by Un-su Kim
“Modern people cannot fall into a deep sleep. Ever since the invention of electricity and the emergence of monolithic cities, the modern night has fallen into a state of constant unrest. In my opinion, the most lasting legacy of capitalism will be angst. Insurance, stocks, real estate, investments… The entire modern economy is based on anxiety, and, as everyone knows, anxiety is the mortal enemy of a good night’s sleep. And insomnia only leads to more anxiety – it’s a vicious cycle. Thus, we are always anxious, internally and externally. Conversely, primitive humans were much more spiritual beings. They worked when the sun was out, and they dreamed and rested once it set. In other words, in order to live properly, you have to follow divine providence and live half your life working, and the other half dreaming.”
“You mean to say, all I need to do is sleep when it’s dark out…?”
“I went to sleep, and when I woke there was nothing. My bank account, my stocks – gone. I had been fired from my job, and my wife had left me. My life was in complete shambles. Now what do I do?”
“Go to sleep again. Only then will your life start anew.”
DOPPELGANGER
“Where did you two meet?”
“We met in Sillim market. I was on my way back from a haejang-guk restaurant. I like their ox blood soup. I often go there to eat. Their soup is unique. I’m not sure how to describe it. It’s a little pungent and a bit fishy. You also get the strong taste of blood from the boiled ox blood; it’s even a little gamey. You either like it or you absolutely hate it. I guess it’s a place only for enthusiasts. I once saw a girl take two sips before spitting it out onto the floor, but I don’t think it’s that bad. The old lady who owns the restaurant has a sailor’s mouth and is as stubborn as a rock. When customers complain about it tasting fishy, she tells them, ‘Then why come to a place that serves boiled ox blood? Just stay at home and eat cucumbers if you don’t like it.’”
“You two must have run into each other often, seeing as how you’re both regulars.”
“Oh, no. That was my first time, actually. I was just exiting the restaurant and turning the corner when I saw him. He was going right into the restaurant as I was leaving. He looked so attractive from the side. It’s not often that you feel so strongly attracted to someone at first sight, you know? You might think I’m the type of guy who will go into a public bathroom with just anyone, but I’m not like that. I can feel love too. But it’s hard to find someone you’re attracted to more than just sexually. That’s why I followed him.”
“Do you often follow men like that?”
“Yes, sometimes. But if I’m not at a gay bar or the like, I don’t approach them. You can get punched doing that. I want to, but I don’t. Anyway, I followed him because I didn’t want to miss out. Even if just to observe him from far away.”
“I see–”
“Have you ever felt attracted to the same sex? Gay or not, I think we’ve all experienced it at least once.”
“Never.”
The man began to blush a bit at my curt response.
“It’s not that I’m offended by it. It’s just that I’ve never had that experience…” I added.
“Yes, I understand. It’s fine.”
“Anyway, continue your story. What happened after you followed him?”
“I sat behind him and watched him as he ate ox blood soup. He was my type of man: slight and bashful from behind. The slope of his shoulders looked so forlorn. I just wanted to give him a hug.”
“Were you sitting close to him?”
“About fifteen meters? Maybe ten? I can’t quite remember. It wasn’t particularly close. Anyway, I watched him until he finished the ox blood soup and got up. But then…”
“But then…?”
“But then he turned around. And there I was, staring back at myself. His face was the same as mine. At first, I wondered if I had discovered my long-lost twin. But no, he was me, not my twin. I could tell just by looking at him.”
“That must have been a real shock.”
“Oh, it was.”
“Did you say anything?”
“No, not at first. In order to calm myself down, I went outside and waited until he came out. My legs were trembling. I smoked two cigarettes to calm my nerves. He came out when I was about halfway through the second cigarette. Standing in the doorway of the restaurant he just stared at me. He must have been quite shocked himself because he stood there frozen in place. So, the two of us just stood there staring at one another. We must have stood there for ten minutes. And I had this thought: If I were him, what would I say in this situation? If I were to experience such a strange thing, what would be the first thing I would say?”
“So? what did he say?”
“He stammered and stuttered as he said, ‘Hi, my name’s Ok Myeong-guk.’ Haha! He looked so ridiculous. It looked so unnatural, but it also looked quite fitting. After that, I stepped closer to him and gave him a hug. It felt right, like touching a part of your own body: comforting and warm.”
“You didn’t keep hugging like that in the middle of the market, did you?”
“Of course not. We stopped hugging and went to a nearby café. At the cashier, he ordered the exact same drink in the exact same way I do. ‘One lip-burning espresso.’”
“Don’t espressos usually burn your lips?”
“Yes, but he used that exact expression to order. ‘One lip-burning espresso.’”
“And what about his life? Is it the same as yours?”
“Actually, quite similar. He’s a chef.”
“But aren’t you an architect?”
“Those two aren’t similar?”
“You think they are?”
“I do.”
“Well, I guess you could say that. But since you have different jobs, you two must be leading lives that are at least a little different, no?”
“I’m not sure. Sometimes I imagine the roads I haven’t taken and think about the other lives I could have had. But the more I talked to him, the more I realized that, despite the many ways our lives differed, there was no fundamental difference between us. He was working a different job and living a different life on the outside, but underneath that, we were leading basically the same life. Our hobbies were the same, our tastes in food were the same, we even do the same things after work… I can’t explain in detail what that is exactly, but I think it’s enough just to say they’re the same.”
“Did you feel disappointed that your lives were similar?”
“No, quite the opposite, actually. I’m not sure why, but it was somewhat comforting. Neither his life nor mine is that grand, but the more I learned about his life, the more I felt like my own wasn’t such an utter failure after all. But I don’t know why. Anyway, after we left the café, we went to a love hotel – where we made love, of course. It was at once both great and odd. It felt like I was being loved. It was the kind of sex in which you can understand why you’re having sex with that person. Warm, natural, respectful sex. After that, I stopped going to public bathrooms. I’m even considering getting married now. It’s possible. Seeing as he’s married, I might be able to get married, too.”
“Have you met since then?”
“No. I go to that haejang-guk restaurant every Saturday, but since then I haven’t seen him there even once. I called the phone number on his business card and I even tried visiting the address he gave me, but neither of them existed. I doubt he was carrying around fake business cards. But I don’t know what else it could be.”
He showed me the business card. According to the card, the man was head chef at a Japanese restaurant. Looking at the card, I wondered to myself if this man really looked like a Japanese chef. To be honest, he didn’t in the slightest. But perhaps that was because he looked just like the man sitting in front of me, a man whom I knew to be an architect.
“We fell asleep together in the same bed, but in the morning, it was I who woke up first. When I got up, I looked for quite some time at the sight of mys
elf, no, the sight of him sleeping. To be honest, I don’t really like how I look. I never stare at myself in a mirror for long. I look so small and ugly in the mirror. I guess I have a bit of an inferiority complex. Maybe that’s why I don’t get a lot of attention at gay bars. But the sight of him sleeping was – how should I say it – very lovable. I looked like the type of person you might not consider particularly attractive, but whom you would still consider acceptable. The type of face that looked harmlessly warm and friendly, despite not being terribly beautiful. I thought to myself that I should live my life to the fullest because someone else was out there doing their best to live part of my life for me. I thought to myself that my life wasn’t that bad. I thought to myself: my sense of existence had become small – and that that sense of existence was enough. I started thinking all sorts of complicated thoughts.”
As he paused, I didn’t say anything.
“When he awoke, we kissed long and passionately, as if we were lovers. And before we each left for work, we exchanged contact information. But I haven’t been able to see him even once since then. And you know what’s weird? Even though I’m left-handed, he was right-handed.”
“Is that really that strange?”
“Is it not? I’m left-handed; why would he be right-handed? All of our appearances and preferences were the same. So, sometimes I get the feeling that one of us is a fake. That is, one of us is an illusion. Worst of all, I’m afraid the fake might be me. I could be the left-handed image he sees in the mirror each morning.”
“Why did this happen?”
“I’m not quite sure.”
“Is this a blessing or a curse?”
“It’s neither a blessing nor a curse. It’s just something that exists in our lives. Like the wind and the trees.”
PROFESSOR KWON
It was several years ago when I first met Professor Kwon. I arrived at work one day to see a memo posted on my desk. “Kong Deok-geun from Records, come to Room 311 at 11:00 am sharp! Don’t be late.” From the words “sharp” and “don’t be late” the note had a stench of authority. Unsure what this strange message meant, I asked Department Head Song and Section Chief Kim about why an average administrative worker like me would be summoned to someone’s lab. They both seemed uninterested and said they didn’t know because something like this had never happened before. But when I mentioned it was Room 311, they both dropped their jaws and said simultaneously, “But that’s Professor Kwon’s office!”
“This doesn’t look good for you,” Mr Song said.
“You must have done something really bad,” added Mr Kim.
“But I didn’t do anything,” I said defensively.
“Just think about it. Why else would someone like Professor Kwon summon you,” Mr Song said.
“If you cross that geezer, he’ll bust your head open. You know Department Head Kim, right? The one who got this job through connections? When he first arrived here, he went around ‘inspecting the premises’ and got his head busted open for acting flippantly in the professor’s office. They say Professor Kwon hit him over the head with a cane. And not just once but three times. He had two V-shaped gashes in his head and had to get seventeen stitches,” said Section Chief Kim, oddly excited.
“What exactly did he do?” I asked, quivering with unease.
“Nothing really. All he did was say hello and ask the professor how his research was going.”
“He got his head busted open for that? And Department Head Kim just took it? Couldn’t he get Professor Kwon fired with all his connections?”
“He said he was completely overwhelmed by the old man’s cane. I heard he even went to Kwon’s office to apologize and give him a present. Anyway, he’s one eccentric old coot.”
“He must be influential.”
“There are a lot of stories and rumors about him. Some say he’s the son of the CEO’s second wife, a powerful woman who runs things from behind the scenes. Others say he’s the illegitimate son of a chaebol family. But no one knows for sure. What’s for certain is that he’s one of the founding members of this research center,” Mr Song said.
“There seems to be a theme of illegitimate births.”
“That’s because the old man doesn’t have any family,” said Mr Kim.
“But why do you think he wants to see me?”
“I really can’t say. This has never happened before. Be careful. And wear a helmet if you want to keep your head on your shoulders,” Mr Kim said flippantly.
Just before the clock hit eleven, I slowly went up to the third floor. Admittedly my legs were shaking a bit. Professor Kwon’s room was at the very end of the hall. I stood in front of his office and carefully knocked on the door. From inside I could hear an irritated voice saying “Come in.” The irritation in his voice made my muscles even tenser. I slowly opened the door. Sitting behind the desk was an old man with piercing eyes. He looked at me and motioned me over with his hand. Respectfully I followed his directions and approached his desk as humbly and politely as I could manage, making my body small like a cat. When I reached his desk, Professor Kwon looked toward the TV that was placed opposite his desk.
“Do you want to see something interesting?” Professor Kwon said in a calm voice.
As suggested, I turned to look at the TV and… My god. There on screen was footage of me squatting in front of a cabinet, chuckling to myself as I read files. A sudden hiccup came from my throat. I had never imagined that rundown file room would have a security camera. Professor Kwon spun the globe on his desk like a toy as he began speaking.
“Who sent you? I bet it was someone from the syndicate. Those guys have no honor.”
“Syndicate?”
“So, you want to play dumb. You still don’t understand what all this means, do you? It means both that you’re going to jail and that you’re going to go broke. Jail because you committed a criminal offence by giving away lab secrets, and broke because I’m going to sue you for the damages you caused when you gave away those lab secrets. You can’t begin to imagine how much I’m going to sue you for.”
At this moment, my vision started to blur. I was so flustered I couldn’t understand what was happening to me. The only thing I could understand was the palpable taste of fear in my mouth. I started stammering and making incoherent excuses.
“I just… I had no intention of… I just… you see… I didn’t have anything to do… and I was bored… that’s what it was… I was so bored… That’s all… Please believe me… I was bored, so I went to the sauna… and I tried to make model ships like Mr Song… but I’ve never been interested in model ships… I’m really sorry.”
Professor Kwon looked wholly uninterested in my most sincere attempt at an apology.
“What were you trying to achieve by opening that cabinet? You spent an entire week on that lock. Normal people wouldn’t obsess over a lock for a week unless they wanted what’s inside. And the way you picked the lock was just about the most foolish way I could imagine. Going through all ten thousand combinations one by one. What was your goal? Tell me now and maybe I won’t call the police.”
And so I confessed everything to the old man. Why I opened the cabinet; how bored I was at my job; how desolate a man’s life could be made by boredom – I explained it all. I also explained that the reason for picking the lock was the same reason people did Rubik’s Cubes: to overcome boredom. After listening to my story, Professor Kwon appeared deep in thought.
“How much did you read?” he finally asked.
“Very little… I only read–”
“I might look old, but I can still hurt you with this cane.”
Hiccup!
“OK, I read it all. And I reread a few of the files. Several times.”
“Which ones?”
“The one about the conjoined twin cremating her sibling, for example, and the one about the lizard lady.”
“Why?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Did you feel pity?”
“You have access to all sorts of interesting things just by turning on your computer; so, why do you think you read those files locked away in a dusty cabinet?”
I wasn’t able to answer this question. To be honest, I myself didn’t know why it was that I read them or why it was that I had become so obsessed with a cabinet of files which ejected a flurry of dust every time you picked them up. It looked like Professor Kwon was thinking hard about something again. He might have been starting to think that what I was saying was believable. Feeling more confident, I continued:
“I might have read them, but I didn’t tell anyone about them. And I won’t be telling anyone about them. I mean, why would I do such a strange thing like telling someone a ridiculous story about a woman with a lizard for a tongue. And even if I did try to tell someone, obviously no one would believe me. Yes, I’m just your average, hard-working young man. Besides, isn’t it your fault for leaving such important documents in an unguarded file room?”
“Who said it was unguarded? You’re the only person who has been able to get through my security system. Until now, it’s had an untarnished record.”
Professor Kwon spun the globe as he thought some more. After a few moments, he began again.
“How about this. I won’t send you to jail. Besides, I get nothing out of sending you to jail, and squeezing money from a poor man like yourself won’t be easy. In return, however, starting tomorrow morning, you’ll come up here and do the chores I don’t want to. I’ll tell the director of the institute that I’m borrowing you.”
“Excuse me?”
“Fuck, I hate people who make me repeat myself. Just come here every day starting tomorrow morning. Got it?”
“Like a research assistant?”
“You? A research assistant? Don’t make me laugh. You’ll be doing things like cleaning and answering the phone.”