Do I even love her? Do I hate her? Maybe it’s all the same? Hear me out, o Lord! Didn’t you see me whining like a dog, trying to sniff out whether I could stay with her or not? You also saw me chastising her, cornering her with my questions, sneering at her answers … God, if you are there, please, call my mother to run out after me, bare feet and all, please hurry, have her yell, “Don’t go, Yeoul! Stay. You can live with me from now on. It’s never too late to start again, right?” Please make her beg on her knees. Fuck, amen, amen, amen.

I gave God ten minutes but he didn’t do anything. God, that lazy piece of shit who doesn’t even exist. My chest is caving in. I want to pull out my heart and feed it to the birds and dogs. Peck away, birds, gobble it up, dogs. A cloud of dust floats along at the skirt of the hill. An old man is bending over, and it looks like he is burning something. Ashes fly in the wind. Like crows in formation, the ashes circle around and around. My mind spins with the ashes and becomes infinite.

11. Koreans have imported this well-known hymn and transformed its lyrics. Translated here is the Koreanized version of the song.

12. Jo Sumi is a Korean celebrity opera singer.

Algorithm

Algorithm

I feel a twinge of pain in my injured leg. My stomach is upset, too. I feel like throwing up. With the amount of coins I have I can’t take the bus and the subway like I did to get here. I have to walk to Gwangbok-dong, and then take the subway from there. I’ll go back to Dad, and I will tell him what rights I have to live in his house. To avoid him and his wife is to be defeated. They won’t kill me as long as I play along, suck up to them. No shame, no pride. In the definitive pivotal moment I will take a stab, attack strategically. Did my mother’s prayer give me the power of wisdom? The word wisdom stinks of slyness and compromise. The moment I started calling the stepmother “Mom, I learned my capacity for wisdom.

There’s a cat stretched out in the intersection. I startle and jump aside to avoid stepping on it, but then realize that it’s just a fur hat that looks like it came from a Persian cat. It was probably white or cream-colored, but now it looks ashy and ugly from the rain and pedestrians’ feet. I squat down to confirm that it really isn’t a cat, but a hat. It doesn’t look like a fur hat. It looks like a dead dog. A scarf. What the hell is this? Everything in this world is a mess.

•

“What are you doing Yeoul?”