by Kim Sagwa
Damn these thoughts—get lost! But it doesn’t work.
Give it up, girl. Shut up unless you want to cry.
Now it’s the music she kills out of anger, before going to her room. She sits at her desk and flips open her math workbook and she’s off and running. The first problem involves a graph and simple trigonometry. There’s a simplicity and an exquisitely logical beauty to the structure of a math problem. There are several steps, each one involving at least one formula but no more than three. Once you’ve got the important numbers in front of you, you move on to the next step. The higher the degree of difficulty, the more steps you face and the harder it is to get a grip on which among the range of formulas you need to apply. Among these steps, for the hardest problems, you’ll need a revelation from the math god in order to find a clue to the solution. You can think of it as creativity. In any event, the map is simple. But numerous students end up losing their way and losing hope trying to follow it. Crystal kind of wishes that with a stroke of his wand the math god would hex those pathetic students so that they’d forsake the road to wealth and power and take up a practical skill instead.
Mina sucks at math. Crystal looks down on her for that. But still she loves her.
She’s on the third problem when her cellphone rings. She picks up, gives a grudging nod, and hangs up.
Pyŏl is sitting on a bench having a smoke. He sees Crystal and grins. Crystal plops down on the ground in front of the bench.
He gets up. “Have a seat. It’s warmer.”
“No, I’m fine.”
He sits back down.
Head down, she passes her fingers along the ground. “You said you had something to tell me?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“Just… I miss you, that’s all.”
“You miss me… So?” She looks up at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“‘What’s that supposed to mean’—what are you trying to say?”
“I’m just asking. I mean…isn’t that kind of vague?”
“I heard C has lung cancer.” He bends forward and grabs her wrist.
“How old is he?”
“Twenty-three.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“No lie.” He sighs, sending out a stream of smoke. They lapse into a black silence.
“I need to quit smoking.”
“How old were you when you started?”
“Seventh grade.”
“That’s a long time.”
“Crystal, you should quit too.”
“Why?”
“Girls are fragile, don’t you know?”
Crystal thinks about Mina. Pyŏl crushes out his cigarette. She picks a flyer up from the ground and starts ripping it.
“What’re you doing that for?”
“Mind your own business. I’m not quitting. I’ll die of lung cancer. When I’m twenty. I don’t want to live any longer than that.” She’s talking louder, her voice lovely, high-pitched but gentle. Pyŏl considers her, not sure what to do. She sticks a hand in his pocket and rummages around.
“What’re you doing?”
“I want a cigarette.”
“In there.” He points to his bag.
“Shit.” She takes a cigarette and lights it. “It’s so irritating.”
“What is?”
“I don’t know. And that makes me more irritated.”
“That’s life.”
“Not my life.”
Mina and her family moved.
She transferred to an alternative school.
Or she’s studying in France.
Or she went to Seattle.
Whenever rumors start flying, the students look at Crystal. Covering her ears, Crystal resorts to math problems in desperation—the subject Mina hates the most.
“Hey, Crystal, any news from Mina?” When the brave ones venture to question Crystal, she sticks out her tongue and says she’s not telling. “It’s a secret.” And then she bursts into laughter.
Frightened, the kids back off.
Crystal is floundering; she’s about to lose her balance. She promises herself she’ll never, ever cry. Instead she takes up laughing. She watches American talk shows and laughs until she’s crying. And then she’s back in the well, falling, but still laughing. She looks up at the sky and laughs, looks down at the ground and laughs. But the moments of numbness when she doesn’t cry or laugh are much more numerous, and it’s those moments she loves the most. She yearns for numbness, when she’s like a cold brick of butter or a rock-hard bagel, because that’s when she’s best at her studies.
In a state of perfect numbness she gets up, yells, kicks her desk, and exits the classroom. Five desks fall like dominos. Her classmates look toward the door with eyebrows arched and mouths agape. The bell rings for the next class. Muttering, the kids pick up the toppled desks. And then Crystal is back, along with the next teacher. Laughing as always.
Okay, let’s assume you do all that—in the end what difference would it make? Crystal underlines this sentence for good measure.
I’m having the time of my life and it’s not stopping anytime soon. She underlines that sentence too.
AT 23:27:40
I don’t like people. They’re idiots, and I hate idiots. Why do people want to die? Because they’re dumb. I don’t understand it. I don’t understand people. I’m practical and efficient and pragmatic. But other people aren’t. It makes me mad. Unproductive and inefficient. It makes me mad. Stupid kids ought to be put to work on a farm. I mean, they only get four out of ten questions right! I don’t get it. It tells you what kind of parents they have. Those kids are pathetic! So I want to kill them off. But I won’t—what good would it do me? I don’t mean to say smart kids are better than stupid ones. Smart kids want the lifestyle displayed in the department stores: go to a good university, work for a big company, marry a rich kid. But stupid kids don’t qualify. You can’t get that lifestyle by being good at workbook problems; you need a mind of your own, and that’s one thing the stupid kids lack. So why bother living? I wish I could tell them there’s no reason they should exist. Then kill them, a slow, painful death. After the job is done I’ll have a good laugh. Imagine them becoming teachers—they’d dote on the kids who reminded them of themselves, but be jealous of the exceptional ones like me. The dean of students at my school hates me because I’m better than him. It’s that simple. He has a one-dimensional mind. He keeps telling me that good grades by themselves are worthless—as if it’s your personality that gets you into a university! He’s wrong, it’s not personality, it’s percent-ality, it’s all grades. What’s more, all the best people are social misfits, they’re mentally ill, they have personality disorders. No way do I want to just be adequate. I don’t want to be just smart enough, or just good-looking enough. I’m not going to go along, not me. I’m going to be great.
The problem is: there are too many people who ought to be killed.
But if you think about it, the great ones have killed a lot of people. Greatness means you’re bestowed the right to kill. Without it you can’t be great. But there’s a small problem—who do I kill first? Say I live to be a hundred, can I kill all the people I want? That’s a pretty tall order. I have plenty of candidates right here in this country, so just imagine how many more there are in India and China. Dumb kids keep getting born, over and over and over—they multiply like cockroaches. More than anything I’m scared of bugs. Last night a weird bug came into my room, crawled up to the ceiling and back down to the window, and then flew off. That was all it took. I threw up. And while I was throwing up I was thinking about math. And about the booze and cigarettes I keep in the locker at the study-room my parents rent for me. And just then, surprise, out came a big hunk of sweet potato I ate yesterday morning. Nothing more to throw up, so back to my room I went. I sat at my desk and did more math, and I hit upon an idea—everybody ought to die. Last month my dad bought me a new set of speakers. The sound is so
awesome I can’t just sit and listen, I have to get up and dance. U2 is on now. Mina likes U2. I hate them. But I listen to them anyway. My dad’s weird. When I came in first in my class he got mad at me for missing easy problems. This time I came in fourth and he bought me a new set of speakers.
I don’t need anyone to smoke or drink with. I’m in bed and it’s 1:14 in the morning. I love myself. But other people don’t. They’re afraid of me. I know that. No one could love me. I’m the only one who can really love me. There’s no one else who could really love me. I should always remember that and never have second thoughts. And never trust anybody. Not even Mina, if she were still around. She shouldn’t have been in the picture to begin with. Mom and Dad have no clue that I throw up. Occasionally I throw up. I take that back. I don’t throw up. Ever. Last night was an exception. I hate living like this. No, actually I want to live like this. I just want to kill them all. That would be better. I’ll finish my homework and go to bed now at 1:14. That works for me. The teachers make you stand out in the hallway if you don’t finish your homework. Or if you’re lucky you just lose some points. The days we have five classes instead of four, we get four break periods in between. I do my homework during second break and Chini copies it during the third while I’m on the phone with Pyŏl. First break, I take a nap. At lunch time I do my cram school assignments. During home ec I chat with Chini about makeup. Maximum efficiency in time management, see? I have no idea what the other kids do during break. The girls, all they do is breathe, anyway—they don’t go out with boys and they don’t study. Why don’t they just turn into squid? Then they could at least be a part of my squid fried rice. And since I hate squid I could dump the whole thing. Those kids would be better off dead. Just looking at them makes me mad. Who wants to live their life being treated like shit? It’s pathetic! I’d like to kill them but I’m too busy. Busy being great! I need to be fabulous! Hmm, maybe I’d be better off making money instead of killing people. Maybe I’d be better off stocking up on cosmetics. Or dumping the makeup I already have. Maybe anything would be better than killing people. But the fact remains—there are too many people in the world who ought to be killed. Some people have no reason to live. When people die, what happens to them? Do they get reborn as other people? That’s a scary thought. If that’s the only option, then our planet would be better off dead. And in that case I’m willing to die with everybody else. But that’s not going to happen. Or it might. But it won’t. But I hope it could. I hope the earth goes poof! I want everything to end. Really. Seriously. No lie. Today was fun, sure it was. Today was fun, definitely. Today, definitely fun. Today was fun. Today was fun. It was fun. Fun. Fun.
After deleting all this Crystal begins her homework composition. Twenty-four minutes later and it has reached the required length. She corrects the seven grammatical errors and then it’s perfect. She hits Print. Reading the printout she knows she’ll get a hundred. Off to bed she goes at 1:14, right on schedule.
THE CLOSET
In her dream Crystal is looking for a calendar, but it’s nowhere to be found. Then she goes outside to look for her father. He too is nowhere to be found. She phones her mother, but her mother doesn’t pick up. Back home she finds the door locked. She calls Mina, but Mina doesn’t answer either. Down scroll the numbers in her contacts list, only to disappear one by one off the bottom of the screen. Oh, there’s the calendar. Through a window she sees the dates on it disappearing one by one. Screaming into her phone, she kicks at the door. No response. All she can do is sit outside the door, fidgeting, and at that point she awakens. The moment her eyes open, half the dream is gone. But the acute desperation lingers, freezing the near reaches of her heart and leaving her with an icy-cold pain. A fly buzzes around her unlit room in absolute leisure. She gets up, turns on the light, and sprays bug killer. The fly falls to the floor, belly up. Its legs tremble and then it stiffens. She frowns but can’t look away. In her current state of mind she needs to take a walk. In the lobby, the elevator opens and her eyes are met by the sky streaked with red and blue. She raises her arm toward the sky then brings it down as if to usher in the darkness, the blue appearing to move with her arm. The clouds seem devoid of moisture, like seasoned firewood. It’s the hour of afterglow, the day’s demise, the sky bleeding to death. The thickness, intensity, and hue of the twilight change by the minute. It’s an unsettling time of day for the heart and soul. The lonely weep, while the love-struck are reminded to call and whisper declarations of love. Crystal’s defense against the unsettling sunset is to force a desperate smile and walk tall along the path through the apartment complex. The sky turns dark red as it dies. The silhouettes of tree branches bisect the sky. The wispy yellow light of the sky descends beyond the apartment buildings, and the bright yellow globes of the sodium streetlights come on amid the outlines of the dark trees. Like an exquisitely cut diamond, the sky changes hue by the minute. It’s so beautiful. Crystal knows that, but because she can’t feel it she looks away. The path is suffused with the warm glow of the streetlights blending with the last vestiges of sunlight. The glow of the shafts of artificial light is comforting. Arriving back at the entrance to the complex she lingers for a moment, and that’s when she hears the faint meow. It’s coming from a large box.
She opens the box and sees a gray kitten the size of her two hands cupped together. It meows, displaying milky fangs and a raspberry-red tongue. Without thinking she reaches for the kitten. It shivers, eyes half shut. Was that a breath of air she felt? The next moment it’s gone. But the faint impact remains. She pets the kitten on the forehead and it twitches an ear, its mouth opening wide. She takes it from the box and holds it close. She can’t believe how feather light it feels, a handful of fur and bone with a bit of warmth to it. Its paws—she could crush them if she tightened her grip—cling to her clothing with tiny sharp claws as it trembles. Why won’t it stop meowing? She looks into its eyes. They’re large, shaped like almonds, and have an olive glow. Crystal heads toward her building. The tiny thing is causing quite a fuss. The eyes of her neighbors as they pass by come to rest on Crystal. Some smile, some frown, but most are impassive. Smiling, she passes a hand through her hair and hums just loud enough for them to hear her. The kitten is still meowing and its fur is now standing up. “Nice kitty,” she coos, but it won’t quiet down.
“Are you afraid of me?”
She opens the door and sets the kitten on the living room floor. Prone, it gazes around warily, beginning to meow again.
“Hey, kitty, hush up.”
She curls up on the floor and hums a lullaby, then reaches out and pulls the kitten toward her. Baring its teeth, the kitten bats her hand away.
“Ouch!”
The kitten’s pointed tongue appears between its teeth and it hisses.
“Ooh, scary.” Crystal bursts into laughter. She can’t stop laughing. And as she laughs she feels anger infiltrating the laughter—more and more anger. She won’t be able to stop, she tells herself. She’s laughing compulsively but doesn’t know why, rolling on the floor. And what is making her angry? Her laughter changes to hysteria. Her heart beats faster and she feels her musculature tightening. It hurts. She has to do something. She stops laughing, reaches for the kitten and covers its mouth with both hands. The kitten’s head twists back and forth, its legs pumping, claws extended. A vivid red line grows on Crystal’s arm. A smile pasted on her face, she starts hitting the kitten. A slight ticking registers in her consciousness, then recedes into the distance. She’s barely aware of what she’s doing, knows only that she can’t stop, but then suddenly awareness returns. She puts the kitten on the floor.
“Oh, no!” She places a hand over her mouth.
Low to the floor, tail hidden, the kitten crawls under the coffee table.
“I didn’t mean it.”
The kitten bares its teeth.
“I didn’t.” She waves to it. “Hey, hey, hey. I didn’t mean it, really. I’m sorry, kitty. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean it. I did
n’t mean it!”
There’s a tense silence. Shoulders hunched, they glare at each other. The kitten is the first to look away. It lifts its left front paw and licks it.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you…not at all.” Crystal goes to the kitchen for something to feed the kitten. Through the window she sees the white of a half moon, tilted to the left. She imagines a woman’s round shoulder glimpsed in subdued lighting. Gazing at the curvaceous moon, she lapses into thought.
I hope the planet dies. Before I turn twenty. If the planet dies then all the idiocy in the world can be saved—salvation from stupidity. In the meantime it’s okay to be dumb. I can put up with idiots, sure I can. As long as the planet dies before I’m twenty.
She puts Crunch cereal in a shallow bowl, adds milk, and takes it to the living room. Where’s the kitten? She gets down on the floor, looks around, and spots the kitten crouched beside the sliding door to the enclosed balcony. She yanks it by the tail and the kitten bites her on the wrist. Flinching, she lets go of its tail. The kitten hunches up in a ball, baring its teeth. She grabs it by the scruff of its neck, lifts it from the floor, and beats it with her fist. Clinging to her with its paws, the kitten tries to make itself smaller. It looks like a gray, withered persimmon hanging precariously from a twig. It yowls plaintively, sounding like fingernails scraping a chalkboard. It’s a feeble sound and it’s lost in Crystal’s panting. Why am I breathing so hard? She punches the kitten harder. She can’t believe she’s doing this. But then her mind reaches out into the distance and she recalls her half-forgotten dream. She tries to bring it into focus. Her fist crashing against the kitten’s bones makes a peculiar sound. The crack of bone against bone gives her a momentary crude pleasure, a crass thrill that sends her falling down a stairway. The stairway is long and steep. Her free fall will last until she hits bottom.
