Kim Misook

81 years old

Heart failure

Misook had lived to see her son and daughter become grandparents of their own. She lived to be called jeungjohalmoni, great-grandmother. She lived to watch her spouse leave, to attend his funeral in a wheelchair.

She lived long enough for her failing brain to succumb to Alzheimer, leaving her in constant distress and bewilderment, not to recognize her children’s faces or remember her husband’s name.

She lived long enough for hospital bills to pile up like mountain ranges, making her children dispute and worry over who would take the burden.

Burden, she repeated inside her head, the word that had pierced her weak heart like daggers sometime before. But now, as tranquility embraced her at last, she felt numbness arise from deep inside, like the sensation before narcotics started to drug her before surgery.

No, it wasn’t like that; the ethereal sensation she experienced now was just ten times better… and she felt distant as if she was looking at someone else’s story, not hers.

It’s been a long since she stopped counting her age, but Misook knew she was now considered old enough to die naturally. Old enough that people wouldn’t mourn and weep at her funeral.

She was ready to leave.

“Hm?”

She turned to the looming presence of a shadowy figure beside her as if expecting a friend.

“It is time to go,” the Reaper said.

Misook could already hear the ebbing tide in her ears. She closed her eyes and tilted her head back, inhaling what no longer smelled of chemicals and sickness but of youthful liberty. “I know.”

She slid out of bed and took the Reaper’s hand. The nursing hospital floor felt like fluffy clouds as she drifted out of the room like the autumn breeze.

“Will you die someday, Reaper?” Misook asked as he helped her onto the boat. The boat swayed from side to side, trying to find its balance in the shifting waters.

“I shall die on the Final Day.”

“What day?”

The Reaper took the seat facing the old woman and began to row. “The final day of the existence of the universe.”

Misook’s mouth opened to a wide, toothless grin. “Sounds grand.”

The Reaper looked up with his empty sockets. “May you do me a favor?”

Misook nodded. “Anything.”

“May you describe love to me?”

Misook closed her eyes, lined with wrinkles and fragile eyelashes as delicate as butterfly wings. “Let’s see…” Misook smoothed out her white gown and inhaled the sea that did not smell of demise but instead of a blossoming entity. “Love is staying. Constant and unchanging.”

She faced the Reaper. “It is what gives us hope.”

Hope? It was another term that the Reaper couldn’t recognize. All he could do was faintly imagine it to be a good thing.

“Is that… good?”

“Hm? Of course, it is,” Misook said without a hint of doubt, chuckling at her humor. “We know that we’ll grow old and die someday, but we hope for better tomorrows, and that is why and how we keep going.”

The boat rocked back and forth with each gentle wave as if it was a cradle being rocked to sleep.

Misook’s life unspooled before her eyes like a ribbon of film.

She closed her eyes and let her mind drift back to the beginning. She remembered the first time she felt her mother's fondness when she was just a tiny embryo floating in the warm amniotic fluid. She remembered the way a rhythmic heartbeat soothed her and the way a gentle voice sang her to sleep.

She remembered the evenings she would cuddle up next to her mother on the couch as she read her stories. She would lose herself in the magical worlds her innocence believed, where brave knights fought dragons, beautiful princesses kissed handsome princes, and good always triumphed over evil.

Misook smiled as she remembered the way her mother would tuck her in at night and kiss her on the forehead. She was too young to understand the complex definition of love back then, but love was like a warm blanket, wrapping her up in safety and security.

Misook knew that she would never forget the affection she grew up in. It was the one thing that would always stay with her because love was what made her. The endearment she had sank into her bones and dissolved into her flesh; it was hers forever.

As she drifted to sleep, Misook thought about all the good times she had shared with her mama. She knew that she would never be able to repay for all the sacrifices she had given her for granted, but she hoped she knew how much she loved her.

Misook took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She was ready to go. She was ready to be with her mother again.

Yoon Hyeonseo

11 years old

Brain cancer

How would it feel to die? Hyeonseo’s mind wandered like clouds. To have the last wisp of air wiped away? The funny thing was, she didn’t feel at all. She didn’t hurt anymore. She felt so peaceful as if the storm had passed and the skies had cleared—as if the bad days were far gone with only better days ahead.

Her mom had been praying for her as the darkness faded and became dawn, and she was now sound asleep. Even with her eyes closed, Hyeonseo could conjure her mother’s bony frame and her restless head on the hospital bed beside her.

Maybe it was better this way, Hyeonseo thought without believing a single word. Maybe her mom would resume living life once she was gone.

Then as suddenly as a bowstring snapped in the air, Hyeonseo desperately wanted to see her mom as if it would be her last time. She sat up for the first time in weeks without requiring a helping hand. With her hand that felt as light as a feather, she stroked her mom’s greying hair, caressed her gaunt face, and brushed her closed eyelids and deserted lips. Her mom looked like a little girl too small for the world. Too weak for her farewell.

Mom.

She opened her mouth to say something. She thought of the million things she said but never meant and a million more left unsaid.

She tried to remember the last time she told her she loved her and was devastated when nothing rang a bell. Still, her mom would know. Hadn’t she expressed it in every way possible except by uttering the three simple words I love you? Yes, Hyeonseo nodded to herself; her mom would know.

“Thanks, Mom,” she whispered, trying not to feel too bad. It had been a good life, she was sure. A little shorter than what others have, but she had been so deeply loved and appreciated during every hour of her existence.

“Thanks for being strong when things were hard.”

She could almost feel her mother whisper the same thing back to her. It had been a tough battle, but she hadn’t been on it alone.

She couldn’t imagine herself saying the words out loud, but the words flew on their own like rivers. “Thanks for being my mom.”

The fabric couch standing by the corner started to fade from her vision, as well as piles of summer to winter clothes, baby blankets, and half-eaten porridges in plastic containers. The walls absorbed the small window, and they all disappeared like hallucinations, like whispers.

“Hello, little friend.” A voice spoke to her, a voice like molasses, slow and thick and deep.

She turned to him, unafraid of his presence but terrified of the news he would bring.

“I’m not ready yet, Reaper.”

His face, just bare bones, was as cold as moonlit stones devoid of color. “It would be easier for you to leave now.”

Hyeonseo turned to her lifeless body on the hospital bed, then to her mom again. “Just five more minutes.”

Five minutes passed, and Hyeonseo pleaded for five more until ten minutes turned into twenty, and an hour had passed.

The Reaper and the young soul watched the drifting silhouette of a nurse cover the dead girl’s face with a white shroud and detach the many tubes that strung her up like a marionette. The nurse acted calmly, respectively, in orderly precaution as if she had done it many times before.

The dead girl’s mother was devastated, shattered into incurable shards, broken like an artifact of delicate glass.

Hyeonseo was crying too, endless streams of tears flowing down her cheeks, and her shoulders shaking uncontrollably. The Reaper offered a black handkerchief, but Hyeonseo couldn’t take it from his hands that were not really hands but just dried phalanx bones and the lack of everything, so utterly heartless and submissive to the rules set by destiny.

“Time to go,” the Reaper said calmly.

He gently took her hand and pulled her to her feet. Hyeonseo yanked away because his grip lacked warmth and liveness like her mom’s, so deadly and cold. But she fell to his embrace when he offered it to her because it was somewhat sincere, somewhat comforting even still.

The Reaper guided her out the door to where there was no longer a corridor with tiled floors and plastered walls but an endless river. The Reaper helped the girl’s soul onto a wooden boat and started to row.

Time, the indefinite continued progress of existence, no longer played a role here. All there was were thoughts, just thoughts and fading memories without grief, remorse—not even longing.

“My little friend?” The Reaper spoke after what felt like a long train ride of thoughts.

Hyeonseo was staring out at the murky water rolling below her. “Yes?”

“May I ask you a question?”

The girl nodded, feeling tranquillity and calmness enveloping her as if she was about to drift into a dream rocked by the gentle waves.

The Reaper hesitated momentarily, cleared his throat, and framed his words. “What is love?”

“Love?” Hyeonseo turned to him. “Love is being there for someone when that person needs you. It’s about consistency and patience,” she returned her gaze to the water and almost smiled. “Love is giving. Mama loved me.”

The boat gently cut through the shimmering black waters, creating ripples like leaving longing traces for a way back.

The Reaper nodded, “she did.”

The further away they became, Hyeonseo’s memories dissolved behind her. Very gradually, she forgot everything she had ever done or thought of. She no longer remembered the sweltering summer at her grandparents' house, welcoming the daybreak with her friends at a sleepover, the cheese tteokbokki at the snack bar after school.

Or taking a bus to the hospital with her mom on a rainy day, watching her mom’s face change as if she has been given a death sentence, how the doctor explained without meeting her eyes, and how her mom cried.

And how her friends came to visit her with flowers and teddy bears and letters but got used to not having her around, making new friends at school, and coming less and less often as time went by. Forgetting her. Leaving her behind from their lives.

As the boat rowed on, Hyeonseo forgot them. And eventually, her mind erased her mom too.

One sweltering day in August, a family of five moved into our village in a clunker truck that squealed as it gripped the road and purred as it slowed, carrying a stained mattress and a refrigerator.

Nobody took much interest as the family busied themselves, unloading and carrying the things they could bring into the house facing ours.

The family worked silently, reserved to themselves, and never uttered a word of greeting. This was fine for the rest of the villagers, for we neither offered a helping hand.

Their youngest son, named Samuel, was somewhere around twelve years old. We later presumed he was the only boy in the village who didn’t kick balls or beg his parents for ice cream.

Once in a while, in those meager times when he kept his curtains open, I could observe him from my bedroom window. From what I could tell, he was no more than a bony stick figure with distinctly outlined collarbones and shoulder blades poking underneath his shirt. The village was poor, and not everyone had enough to eat, but Samuel? He looked nothing better than a punished stray dog.

Some time passed, and the family adjusted well enough on their own.

Samuel’s mother purchased eggs and butter from the supermarket every Thursday morning, sober enough to apologize when she bumped into passersby, and smoke rose from the chimney every evening, signifying dinner preparation.

Soon enough, the neighbors lost the little interest they scarcely had from the beginning, and I wasn’t inquisitive in poking my nose into other people’s businesses either.

Besides, we had our own lives to live, which were demanding and depressing enough on their own. I was getting older every day, and I had to start preparing for my future, or so they say.

When things started to slide off, nobody noticed.

One autumn day, Samuel was swinging alone in an empty playground, wearing a handkerchief across his face pirate-style. Perhaps he was trying to look brave, but the purple and yellow edges of a bruise spilling out from his left eye were unmistakable.

At the crack of dawn, his father cussing at his clunker to get it moving was so loud that it woke me from my sleep across the street, and I could often hear his sauntering footsteps returning home late after darkness pervaded.

His father was a walking zombie during the day and a violent beast during the evening. A cold shiver ran down my spine from the frequent racket of dishes crashing onto the floor and leather belts being swung.

It continued that way for several months, then one day, in the glow of daylight, I watched Samuel’s mother leaving the house and crossing the sidewalks with a suitcase dangling behind her. She was dragging one foot behind the other.

When I searched her eyes for a sense of pain or regret, I couldn’t find any. Her expression was blank and empty, devoid of emotions.

As if following by example, as the seasons changed, his siblings began to leave one by one as early as they could manage. And soon, Samuel, aged fourteen, was alone in that dark house with his father.

The violence has never been so severe. Once, an old lady knocked on his door and asked what was happening. Samuel’s father waved her off, telling her that he was only correcting his son’s bad attitude and it was none of her business.

Sometime later, cops were summoned to the scene with a child abuse report. They banged on the door and announced they were not going away before Samuel’s father opened it. His father opened the door alright, well-dressed and shaved for the first time in weeks, offering coffee to the officers. In his gentle humor, he said his son had been misbehaving, and he was giving him a few spanks. The officer, hearing this, nodded and drove away.

Then there were other things happening in the village. A miscarriage, a wedding, a cheating scandal, triplets born. There were other things to gossip about, other things for people’s minds to be occupied with.

Samuel never came outside.

Like fading vapor, he was forgotten.

Years passed. I was accepted to a university in a different state and worked hard to get a degree in botany. My efforts paid off, and my dream came true. I got married, had two beautiful children, and got a job as an agriculture engineer, with not much but a satisfactory salary, enough to support my family and me.

It had been a long time since my mind had erased that little boy named Samuel.

Then one day, after receiving a one-week vacation, I decided to visit the village I grew up in. After driving miles after miles of vast landscapes that stretched on forever, doubting whether I was taking the right route a dozen times, I eventually managed to find myself at my destination.

The village was the same, as if time had frozen in this place. The flickering streetlamps and the hideous graffiti sprayed on the concrete walls, the little playground with peeling paint, and a truly intoxicating aroma rising from the bakery with freshly-baked buns in the display.

It was wonderful.

I rented a motel for two days.

I managed to hang out with the people I knew, socialize, make new acquaintances at the pub, and everything was peaceful until the day of departure. Around ten in the morning, I was awakened by sirens blaring, tearing open my eardrums.

“What the—” I shuffled out of bed and peered out of the dusty window. Below the motel were two officers hand-cuffing a man in his mid-twenties. The blue and red lights of the sirens flashed in all directions as if this was the devil’s party.

I furrowed my eyebrows. I had a long day ahead, and this was obviously not the best way to begin. I shook off the troubling thought of lousy luck awaiting me and went downstairs to the lobby to check out.

“Have you heard?” The woman by the counter asked as she counted the bills. She was a plump woman with graying hair and rectangle spectacles. “About the murder?”

I scratched my head and sort of nodded. “Uh-huh.”

“I’m afraid it’s going to drop land prices,” she said, massaging her knitted eyebrows.

“Yeah… I hope it doesn’t.” I said, hoping to sound as sincere and apologetic as I could manage.

She handed me the receipt with hardly visible ink and heaved a sigh as if the world was tumbling down. “That man killed his own father,” she said. “Samuel Tomson, a disgraceful bastard.”