by Un-su Kim
“Then are symptomers monsters?”
“It doesn’t matter whether you call them monsters or not. Even monsters are gentle beings when their masks are removed.”
She carefully lifted her glass and took a sip of sake. Having already finished the two complimentary bottles of sake, we had to order a third. When the new bottle came out, she poured herself some and took another shot. The rate at which she was taking shots seemed to be increasing.
“So, you want to become a symptomer?” I asked.
She didn’t offer any answer to my question. Instead, she just took another shot of sake.
“Well, symptomers aren’t able to choose whether or not they become symptomers. That’s up to nature,” I said.
“Then perhaps I already am one. And perhaps I’m not just a useless monster; maybe I’m also a drain on society.”
With this, she took another shot of sake. She then called out to the chef for another bottle. From what I could see, she was already a bit drunk. And now that she was drunk, she started eating her sushi in earnest. Once she cleaned her plate of the salmon, the sumo-wrestler-turn-chef, who had been talking with a colleague, came over to her and started making some more sushi.
She didn’t say a word as she continued to eat. Watching her eat like that, the chef wore a pleased expression. But something seemed wrong. She kept eating sushi and he kept making more sushi for her. When she finished her eightieth piece of sushi, the chef said with a laugh, “That’s number eighty.” It appeared like the chef enjoyed watching her eat. I also ate a few more pieces of sushi, but because I was so full, I eventually just stuck to sake. But the sake was bland. “Sake is a silly drink. You can drink five hundred bottles and still not get drunk,” I thought to myself.
“If you’ve had your fill of Korean-style sushi, how about some Japanese-style sushi?” the chef asked me.
I nodded. A few moments later the chef came out with some raw blowfish. Jeong-eun had already eaten eighty pieces of sushi, but it didn’t seem like she had any intention of stopping. Rather, the rate at which she was eating seemed to be accelerating. Now she was eating faster than the chef could prepare the fish, and whenever more sushi came out, she would wolf it down as if she had been waiting a long time. I watched her doing this with a blank stare. Noticing my staring she turned to me.
“Sorry, I can’t stop myself once I start eating. It must look disgusting.”
“It’s OK. It’s not disgusting.”
I said this with a laugh. I really wasn’t disgusted by her eating. What was so bad about a little excess eating? Now that the sake had finally hit her, she seemed to be in a much better mood. Actually, to be more precise, it might have been the hundred-plus pieces of sushi that she had eaten. She gave her cup to the chef and poured him some sake, and the two of them talked about things that had happened since their last meeting. I had never seen or imagined her being so social. And it was nice to see. It felt like we were having a nice drink.
“The chef says he’s seen a sumo wrestler eat 1,800 pieces of sushi in one sitting. The man weighed more than 500 pounds,” she said, rather excited.
She kept eating as she talked. I wondered how much she had eaten by this point. 120? 130? And yet she still seemed like she had no intention of stopping. In fact, she was eating even faster than she had been earlier. Before she even finished chewing, she was shoving the next piece of sushi into her mouth. Suddenly, as if something had gotten stuck in her throat, she covered her mouth with her hand and began gagging. I offered her some water. She waved her hand.
“Do you still think it’s not disgusting?
“I like the way you look right now – better than any other time I’ve seen you. I mean it.”
And I did mean it.
“That was great,” she said. “I don’t know why, but there was a time when I spent all of my paycheck and savings on sushi. I went to all sorts of sushi restaurants, and this place was the most comfortable. They don’t give you looks if you eat too much, and the chef is such a nice man. So, I made this my place. Although I haven’t visited much lately.”
“You’re so well-spoken; why are so quiet at the office?” I asked in a joking manner.
She lifted her glass and took a sip of sake. Her face turned suddenly somber.
“I know that everyone at the office hates me. I’d hate me too if there was another me at the office.”
“People don’t hate you,” I said. However, my attempt at comforting her didn’t seem to be helping much.
“Eating sushi alone at this restaurant, I used to feel so miserable. As I ate the sushi, I would think about how this sushi was bought with the money I so painstakingly earned while enduring the hate of everyone at the office. Thinking like that, I feel so hopelessly miserable.”
She lifted her shot glass again. Seeing that it was empty, I poured her some more. Quietly, she emptied the glass. She then put another piece of sushi in her mouth. How many was she at now? 150?
She extended her glass toward me. I picked up my glass and we toasted. It was our first time clinking glasses. Using sushi as a chaser, she ate two more pieces in quick succession.
“You can really hold your liquor,” I said.
“Not really. But occasionally I drink my fair share.”
We poured each other another glass of sake.
“Have you ever seen someone eat so much in a single sitting?” she asked.
“No, but I sometimes do it myself. Very seldomly, though.”
“How much can you eat?” she asked with eyes full of curiosity.
“There were seven months when I only drank canned beer. I probably consumed twelve thousand cans of beer,” I said.
She gave me a look of astonishment.
“That’s amazing,” she said, smiling.
She was very drunk. But in my opinion, she looked much better drunk than she did sober. She picked up her glass again to toast. I met her glass with mine, and then emptied it.
“I would eat until the food was literally coming back up through my throat. You need to stretch your stomach to its limit and stuff as much food down your throat as your body can handle – only then does food come back up through your throat.”
“And what would happen then?”
I asked because I was truly curious what would happen. She finished her glass of sake. Our bottle had gone dry, so I ordered another one. What number were we on? Was it the ninth or tenth?
“I would throw up, then fast for several days. Then again I would… I couldn’t stop myself. It’s an embarrassing part of my life. I tried seeing a doctor about it, but there was nothing they could do for me.” When the sake came out, she poured herself another glass and downed it in a flash. Then she poured herself another glass and finished that one too. As she reached out for the bottle once more, I put a hand on her arm.
“Slow down a bit.”
She brushed my hand away. She then poured herself another glass and drank it. And then another. As she continued to guzzle down glass after glass without any breaks, the old sumo-wrestler-turned-chef came over and gave her a stern look as if to say she had had enough to drink.
“Ms Son, I think it’s about time you were on your way.”
I got up from my seat. But Jeong-eun didn’t seem like she wanted to get up. She lifted the bottle again and poured herself another glass. She drank the sake, and poured again. This time, however, the bottle only filled up half the glass before running dry. She drank the half-full glass. She then shook the bottle and asked for more. I left her behind for a minute as I went to the counter to pay the bill. I asked the waitress at the counter how much the bill was for, and at this moment, Jeong-eun let out an embarrassingly loud scream as she ran toward the counter.
“No, Mr Kong! I’ll get the check. I’ll get the check. I’m the one who ate like a pig today. I’ll get the check. I’m obviously the one who should pay.”
She was screaming so loud that everyone in the restaurant began staring at her. Clumsily runnin
g toward the counter, she bumped into another customer’s table. A bottle of alcohol came crashing to the ground. If anyone hadn’t been staring already, they were now. The sumo-wrestler-turned-chef quickly came over and sat Jeong-eun down. He then apologized to the customers whose table she had bumped into and gave a look to another chef to clean up the mess. Jeong-eun was writhing furiously, trying to make her way to the counter, but the chef was holding onto her tightly, making it impossible to leave her seat. It didn’t take long before she began sobbing.
“Please, let me get the check, sir. I beg you,” she said to the chef. The chef finally nodded his head and let Jeong-eun walk to the counter.
I went over to Jeong-eun and told her that she didn’t need to pay and that I had genuinely enjoyed the food and drink. But she ignored me and took out her wallet from her old leather bag to pay. She then ran to the restroom. Because the restrooms were next to the counter, the sound of her vomiting into the toilet could be heard from outside.
“She’s actually a good girl,” the chef said to me in a whisper.
“Yeah, I know,” I said.
When she came out of the bathroom, she seemed to have sobered up a bit. I helped her outside and into a taxi. Jeongeun mumbled her address to the driver, then looked out the window. She was crying. I couldn’t say anything. When we arrived at her apartment complex, I asked, “Are you OK?” She dropped her head and gave me a polite bow as if to say yes. She then began staggering toward her apartment.
“Ms Son, are you really OK?” I asked again to her back.
She didn’t answer. She continued to stagger away. I lit a cigarette and anxiously watched her from behind. Instead of going into her apartment, she went inside the next-door supermarket. By the time I finished my second cigarette, she was leaving the supermarket with a large plastic bag brimming with groceries in each hand. Holding those plastic bags, which looked as though they were about to burst, she staggered toward the front entrance to her apartment building. She lost her balance as she climbed the stairs and fell over. I was still watching her when this happened and ran toward her. She stared at me for a moment as though she was amazed that I still hadn’t left, then said, “I’m fine. I trip easily.” Inside the two plastic bags that had dropped to the ground were biscuits, ham, milk, cheese, bread, chocolate, ice cream, apples, honey, pears, and the like. With both bags in one hand, I helped her up with the other.
She continued to lose her balance in the elevator. But she wouldn’t grab me or rest her head on my shoulder. Propping herself up in one corner of the elevator, she tried her best to keep her balance. Her room was on the eleventh floor. She took a key from her old bag and tried opening the door. But because she was still drunk, she couldn’t quite find the keyhole. Unable to watch her suffer anymore, I opened the door for her. At the entrance was a giant dog. The dog was so huge that I thought it was a bear cub at first. It was an Alaskan Malamute sled dog, and it was too big to be raised in an apartment. The dog came over to Jeong-eun and nuzzled her with its face. She petted its head. As she hadn’t exactly invited me into her apartment, I decided to stand at the door holding the two plastic bags. The Malamute was staring at me. Jeong-eun began walking toward the living room but fell again. Worse yet, she wasn’t getting up this time. Taking off my shoes and entering her apartment, I helped her up then laid her on the sofa. I covered her with a blanket I found in the closet. I then retrieved the groceries from the front entrance and placed them on the kitchen table. I stared at the contents of the bags for a moment before taking the things that shouldn’t be left out, like ice cream, milk, and fruit, and putting them on the table.
I opened her refrigerator to discovered it completely empty. There wasn’t a single crumb of food to be found, only a lonely bottle of water. I stood there for several minutes just staring at her empty refrigerator. Occasionally I could hear the rattle of the motor behind the refrigerator spinning. I was somewhat suspicious of that mechanical sound which was so furiously cooling the inside of an empty refrigerator. I placed the ice cream, milk, and fruit in the refrigerator and closed the door. Then I gave the Malamute obediently sitting by her side a pat on the head and left her apartment.
“Perhaps you feel lonely among people, or like no one understands you.”
“I am a little prone to loneliness.”
“And do you feel like no one understands you?”
“No, actually I feel the opposite.”
“What do you mean ‘the opposite’?“
“People actually understand each other quite well. But it doesn’t matter. People know you’re lonely. In fact, they’re just as lonely as you. But there’s nothing they can do for you, right? That’s why we become lonely. In the end, it means the same thing.”
AM I A SYMPTOMER?
I love to collect tickets. Concerts, exhibitions, movies – wherever I go, I simply must collect the ticket and some pamphlets. Going on vacation or visiting somewhere new is no different. Anything will do, so long as it reminds me that I was there. Even something as simple as a souvenir or a ballpoint pen. And I never forget to take the business card of someone I’m meeting for the first time. If I don’t do these things, life in the city loses its meaning. Sometimes I ask myself, “Gosh, what did I do this last year?” I get worried when I feel like I can’t answer that simple question. That’s why I collect tickets. And I can’t throw them away. My house is filled with useless stuff. In fact, when I run out of space, I end up throwing away the necessary things instead. It’s a shame because eventually I’ll have to buy new ones.
I job hop. They’re usually unpopular, low-paying jobs that anyone can do. When quitting, it often takes less than ten minutes to hand everything over to my replacement. In fact, the process is over so quickly that I often think to myself, “Huh, is that all my job entailed?” When I start a new job, I try hard for the first few months to get settled in. I act kind to people and always smile, but then after a few months I think to myself, “What am I doing here?” Just when the work gets easier and I’ve established good relationships with everyone, suddenly I fall into a state of panic. So I quit. Sometimes I try to give good reasons first before quitting, but when my circumstances don’t allow for it, I just act irresponsibly and don’t show up for work one day. Then I lay curled up in my room for a time before finally going on a trip. I feel much better after traveling for a while. And when I come back from my trip, I start a new job. This cycle repeats itself over and over. But it can’t be helped; contrary to popular belief, locking yourself in your room and doing nothing isn’t free. Anyway, when I do eventually go job hunting again, I look for a place that is as far away from my old job as possible; that way, I won’t bump into my old colleagues by accident. It’s not like I’ve done something wrong or am on bad terms with them, I just don’t want to see them. And because of this, I’ve been having a tough time finding a route to work these days. Looking at a map of Seoul, it feels like there are fewer and fewer neighborhoods I can go to. Three years from now, I’ll need to work in Gyeonggi Province or move to some small city. Of course, it’s impossible to ever be completely satisfied. I’m not complaining. In fact, in some ways, I’m very satisfied with my life.
I’m an insurance salesman, and I cannot bear to ride the subway. Riding a city subway makes me feel like I’ve become excrement spewed out by the city. Yes, that excrement, the one in the toilet that is swept away with the push of a button. The people in the afternoon rush hour crowd are either dozing off, their faces tired and desolate, or blankly staring at advertisements. Sometimes they have no other choice but to stare at each other’s faces awkwardly. But staring too long at another person’s face is rude in the city. So I try to avoid other people’s faces and eyes, but doing this makes me feel like I’m a corpse trapped in a cramped coffin. It’s so hard to move around in the subway car. Rush hour frightens me. I always recite these words to myself, “Don’t worry. Don’t worry. Only ten stops left.”
When I finish that stifling journey home and fi
nally arrive at my place, there’s a brief moment of sublime peace as I collapse on the sofa like a piece of dirty laundry and fall asleep. But when I wake up from my nap, I become filled with dread thinking about how tomorrow morning I must enter that giant city sewer again. Just seeing the subway car is enough to make me puke these days. I once threw up three times in a subway car and fainted. If you include its satellite cities, Seoul is a colossal metropolis where more than 25 million people live. Indeed, this is a very big city. But how can you live in a place like this without taking the subway?
I keep hearing the sound of a bell. I open my cellphone, but no one’s called me. In fact, for the last several months, I haven’t received a single phone call from anyone I know. After a while, I started to wonder if everyone in my life had forgotten about me. I’ve waited so patiently for them, but I guess everyone has forgotten I exist. It’s frightening. Obviously, I can’t call them first. Every day I would swap out my cellphone battery as I thought to myself, “What if I get a call from someone who remembers me today. I’ll have to buy them a nice dinner. And get them a present that’ll knock their socks off.” But still no phone call. As weeks have turned to months, I’ve began to despise the people who should have known my phone number. How could they forget me when I was in so much pain and so lonely? Several days ago, I was eating by myself when I suddenly yelled, “They can all go to hell!”
I can’t stop working. If schedules and weekly agendas aren’t neatly printed and placed on my desk, I become so overwhelmed with anxiety that I can’t do anything. Because of this, I tend to work late. It’s not that I am bogged down with work, nor is it that my boss is a nitpicker. It’s just because of anxiety. When I mindlessly watch TV at home, I often start thinking about the next morning’s meeting or about things that I might have forgotten to do; sometimes I even drive my car into work at three in the morning. I can’t think about or do anything outside of work. Did I mention I don’t have any hobbies or social life?