Читать книгу Blood Sisters - Kim Yideum - Страница 17

Death Mask

Another happy New Year: Happy 1988. Now there are two 8s, which looks like two nooses. Is this how it feels to stand on the gallows? The reality is that only the number on the calendar changes, nothing else. No … things did change.

My watch died but time kept moving, and everything fucking changed. My face was frozen and expressionless like a death mask as I packed, and, like a squeaky wheel, I tumbled into the attic room of Instant Paradise. Even after that happened, the sun continued rising and setting. The wind kept on blowing.

“Receive good fortune this year!”

I wish people wouldn’t say shit like that. I hate imperatives. I wish you a happy New Year might be a little better. Happy, though? Me? This year? All this feels like a fucking joke. Even after I thought everything was over, here we are, another fucking year arrives. There’s not much difference between yesterday and today, so why would one year or another be any different? What’s so new about this year?

It’s all bullshit.

I’m alive. I didn’t freeze to death. I didn’t starve to death. Like my stepmom says, I’m worse than vermin, so here I am, still alive. Like she says, I’m a cold bitch without a single drop of warm blood and without any tears, so here I am, not shedding any tears. I stand by the window alone and awkward. From the window I watch the main street intersection leading to the university. A girl in a colorful hanbok dress holds her parents’ hands, one of each, and swings between them. The sound of her laughter echoes up to my dark room. A mattress lies on the floor, the size of a coffin.

One Sunday, Sunbe and I were sitting on the windowsill at our place, sharing a bag of chips. Should we move somewhere with a better view? To a higher floor? The rent will be higher though, huh? Let’s just clean the place we already have. Together, humming a song, we laundered our blankets by stepping on them in a tub full of soapsuds. She slipped and grabbed my arm. That day, we pulled the withering geranium from its pot and left the pot outside the door.

Another day, I thought Sunbe was calling me from the communal bathroom—maybe she forgot to take the toilet paper with her again. When I pushed open the door with a handful of toilet paper, Jimin was right outside, looking into the flowerpot we’d left there.

“What kind of plant is that? It looks like a little tree …” We looked at each other and smiled at this surprising new growth.

“You look stupid with your mouth hanging open like that. If you don’t watch out, a fly will get in.” Jimin tapped my chin and wrapped her arm around my shoulder. She spoke as though she was speaking to herself, rubbing my disheveled hair. “If I wither and die like this geranium, you’ll be a floating seed with nowhere to go. Go float somewhere nice and sprout, okay?”

“Why do you imagine me floating? Do you think I’m some sort of insect? A bee or butterfly or fly buzzing around?” I wrapped the toilet paper around my knuckles like a boxer and threw a punch at her. She giggled, swaying like a reed.

“I don’t know when I might die, but when it happens, take all my books, okay?”

Did a white butterfly fly by at that moment? Did any of this even happen? The world is an impersonal space that keeps reminding us how small we are. When one organism disappears another takes its place. Everything just keeps on going, nothing matters.

Despite the calamity, no houses are collapsing. No hurricane flings people, struggling to hang on to the door, up into the sky. Not a single devastating epidemic circulates. The world doesn’t come to a silent halt. I’m still breathing—in, out. I’m nothing but a breathing, grotesque death mask.