The Old Woman with the Knife

Maybe all living beings get to experience a bright shining moment at least once in their lives, precisely because they all crumble like overripe fruit, disappear like fireworks in the night sky.

The average life span can’t be the yardstick against which to measure an old person’s health. The increase in average life expectancy is merely due to the ability of science and medicine to delay death. As the focus is on prolonging life without having fully considered its quality, an old person living in a society with an average life span of one hundred years is like a prophetic shaman who forgets to include “pretty and young” when praying for eternal life and forever ends up with a wrinkly face and a hunched back.

The essence of life is continuous loss and abrasion that leaves behind traces of what used to be, like streaks of chalk on a chalkboard.

People always ask about other people's goals without knowing their own. Do you even know what you're doing right now? You don't even know where you're going, but you just keep moving forward.

She witnessed from up close just how much damage a soul sustains when one's family is torn away, how that life withers like the skin peeled off an apple. Though it's just a feeling, she sensed from the client a deep sorrow - the aimlessness of a vine that has lost something to climb.

Just as Mrs Bae's passive-aggressive gestures and comments build up over time and stifled me, I imagine she was frustrated and exhausted by her need for validation. The incidents carried little meaning on their own, but they collected like atom and turned into something with substance. But it wasn't my fault, unless existing is a crime.

My plan was to disappear the instant I had the means to manage my own, and I hoped she would do me the kindness of tolerating me until the day came. Think of me as no more than a thick plume of air that would blow away soon enough and stop trying to fit me into her idea of a picture-perfect family.

She isn't going to show her nails to anyone. Not that she has anyone to show them to. Who knows, though? Maybe someone will see these nails as she taps her senior's pass on the bus or in the subway station, as she pays for a pack of gum at the convenience store, in these small moments of ordinary life. Maybe someone will spot the nails, then look up at her face, eyes widening in surprise. Maybe they will stay silent or clear their throat awkwardly, unable to verbalize their bias that it's not an appropriate look for someone her age. But right now, she likes these works of art placed on her broken, bruised, warped nails. Even more so because they're not real and will shine brightly, briefly, before disappearing... Maybe all living beings get to experience a bright shining moment at least once in their lives, precisely because they all crumble like overripe fruit, disappearing like fireworks in the night sky.

The more high-ranking and powerful a client is and the more the target is someone with influence, the more the “whys” are left out when a disease control specialist comes on board.

So this is wht it’s like on the subway on Friday nights. So, Ryu, it might not be my time to join you yet.

Everything eventually succumbs to erosion, including the soul. Everything ruptures; possibilities, like aging bodies, wither.

Stories with just a dash of sugar expand like cotton candy until they end up soggy and sticky.