silence

Once again, he’s out and about at the oddest of hours. One of the few good sides Seoul offered, was its sleeplessness. The streets are never completely empty, there’s always more restless souls that he would think to be awake at four A.M. There’s always some kind of odd charm to watching people barely being able to take care of themselves because they’re too intoxicated (even on weekdays— especially on weekdays). He doesn’t stop to help them though he did in the beginning when he moved here. Then he realized people won’t remember it anyways, and there’s far too many people to reach out to. At some point, he begins to stand on the sidelines. He wishes for sleep, but all he gets is a moon that shines too bright in its cold hue. Looking down, he pulls his hoodie over his head and continues his saunter. He should’ve dressed better, At least this prevents him from falling asleep in strange places.

A face he recognizes, he thinks. Everything’s a bit blurred and mashed together at the moment; having trouble putting one and one together to complete the puzzle. Maybe it’s not her? No questions, just coming to a halt just a tad too close to her. He backs up, eyes narrowing thinking she’d appear more clearly. The woman stays as hazed as before, carved out in dust. Rather than replying to what in his ears sounds like drunk ramblings, he grows even quieter. Breaths are held in, focusing on analyzing what he’s able to make out of her. Okay, let’s play this game then. “Monsters don’t exist. They’re created— imagined.” A voice dripping in the dragging syllables of sleep and the serenity of nighttime. It’s low, as close to whispering as possible without being inaudible. He’s definitely seen here somewhere before. “What does she fight for?”

    ❝ For PEACE to be brought upon me. ❞

Before she got here, she thought for a long time that the way out of the labyrinth her mind had created for herself was to pretend it did not exist, to build a small, self-sufficient world in a back corner of the endless maze and to pretend that she was not lost, but home. But that only led to a lonely life accompanied only by the last words of the looking for the GREAT ESCAPE, for real friends and a more than minor life. People always talk about how hard it can be to remember things - where they left their keys or the name of an acquaintance - but NO ONE ever talks about how much effort everyone puts into forgetting. She was exhausted from the effort to forget but she knew that there were things that have to be forgotten if she was to go on living.

Her gaze tore away from the moon down to the ground she stood on. She dissociated herself with the reality that existed around her, imagining herself back in time where everything was alright for her, that when she lifts her head and turns around, she would be able to see her parents with only smiles on her faces. Not of sorrow. Not of HATE. Not of torturing. But when her eyes raised to look, all she could see was a figure that stood not too far from her. FAMILIAR. He was familiar with the scent he carried within himself. Faint but it was a scent she could not possibly forget. 

    GETTING BACK INTO the swing of her ‘normal’ life had proven difficult. more akin to the pendulum of a forgotten grandfather clock struggling against brittle gears. desperately in need of lubrication but somehow too filled with pride to ask for it properly. it still moves after all. that’s all that matters, right? nevermind how many times in an hour the movements halt. no matter how firmly the pendulum may be stuck in place. it would find its rhythm again. someday. all it needed was that EXTRA PUSH to get it going again. that’s all it was, her employer had stated. calling her in on a day she didn’t usually work because ‘someone had called in sick’.

    that old man lied about as well as dahlia spoke about herself– asked or otherwise. which is to say: terribly.

    she didn’t have the patience to answer this question or that about the dollhouse in the corner. even the faint whisperings surrounding the dolls (MOST OF WHICH were not from the customers but it wasn’t her place to point that out) proved aggravating. it had been a gift to have a day off from the bakery– only to be cursed with an unwanted shift at the toy store. and yet another customer approaching. a test of her patience. the trap resting at the tip of her tongue posed and ready to snap down on the neck of the woman in front of her– quickly disarmed and tossed to the side. she should be paid extra for her will power alone.

    ❝oh— there should’ve been a price tag on that, i’m sorry. if i remember right it’s about  ₩15,060 or so.❞

MAYBE. Her eyes might have caught a glint of annoyance that briefly graced the other’s face. Or it was the shadows that took refuge in her mind might be playing tricks on her for she had not been other than a house she meant to call home and her library, her safe heaven elusively tucked away from reality. But whatever it was, she meant no ill-will to dampen the day of another. GUILT. What a terrible feeling that had washed over her within seconds.

Her eyes turned away from the other’s face to the wooden toy that she was holding. She inspected the toy further for the said tag that was mentioned only to find it stuck underneath the base of it, the numbers faded and had lost its dark colour. Had she been so preoccupied till she had gone blind in acquiring such a toy that somehow reminded her of what her father had made once upon a time ago? PERHAPS.

And it was in that moment when their eyes met once more was when her senses PIQUED. Her instincts were in a flurry, BURNING inside of her as if she was warning herself of the woman who stood before her. She had always sensed danger which had always been herself hence when there was a new kind of danger, it worried her so. NO. The other meant no harm. All she need to do was worry of herself. Yes. The danger here was only her. 

He somehow can’t really believe she’s back. It’s been so long since he’s seen the older woman’s face that he’s surprised his undead mind can still remember her. It’s surprising that they became such good friends in the first place —– with an age gap so large && the fact that neither of them speak much of themselves, it’s a wonder they can keep a conversation going for more than two minutes.

The boy’s gaze has been on her much longer than would be deemed normal, but he’s almost worried that he’ll blink && she will have disappeared into thin air. Her voice pulls him from his thoughts && he shrugs his shoulders. Can the dead really be alright ?? Sure, things could be worse —– he could have completely rotted away by the time of her return, but his health is slowly yet surely disintegrating. His ankle, the bullet wound in his shoulder … it all has an effect. A few moments pass && he shrugs once again.

“  I g-guess so … wher-re did y-you go ??  ”

HER EYES fall upon his visage, tracing every bit of dried blood and bruise the child had sustained. For how long it has been, she does not know. Did it HURT still? Is he still capable of feeling PAIN still? Has he ever thought that it was better for his life to end, to be reduced by death alone so he would not have to suffer like this? And here she was thinking her life has been nothing but torment yet there were others who had their own brand of torture. Life was indeed CRUEL to all of them.

With a few easily made strides, she closed the distance between them. The scent of DEATH invaded her senses but she has grown accustomed to it. Death had a particular scent yet it varies for each person. He carried his own scent which was how she was able to find him despite having been parted for so long. 

A hand was raised as she ran her fingers through his hair, like a mother showing her AFFECTION to her child in the simplest way possible. Not once have they displayed such action but being away for so long, it made a person do such things they would not do before. REGRET, it is a bitter and strong feeling. 

EYES WERE COMMONLYreferred to as the windows to the soul, and while Moonsik’s dark, lifeless ones spoke at length about what kind of human he was, he believed his book collection told more than any mere body part could. Novels had been his savior, since the age of youth, resonating in the depths of an otherwise dead heart. While existence fell apart, words of fictional heroes rising above personal oppression, and the rotten villains with nothing but bile in their words, kept him stitched together.

Even as an adult, the writer collected obsessively, in many versions, books of a darker nature. Ones filled with torture, blood and screams of the innocent. This was the material, which calmed thrumming nerves. Words kept him in his center, protected others from the various sins he might commit without the calming material nearby. He made himself known to a book collector, going as far as to actually remember her name, since her recommendations were flawless and never let him down.

As she called out to him, his lips pursed into a strained grin, happily taking what she offered him. With a nod, he responded quite casually (no thanks included, because he was terrible at them), for the rather dark material he had come to research, “Do you have anything on human sacrifice… I’m writing a book.” Writing a book or simply looking into it for self-pleasure’s sake, he wasn’t sure. But she didn’t need to know that. She was surely used to his grisly tastes by now.

    ❝ CERTAINLY … ❞

IMMEDIATELY the books called out to her, screaming as if she was their saviour. She hears her cries, all of them, tormented within the pages that were all bounded in leather. SOULS of the authors and their muses trapped within them, she hears them all. Slowly, she approached the many shelves of books that occupied most of the space of her library and with a hand, she SILENCED the screams by running her fingers lightly across each spine of the books. Their screams were muted, calmed, assured by her touch that one day they will be free, they will be read and whatever stories they held within themselves would be told. 

With the fellow reader trailing behind her, she pulled out the requested books one by one, handing it to him for his own inspection. Strack’s the Jew and HUMAN SACRIFICE: Human Blood and Jewish Ritual, Hogg’s research on CANNIBALISM and human sacrifice on those who roamed in the Pacific Islands, South America, Africa, Lewis’s take on ritual sacrifice of blood and redemption, Tierney’s journey to Peru in 1983 in attempts to  illuminate the significance of human sacrifice in man's social and religious development. She had read them all, of course, to know the content well and had translated certain books from their original language to her readers’ preferred language. She has done it all, SINGLE-HANDEDLY on her own and she did not mind it at all. She had all the time in the world to be buried under such books, to be accompanied by words that were not her own, to ESCAPE into an alternate universe set out by authors. In the light, she reads the inventions of others; in the darkness, she invents her own stories. MAYBE the other was just the same. 

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    ❝ Excuse me? ❞

She has been finding TREASURES in places she did not want to search. She has been hearing wisdom from tongues she did not want to listen. She has been finding beauty where she did not want to look. And she had learned so much from journeys she did not want to take. Was it FATE that lead her down this path? Through the fire and flames, the dead forest and ocean of blood, to this path that brought her to this tiny store of treasure. If it were true then forgive her, O GRACIOUS ONE; for she has been closing her ears and eyes for too long. 

She has learned that miracles are only called miracles because they are often witnessed by only those who can see through all of life's illusions. THAT she knows for sure through the words she had read by others. She’s ready to see what really exists on the OTHER SIDE, what exists behind the blinds, and taste all the ugly fruit instead of all that looks right, plump and ripe. Maybe it was simply the time for her to start living. 

TIME came and left her but one thing was certain and that was the moon. The moon is a loyal companion. It never leaves. It was always there, watching, steadfast, knowing her in her light and dark moments, changing forever just as everyone else did. Every day it was a different version of itself. Sometimes WEAK and wan, sometimes strong and full of light. The moon understands what it means to be human. Uncertain. ALONE. Cratered by imperfections. And for that, she envied the moon. To accept its fate as the Earth’s satellite, kept in loving orbit, locked in hopeless inertia, destined to repeat the same pattern over and over till it meets in eclipse with the sun only when the numbers allowed. How can the moon be alright with that? She carried on questioning as she stood in the middle of a park, using the shadows as her cloak for tonight. 

It attacks no one. It does not worry. It does not try to CRUSH others. It keeps to its course, but by its very nature, it gently influences. What other bodies could pull an entire ocean from shore to shore? The moon is FAITHFUL to its nature and its power is never diminished. But what about her? What powers that were coursing through her veins till she was imprisoned for it? Why was she meant to be kept in hiding even till now? What DANGER did she possess?