The Impossible Fairy Tale

by Han Yujoo

  Buttercup, I say.

  No, the nag nags. Those aren’t buttercups. They’re lilacs. And buttercup isn’t the most beautiful word.

  I’ve never seen lilacs before, I say.

  You’re looking at them right now. See? These flowers are mauve, the nag nags.

  The nag gazes down at me. I turn my head and look at the small purple buds. Buttercups have yellow flowers, not mauve, it whispers. How is yellow different from mauve? I ask. Buttercups are poisonous, it says. It blinks and stares at the brick wall for a moment. So the most beautiful word can’t be buttercup because it’s poisonous? I ask. How can a word be poisonous? it says.

  I’m cold and I’m in pain, I say.

  Wait, the nag nags. Quick, tell me the most beautiful word of all, it urges.

  Water, I say.

  No, the nag says sternly. Water isn’t beautiful at all. When water freezes, it becomes ice. Ice is more beautiful than water. But neither water nor ice is beautiful. Water flows. Ice is slippery. I’ve run on ice before. No one was on my back. Every time my hooves touched the ice, I heard a strange noise. It was the sound of me slipping, on and onward. So I guess I can’t say that I ran on ice. Can I say that the ice slipped? The ice slipped up. I was afraid that the slipped-up ice would crack, I was afraid that water colder than ice would drench me, so on and onward I went. The ice didn’t reflect my shadow. I gave a loud cry. The sky was a hexagon. Have you ever seen a hexagonal sky? Have you ever walked on ice that reflected a hexagonal sky?

  I shake my head. The corners of the brick pillow graze my neck. But what is a hexagonal sky? I ask. A hexagonal sky—the nag says, glaring at me—is a hexagonal sky.

  It’s your turn, I say. What do you think is the most beautiful word in the world?

  The nag closes its mouth. It then asks, What is the opposite of confusion?

  What is confusion? I ask.

  The nag closes its mouth.

  A word lingers inside my mouth. I know only that it’s just one word. I don’t know what the word is. I run the tip of my tongue along my teeth. I feel something. I put my hand in my mouth and remove the buttercup stem that is stuck between my teeth. The instant the stem comes out of my mouth, it turns into a lilac stem. Small mauve flowers vaporize from the tips of my fingers.

  Lilac, I say.

  The nag shakes its head violently. No, no, lilac is beautiful, but it’s not the most beautiful word in the world. What kind of nonsense is that, suggesting lilac? You don’t even know what beautiful is. No wonder you don’t know what it means for a word or anything to be beautiful.

  I’m cold and sleepy and in pain, I say.

  That’s a lie, the nag nags. This is a dream. So how can you be cold and sleepy and in pain?

  Didn’t you say you don’t dream? I respond.

  I don’t dream, but you’re dreaming, the nag nags.

  When did you become a nag? I ask.

  When you fell asleep. When you walked in the snow. When you turned to ice. When your bones were transparent. When your bones were black. When your bones were white. When your bones were red. When your dream was red. When your sleep was red. When your lie was red. I’ve been a nag since then, it answers.

  I’m a liar, I say.

  I know, the nag says. But why do you lie and try to tell the truth? Why do you write a lie and try to write the truth? You know that everything is a lie, so why do you try to seek the truth?

  The brick pillow clutches my throat. The brick blanket crushes my body. The brick bed undulates. It hurts, I cry. Please let me out of here.

  No, the nag says in a low voice. The nag opens its brick eyes and snorts brick air. Brick buttercups grow in the cracks between the strands of the brick mane. The brick buttercups turn to brick lilacs. Mauve buds appear on the brick lilacs. The brick flowers give off a brick scent. The brick word senses the brick tongue. The brick tongue opens the brick mouth. The brick memory erases the brick expression. The brick silence looks at the brick nag.

  You, I say.

  The brick nag hardens into a brick expression. I heard you was the most beautiful word there is, I say. Someone told me that. The nag and I look at each other for a moment, not saying anything. Who are you? we both say at the same time.

  Who are you? I ask again. The nag shakes its head. Who are you supposed to be? it asks. I shake my head, but the brick pillow is clutching my throat. Fragments of brick burrow into my throat and shoulders. Brick throat. Brick shoulders. Brick arms. Brick chest. Brick cheeks. The brick nag shakes its brick mane. The brick buttercups give off their poisonous brick scent.

  The opposite of you is brick, the nag nags.

  The opposite of confusion is also brick, I say.

  The opposite of brick is brick, the nag nags.

  The opposite of lie is also brick, I say.

  The opposite of brick is … For a moment, the nag forgets its nagging. The opposite of brick is … I forget the nag’s nagging … is brick. The nag nods. Then the most beautiful word in the world is … The nag stops nagging and looks at me.

  Then the most beautiful word in the world is … I repeat the nag’s nagging. Not brick, I say. The nag nods. Then is the most beautiful word you? the nag asks. I shake my head.

  The opposite of you is confusion. The opposite of confusion is lie. The opposite of lie is you. The opposite of opposite is brick. And the opposite of brick is brick. I am cold and sleepy and in pain. The opposite of I is probably I. This is a dream. The opposite of dream is also I. I am talking in the dream. And when I wake, I forget. The brick breeze blows in through the brick window. The brick dust flies in, carried on the brick wind. Yesterday I walked in snow. Today I’m walking in brick. How much more does it have to snow before the brick house collapses? If you open the brick door and walk down the brick steps, brick snow covers the ground. Brick snowflakes fall and brick wounds form on the brick cheeks that are struck by the brick snow, making brick blood flow, and the brick ice makes everything freeze, even the brick shadows. You can’t nag with a frozen mouth. You, too, are lying. A synonym for you is lie. Don’t ask me for the most beautiful word. Don’t ask me for such a thing. Nothing like that exists. No word in the world suits a superlative adjective. All words are antonyms or synonyms. The synonym of antonym is antonym and the antonym of synonym is synonym. Brick snow is falling on the brick field. I have never seen brick or fields or snow before. But I know that brick is brick. I also know that buttercups are lilacs. You probably don’t understand my nagging. You probably don’t even know what kind of nag you are. I’ve always thought about synonyms and antonyms. But I can’t remember any of them now. Do you know what the opposite of memory is? The opposite of memory is memory. Memories are dazed and forgetfulness blazed. Have you seen the opposite sides of a coin at the same time? The fretfulness of forgetfulness. The reputation of obfuscation. The relegation of reputation. Recollections are full of objections and memories are mutinous. So the antonym of dazed is blazed and the synonym for blazed is dazed. Listen to my nagging, since you’re not nagging. The color of buttercups is the color of buttercups. The color of lilacs is the color of lilacs. So don’t go confusing yellow with mauve. Or mauve with purple. Or brick with brick. Or walls with layers. Or stones with stones. Put me on your back. Put me on your back and go. Put me on your back and put me in the fire and just like that chase away my brick sleep once again. There’s a nag that carries on with its nagging and forgets its nagging. The crystallization of mystification. The mystification of symbolization.

  The nag doesn’t nod. It doesn’t nag. It doesn’t put me on its back. I’ve seen a hexagonal sky before. A snow crystal is hexagonal. Sharp ice splinters cling to each of its six corners. Six ice, six skies, six fields. Snow falls on the field. Then nothing is seen. Not mushrooms, not souls, not punctuation. Not even beautiful words, not even the most beautiful word there. I went there to find something most perfectly, most beautifully, crystallized. One snowfall, two snowfalls. But that place was full of the most beautiful snow crystals
in the world. Because they were all beautiful, each one of them, they couldn’t be beautiful in the end. Therefore, the most beautiful word in the world exists and doesn’t exist. So don’t ask me anything. One snowflake, two snowflakes. Is it still snowing there? Did it stop? Did it melt? Did my body that froze in the snow melt and trickle down? Did I soak the ground? Did my black-and-white bones collapse? The nag no longer nags and I continue to nag. Yesterday was snow and today is brick. If tomorrow is ice, what will the day after tomorrow be? There’s something I’ve forgotten that I’m not nagging. But I can’t remember what that is right now. You can’t compare that nagging with something like the most beautiful word. Nagging that’s been forgotten means that it has disappeared. Things that have disappeared do not exist. Dawn’s light, red sky, red cheeks. Tomorrow may not come. Because if tomorrow is ice, it will already be frozen. The brick nag doesn’t nag brick. The brick nag doesn’t go down the brick steps. Brick I don’t look at brick you. The brick curtains don’t flap. The brick pillar doesn’t lean. The brick walls don’t collapse. The brick bed wrings my brick arms and brick legs. The brick world shrinks. The brick dream doesn’t shatter. The forgotten nagging and the lost nagging turn to brick and become trapped inside my brick mouth. The brick world sinks. It keeps sinking.

  29

  I anticipate another failure. In the days I spent writing this, I had many dreams and I put them all in writing. Some dreams were obvious, and some were deceptive. I rewrote them many times. The story became filled with details that were somewhat different from what I had first imagined, but nevertheless the framework of a given incident never changed at all. I don’t understand why I tried so hard, so stubbornly, to write this story. This story that may well be about nothing.

  My childhood was moderately unhappy, and I was moderately unlucky. I don’t believe that the unhappiness or unluckiness of one’s childhood creates happiness or luck in adulthood. An unhappy child could grow up to be happy, but once the child has become an adult, he won’t be able to forget his unhappy past. But unhappiness is simply unhappiness. Just as happiness is simply happiness. The words happiness and unhappiness denote nothing. Don’t be deceived by these words.

  I can package a certain story as a dream and tell it that way. I can disguise my childhood, and as I disguise it I can make allusions, and as I reveal details about the allusions, I can make them appear fictitious, and in this way, I can deceive you all. But you won’t be deceived. I hide, stab, hide, cut, hide, kick, hide, hit, hide, strangle, hide, and kill. I must divide all the stories in the world into moments that are short, and shorter still, no longer indistinguishable from one another. Like the fragments seen in a long death scene. Or the long death scenes in a seen fragment. At times the violence in a story bewitched people, and through that bewitching, they couldn’t glimpse the details of the story. Even the one writing the story. When I was three years old, I injured my head and suffered minor damage to the frontal lobe. After that, I couldn’t understand certain fundamental emotions, perceptions, moods, jokes, feelings, words, and stories. I know how to act so that it looks as though I understand. I learned this only after I grew up.

  But certain words—no, to be honest, all words—are still a kind of mystery. For example, after the injury, you were no longer you. The word you is composed of countless words that composed your being. Your forehead, your eyelashes, your hands, your face, your shoulders, your fingernails, your index fingernails, your left index fingernail, your torn left index fingernail, the hangnail beside your torn left index fingernail, the pink-red-and-white mark where the hangnail beside your torn left index fingernail was clipped. Your first eyelash, your second eyelash, your third eyelash, and because one fell out, your fifth eyelash that became your fourth eyelash. And so it was impossible to describe you, or anyone, or anything. Because I don’t have enough time. Because I won’t ever be able to reach the end beyond the end. Because I don’t have an infinite amount of time. Your elbow. Your right elbow. The scar inscribed on your left elbow. The scar inscribed on top of the scar inscribed on your left elbow. The memory of the first time you played fivestones, the memory of the first time you played fivestones with two other children, the memory of the fifth time you played fivestones with four other children, the memory of the fifth time you played fivestones with four other children while rubbing the third scar inscribed on your left elbow. In the end, not you, not anyone, not anything, could ever be completely described; not any of this could become anchored in a single word. There were times that I couldn’t bear this, no, I often couldn’t bear it, no, I could never bear it. But now I have no regrets about all the world’s essential elements that can never be known, understood, or accepted. Although I don’t see what people say is essential, this blindness has allowed me to see another type of essence. I must remain in an endless state of confusion. The word essence is deceptive.

  While I was writing this, I read Maurice Blanchot’s Death Sentence over and over. Eventually, I could practically recite every line, but the book remained a mystery to me nonetheless. Death that is delayed at the same time a sentence is delivered. A death sentence delivered at the same time it is delayed. This book showed me that instant when a long death scene is severed into seen fragments, and when all the seen fragments compose a long death scene. I’d always disclosed the texts that I coveted and copied; therefore, this time, too, I decide not to hide the fact that I’ve wanted to make a part of, or all of, Death Sentence mine and mine alone. I must hide other things. Brazenly, I have hidden many things until now, but I have never gone so far as to hide the fact that I was hiding something. Therefore, even as you’re being deceived, you’re not deceived, and even as you’re not being deceived, you’re deceived still. In this way, the sole objective of the stories I want to tell is to throw you into an unclear state, to make you believe while you’re not able to believe.

  I keep listing, describing, explaining your every detail, all the elements that shape who you are, and I want to forever delay you coming to find me, perhaps forever delay my death and yours. I should never have written from the beginning. I should never have attempted to write from the beginning. But the story has already begun, and a story that has begun must go on. Like every unlucky narrator, I am fated to finish this story. Whether or not I wish to. Whether or not I will it.

  30

  I begin to walk again. This time it’s not a dream. At least I don’t think it is. I’m not on a road. I’m inside a room. I take three steps toward the desk. If I turn around, it’s three steps to the bookshelf. I take twenty steps. If I so desired, I could walk inside the room forever. Forward, backward, right, left. I have always thought about direction. On top of the desk are dust and electric cords, on top of the desk are dust and books. Dust on dust, dust under dust. There are other objects besides these things, but I decide not to mention them.

  I’m writing from memory. Before the memory vaporizes, it will be transferred by pen or keyboard onto paper or laptop. Ideas precede memories, and dreams precede ideas. Dreams precede dreams, and dreams succeed dreams. Last night’s dream was cool and fierce. The dreams I didn’t dream came looking for me. I couldn’t help thinking that I had to put them down in writing before I lost or perhaps forgot them. That compulsion expelled me from the dreams. I used to confuse lost and forgot. I still confuse them. The sentences are disappearing.

  One step, two steps. It’s neither spring nor summer and it’s neither fall nor winter. I’m not yet thinking about the season. It may be spring or summer. Since I’ve written a spring and summer story, perhaps it’s time to write a fall and winter story. Soon it will begin to snow. I must finish the story before it’s buried in snow. One step, two steps. It’s 3:00 a.m. It’s actually 9:00 a.m. A long strand of hair clings to my pillow. It isn’t mine, but it’s actually mine. After waking from my dream, I came back to reality. But my reality remains fictional. So 3:00 a.m. is probably fiction as well. The most beautiful snow crystal in the world and the most beautiful word in the world
still don’t exist. They don’t command any meaning. I think of the words I haven’t yet discovered. But that’s impossible.

  The blank page on my desk, the black cage in my head. I’m waiting for someone. I’ve tried to delay her visit. But one day she’ll come and find me. It’s not difficult for me to summon her image. But I used to think about how she looked, the expression on her face. Her facial features, the slant of her shoulders. She hasn’t finished growing. Right now these are the only details I know about her. In my latest dream, she was pushing herself out of a second-story window. Luckily, my room is on the second floor. She went from the second floor to the first. Perhaps she tumbled down the stairs. I’ve had this dream before. That time I clutched a throat and this time I cut a throat. Whose throat? I don’t know. Perhaps it was my throat that was clutched and my throat that was cut. I’m forgetting the dream. A stranger lives below me in a room on the ground floor. Sometimes I’m curious about where this person can tumble to. I have never seen this person’s face. The dream swiftly scatters. But this stranger isn’t the one who’ll come visit me.

  One snowflake, two snowflakes. Buttercups and lilacs. One brick, two bricks. Words that have been randomly extracted from my dreams are strewn on top of my desk. One scrap page, two scrap pages. One blank page, two blank pages. Words seize me. The nag asked, How can you tell a lie and at the same time tell the truth? I can’t remember if the nag was white or brown. It was probably the color of brick. It asked, How can you tell the truth and at the same time tell a lie? What is a lie? I can’t remember if the nag had four legs or six. Probably five. The nag passed by once in the dream. Then it came back.