacher was replaced by a pretentiously prim Korean teacher.
It was the Saturday of the week of his father's absence. His mother had been preparing another search for him since the early morning. Jinho, rooting about among his father's things in the library room, called to his mother. She came nearer, whilst putting on her coat.
"What's up?"
His father's library was filled with all kinds of books, except for his oak desk, which was free from books. Jinho had decided to examine the room a certain amount each day.
Like lost in a jungle, he was not sure from where to start, but looked from one bookshelf to another, as if removing the biggest leaves one by one. He had itchy skin and had developed a sneeze because of old, dusty books. However, he did not give up, as he thought this was the only thing he could do. An unusual brown cowhide bound notebook was found lying in the middle of the third shelf, secretly put in a solid wooden box. From the oily fingerprints, it seemed like a frequently used object.
"What is this?" he asked in a confused tone, "Babble?"
Taking the note from his outstretched hand, she read the start of the first chapter:
S1. Be a Strong Sailor, and you shall have all the power.
Jolting water shadows, power of the black storm, eyes that wake your eyes up, marbles borrowing stars, Songs of silver wings, glass bottle hiding the night, cat who carries sleep, pieces of memory that soothe your mind, power of the spinning wheel made of poetry, day of tree shades, cloak's busy routines, and the pictures enlightening the truth.
"What on earth does it all mean?"
His mother sighed, studying the memo closely: "I thought I knew everything about your father, but now I don't know anything about him." Feeling defeated, she slumped down onto a chair.
"Why did he write it and where on Earth is he now?"
Feeling heavy, she took a deep breath. Jinho wanted to give her a hug. He wanted to comfort her and tell that everything would be alright and that his father would come home without incident. But his body did not move as his mind intended. He stood still, due to his mixed feelings of worry and resentment for his father. Slowly, her sighing became crying.
Feeling stifled, Jinho walked out of the library and went outside. When he passed by a small flower bed in the garden, Juna appeared in the opening of the main door.
"Still no call from Mr. Kim, right?" She asked, making wrinkles between her eyes. Jinho passed her by making that 'none-of-your-business' look. Seeing him going out, as if she already had expected it, Juna entered the house without utterance.
Soon, Juna's voice reached him saying: "Are you alright, mum?" Through the front door it was seen that Juna was coming out of the library holding her sympathetically by the shoulders. Relying on Juna, who seemed to have grown up all of sudden, Jinho's mother was holding back the tears.
Free fare for Marie
Not knowing where to go, Jinho wandered around town aimlessly. The town would become crowded with people on weekends. As a small city on the outskirts of Seoul with a mountain and a river, it was ideal for hiking and always attracted travellers, but was not crowded at this time in the morning. Stepping towards the hiking trails, Jinho realized that he was still holding the wooden box discovered in the library. Studying the box, in which the father's note was placed, he found that it had a rusty butterfly-formed hinge, and was made of Paulownia wood.
He stopped walking, and sat down on a rock. Although the box was empty after taking out the note, he wanted to see if the box had anymore secrets, in the hope of finding something else.
He fiddled with the box for a while and discovered in a little compartment there were some slips of paper. Puzzles. They were old and worn-out paper puzzles. There were not many of them, and once put together loosely would form a human's legs. As it lacked the other pieces, the entire picture was unclear, but the person in the picture seemed like a child, based on the fact that the legs were chubby and short. A faded photograph of a child's legs gave him an unsettling feeling.
~
Winds started to blow from the entrance of the hiking trails. Trees creaked and swayed from the sudden winds and the trees yawned like the waves at sea. With his clothes blowing, he felt coldness in a corner of his heart. Not being able to tell whether it was because of the sudden change in weather or the unexpected picture in the puzzles, he tried to remove the Goosebumps he could feel on his arms.
~
The flow of time is not always constant. Especially, when you look forward to something, the so-called time will annoy you, loitering maliciously on the road.
Although days passed, there was no news. His father must have vanished. Jinho's mother lay on the bedroom floor, groaning once in a while from grief. Jinho took care of the room, after preparing to go to school. His mother had taken a leave of absence from work due to illness. Jinho wanted her to see a doctor, but she was determined to only rest at home. Feeling bad, and sighing, Jinho reluctantly opened the front door.
As he stepped to exit the house, he heard a rattle by something caught in the letterbox. Hunching his back, he picked it up. It was the town's newspaper. At first he simply thought the delivery boy must have made a mistake. He knew his family did not subscribe to it, so he had a strange feeling about it being delivered to his house. Jinho scampered through the first page, looking around for anything unusual. The date of the paper was exactly 2 weeks ago, which was the day when his father disappeared. The newspaper smelled like a new paper, without a trace of time in its pages. The first article was nothing special. Flipping over the next page, something caught his eye:
--------
With a picture of a ship in a square box, it was intended for you to cut out the voucher by following a dotted line.
"The Mari?" Intrigued by the free ticket, he read it closely and suddenly his eyes lit up.
--------
'Changook Kim? Changook… could it be…dad?'
Swallowing his saliva nervously, he checked the signature printed next to the name: A triangle flagpole. "It must be his!"
~
-----Boarding time: Old pier, Sangsang province, 9 am. -----
Jinho did not have to wait any longer. The boarding date was today. The Sangsang ('imagination') pier was not far from there. It was a lousy tourist attraction with a model sailboat, where he would visit on occasion for a school trip, when he was younger. The name of the pier was said to be taken from the old province Sangsang and the region has since been renamed Jangyeon, as the name 'Sangsang' sounded outdated.
There are a plenty of unique legends regarding the old town, but they are all seen as such old nonsense that people would just laugh at them today.
Jinho could simply go and check. Throughout the whole 2 weeks, mum did everything she could do, even including hiring a private detective.
By the time Jinho opened the front door and crossed the street, Juna was frantically calling and running to him:
"Wait a minute!" Catching her breath for a moment, she showed
Jinho the town newspaper: "Mr. Kim's name is written on the ferry's boarding pass. It's for some boat called 'The Mari'."
To his surprise, in her hand was the same newspaper as Jinho had found.
"I saw it too. I don't have time to chat with you. Let me pass."
Brushing her aside, Jinho started to run towards the pier.
"I'll come with you." Juna said, with a determined look on her face.
~
Sometime later they arrived at the Ibyeol ('farewell') crossroads. It was named this by the townspeople for unknown reasons. There were many stories related this place, however the idea that the place was previously a street of taverns in front of the old Sangsang pier sounded most plausible. It was said that there had been a lot of people crying at the taverns as they could not show their emotions in front of the ships leaving for Hanyang (now Seoul).
Jinho proceeded through the crossroads and carried on towards the left. The road was narrow and now grassy. It was where people would take a walk or jog, and cars were not allowed to access. Jinho could just make out the wooden pier from afar. The model boat's sail - made of white fabric - caught his eyes as it contrasted with the blue river. Approaching nearer, he found a signboard indicating a tourist attraction but strangely, no people were around.