Writings

Planaria

by Jeon Sang-guk, translated by C. La Shure

Sometime later, I met her!

I saw her. I was coming home from a meeting at the city office of education, filling in for the vice-principal, who was sick. I was waiting at the light at the Palho Square intersection. She walked in front of my car. She was no more than about three meters away, so there was no way I could be mistaken. There was no time to think about what to do. I pulled over to the corner and ran in the direction she had gone. Seeing her from behind, it was clearly her. Even her hair, tied up with a lemon-colored hair band, was the same. “Hey!” I yelled as I came up behind her. She turned around. There was no doubt it was her. I fell into step with her and smiled. My chest felt like it was going to burst. She slowed down, a somewhat puzzled look on her face. ‘What is going on?’ No words came out of my mouth. In her gaze, as she stared at me with a somewhat frightened expression, I realized the truth. That she didn’t know me, that she was just the woman who remained in my memories, and not the one I had lived with.

I met another woman who was clearly her on the nine o’clock T.V. news. It was late autumn, the autumn colors covered the trees even in the middle of the bustling city, and the scenery on the streets flowed along with the anchor’s narration. There she was, among passers-by who walked along the street, stepping on the golden leaves. She walked along, draped in that familiar beige Burberry coat, her head bowed slightly.

I met another woman who looked just like her. It was on the number 1 subway line. Where did the planaria go that used to live in the stream? I was on my way back from submitting to the science fair the children’s collective project, which examined the planaria’s habitat. Leaning against a metal pole at the entrance to the subway car, she looked as if she was absorbed in some thought or another. Her dark eyebrows, clearly defined lips, straight hair that had never been permed, the longish hand that held the handle overhead. It was her. Our eyes met five or six times before I got off at Cheongnyangni Station, and each time she looked away first. It was obvious she was trying to calm her wariness at my unfamiliar gaze.

Epilogue

Planaria “I” felt a man run up behind me near Palho Square. He was running fast, and I could even hear his panting breath. “Hey!” Planaria “I” turned around to look at the man. He was short, had a bulging belly and a meager face. He looked at me as if he knew me well, but there was something strange in his gaze. He looked to be in earnest. ‘It’s not me. I’m not the person you’re looking for.’ Even before I could say those words, though, despair flooded his eyes. Planaria “I” thought of the short time in that motel room with the heated floor, for which I had paid 20,000 won. That man could not know the absolute freedom of a woman lying alone and naked in a motel room. He did not know the freedom of that space, the most exposed in all the world, and yet the most perfectly isolated in all the world. What story lay within his despair? Perhaps he was the man who had burrowed his way into my dreams as I lay there sleeping easily in that motel room with the heated floor. Planaria “I” felt him looking my way as he still stood there, unmoving.

Another planaria “I” walked along a bustling, tree-lined street and stepped on the golden fallen leaves, thinking about the karaoke bar I had just been in. “Come with a friend next time.” Planaria “I” felt my skin crawl at the suspicious stare of the owner, who watched me when I came in and when I left. “Do you want to take a recording of your songs with you?” Planaria “I” left the karaoke bar without answering. What would you know about how it feels to get a perfect score and hear the canned fanfare playing from the machine? What would you know about that longing, like an orgasm? As the woman walked along that late autumn street, she pondered that the soaring longing for those last lingering sounds of the fanfare was death itself.

Yet another planaria “I” leaned against a metal pole on a subway car. I felt a man staring at me, a short man with a bulging belly and a meager face. The expression in his eyes was completely black. All at once I heard the sound of his breathing, which he was trying to suppress, and the beating of his heart. Planaria “I” felt the side of my face begin to crawl. He never once took his eyes off me for the ten minutes from Jonggak to Cheongnyangni. ‘Get lost!’ Planaria “I” watched him get off at Cheongnyangni. ‘Siiicko.’ He stopped walking and turned to look back. ‘Hey, it’s not me. I’m not the “me” you’re looking for.’ Planaria “I” thought of the fetus I had just scraped out at the obstetrician’s office, the fifth one so far. Son of a bitch, taking off the condom. Let’s have the baby, you say? Fine, next time we’ll have the baby and I’ll hurl it to the cement floor. Huh, it will be hard to get pregnant anymore in this condition? You bastard, what did you do with that knife? Planaria “I” felt a severe pain in my abdomen.