Part One: Purgatory V.1

Nothing is permanent in this wicked world, not even our troubles.

-Charlie Chaplin

 

 

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Back then Chris had thought he was in purgatory. He would call it 'hell' but he figured hell would be more intense.

 

 

Everything he saw was gray and crowded. Every street was too wide or too narrow, and the sidewalks appeared to be crying for some degree of repair. The concrete was cracked or marked with yellow stubble that resembled Lego pieces, and Chris had yet to know what they were for. (Honestly, what were they for?) The windows needed dusting, plastic banners were tattered and smudged, with only the asphalt streets looking to be in good condition. Maybe it was all in his head, but Chris wouldn't change his opinion if the trash cans were squeaky clean. Korea was horrible! So this was what purgatory looked like. He wanted to go back to America right away.

 

 

Only he couldn't do that. He was only fourteen with a bank account controlled by his parents, and in any case there was no one back in the United States. His siblings were at a boarding school in Illinois and his parents were somewhere in Spain for work. About a month ago Chris had been sent to live with his relatives in Korea, South Korea if anyone wanted to be specific, and it was purgatory. He knew nothing of the culture, the country, and even less of the language.

 

Oh, he didn't doubt that his aunts and uncles meant well. They helped him without hesitation and were very generous about it. Still! their actions were born of pity and condescension. Chris did know a few Korean words, and they were enough to confirm that he wasn't being paranoid. They did think it was embarrassing for a boy his age to be so helpless. Chris didn't go anywhere outside because he spoke little Korean, or if he spoke at all. It was easy enough to talk with his cousins, the oldest being ten years old. All you had to know were words like 'NO!' and 'Yes', for most of their questions could be answered that way.

 

 

The kids were okay, but the adults were a problem. They spoke to him with a tone of voice reserved for toddlers, one that was the same all around the world. Chris liked to call it 'the goo-goo voice'.

 

 

He supposed he couldn't blame them for thinking he was a child. Chris needed a home tutor for six months to a year before he could attend a normal school, and he wasn't anywhere near confident enough to go outside by himself. The result was that Chris felt stupid, helpless, useless, immature, homesick, cramped, and miserable. All in one! All the time. His relatives didn't help by using that goo-goo voice and sounding as though he amused them.

 

 

Good grief! He wanted to be ignored but at the same time felt angry if he was ignored. Did that make any sense? Suddenly everyone he saw was more independent and smarter than he was. Again, that feeling of being stupid, helpless, useless, immature, homesick, cramped, miserable....

 

 

Was that why he went to downtown Dae-gu? Chris couldn't remember. It didn't make sense that he would because he was so hopeless with trains. He didn't know his way around and he went out alone either. Yet he was found in a side street bleeding to death from gunshot wounds. It was a miracle that he survived, because by the time someone found him Chris should have been dead. All the rules of logic and the human body said so.

 

 

Chris didn't remember any of that. He didn't know until later that everything had changed not on that night but before. It was prior to that night he stopped feeling stupid, helpless, immature, homesick, cramped, etc., etc., etc.

 

 

Being afraid for someone's life tended to blot out everything else.

 

 

***

 

 

“ I'm afraid we will have to hospitalize your son.”

“ He won't be able to last long in the outside world.”

“ Sung-ki's immune system has been severely weakened, almost...broken down.”

“ I'm sorry, but we just can't explain how quickly his condition grew worse.”

 

 

Words. They were all words he had heard before, and only the voice speaking them changed. Sung-ki performed the one bodily action he had the strength for and closed his eyes. The ceiling above him never changed, but he'd seen the walls on either side of his bed before. It was more interesting to close his eyes.

 

 

He thought about his little sister. Suna wasn't like him at all. She wouldn't withdraw into herself, but instead act out and run whenever she felt like it. Already the times she felt energized and clear-headed were so few. Unlike her brother, Suna would take any chance she had to make the world spin. If the odd gleam had faded from their mother's eyes by then, her reaction to Suna's outbursts would be angry.

 

 

Sung-ki waited for the doctor that came to his room every night, or it used to be every night. He found it difficult to tell apart the days, but it had to be more than one night in which the doctor had failed to give him the usual shot. Sung-ki sort of missed it. Whatever the drugs were, he felt as though they detached him from his body and he liked that. His body was a dying wreck.

 

 

Which was why he didn't like the part when his body sucked him back in.

 

 

Sung-ki opened his eyes and dully felt the amazement that he was able to do it. The stubbled ceiling above his head was dull black instead of moon-lit blue, and the surprise he felt was more instantaneous. Had he lost consciousness or had it truly been a second or two since he closed his eyes? Sung-ki shifted his eyes to the left where the door was.

 

Some rooms in the hospital had a window in the door, and Sung-ki's was one of them. He couldn't figure out why the narrow pane was black when it should be yellow with the lights in the hall. Sung-ki didn't see the blackness move until light pierced through a feathered trim, but that was no surprise. His eyesight was weak at times.

 

But there was one dark eye staring at Sung-ki through the window. His body spasmed with terror. Without warning he was totally convinced that the one dark eye belonged to a beast with a gaping, dripping maw of vicious teeth, and it was going to enjoy Sung-ki's screams as he was torn apart into more chewable pieces. There would be no stomach down the gaping maw, only a pitch-black doorway to unimaginable horrors.

 

 

Then a single finger, barely visible against the darkness, rose up to bid Sung-ki silence. Against the weak white color of cloth bandages, a mouth spread in a wide, feral grin guaranteed to drive someone mad.