The Darkroom of the Map
by Yi Sang
He who slept for a long time,
and lay down for a short time,
is he who slept for a short time,
and lay down for a long time.
If he lies down at four o'clock,
five, six, seven, eight, nineā
and from nine o'clock to ten o'clock.
Yi Sangā
I know a strange, funny person, Yi Sang.
Of course,
I am not trying to look at him directly.
From him,
I tear off his 'doing'
and throw it away as is.
On a night when the sun shines down like a sunny patch,
he makes it pour rain.
Wondering what to do
if he doesn't have a raincoat,
he leaves the room.
From Isam-mogak-ro
to Bukjeonggeojang,
he rides in a yellow carriage.
In some room,
he catches the tip of his finger.
That fingertip
traverses the map like a gale.
Though he has seen many silver mines,
his will
makes walking rigorous.
Why he
found peace,
no one asks.
He,
on K's Bible-like face,
gently covers it
with a fragmented cloth
that came from his own eyes,
and then just leaves.
He is not clothes,
nor is he what he does.
Only,
a bothersome feeling about clothes remains,
repeating like a habit
of taking them off once a day.
Without asking anyone,
āAren't you doing this?ā
he asks himself,
and comforts himself,
he continues to move forward.
No,
he thinks
he is moving forward.
-----------------------------------
He
has a cruel stubbornness
that favors his friends.
While entrusting his own red body
to his friends so easily,
he doesn't think at all
about what those friends
might do.
One might call him foolish.
But in truthā
it is a longing to be free
from this heavy labor
of carrying his own body around.
If the clock is to strike,
let it strike.
Whether it strikes three times in an hour,
or strikes after sixty-three minutes with three minutes remaining,
the heart that leaves it as it is.
Thus begins
the generous years.
His time
starts flowing from then.
He covers the light bulb with an envelope.
Where the diminished light
has gone,
he has never once thought about.
Nor does he think about
this preparation and place.
If he doesn't think,
won't he
soon be able to fall asleep?
Butā
no one thinks that way.
Letters that humanity has not yet created
sway back and forth in that spot.
What kind of hint is it?
Why do letters become useless
once they are read and passed over?
He
cannot abandon
that fixed technical method.
A single letter
sways back and forth.
Then he thinks again.
One person,
two thoughts,
three, four, five spoken lettersā
and five again, and five again, and five again.
Ultimately, he
cannot help but believe
in the terrifying power
of what is called time.
Even knowing that what has passed
is useless,
he too cannot refuse
that old habit of discarding one.
He too cannot refuse that old habit of discarding one.
The thoughts he has now,
the letters he has nowā
knowing that they will all be useless
later,
why does he have them
now?
He could just not have them.
But alreadyā
he has them.
He already has them.
He already has them.
He discarded them.
He has them again.
He wants to
kick away the person or path clad in aching time,
fight,
and push them away.
and push them away.
Undress, and it's still clothes,
undress, and it's still clothes,
undress, and it's still clothesā
Only then
does he walk the path.
Walking and walking,
he wants to stand firm in one place,
not retreat,
and just fight.
The moment the light bulb suddenly turns on
is like him waking up.
The bright duration,
and the ambiguous time of whether it's light or not.
One hour that vaguely clings
to his five hours later.
He
sees the light bulb, wrapped in an envelope and disappeared,
and sees his own body,
half-boiled in the bedding.
The envelope isā
bedding.
The envelope isā
clothes.
The bedding, the envelope, and he,
the way to give up one's body, and,
He learns how to gather himself.
Into the sliding door,
meaning seeps in like a ray of ink.
It is,
a sign that his body has been lit.
So he
puts on an envelope.
He puts on bedding,
and takes off bedding.
The envelope is clothing,
and after the bedding,
it is what his body overwrites.
Like a red-hot ampoule,
his body
is drenched in moisture and heat.
He accepts and then throws away,
picks up and then discards.
A day,
begins the moment the light turns on and off.
It is so, too.
Today,
the red light of the calendar
draws him out.
He
cannot refuse it.
The person who made the calendar,
and the person who took it away,
have already prepared the rules.
He cannot break them.
Because K
is a good person
who likes the light of the calendar
to match the light in his room.
Was the red light
a warning to him?
He thinks.
The red light of Sunday.
Something that was useless
when there was the white light of Monday.
But now
it is used the most.
Uncertain numbers
hold onto each other and laugh.
He
sees that laughter,
and imitates it,
and laughs.
So as not to be defeated
by the calendar.
He
shows a laugh,
alternating between a wide laugh and a narrow laugh
at superhuman speed.
Greetings are pleasant, he thinks,
he is not lazy.
A toothbrush
brushes between his teeth.
Water
touches his face, especially his cheeks.
In the toilet, he
sees news from the farthest country
up close.
In between,
he comfortably narrates.
What has passed
must be discarded.
In the mirror,
he meets 'Ri-sang'.
Ri-sang
is wearing the same tracksuit as him,
but does nothing.
He wants to ask,
āWhere does Ri-sang
go
and what does he do all day?ā
When he meets
the physical education teacher Ri-sang,
as a sign of respect,
She rubs her face against his.
While using a towel.
However,
she doesn't ask
where he is or what he's doing.
A single letter
stands up and then falls over.
He
drives away
the sad dust that keeps putting clothes
over clothes.
Andā
he looks at Eroshienko.
Why
do you have eyes that cannot see me?
He sees.
The breakfast he ate
passes through his esophagus
and goes straight
into Eroshienko's brain,
to be digested or pushed out.
He
moves forward little by little,
without
rejecting the concept of time.
It is unbearable
to entrust his own meal
to someone else's brain.
So,
he stops immediately.
He
searches for what he needs to find,
but he doesn't know
what he has found.
The sun
will fall.
People
run, fall, and collide.
Pieces of black blood
fall and harden.
A sound is heard.
The sound of a bell walks over,
plays, and does not disappear.
He
prepares an expression.
An angry face.
But
his body isn't angry.
Only his face is angry.
His inside isn't angry either.
Only the shell
is angry.
It feels as if
he has someone else's head attached.
Nevertheless,
he puts it forward.
Otherwise,
everything
would mock him.
So,
he goes out.
Into things unrelated to him.
Trees, people, clothes,
even K.
He
tries to move himself
to a place unrelated to them.
Andā
he becomes alone.
Completely.
He thinks.
Wherever he is,
if there's someone who continues
to do things unrelated to the world,
wouldn't that alone
be good?
He
cannot help but think that way.