by Heekyung Eun
He didn’t ask to talk to B. At one time, B, Y, and I were inseparable, but at some point Y went his own way. It may have been after I’d become active in the administration of an Internet literature site for which B was the system operator. I think it was then that I chose B over Y to be my coordinates.
6
MOST PEOPLE PREFER the convenience of a city. Still, I’ve never heard anyone say that they feel out of place in nature. Whether they like it or not, humans possess a feeling of closeness to nature and react instinctively to living organisms. Everyone wants to make enough money to be able to live in a house with a big garden and a nice view, from which they could look at flowers, trees and water. I’ve never imagined a situation in which nature could cause suffering. That was before I saw the mountains around J. They weren’t at all like the scene from a postcard. The desolate gray mountains of rock, veiling the sky like an enormous cement wall, called to mind spine-chilling terror more than majesty. With the sunlight hurting my eyes like a baby just out of the womb, and the fallen tree trunks submerged like the bones of a herd of dead animals in the streams that came into view at every bend in the path, it all suggested some cursed time from the beginning of the world. There was nothing of the motherliness or intimacy or harmony that is associated with nature. My gut feeling is that our use of the word “nature” undoubtedly refers to what nature was before we’d chosen a name for it.
The campground P had reserved for us was infrequently visited, an isolated place situated in the deepest part of the mountains in the J region. During the nearly hour-long drive there from the town of J, we did not meet a single car coming in the opposite direction. There were several campsites positioned here and there in the dense forest of the campground, like the tunnels in an ant hill, but we were the only campers. While P was gone to the bathroom, Y used his left hand to halfheartedly help me unload our things from the trunk of the car.
“It’s P’s style to plan out a route like this,” he said. “The usual route is to pass through the tourist area around B before coming up to the J region. But we’re doing it backwards, starting with J and then going down to B. Instead of climbing a slope of gradually increasing intensity until the summit is reached, it’s more his style to leap from level ground up a steep incline to the top, and then to make his way down slowly.”
“What the hell kind of way is that?” I replied angrily.
P had been so absorbed in looking at the map he got from the information booth at the entrance to the J region that we very nearly entered without getting a parking permit.
We’d planned to go hiking as soon as we unpacked our things and set up the tent. The mountain had a gentle slope, so it wasn’t as difficult as we’d thought to climb up above the tree line. But there was something frightening I couldn’t have anticipated. It was the silence. I’d never imagined such a harsh and isolated reality like that, dozens of kilometers of the natural world full of all kinds of life in every direction, but no humans at all. Consequently, the moment I saw a sign indicating a hot spring, I nearly collapsed on the spot from the feeling of relief that we’d reached human civilization. I didn’t feel like going one step farther. But the ‘hot spring’ was nothing but a stagnant pool that the native Indians had used a long time ago. No matter where I turned, there was only a feeling of the dreary alienation of time and space, as well as silence. From time to time I felt a chill, as if a dark shadow was sweeping between the trees, causing me to freeze several times in my tracks.
Following behind me, Y soon began to clap his hands, telling me not to worry about my back. On top of that, he even blew his whistle. Then, perhaps feeling reassured, he walked up to P and began speaking to him.
“Surely there won’t be any bears on this path, will there?”
P replied with no emotion. “To bears, walking along this path would be no easier than walking through the woods.”
After a brief silence, Y spoke again.
“Were there lots of strawberries this year?”
“Why do you ask?”
“I’ve heard that bears appear more frequently in years following poor strawberry yields.”
Soon I too was walking closely behind Y, waiting in expectation for P’s response.
“June is summer in the city, but in these mountains the snow melted a few days ago and spring is only now just beginning. For bears waking from hibernation, this is the time to eat mainly grass in order to expel the feces that have been in their intestines for so long. With so many nourishing herbs around, why pay any attention to the burdensome flesh of animals?”
His tension finally eased, Y started to make jokes.
“Man, if I could communicate with bears, I’d let them know how tough and distasteful my flesh is.”
P turned and glanced at Y, and then replied, as if to a triviality, “That would have been possible 180 million years ago. Back then, bears and humans were the same organism. Eukaryotes stemmed from one ancestor population. In the distant past, flowering plants, insects, and humans were all one organism.”
“Oh, is that so?” Y said quickly, giving me a wink. I think it was a signal that he’d heard enough. 180 million years. It wasn’t, after all, a period of time that a being who didn’t even live a hundred years could imagine. But P didn’t care at all what other people thought. Units of time from the ancient past began to spill from his mouth.
“Evidence for Ice Ages over the ‘most recent’ two million years has been revealed. The oldest Ice Age occurred 57 million years ago. During the last 42,000 years, the earth has shifted between glacial and interglacial periods four times, while the longest Ice Age began 2.5 million years ago and ended 10,000 years ago. The Rocky Mountains were formed mainly in the late Jurassic Period, and even as far back as the Paleozoic Era, when magma permeated deep into the Precambrian crust. At that point, sea creatures climbed onto the mountains and became fossils. The rock we’re currently standing on was formed between 1.1 and 2.7 billion years ago.”
Y, who had been waiting for the opportunity, finally interrupted P.
“Well, I was in Italy, and because all the buildings and statues were from before Christ, I felt so insignificant. Now I come here and everything is in tens of thousands to millions and billions of years.”
“So what? In fact, even the genes in your body have been around for ten thousand years,” said P, using the map he was holding to block Y from walking ahead of him.
Though we hadn’t discussed it, P was in charge of cooking and Y dealt with the fire. Washing dishes alone at the unfrequented campground’s public sink was my part. Additional odd jobs were left to me, too. These were things Y would’ve had to do if I hadn’t been there. After finishing the dishes, I took the kimchi container, the camping stove, and our emergency food supply and put it all into the public food storage locker, in accordance with the bear warning notices advising not to leave any leftover food on the tables or in tents. The storage locker, secured tightly with iron chains and a second locking device, was shamefully empty. I went to the bathroom and quickly washed up, all the while feeling anxious that a dark shadow would suddenly burst in through the door. When I returned to the campsite, I found P sitting alone in front of a roaring fire drinking a can of beer. In his oversized, rough hands, the shiny silver beer can looked very small. The brand was “Wild Rose,” produced in a small local brewery. I was exhausted and wouldn’t have said no a beer, but, remembering Y’s warning, I crawled into the tent. Y was already fast asleep in his sleeping bag.
When, half asleep, I opened my eyes and glanced at my watch, the glowing hands indicated eleven o’clock. Feeling a little strange, I lifted a corner of the mosquito netting and looked outside. Unbelievably, as if morning had come, it was light out. The campground was frighteningly quiet, as if someone were plugging my ears, even though a few other groups of campers had arrived late that afternoon. P was in the same position, still drinking beer. There was a map open on his lap. It was like watching a screen after pressing the mute
button. P sitting there quietly with a beer in his hand, his enormous back, the vigorously blazing fire next to him, it all felt like a scene from a dream. There were numerous “Wild Rose” cans scattered around his feet. I sunk back into my sleeping bag.
I don’t know why I opened my eyes again. I think it was the sound of footsteps. I distinctly sensed something approaching the tent. My mind raced, urging me to ready myself, but strangely I couldn’t move a muscle except to breathe. I think I even heard Y make a low moaning sound. With my whole body stiff and cold sweat dripping off me in my sleeping bag, I waited in terror as the unknown creature’s dull, heavy footsteps moved closer. All of my senses became focused at once into my ears, and my heart was beating so fast it was painful. I closed my eyes tightly. But at the moment it seemed that the footsteps would stop in front of the tent, they passed and gradually receded into the distance. Certain that they were indeed growing fainter, I remained frozen for a while in the darkness and silence. I don’t know how much time passed. An indescribable sustained howling sound, undoubtedly animal-like, neither from nearby nor from afar, could be heard. Was it a bear? When I murmured the question, Y made a rustling sound in the darkness, whispering, “It’s P.” Not long after I heard him turn over onto his side, he was snoring once again. I listened for a while for more sounds from outside. I finally realized that it was still light out after eleven o’clock because of the northern latitude. In some places in the world where the sun stays up all night, surely there are those who remain awake, unable to sleep. I suddenly felt a vague sadness for every being still awake at this hour. I wanted to be a part of that group, whatever it was. Once again, the animal-like howling cut through the stillness.
7
THOUGH I DROVE for hours each day and then went trekking in the mountains without even taking time to rest, I didn’t get tired. With bandages on the places where the new hiking boots stripped the skin off my feet, I became accustomed to walking this way and that on the mountain trails. My stomach, too, gave me less trouble than I had feared it would, possibly because we made our own food. One time we encountered rain while we were in the car. The moment the fist-sized raindrops started to hit the car window, one after another bursting with a firecracker-like popping sound, I reflexively held up my arm to protect my face. But it stopped in an instant. Whenever we took down the tent, it wasn’t easy for me to have to see all those wriggling insects gathered underneath, trying to share in the warmth of my body. Every time we finished eating, before I could even enjoy the feeling of being sated, let alone drink a relaxing cup of coffee, I had to perform the annoying task of getting up to do the dishes. As the days went by, however, that too became routine. Perhaps it came as a consequence of the inexpressible dignity of living a life within the simple rhythm of eating and traveling and walking and eating again and sleeping.
The sad scene from the animated movie Leo the Lion: King of the Jungle, in which Leo says, while eating a deer he has hunted, “I wonder why we have to eat only meat,” is only human interpretation, and has nothing to do with nature. Sitting next to the still breathing deer, eating into its internal organs, the infant lion’s mouth is completely covered with blood. He looks no different than an innocent child eating noodles, with sauce smeared all over his face.
P wanted to do everything alone, wholly according to his own methods. He disliked it if we offered a different opinion about a destination, or pretended to know in which direction we were headed, or even cut onions for him when he was cooking stew. He was a person who moved only in accordance with the map inside his own head. Still, that didn’t mean he followed his determined path with error-free precision. On the contrary, he was ridiculously ignorant in terms of the basic common sense that everyone had and would approach a problem in an unpredictable and complicated way, like looking up the meaning of the words “next” and “door” in the Encyclopedia Britannica and the Oxford English Dictionary and the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty in order to visit his next door neighbor. His way of thinking was by ordinary standards completely inconsistent, so it was difficult to know what he was going to think or do next. But P had no doubt at all that he was following the simplest and most clear-cut route. If there were actually someone who looked up to P and wanted to follow him as a leader, it wouldn’t be easy for that person to curry favor with him because it’s impossible to understand what’s going on in his mind.
P’s abnormal sleeping habits were indeed another of his idiosyncrasies. Instead of sleeping in a tent, he preferred to lie on the bare ground and fall asleep looking up at the sky. He liked it because he could see the stars and, in particular, feel a breeze brush against his face. When he took off all his clothes and crawled naked into his sleeping bag, he looked like a wild animal in its fur. One night, I awoke from a dream in which I was being chased by an enormous shadow, and I didn’t know if it was the shadow of a bear or P. Suddenly gripped by a strange feeling, I stepped outside the tent, expecting to see P lying on the ground with his sleeping bag pulled over his head, but he wasn’t there. Maybe he became a grizzly bear when the hour was late, like a frog becoming a prince. But there he was, stumbling out of the forest’s early morning mist, looking not unlike a drunken man who, having collapsed and fallen asleep at the very place he chose to urinate, was awoken by a chill and was now making his way home. The only difference was that instead of wearing clothes, he was wrapped in his sleeping bag. Judging by the scratches and blood on his face, it was clear that he’d tripped and bumped into a tree or something. He did occasionally hurt himself like that, but he had no violent side to him at all. Y’s warning about him being a vicious drunk was probably just hot air.
Some of the campsites we stayed at were enclosed in wire fences with a weak electric current running through them in order to prevent wild animals from entering. In those places, I still cleared the area around our tent every night, taking care not to miss a single grain of rice, and faithfully put our left over food inside the public storage locker, all in an effort to safeguard against a bear attack. I considered myself to be solitary and a little stronger than before. I crossed the dark forest without a flashlight to go to the bathroom, and although I’d still get startled if some rustling sound came from the next stall, I’d calm down right away. Even if the feet I saw under the door of the next stall somehow belonged to a bear, and the bear asked me to share my toilet paper or grumbled about the inconvenience of not having any hot water, I don’t think it would be enough to frighten me out of my senses. It became my habit, or even my obsession, to think about bears. I was walking once in a valley in the pouring rain with my duck down parka on, and when I eventually took it off, the sudden thought of a bear who like me was wandering around without rain clothes, getting wet, made me feel indescribably refreshed. When I rode a snowmobile to the top of a glacier, I imagined myself soaking my feet in the melted ice water with a bear. I even thought we could share some meat or fish.
The J region didn’t attract a lot of tourists. Consequently, a number of cars lined up along the side of the road indicated that people had stopped to look at the wildlife. There were lots of caribou and deer, and occasionally even coyotes. One time I saw a Rocky Mountain goat standing perilously at the edge of a cliff on a high, snow-capped peak. Staring silently into the distance, its white beard fluttering in the wind, it looked sublime, like a monk or a philosopher living existentially in a polar region. But we didn’t see any bears. Though Y had been complaining constantly about that fact, he gradually seemed to grow indifferent to bears.
On the last day, Y, P and I drank until the campfire burned itself out. Wherever P happened to sit, the old map was always the very first thing placed on his lap.
“After carrying that thing around all this time, haven’t you memorized it yet?”
In response to Y’s wisecrack, P smiled sheepishly, saying, “It’s different every time I look at it.”
I asked Y, “Is it okay for you to drink alcohol? You’ll likely get some inflammation on your wound.”
“It’s practically healed, anyway,” he responded, bravely unraveling his bandage.
I’d already sensed not long after our trip began that there was something business-related Y wanted to discuss with P. A long time ago, when it was trendy to give one’s friends nicknames beginning with “Master,” B’s nickname for Y was “Master of Tricks.” B would have been able to ferret out the numerous lies Y had potentially told me. While opening his can of beer with his right hand, Y said to me, “Let’s make a bet. Whether or not a bear can open a beer can.” Just then, from the part of the campfire where the wood was piled up, a spark suddenly jumped up with a crackle and soared toward P’s cheek. I wondered if he’d be transformed from a map addict into a bear if fire touched him. It was the last of my bear-related fancies. The trip was almost over. The only joy I could experience from it was approaching.
8
TITLE: ROCKY COMMUNICATION
Thank you for waiting so long. This is the news from my friend M, who went on the most enjoyable trip in the world. You’re all aware, aren’t you, that he left his cell phone with me? Well, a text message arrived for him yesterday. Quickly opening it, I saw that it was from his credit card company, notifying him that his card had been used to make a purchase. Do you know what this means? That’s right. It means M used his credit card in Canada. Eighty-five dollars. Clearly for alcohol, right? Be happy, everyone. He’s finally joined civilized society.
But it’s a little strange. He hasn’t called yet. I wonder if something happened in the forest. Since he hasn’t bothered to contact his friends, maybe he married a bear.
Title: P’s Coordinates Originate from O
My friend M hasn’t changed a bit. The very next day after he got back, he returned to the city and his friends and drank draft beer until dawn. He checked his cell phone for missed calls and messages as soon as I gave it back to him. If I ask him, “Were you expecting a call?” he’ll play innocent and say, “Absolutely not.” In fact, he may even be waiting for ex-girlfriends to call him and ask for his forgiveness for the wrongs they inflicted upon him. He has no backbone, so he’s always quick to forgive. I told him that his mother called while he was away, but he didn’t seem particularly happy about it. I mean, I even lied for him, which wasn’t easy for someone like me, telling her that M was on vacation in Anmyeondo with a bear. “Didn’t anything happen while I was gone?” That was all M seemed curious about. His ulterior motive was to hear that his friends missed him, but we all knew him for such childish schemes. Poor M. He was lured to the Rockies, only to suffer great hardship, and he can’t even count on his friends for confirmation of their friendship. M repeated the same question three times, so one of his friends finally said something. “While you were gone, New York had its worst ever power outage.” “That’s last year’s news,” said M with a laugh of resignation. Anyway, for the first time in their lives, the people of New York saw a sky filled with stars. Just like our friend M.