by Kim Sagwa
“I guess not. Hey, give me another smoke. Wow, it’s chilly.”
“Mmm. Here you go. You know…I’ve been thinking. There are too many flowering trees around here. I always feel like I’m suffocating.”
“Really?” Minho places a hand on her chest. “You’ve still got a heartbeat.”
She removes his hand and places it on his own chest, then takes a drag off his cigarette.
“They don’t say anything here if you smoke? Where I live they don’t joke around.”
“Nobody’s ever said anything to me.”
“Cool… You live in a nice place.”
“Where’d you get that anyway?”
“I told you—it’s from Cesare Lombroso’s Criminal Man. God, his name is hard to pronounce.”
“So what are you doing with it?”
“I like it. I saw an excerpt in my social studies workbook. It’s something else, isn’t it? I’m trying to memorize it.”
“Sure, why not.”
She gets up. “I’ve got to go.”
“I’ll walk with you.”
“You don’t have to.”
“What’s wrong? You mad?”
“No.” She lowers her head, whimpering.
“Crystal, what’s the matter? Are you crying?”
“Yeah. I’m crying. I… All the stupid things that happened today. I…I want to kill all the people I ran into today. But that’s a lot of people. Still, I…I’d do it. Yeah, it wouldn’t take long. And then, and then, hey Minho—when it’s all over, let’s go to Sunday brunch at a hotel. I’ve been craving stuff that’s super fresh. I need something yummy. Homemade bread and a quiche loaded with bacon and cheese. Nice fat rolls of sushi, tofu salad with ginger dressing. I need food that’s expensive and makes your mouth water. Summer’s coming. Spring is dead. This spring we’re having now, it’s never coming back. I’m going to erase everything. I hate summer. I want to be rid of it. I wish half the people in the world would just disappear. I hope the Amazon rain forest grows lush again. I hope nature recovers and stars fill the night sky. No more wars and no more terror anywhere on the globe, no more environmental degradation, no more endangering polar bears. Maybe I should work for the U.N. so I can help. Listen to me. I’m begging you. Really listen. In one minute, no, in thirty seconds I’ll be gone. I won’t be here. I’ll have erased everything from my mind. That’s the way it goes. I’ll forget everything. There’s not much time left now. I’ll wipe it out. I’ll wipe it all out. I don’t like all these complications. So I’m getting rid of everything. The thing is, I…I…I love you. Don’t you know that? How can I get that across to you? I don’t like confusion, and yet I’m so confused. My heart’s beating. I’m such a normal girl, and yet the world is stickier and grosser than a spiderweb—why is that? Will you please try to understand me? If you can understand me, my heart and my soul, you can eat worms, mosquitos, roaches, whatever, and then you can kiss me. And I’ll kiss you. I give you permission. You’re perfect for me, Oppa. And no one else, remember that.”
“Okay, I just feasted on all of it,” Minho says, then he kisses her.
Eying him, she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. “All right. I know what’s on your mind. I’m disappointed in you. But I can’t help it, because I love you. You don’t understand. You don’t look at me the same way you look at people who are like you. Because of you my heart is crumbling. Why can’t you feel it? I want to cry. I feel like killing myself.”
Minho pleads. He says he loves her. He says not to cry and not to kill herself.
“I won’t ever kill myself. Why would I want to do that? I’ll never, ever kill myself.”
And they kiss again.
DAWN AT THE SUPERSTORE
Her head is full of voices. They continue even when she turns off the music. Even if she takes off her headphones. There are at least five of them. Each jabbering away in a different language. One screams “Banana!” in English. Another says, “The kettle is hot” in Chinese. Another says, “It’s in the drawer” in Korean. One of them calls her by name—Crystal. That voice is despicably sweet. “You can run,” it says to her. “And you can crawl. But you don’t need to be a different person.”
She’s still wide awake.
Several times during the night she’s sat up in bed, only to fall back again. The time has passed slowly, until she arrives at an awkward decision point: either do something or keep trying to fall asleep. It’s the dead of night, and nothing, absolutely nothing is happening, and she’s the only one who’s awake. Her uneasiness continues: Does she feel like crying, or does she feel like laughing? Remembering yesterday, she thinks of how much she has done and concludes that there’s nothing more to be done. Except to get some sleep. Everything happened yesterday. A new bright morning is approaching. But she stays awake. The more time that passes, the clearer her mind. She scowls, buries her face in her pillow, and then rubs it slowly against the pillow, moaning. Several brief but deep fits of sleep later, she gives up. She checks the time: 3:47. She goes out to the living room, paces back and forth a few times, then goes into the bathroom and turns on the shower.
Cold water pours over her chest. Instantly she cringes, before ducking her head into the stream until her limp, sodden hair clings to her face. She finds the shampoo and lathers until her hair is white with foam. She looks grave and pensive, but she’s not really thinking about much of anything. Afterward she moves busily through the unlit rooms, but quietly enough to not wake her parents. In her room she packs her new messenger bag, in the bathroom she blow-dries her hair. Then back in her room she gets dressed; she goes to the kitchen for a drink of water. Back in the bathroom she combs and applies conditioner to her hair. In her room she sprays perfume, and then she takes her bag to the entryway and sets it down. She sits on the sofa and thinks for a moment, considering the phone. She flips the TV on and then off. She picks up the phone and puts it back down. She retrieves her bag from the entryway, takes it to her room, empties it, and sorts through the contents. Back into the bag go her notebooks, pencil case, cigarettes, and MP3 player, and on top she adds her school uniform. She turns on her computer and checks social media, blogs, and email. Her news feed carries a headline in boldface: “High School Girls Having Group Sex.” She checks the weather. Then she logs onto her favorite sites, typing in her IDs, her passwords. She prints out a page, looks it over, nods, then folds it in half, sticks it in one of the notebooks, and adds the notebook to her bag. One last check of the contents and she zips the bag shut. Turning off the light, she leaves; the door to her room stays open. She crosses the living room to shut the bathroom door, puts on her shoes in the entryway, and surveys the apartment before leaving.
As soon as she’s outside, a vacant taxi appears. She hails it and the taxi pulls up in front of her. She tells the driver where she wants to go, and he asks if she minds if he smokes. She nods—fine. He rolls down his window and lights up. A cold wind blows. The streets are dark and deserted, but the distant skies are brightening. Fretfully she clenches her fists. She watches anxiously as the streets slowly recover their distinctive colors with the gradually lightening sky. The news comes on over the radio. The driver curses the government. Crystal looks back out the window. The driver stubs out his cigarette. More news: politics, the weather, the economy. She feels anger rising inside her and tries not to let it show. A solitary, brightly lit superstore appears in the distance.
“Go straight and drop me off up there, please,” she says, pointing to the mart.
The double glass doors to the store lurch open as she approaches. She marches straight through. Very few customers at this hour, all of their faces wooden with fatigue. A jaunty hit song from last winter—or was it last fall?—plays. She starts looking around. There are Barbies, DVDs, pet food, underwear, socks, Harry Potter action figures. Turning left from an aisle of snow-white washing machines, she pauses at the kitchenware section and lingers before a display of translucent dishes with bright orange designs. An
d then, looking serious, she surveys several varieties of tea cups. She tries out cutting boards by tapping them with a knuckle, then cuts through the kitchen knife display to the grocery section. She takes a bar of chocolate and wanders a bit before heading to the fruit. Picking up a shopping basket from a pile next to a crate of apples, she drops the chocolate bar into it. She carefully examines the selection of instant noodle soup, then moves on to a display of bottled water, adding a bottle to her basket. She passes down the rice aisle and through the bakery, arriving at the oils and spices. She picks up various brands of salad dressing, one at a time, then returns them to the shelf. Reversing direction and retracing her route, she comes across bamboo salt and puts a container in her basket. Now she’s back to the kitchenware. She takes a silver lemon squeezer and examines it for some time, compares it with a corkscrew, and then returns both items to their places. She checks the ladles, examines a variety of can openers. On a top shelf wire scrubbers are on sale; open-mouthed she admires the intricate coils. Beyond the can openers she passes metal measuring cups, tongs, kitchen shears, and barbecue forks; she comes to a stop before the kitchen knives.
There’s a plentiful array. Packaged neatly in transparent plastic bearing a photo of the knife and instructions, the knives are numerous, their uses various—they are shiny and easy to handle. The knives for chopping onions have a photo of onions on the package; paring knives have a photo of an orange or an apple; vegetable knives have a photo of a cucumber or celery stalk. Butcher knives have a photo of beef, fillet knives a photo of fresh fish. There are also sushi knives. There are expensive knives and some knives on sale, priced more reasonably. There are imported knives and domestic ones, knives with blunt tips and pointed ones. There are generic knives bearing the superstore brand name. She hesitates—which one to choose, an import or a domestic?—then reaches for an onion knife. The next moment everything has turned black and white. Only the numerous knives in their splendid colors stand out to her. Startled, she pulls her hand back. The background returns to its normal colors. After a cautious look around she ventures a hand toward a sushi knife. Again: everything turns black and white. All the knives reach for her. Crystal paws at the air, takes hold of one. It grabs her hand tight. There is no longer anything else, only blinding white space. A single melody fills the air. All of the hands applaud her, and she kisses one of them. She curtsies, turning in a perfect circle. The hands stroke, grab, and grope her. An enchanted smile blossoms on her face. The hands take her by the neck and press her down toward the shelving. What now? Still she manages to keep smiling.
And then she screams.
She’s backed into a shelf of plastic cups and they tumble down on her. Collecting herself, she replaces the cups. She looks into her basket and finds two knives—a large German-made one with a cool gleam and sharp point, wrapped in red plastic but without a photo, and a butcher knife with a picture of raw beef. She looks around. Everything has returned to its original color, but there’s a pale shine. She tries reaching for a grill fork. Nothing happens. Hmm, too bad. Quickly she leaves. Passing by the stacking storage cubes, she sees clothespins and clotheslines and adds a pack of each to her basket. She stops by the bakery, has three bites of a bread sample, and heads for the checkout lines.
Only two of the checkout lanes are open. Waiting in front of her are a couple and a middle-aged woman with dark circles under her eyes who looks sleep-deprived. Crystal places her items on the counter. The cashier looks to be in her early thirties. She greets Crystal in a mechanical voice and scans the items without looking at her, saying the prices out loud. Everyone looks tired. But not Crystal. She pays, then looks back at the mounds of merchandise in the white, windowless interior. Knotting her plastic bag, she places it in her messenger bag. Through the glass doors at the entrance she sees the streets brightening in the blue light of morning. She approaches the doors and they slide open for her. Waiting for a taxi to pass, she puts her headphones back on and lights a cigarette. People stare at her. She tilts her head up and back toward the sky, opens her mouth wide, and blows out smoke. The smoke vanishes into the dawn air. She takes her hand from her pocket and checks her watch: 5:53. She watches the brightening sky with a doomed expression. Crushing out her cigarette, she hails a cab and it comes to a stop.
“Go straight and drop me off up there, please.”
She passes through the school gate, crosses the playground, and enters the building. There isn’t a soul around. The hallway is dark and quiet and there’s a touch of warmth to the air. A primeval sweetness, identical to that of the Jell-O in her closet, clings to her every cell, giving her the thrilling sensation of wanting to cut her inner thigh with a knife. She goes into her homeroom, not bothering to turn on the lights. She sits at her seat, takes the notebooks from her messenger bag, and makes sure the folded piece of paper is still there. She puts the paper in her desk drawer, then takes her school uniform from the bag and places it on the desk. She checks the plastic bag, reties it, then takes it to her locker at the back of the room. She opens the locker, checks the class schedule taped inside, takes the textbooks she needs, and leaves her messenger bag. Locking the locker, she returns to her desk, picks up the uniform, and sets down the books in its place. She leaves for the bathroom and returns shortly in her neat uniform. Unlocking the locker, she retrieves her bag, puts her street clothes inside, then returns the bag to the locker. Locking it, she returns to her desk. She straightens her back and does a series of stretches. She puts on her headphones and presses Play. She takes one of her workbooks from the desk drawer. Then, pencil in hand, she looks down at it.
Suddenly she looks up—sunlight dazzles outside the window. Kids are all around her. She checks the clock on the back wall. She’s closed her workbook, leaned back in her chair, and is yawning when Jina pokes her in the back. Crystal jumps to her feet.
“You okay? You were working like crazy on those problems.”
“What? When do I ever do that?”
“You had a mad gleam in your eye.”
“Oh—so, not being able to sleep equals mad gleam?”
“You were up all night studying?”
“No, I don’t study at night,” says Crystal, looking at Jina. “All kinds of stuff happened. Hey, I’m starved. Let’s go get something to eat.”
At the snack bar she picks out a curry croquette and a carton of banana milk, while Jina, always conscious of her diet, opts for calorie-free organic green tea. They find a bench.
“Hey, Jina, can I make a call on your phone?”
Jina hands it to her. “Where’s yours?”
“It’s not working… Uh, hello? Mom? It’s Crystal. Mom, did you happen to get a call from cram school? Really? That’s strange. Ah no, nothing. Hmm? No, I had a few things to do, so I left early. Mmm, I had some pastries. No, I’m okay. By the way, Mom, is it okay if I get the new phone tomorrow? I’m feeling kind of tired—is it all right if I skip cram school tonight, just this once? Oh, I might just have a touch of the flu. And my back’s sore. And I’d love some sushi. Yeah, sushi! All right, sushi! Mmm, let’s ask Dad too. Let’s do that. Can you? When do you think you’ll be home? I see. Yeah. Love you too. Bye.”
“You okay, Crystal? You got the flu?”
“No.” She shakes her head, then mumbles: “Cellphone, tomorrow. Cram school, tomorrow. Sushi, tomorrow. Mom, tomorrow. Today. Today. Yeah, let’s do it.”
“What?”
“Never mind. Just talking to myself. Everything’s fine. All good.”
Stuffing the rest of her croquette in her mouth, she wipes the grease from her lips and drains what’s left in her carton of milk.
“Hey, Jina.”
“Mmm?”
“All done?”
“I’m gonna finish my tea inside.”
“Sure, sounds good, let’s go. But hey, first, how about once around the field? I need a walk. My head’s spinning. Yeah, some air. Actually, forget it, I don’t. Let’s just go in.”
“Huh?”
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“Let’s hurry back.”
Jina nods. Crystal locks arms with her. Jina blocks the sun with her other hand.
“By the way…is Mina okay?”
“Sure. She transferred, you know.”
“Really? You saw her? How is she? Why’d she transfer?”
“Well, I’ve been wondering myself. Why would she want to do that? I should have asked her.”
“You saw her recently?”
Crystal nods.
“How was she?”
Crystal gives Jina a blank look.
“Tell me.”
Frowning, Crystal shakes her head.
“Okay, I get it….”
“No, actually—”
“Crystal, if it’s that tough you don’t have to say anything. I get it. Really, I do.”
Nodding, Crystal gazes out the window. Jina looks out as well. Crystal presses her nose to the glass, desperately looking at something outside.
“Crystal, what are you looking at?”
“That tree…that tree…”
“That tree?”
“…I can see it growing.”
“Duh! That’s what living things do.”
“What a great tree. That’s a great tree all right. Wow!”
Jina is confused. A bell rings—ten minutes until the first class. Crystal and Jina go back to their classroom and take their seats.
“Watch out!” a voice booms. “Inspection of personal belongings!”
There’s a brief silence, followed immediately by a clamor of yells, curses, and sighs from all directions.
“Downstairs must’ve been raided already.”
Eyes wide, Crystal chews on her thumbnail. Suppressing her shock and fear, she tells herself to focus and looks back at her locker. Her heart is pounding. She tries to relax by breathing deeply but it doesn’t work. Pen held tight in one hand, she repeatedly folds and unfolds a page in her textbook.
“When’s ours?”
“Start of class.”
“You’ve gotta be kidding me!”