I am publishing the introductory chapter of the novel here along with other selected chapters to give readers a taste for a work which I hope will be something both most unusual and singular amongst human literature.
There, There Be Dragons
죽음을 재촉하는 차가운 A 바람이 작은 cold 소녀의 wind 귀에 reinforcing 속삭였다 death whistled in the ears of the little girl. She clutched her mother’s hand for support and walked out into the night to see a clear sky filled with few stars in the darkness above the street lamps. The doors slid closed behind them, revealing snowflakes and temperatures that hovered just below freezing. Mercifully, the aseptic smell of bleached floors and disinfectants began to fade as they walked into the parking area.
The girl’s father glanced down with forlorn eyebrows that seemed to be holding up the weight of a stone pagoda. “Min-Hee-Ya, please fasten your coat.” He pulled back his right sleeve slightly and swiped above his wrist bringing their electric car’s holographic interface shimmering into midair. “Ready for pick-up at main entrance rotunda,” he said.
Min-Hee, lost deep in sorrow from her visitation, barely heard her father and looked straight ahead, trying as best she could to focus through the haze of the previous hours. The cold was a distant afterthought. Of all her senses, only a slight burnt odor in the wind penetrated her thoughts.
In her left arm, she held her sister’s stuffed tiger while her right arm tightly clutched her own favorite dokkaebi stuffed doll. He looked a bit like a blue furry bear but with small goblin fangs and a white horn projecting from his forehead. His name was Wal-Me, and he had been the closest of confidants since the darkness had descended upon her family. Min-Hee had received him at three, and now, three years later, he had become worn around his large ears. She absently rubbed his horn in the hopes of good luck.
Their small driverless family car pulled up to the loading area, and she climbed into the back seat and the little warmth that the heater had yet put out.
Her mother at the front opened her door and climbed in, turning with a forced smile that barely held, “When we get home, I would like for you to finish your lessons before bedtime. I think … “
“O’ma, … O’nnie is going to die, isn’t she?”
Her mother’s dark eyes reflexively refocused as a crack formed in the mental facade she had built up over the preceding weeks and months. A tear dropped from her right eye as she looked at her daughter, as if truly seeing her for perhaps the first time in many months.
“What is it if we don’t hold to our hope?”
The little girl wanted to cry, but she knew if she did, her parents would join her, and, small as she was, she sensed they needed anything but that at just this moment. She held Wal-me more tightly as she waited for a potential outburst. She was hesitant to say anything more to her mother as she sensed the strain and pressure that her parents were under. It had been another evening of whispers and cupped hands. The doctors had spoken to her parents in hushed tones while they listened despondently, and she was asked to leave the room twice. What good were artificial intelligence thingies and RNA stuff if they didn’t work? Almost no children got sick in today’s world, so her sister should be fine as well.
In some ways, she had almost been parented more by the attendants and dom-bots in the children’s play area than by her parents these past months. None of them were ready to hear the real answer. As long as the unsaid remained unsaid there continued a small place of elsewhere and elsewhere was a fertile plot of soil that still allowed for hope.
After a long moment of silence, she raised her voice, “O’ma, I already finished my lessons this afternoon.”
Her mother barely heard her through the deafening silence of the vehicle. After another moment she absently added, “Did you finish the counting lesson too?”
“Counting to one hundred is easy. Guess what I learned?”
“Did Mrs. Park teach you about the spider’s silk that we read about last week?”
“No O’ma, we already did that. I learned about this Greek guy who said that no one should ever be able to walk to any place.”
In the rear-view mirror, her father’s eyebrows rose in curiosity. “Why not Treasure?”
“Because in order to get to the place, you first have to walk half the distance to it, … but that still leaves half the distance left. You then have to walk half of that remaining distance, … but that still leaves one-quarter the distance left. You then have to walk half of that distance and so on, … which means you should never be able to arrive where you want to go.”
Her mother turned her head slightly, “That is not in the material we reviewed is it?”
“No, but I learned that if you try to add up the one-half distance plus the one-quarter distance plus the one-eighth distance and so on, it forms something called an infinite series.”
“You know about fractions already?” her father asked.
Min-Hee smiled, “Duh, I learned months ago from my VR teaching avatars. And today Mrs. Park gave us playtime, so I used my VR headband in class to look at the bonus material for older kids.”
Her mother nodded absently and folded her hands stiffly over her handbag.
“I can show you tonight O’ma.”
Her mother released a sharp breath, a refutation that said arcane ideas by a Greek philosopher were a step she could not take just now. Min-Hee knew that finishing her holo book before bed and brushing her teeth was what she could do to help her parents.
Her father looked up into the rear-view mirror and smiled. “It’s been a long day Treasure. Let’s hope tomorrow is better.”
Both her parents loved her, and she knew it, but each in their own manner. Until recently, always a smile upon her mother’s face mixed with the loud laughter of earnest compassion. Genuine hugs and kisses scattered throughout the day and around every corner. She taught by example, whether it was in the making of tteok rice cakes or the placement of fingers for third position on her small violin.
Her father was veiled nuance and reservation. Somewhat rigid on the outside, with everything needing to be done the right way and in accordance with what was proper. If a ceremonial hanbok had to be worn to a certain function or a deep bow performed, he was the one to insist that she learn the correct way. A time and place for everything and a reason why tradition should be respected. Most saw only the facade of a decent man observing the forms, but Min-Hee knew the warm undertones and hidden emotion he held for her and her sister.
Her parents were good people, but circumstances had forced them from their normal lives over these many months. It wasn’t just them, … it was herself as well. As if they all walked in a long, dark, tunnel without knowing when or where it would end. And then she corrected herself because that was untrue. She knew it would end soon, and how, but she did everything she could to think elsewhere, … be elsewhere.
Be elsewhere meant making no mistakes, … attract no negative attention. No time for shenanigans or mischievousness. Anything not to be noticed in a negative light, not to require her parent’s intervention, not to upset the unsaid equilibrium that must remain balanced. Excellence she discovered was the best means for reaching elsewhere. Count higher than another? … Yes, she could do that and only praise would follow. Read better than another? … Yes, she loved to read. Hurdle another test or another assessment? … Yes, if that meant allowing hope a place for continued growth.
She reached down and absentmindedly stroked Wal-Me’s furry horn. She realized she was holding onto her sister’s tiger and Wal-Me in separate arms and gently reached across the restraining straps of her car seat and set them down beside each other. They had known each other for years and were old friends now.
Min-Hee reached into her book bag and was about to pull out the sparkly new fountain pen she had received from her Komo the week before when she noticed the green blinking light on her silatex VR band.
Elation grew in her voice, “O’nnie left another message for me?”
Her mother turned wearily and looked into the back seat. “I don’t remember honestly. I know she felt a bit better yesterday afternoon and may have left something for you. It was probably while you were in school.”
Min-Hee excitedly set the silatex band over her eyes and ears, and waved her finger across the activation sensor. The car began to disappear in a wave of repixelation that quickly revealed a long, low beach with dark sand in places abutted by pine trees in the back. The shoreline was dotted with large boulders and filled with people enjoying the afternoon sun.
Min-Hee was fairly sure it was the same beach. The trees looked right and she thought she saw the same stall selling oysters and clams that her parents had stopped at. She was almost sure she had been here nine months before during a warm spring weekend, just before the national holiday for Buddha’s birthday. It had been a magical week filled with lotus lanterns, sweet and sour tangsuyuk pork, and a trip to Geumsansa Temple. One of the last times her sister had been well enough to travel.
She glanced down and saw her bare feet partially submerged in the dark sand, and then raised the glasses just a bit watching her own booted feet dangle from the car seat. She wiggled her right boot and her right foot dug down deeper into the sand.
“It’s the same beach.”
Min-Hee turned her head to the right to see her sister, Dok-Me smiling. Not bound to a bed with IVs and tubes invading her body, but her sister as she remembered her months before. Healthy, alive, … vibrant. A little bit taller than her with the same two long braids of thick hair coming down the sides. A small nose and full lips set in a slightly oval face beneath thick eyebrows arched above windows of wit and intelligence. Everyone said they looked a great deal alike, … and she concurred.
Dok-Me turned and pointed to a series of boulders that were being lapped by the tide. “Do you remember those rocks? That is where we took the makeshift fishing rod.”
Min-Hee remembered. She loved the ocean, but her parents had only taken her twice. Their father had offered to get them a nice beginner reel, but O’nnie had insisted that they build their own. A long bamboo shoot, some plastic cord, and a hook later had been enough for her sister to say that they could now reel in the largest man-eating shark ever seen. Min-Hee was sure they were wasting their time, but their father had surprised them when they began to walk down to the shore with a small cup filled with something slimy and disgusting.
“You have to use different bait if you want to catch saltwater fish,” he had said.
And he had been right. It wasn’t five minutes before Dok-Me had cast the hook over the rock slab that the line had started to pull. Min-Hee had pulled on the rod as her sister gathered the line to reveal a small fish caught on the hook. Their father had held a wide smile on his face as he examined the small fish and pronounced it a variant of sea beam.
Min-Hee slightly adjusted the resolution of the silatex VR band and then turned her head to the left, panning down the beach. This section of the coast had rocky slabs that abutted the tide and other areas of mixed dark sand. Several of the forested hills nearby had their sides eroded showing the ancient layering that had built up in the time before people had moved across the globe.
“I know you like the ocean, and this was probably our last trip outside together,” Dok-Me said.
“Don’t say things like that. It was not one of our last trips. There are going to be so many more.”
Her sister’s personality algodriver pushed out a neutral smile. It wasn’t really Dok-Me or even a connection to her. It was some program thingy that attempted to mimic her sister. Six-year-old Min-Hee didn’t understand “programs” very well except that they could be turned into amazing virtual experiences and games. Despite the context, she thought it was doing an excellent job of mixing the recordings her sister had made into a fairly realistic facsimile. Even to extended family at first glance, it would prove a convincing likeness.
“None of us knows how much time we have.”
Min-Hee felt anger rising in her small chest. “Then I will find a way to give you more.”
Her sister’s virtual apparition seemed on the verge of scolding her for being silly but then, after a long moment, said, “Perhaps you will.”
Min-Hee wiggled her feet in the sand and pushed her toes down under the fine grains, “Even if it is only sim time, I am still glad I can be with you.”
“You love the ocean, but for me, … the mountains are prettier. Maisan or even better, Chiri-san, should be beautiful now.”
“You climb up only to walk down again. … Why?”
“It is the journey.”
With a venerable three years on her, Dok-Me liked to sometimes preen with her “nuggets of wisdom.”
“Yeah, it’s a journey of sweating and blisters. Making a sandcastle is so much more fun.”
Min-Hee walked over to where her parents were lounging in the folding chairs they had brought. They smiled, … oblivious to the deadliness they faced in the real world. She reached into one of the bags and got the buckets, rake, and small shovels, and then headed back to a spot just above the tide line. She handed a blue shovel to her sister and kept a slightly smaller red one for herself.
“Western or Eastern style?” Dok-Me asked.
“We can’t make the slanted roofs with sand. Let’s go Western this time with a moat and a drawbridge.”
Min-Hee started digging and soon she was scooping imaginary mounds of sand from the left side of the back seat to the right as her father monitored the algodriver which motored the car across the city to home. She was working furiously on digging out the moat when she dumped a shovel of sand to see something small scurry away.
“O’nnie! A crab!”
Dok-Me reached out and tried to grab it but it had burrowed into a mound of excess sand. “Almost had it. … I am sure we will see more.”
They continued working for several minutes until Min-Hee noticed a momentary flicker in the sunlight and looked up to see some type of seabird craning overhead. She watched as the bird banked and soared on the mild winds, and then turned to look out at the sea. Min-Hee didn’t see any movement aside from the few small vessels that were slowly crossing the horizon. She knew the oceans were vast and deep. Her holo books and vids had said that the majority of the Earth’s surface was covered in water but if the world was a giant ball, why didn’t it all drain off into space? She could imagine herself setting out to swim until she too was falling into space with the drained water.
Min-Hee looked back over to Dok-Me and pointed out to the sea. “O’nnie, … what is out there? Ah’pa said if we keep swimming, we would end up in China but what else is out there in the ocean?”
Her sister took a long gaze out over the water and turned her head back with a mischievous smile on her face. “Fish, sea turtles, and dolphins I think,” she said laughing. “ … And sea dragons.”
Min-Hee looked at her sister incredulously. “Sea dragons? … Really? … I’ve never heard of sea dragons before.”
“They live at the edge of the world, … in the deepest and most unknown areas of the ocean. The places where the water falls off into space and even the most evil pirates will not go, and they only come up to the surface when they are hungry.”
“The places where the water falls off into space?” Min-Hee looked at her sister suspiciously, “ … And what do they eat?”
“Little girls with red shovels.”
And with that, Dok-Me slapped her leg and was off running. Min-Hee threw down her shovel in turn and shot off for the rocky bank to cut her off. Her sister was just too fast and try as she might, she could not tag her back. Finally, her sister slowed, and Min-Hee was able to tag her arm, all the while moving her feet furiously in the back seat.
They both began to laugh and started to walk back to their sandcastle as they waded through tide up to their ankles. To their left, they noticed a large ship crossing when something poked above the waves.
“O’nnie, did you see that?”
“A seal I think.”
“A seal? I wish Ah’pa and O’ma would take us to see some seals.”
“Well, we did go to the aquarium a few years ago. You remember?”
“Yeah, but they didn’t have any of the really big sea animals. Every time I ask, they always say, ‘Go view them in simspace.’ That gets, …. boring! I want to see real sea life someday.”
“I am sure they will take us out when we are a little bit older. Supposedly there are all kinds of giant creatures out there in the deep,” and her sister began to smile again mischievously. “There might be monsters even worse than sea dragons. I have heard that there are giant squids longer than several cars lined up. And think about all those whales. Their mouths so large that they could swallow you up with just one gulp!”
And suddenly Dok-Me pivoted to the side and crouched like a monster. Slowly and menacingly she began to move forward with her arms mimicking the closing of a huge mouth.
“I’m a whale so big I could swallow you up for my afternoon snack!”
Little Min-Hee erupted in laughter and false terror, and turned quickly to run down the shoreline as her dying sister picked up speed and chased her to the edge of the world in the bright sunshine.