The Impossible Fairy Tale

by Han Yujoo

  39

  The brick curtain flaps. Is this a dream? This isn’t a dream. You come home. You hesitate at the front door for a moment before ringing the doorbell. Electronic birds chirp. I, who had been standing in the entryway, open the door. You glance up at me.

  Where’s my coat? I ask.

  You simply point toward the far room. The coat is on a hanger. You take off your running shoes and step inside. The apartment is warm. Your cheeks begin to melt. I don’t ask, Where were you? Straightaway, you head for the narrow living room. The notebook you had been writing in, or had not been writing in, is on the chair. You open the notebook and take out the pencil and fountain pen you had placed inside. But you don’t write anything.

  Where’s the book? you ask.

  That book hasn’t been written yet, I answer. And I smile a little, because you sound like me. When you realize why I’m smiling, you grin.

  Write it again, from the beginning, you say.

  No, I’m not going to write it, I say.

  You gaze at me, lips twitching. Your face contains no rage, remorse, sadness, or shadow. Why me? you mumble. I look down at your wrist. Around your wrist is a green hair tie. There are wet stains on your nylon jacket that’s zipped up to your chin. But I don’t ask, Did it snow? In your left hand is a pencil and in your right, a fountain pen. I can’t help thinking I’ve seen this image before. With your head bowed, you mumble something. I can’t help thinking I’ve heard those words before.

  When I was young, you start to say as you look at me, I found a ring on the street. I was around seven or eight years old. It was a ring with a red gem. I believed the red gem was a real ruby. It was probably plastic, because it was too big to be real. It was bigger than my thumbnail. But it made me happy. I’d never owned anything that pretty before. I’d never even owned any hairpins. My hair was always cut short, but if it happened to be long, it was tied up with a rubber band. The cheap yellow ones you use to tie things like chopsticks. But you already know that. Whenever I took one of those rubber bands off, it pulled my hair out. It hurt. But I’ve experienced many things more painful than that.

  You shut your mouth for a moment. And then you begin to speak again.

  I decided to keep the ring. But I didn’t know where I could hide it. Because pockets weren’t safe. And it’s not like I could hide it outside, since someone else might take it. Anyone who saw a big ruby like that would get greedy. So I had no choice but to hide it inside the apartment. I’m sure you already know, but there’s no place more dangerous than home. When no one was home, I investigated every corner, but it was hard to find a safe spot. So I picked the dustiest book I could find.

  You’re no longer looking at me. After gazing at the floor for a long time, you go on with your story.

  I still remember how it felt when I began to cut out the center of the pages with a knife. One, two, perhaps a hundred pages. Soon there was a square hole in the middle of the book. I put the ring inside the hole and closed the book. I don’t remember the title. But for a few years, until I turned twelve, the ring was safely hidden there. What was I so afraid of? The fact that I had found a ring? The fact that I hadn’t looked for the owner of a ring I had found on the street? Or the fact that I owned such a pretty, shiny object? I was seven or eight. As far as I know, children that age don’t try to hide things like that. They’re not afraid or scared. Was something the matter with me? After that I never opened the book again. I didn’t dare touch it. I was afraid the dust piled on top of the book would be disturbed and reveal that I had touched the book. Yes, that’s what I was afraid of. But as you already know, many things are more frightening and fearful than that. You obviously know that all too well.

  You cry. Your tears fall down your cheeks and to the floor. I begin to extend my hand toward you, but then stop.

  So how can you think I don’t exist? I can still recall that ring so clearly. I can even draw it and describe it in writing. How can you think I don’t exist?

  You remove your nylon jacket, your sweater, and then your T-shirt, and show me your back. Your back is marked with red scars and green bruises. I cover your back with a sweater.

  It doesn’t hurt anymore. But it won’t go away, you say.

  It won’t fade and it won’t disappear. I can cover it up, though, you say.

  Where should I go now? you ask.

  It’s snowing outside, you say. When I think back, I’ve never seen snow before. Why is that? Did I just forget I’d seen it? Snow is pronounced with a long o. Was that something you said? Or a sentence you wrote? Why have I never seen snow before? But you probably know the answer to that.

  Stay. Stay here with me, I say.

  You look up at me with brick eyes.

  That ring was really pretty, you say with brick lips. I wish I could see it again, brick you say with brick lips.

  I rummage through my drawer. After digging through objects like tweezers, a camera, pictures, and key chains, the ring appears. I peer at it. The corners of the red plastic gem are chipped and peeling. I spread open your hand and place it in your palm. You look down at the ring.

  This isn’t it, you say, shaking your head and smiling a little. This isn’t it.

  In your brick palm is the brick ring. Brick you shake your brick head. There is a green brick hair tie around your brick wrist. Brick you give the brick ring back to me.

  I thought about you sometimes, I say. I don’t know why. I thought about you more than I thought about Mia.

  You look at me.

  I thought about you more than any other character, I say. That’s the truth.

  Brick you shed brick tears. Brick tears become brick and brick falls to the ground. I close my eyes. Bricks crash and shatter. The brick sweater slips off your brick body. Your brick chest is revealed and the brick scars break open. Brick you glare at me with brick eyes.

  There’s something I want to ask you, you say with your brick voice breaking.

  How can I delay my death? How can I write my own death sentence?

  Your brick mouth spews brick words.

  Did my illness begin before the story began? Or after the story began?

  Your brick lips whisper brick words. These are questions I hadn’t expected. No. That’s a lie.

  Am I alive or am I dead? Am I dead or am I alive? Am I living or am I dying?

  The hands on the brick clock are pointing to the brick hour. The brick window opens and the brick breeze blows in. The brick snow drifts and the brick ice scatters. Brick you look at brick me. Your brick tears freeze. Brick spoon. Brick chopsticks. Brick fork. Brick plate. Brick cup. Brick straw. Brick paring knife. Brick throat. Brick knife. Brick objects. Brick you approach brick me. Brick I cower. Brick you seize my brick throat. Your brick fingernails dig into my brick neck. Brick face turns red and brick face turns pale. Brick lips open and spew brick breath. Brick body sags to the brick floor and bursts into laughter. Brick hands grasp brick throat and apply all the force they can muster. Brick laughter gets swallowed up in brick throat. Brick eyes fly open. Brick hands flail over brick hands. Hold on, you’re almost there. Brick mouth spews brick words. An expression like laughter or sobs flickers across brick face. The inside of brick head reeks of blood. Brick doesn’t see anything. Brick face, even brick hands, evade the brick gaze. Brick shuts eyes and tightens brick fingers around brick throat, harder and harder, with crushing force. Brick body begins to go slack. Brick lips open. Tears flow from brick eyes. Brick pants. Brick words escape at once. Brick words disappear at once. Brick eyes meet brick eyes. Brick scene twists. One brick footprint, two brick shadows. Brick snowflakes fall on frozen brick cheeks. Brick you look at brick me. Brick buttercups and brick lilacs. Brick blossoms and falling brick blossoms. Brick I don’t look at brick you. Brick you don’t look at brick me. Brick words don’t remember brick words. Brick dawn, brick morning, brick evening, brick night. Brick world doesn’t shrink. Brick you don’t break. Brick dream doesn’t shatter. Forgotten words and lost words tu
rn to brick and become trapped inside the mouth. Brick pencil and brick fountain pen fall to the brick ground. Brick words and brick sentences fall to the brick ground. Brick world doesn’t collapse. Brick world doesn’t expand. Brick you become brick and the brick hour stops. Brick I open my brick eyes and look at brick you. Your brick lips are open and have petrified. Your brick eyes are wide and have petrified. Brick snowflakes land on your brick cheeks. Brick dust lands on the brick snowflakes. Brick story becomes brick and petrifies. Brick you will still be brick a million years from now. What should I call you? I write up to this point and then close my brick eyes and spew out brick breath.

  40

  And I stop writing the story. When I fall asleep as though I’m fainting and then wake, it’s either morning or evening. You’re not there. No other version of the story exists. The story stops here.

  Footless like ghosts, atonement, all this you already knew. Clearly. When the story wasn’t yet written, I thought of an ending in which another character would atone for my actions. Perhaps I had hoped that the sin, the act that I’d carried out, committed, and written, would be atoned for in that way. But that’s impossible. There was a time I thought it was possible. I was confused. The opposite of confusion doesn’t exist.

  The dog and the river. When I began this story, I thought of a dog that drifted along with the river. Several people who heard me describe this said it was impossible to swim downstream. Perhaps it would be possible if it were crossing the river. But they said swimming downstream was not actually swimming; it was closer to floating. But I kept picturing a dog that didn’t swim from this side of the river to that side, a dog that didn’t swim upstream, a dog that simply followed the current, as though it were being swept down the river, a dog that didn’t sink or flail. And now that the story has ended or is in the process of ending, I superimpose you over the swimming dog. There is no connection between you and the dog. It is merely a superimposition caused by confusion. Just as I believed you had come to see me. Just as I thought a dead child had come back to life. Repeated confusion can completely change a story. The dog and atonement. I thought not about your death, but about the death of another character. That kind of character is often called a third party. But I’ve given up on a story with a third party. Why?

  There is no dog, but you are there. You’re drifting by. A small, run-down boat moored across the river looks as though it’s adrift, but I want to put you on that boat and send you off, somewhere, to a place that will not attract any attention. So that you can escape the story, before you’re carried over the dam, before you meet the barrier, before you’re cast away, before you drown, before you turn into brick and sink. I’ve always thought about you. Every time I looked back, you were there. Every time I looked back, you also looked back. Our eyes never met and therefore we have never met. But stubbornly, I remove the boat from the scene. You can’t reach the boat. There is no boat. As though you’ve never even laid eyes on a boat, you move on soundlessly, wordlessly, noiselessly. As you sink. As you rise a little and then sink again.

  Therefore, you don’t swim. You’re merely swept along with the flow of the river, with the flow of the story. No one knows why you don’t cross the river, why you don’t cut across or sail across, or how you have come to drift with the current. The spot where you should have landed has already disappeared from your sight and is disappearing from my sight. Across the river in a safe place, in a place that actually exists, I’m watching you. I, too, must soon disappear. One current, two currents. Not only is it impossible to name every object, but it’s impossible to count them all. The parts of all objects. The parts of the parts. I don’t call your name. You came to find me because I named you, and because I never called you by that name, not once. Because of this, I command you to cross the river, I fasten the securest metal collar around your neck, and I push you into the water. On this side and that side of the river, I’m standing safely among the reeds, not entrusting my body to the current, hoping, no, not hoping, that you would cross the river. You don’t cross the river, and when your blackness and largeness, your whiteness and smallness, when you and the river, the river and you, are no longer in anyone’s sight, you will disappear. You will sink before you sink. It’s a strange way to put it, but there is no other suitable expression. Quickly or slowly. All speeds are either quick or slow, one or the other.

  Your hair undulates like a plant underwater. Because your soaking wet hair looks as black as black can be and your body is mostly submerged, your blackness and whiteness aren’t very noticeable, and therefore you’re no longer black or white. You can’t speak, and even if you were able to speak, bark, or cry, the noise would get swallowed up by the water, and silently, it would be washed away with you. No one knows how you ended up drifting in the current, but this ignorance is clearly a lie. I keep telling lies. You look as though you’re swimming, as though you’re following the current, heading toward the dam where two rivers meet. No, it looks as though you’re being swept down the river. No, it looks as though you’re sinking. Soon you will sink.

  You are sinking, following the current of the river.

  You are sinking.

  You sink.

  You are there.

  You are not there.

  Afterword

  I had a dream.

  It’s summer. Perhaps winter. I’m sitting in a lecture hall among unfamiliar faces. It’s the middle of the day.

  Someone comes in. It must be the teacher. He sets some books on his desk and looks around the lecture hall at the students. Our eyes meet.

  He writes several words on the chalkboard. But the words become severed from each other. It’s strange to say that they become severed, but I can’t describe it any other way. I realize that I’m dreaming. The severed words are severed into smaller fragments. Those severed fragments are in turn severed into even smaller fragments. Sever, segment, dement, chain, key, calculation, separation. All of a sudden, I recall the phrase phantom limb pain. The words on the chalkboard become severed and then divide repeatedly. It hurts. But I can’t feel the pain of the words. Despite the fact that the words are being severed, I can still read each word. The teacher says that a collection of severed words is a bounded component. To me, the phrase bounded component is strange. All the other students nod. And then I wake.

  After I wake from the dream, I look up the words in the dictionary.

  Bounded: Let R be the set of all real numbers and let A be a subset of R. If A is the set of natural integers, for any choice of a large real number r, there exists a natural integer as an element of A, which is larger than r. On the other hand, if A is the open interval (0, 1), we can choose a suitable real number, such as 1, which is larger than all of the entry of A. A set A is called bounded from above if there exists a suitable real number r such that any element of A is less than or equal to r.

  Component: in Gestalt psychology, the phenomenon where a part of a whole is perceived independently from another part.

  I’d never heard of the phrase bounded component. As I read the definitions of these two words, I think about you. Could I explain your face as bounded and the parts of your face as components?

  But what about the parts of the parts of your face?

  Han Yujoo was born in Seoul in 1982 and is the author of four short story collections. She is an active member of an experimental group called Rue and also runs Oulipopress, an independent publisher. The Impossible Fairy Tale is her first book to appear in English.

  Janet Hong is a translator and writer living in Vancouver, Canada. She is the recipient of a PEN/Heim Translation Fund award and numerous grants from the Daesan Foundation, LTI Korea, and English PEN, as well as fellowships from the International Communication Foundation (ICF).