His yearning was something that Chang didn’t understand, despite the fact that she couldn’t remember anything either.
At first, it was very hard for her to accept the fact that someone else, someone who wasn’t her, had occupied her body. But that no longer bothered her. Whoever they had been, they were long gone. Now Chang had Hahnoe and Lu. Lu was not just a machine, but a part of herself, a living being that loved speed as much as she did. Those who had decided to leave the cave had one thing in common. They had known that they were no longer who they had been before and so therefore they had to leave. But now that they had left, Hahnoe’s eyes were always turned toward something different than Chang’s. Maybe that was why she loved him.
That day, sitting by the bonfire, Chang had asked Shu where he’d learned the song. He’d answered with his usual faraway look. “I don’t know,” he’d said. “Maybe in a dream.” Everyone had laughed.
Such had been Shu’s way: he’d often said strange things that no one understood and had dreams that no one else dreamed. While Hahnoe agonized over not being able to understand human letters, Shu had admired them with pure wonder.
Now Shu lay wrapped in black leaves, his Lu standing like a barrel outside the circle of people. It had flown back home safely, but without Shu it was nothing more than an empty shell. At the very moment his body had been crushed, Shu had trusted his Lu to flee.
Hahnoe stood suddenly, lifting up Shu’s body. He pushed his way through the crowd. The Lu opened to receive Shu’s body. This act was meaningless, but no one tried to stop Hahnoe. Tears flowed, but not from the Lu: it didn’t weep tears now and there would be no rebirth in three days. The time when Lu had been a god, when it had given back life again and again, was over. Like those who had been destroyed before him, Shu could never again sing any songs or tell any stories.
* * *
Chang Yeon was still awake and thinking about Chang, the 5.6-millimeter-tall woman, when the sky turned pink the next morning.
Tuning only involved mental integration. Because each version’s body was not able to cross between worlds, a tuning client didn’t need to worry about whatever physical flaws their version might have possessed. Integrating this tiny, fragile Chang wouldn’t shrink Chang Yeon’s body or create any physical problem for her.
At each tuning, Chang Yeon had pictured the version she was integrating. They all looked similar in her imagination: women in their thirties and later forties with slight variations in clothing and hair. Though Chang Yeon was grateful for the diverse abilities her versions brought her, there was one difference she had begun to wish for: a younger version of herself living outside time and capable of bringing her body along for integration. Her desire always ultimately led her imagination there.
What feelings and sensations did someone in their late teens or early twenties perceive?
Chang Yeon couldn’t really remember what it had been like during her own youth. Thanks to her wealthy parents, she had never had to struggle with the trifling worries of life. She recalled thinking everything dull, and once or twice she might’ve wished, with typical juvenile confusion, that her life could end right then. But these were all very faint memories.
The tuning procedure only took three hours at most and resulted in no pain or negative aftereffects. To the wealthy, tuning was comparable to getting a simple cosmetic procedure or making a big investment in a new startup. All Chang Yeon had to do was take the sleeping pill that the sailor provided. Recognizing new desires, interests, tastes, and talents she’d integrated usually took several weeks. The integrated selves never staged any resistance by bringing along their own memories or caused her any discomfort. They always blended into Chang Yeon’s consciousness without hesitation and quietly surfaced only when strictly necessary.
Still, it felt strange like making the acquaintance of someone kind but reserved. They were always polite and gave her lots of useful information, but never opened themselves to her. Never had she encountered a case where the integrated version had pushed her life in an unwanted direction, or made her do something absurd and unthinkable.
But if it were a version that grew up in an environment so different from mine . . . If there were a young and bubbly version of myself, full of life and carefree, absorbing everything they felt with every part of their body.
Out of nowhere, Chang Yeon saw in her head a little child running toward her with a big smile.
She was startled and perplexed. Since they’d wanted to focus on themselves, Chang Yeon and her husband had decided not to have children. She’d never doubted this decision. Rather, people who dedicated their entire lives to their children baffled her. She found that as her perplexity deepened, she felt, this image of a child grew increasingly clearer. She thought of an old friend who had remained by her side through all the tunings. Even when she’d been having so much trouble with her teenaged child, and her face had glowed as she’d talked about the child’s small displays of affection. While Chang Yeon had gone through forty-nine tunings, this friend had thrown all her energy into this small creature that resembled her, spending decades basically letting it run her life.
“Raising a child is insane,” the friend had told her. “Doesn’t matter whether they’re two or twenty. They drive you out of your mind just the same.” Yet always the friend would add, “But you know what’s funny? When I look at those round eyes, small fingers, and chubby cheeks, I feel like I shrink down to nothing, like I matter less than a dot or something even smaller when compared to that child. And amazingly, that doesn’t bother me.”
She’d gone on to tell Chang Yeon that though children naturally went against their parents’ wishes or expectations, they also occasionally created unimaginable joy.
Chang Yeon couldn’t conceive what that must be like.
If it had been Chang, maybe she’d have been more than just a polite acquaintance. Maybe she’d have taken Chang Yeon’s life in a whole new direction, shaken up her days and made her laugh until she cried, or wept her eyes out. If Chang were integrated into her, maybe Chang Yeon wouldn’t feel that heavy weight in her heart, which was how she felt whenever she was making a list of new things she’d have to learn and master after a tuning. She might be liberated from the urgent whispers nudging her toward a cliff, her obsession with time, the fear of never being good enough no matter how hard she tried. Maybe she’d learn to stop thinking about herself until her head spun. If it were Chang, maybe she would become both Chang Yeon and Chang Yeon’s child at the same time.
But Chang Yeon couldn’t fathom how a person who wasn’t a fifty-year-old human, but a Roo just entering adulthood might think and behave. A child who had the courage to cut apart what her people considered God. Chang Yeon sighed. The fact that Chang had defied her faith and chose to become a mortal being fascinated Chang Yeon beyond description. It was so far from a decision she herself would’ve made. There was only one day until the scheduled tuning, and she needed to ready herself.
Since she was born a warrior, she must be tough. And since she’s an aviator, she’s got to be quite adventurous. But she isn’t human. She doesn’t even know how to dress herself. She might be ignorant, considering how her people don’t have a written language or any systematic compilation of their knowledge. That might have a negative effect on my intelligence. But . . . has a flaw ever manifested? She’s a free spirit. Apparently, she likes flying much more than other Roos. But she lives in constant fear for her life. And now that she’s told she’s dying . . . She must be in despair. But, I’ve never discovered feelings of fear or despair after a tuning.
Chang Yeon lost herself, trying to understand that tiny mysterious being. Her Roo version was a wild risk-taker, and Chang Yeon found that irresistibly attractive. Chang Yeon lay on her bed and buried her face in the soft pillow. As the softness touched her skin, her mind lurched toward fear. Nausea filled her.
Should I cancel the procedure? But what if she’s decided to agree? She might be full of hope.
> Eventually, her body surrendered to her exhaustion, and she fell asleep without reaching any conclusion.
When Chang Yeon opened her eyes, it was already past 4 PM. Only two hours remained until the deadline. She called the sailor. It reported that Chang hadn’t made up her mind yet. Chang Yeon hesitated a few moments.
“How does she . . . die?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“On Wednesday next week, at 10:41 PM. How does she die?”
The sailor paused. “Do you really want to know? Might it not be better otherwise? It will only be a depressing memory.”
“Since it’s not my future but hers, you are allowed to tell me, aren’t you?”
The sailor remained silent for some time before replying. “According to the system’s prediction, she freezes to death. It starts snowing in the afternoon and gets heavier into the night. Your version crashes while flying her Lu, and they get buried under snow. She freezes almost instantly upon impact.”
Chang Yeon couldn’t find the words to respond.
“They are tiny beings. Even a few snowflakes can kill them,” the sailor said.
When Chang Yeon remained silent, the sailor sighed. “That’s why I told you it’d be better not to know.”
Chang Yeon terminated the call.
It was around 6:30 PM when the sailor called her again. “Her final answer is no,” it said. A soft gasp escaped Chang Yeon’s mouth.
“She said she wouldn’t come,” the sailor continued on. “I apologize on behalf of the agency for this outcome. This is a few hours early, but I’d like to wish you a happy birthday.”
The room suddenly felt cold, and she was again a little nauseated. She lay on her side, embracing her knees. Chang Yeon couldn’t tell whether what she was feeling was relief or disappointment.
At that moment, a memory from years earlier popped into her mind.
Her career had been full of successes, but there had been one failed project that had remained bitter in her heart. It was for an event they’d held for her company’s anniversary. One selected participant could request a customized piece of furniture. It could be anything, in any material or design. The event attracted a lot of attention, and people had gone wild over it. The winner had been a seventeen-year-old girl. She’d been dressed in a flimsy summer uniform, although fall had been in the air, and she’d requested a large luxury armchair with very good leather. Not something a girl that age ought to have wanted, Chang Yeon thought, so she’d asked whether the chair was for her dad.
“No,” she’d said. “I want dark-colored leather, something tough and durable. It’s just for myself, so a single seater is good enough. When I sit in it, I want to be able to feel relaxed . . . and secure.”
She’d had her arms folded and kept rubbing her skinny forearms as she spoke. Chang Yeon decided to use steel frames and the highest quality leather, dyed a dark brown. She’d used a very simple design and made the chair fifteen percent bigger than a regular armchair. She’d put so much care into achieving the right firmness, checking it again and again until she was completely satisfied with how it felt. The finished chair had resembled some kind of large animal, dignified and loyal to its owner.
But when they’d called the girl to arrange delivery, she’d suddenly changed her mind.
“I’m sorry,” she’d said in a low disheartened voice, “but I can’t take it. I’m really sorry. Please give it to someone else.”
Chang Yeon thought even from the start, the girl must not have had space to accommodate the chair. And even though many years had passed, the image of the tiny goose bumps on the kid’s forearms came to her mind from time to time for no reason. Chang Yeon burrowed further beneath her blanket.
Sometime after midnight, there was a knock at the door. Her husband stood outside smiling a little bashfully with a cake in one hand and a small gift box in the other.
On the top of the cake was a long sentence written in fine lines of chocolate. It read, “To my wife, Chang Yeon, the most perfect and beautiful woman in the world.”
* * *
Chang trusted her Lu to maneuver rapidly and zigzagged into the night sky. Lu’s wingbeats slowed. For the first time, Chang got a good look at winter.
The landscape was desolate, the moon hidden behind the thick clouds. Pure white lumps fell from the sky. Snow. Chang had never seen it before. Whenever it snowed, Roos stayed home and didn’t fly. Hahnoe had called them beautiful lumps of death, and she could see that he’d been right. The snowflakes were slower than Chang, but they flew in all directions as if they sought to strike her. Lu’s eyes twitched with growing fear. But Chang believed in them.
Chang thought of Hahnoe and of Shu, and then she recalled an old memory.
A group of friends, drenched in sweat, had pushed Chang’s Lu up to the lowest branch of a birch tree. Chang held on to Hahnoe’s hand and climbed up, struggling to keep her eyes fixed on the next handhold. When she got inside Lu and plunged through the air from the branch’s tip, fear overwhelmed her. What if Lu’s wings didn’t move as she wished?
She’d felt the enormity of the world around her and the dizzying despair from how everything stayed in its place. Her body still tingled when she remembered that moment. Chang had been the only thing trying to break away from its place, and she could almost see the sharp mandibles of ants pouncing on her crushed body. But finally, after she’d repeated her desire what felt to be hundreds of times, Lu finally started moving its wings. A pathway she’d trusted appeared before her in the void, and she realized it was a flow that she could control. She remembered the electrifying thrill that had gone through her body then when she’d made her first path through the air.
And now, Chang was trying to escape the snowflakes and reach the moon.
Lu’s wings were already soaking wet. But Chang strained her entire body and committed all of her trust to Lu. Up close, the snowflakes were integrations of countless hexagonal crystals, resembling Lu’s compound eyes. Even though the flakes were fighting to dampen Lu’s wings further, and send Chang plummeting back down toward the earth, they were nothing more than fragile crystals that could melt away in moments. If they were indeed fragments of the moon as Chang believed, then it stood to reason that the enormous, distant moon couldn’t be so perfect as to be unreachable.
There were many things that Chang didn’t know. She’d never observed the world in detail or really comprehended it. But she knew that she, together with her Lu, which had become part of her, could fly fast enough to evade these huge frozen water crystals veering at her from all directions.
Without her Lu, life in some other world would be meaningless. Chang trusted Lu to their full speed.
Faster!
Soon, they reached a speed she’d never imagined possible.
* * *
The tuning system that claimed to make “perfect sails” was not truly perfect yet, and its prediction was accurate only up to 99.82 percent. In a small, lesser known offshoot world of the countless many, the life of the Roo aviator Chang ended, as predetermined, at 10:41 PM on a Wednesday in February. Except she wasn’t buried beneath snow as the system had predicted: instead, she’d flown higher and faster between the falling snowflakes, until she burst into red flames the instant she and her Lu escaped the Earth’s atmosphere.
If the Roo tribe had possessed letters to record meanings, they would’ve written the following about Chang: She was the Roo who had flown the fastest and the farthest, the one who came the closest to the moon in the whole history of the tribe.
Originally published in Korean in Modern Literature, May 2008.
Published with the support of Literature Translation Institute of Korea (LTI Korea).
Footnotes:
1 - Kruho: the unit of length used by the Roo tribe. One ruho is approximately five millimeters, and one kruho is one thousand ruhos, about five meters.
2 - From “Vowels” by A. Rimbaud
The Perfect Sail (html), I-Hyeong Yun
I-Hyeong Yun Page 3