창작과 비평

The woman looked at her daughter's smile in the blurry picture standing behind the chrysanthemums. Her job was one that demanded a particularly large amount of overtime. As soon as she would get off of work she would hurry over to the kindergarten to find her daughter sleeping in the corner and the other children gone. She would have to drag the crabby thing out of its sleep and head for home so exhausted it felt like her back was about to crack. When her daughter stopped to look at the world around her the woman would hit her hard with her handbag, making her sniffle silently as she started along again. She wished her mother worked at a bank. The mother of someone in her class worked at a bank and always came early to pick her up. On Sundays and holidays the woman needed to catch up on her sleep and so never once took her child to play in the park. When she eventually got up at 10am she would be sitting at her parent's feet eating serial.
Once they learned to recognize that their children were dead everyone wanted to claim the bodies as soon as possible. They couldn't have them right away. The bodies were severely damaged and it was impossible to distinguish their identities. The children were all six years old and about the same height. They had all been wearing the same uniform with the same design and color. When she realized she would never see her child whole again she pulled at her chest until she fainted.
The police handed out pieces of paper for the parents to write down descriptions of their children, but the woman could not write a single word. Her daughter had no warts or other common marking on her fingers or toes. There were no other scars on her body that might make it easier to tell her from the rest. The woman always had her daughter's hair cut short because she did not have the time to comb it while hurrying to get ready to leave each morning, so there would be no ornament in her hair. It had bad teeth so never wore braces. There was nothing about her daughter that could distinguish her from the other children. She was utterly ordinary. Hardly anyone ever noticed her, but now her greatest distinguishing factor would be that she was one of the children who filled the front pages for days in a row, having for dying in a summer camp fire disaster.
Hun's mother was rolling on ground hugging her son's picture in her arms. She cringed with pain but there were no tears. Saliva dribbled from her lips as if she were foaming at the mouth. Her black pants were quickly covered with dirt. Several of the men tried to sit her upright but were each knocked over by the force with which she shook her arms and legs. The men did not get up. They either sat on the bare ground with their heads planted between their legs or sat there looking dazed in the direction of the mud flat.
A full two months after the fire the children's remains were returned to their parents, but the woman's husband refused to let her see their daughter one last time. She pulled at his shirt and used abusive language as she demanded he let her see her child. She pulled at him so hard the buttons came off his shirt and she gave him a big red scratch on his neck. When she finally saw her child for the last time it was nothing more than a handful of ashes.
The tide was coming in fast. The people sitting about the beach stood up. They scattered some of the food that had been set before the pictures around on the sand. They laid out what was left for everyone to eat but no one touched it. Hun's mother was the only one who ate anything. She had the cold chicken in a container in her lap and kept nibbling at the pieces. Her cheeks were bulging because she was putting the chicken in her mouth faster than she could chew. Half eaten chicken was coming out of her mouth and falling on her shirt and pants. You could see how she had gained so much weight in just a few months. The woman's husband threw the chrysanthemums towards the ocean with all he had and lit up a cigarette.
They gathered the pictures of the children and got on the bus. The woman kept looking back. The sea got bigger in the distance as the bus made its way up to the top of the cliff. The tide was in by now and the chrysanthemums were being tossed about in the waves. The last time she looked back the bouquet had come apart and the chrysanthemums were floating farther off from the shore.
Hun's mother was sitting next to the woman. Her forehead was all sweaty. Her round face suddenly turned white and she quickly covered her mouth. A sticky liquid seeped from between her fingers. The bitter smell of chicken seasoning reached the woman immediately. The bus hurried to a stop and Hun's mother scurried over to some pine trees holding her mouth as she ran. Hun's father had not come today. The woman had got of the bus and pounded on Hun's mother's back. With each convulsion vomit would fall between the weeds. Hun's mother looked up at the woman with bloodshot eyes that were full of tears.