The Darkroom of the Map
by Yi Sang
A living alley is a dead alley,
A dead alley is a living alley.
(A living alley is a dead alley, a dead alley is a living alley)
Thenā
From his back, from inside his overcoat,
A suit jacket fell.
At the same timeā
His eyes,
His mouth,
His heart,
His brain,
His fingers,
His overcoat,
His trousersā
All froze and fell off.
What remained wasā
Buttons,
A necktie,
A little carbonation, and
Crumbs only.
If so,
What remained there?
A ruin that was merely a location.
He thinks.
Here,
Scattered as they are,
Should I end everything?
That impulse
Directs the arm
That fell to the ground.
Heā
Suddenly becomes afraid.
Angry faces,
He pushes through the angry things
And steps forward.
A signboard peeking from behind,
Cut-off figures visible in the gaps.
All of it
To him
Seems endlessly pitiful.
If soā
What is most appropriate
For the feeling of pity?
He thinks.
Andā
Decides to make it laughter.
However,
He
Unknowingly
Already laughs.
That laughter
Cannot be undone.
The laughter that went forwardā
Like a fossil,
Has hardened.
Laughter, Anger
(Laughter ā Anger)
In the middle of the city,
Over a newly made grave,
Laughter from various countries
Gathers like beetles.
He
In the grave,
Again,
Tries to die once more.
If he dies,
He must die again,
And if he dies again,
He must die again,
It repeats endlessly.
He has died
Many times,
But in the end,
Nothing ever ends.
An endless end.
He asks.
Does God
Abandon him?
Even after dying,
Does He let him die again?
He
Thinks about how
To clear his own grave.
Andā
With the baseless jacket
That fell from his back,
He picks up the fragments
Of the grave.
And
Decides to walk.
Trudge, trudge.
Even as he does so,
He thinks.
Is God
Staying still?
What then?
If He stays still.
If He does not stay still.
He
Decides to observe
It in turn.
K is
Wearing the jeogori he had lent her,
she seems to be
rushing to the theater, like a cigarette.
That jeogori wasā
like a morality detective,
the simplest color
that made him
experience the grave.
He thinks.
Wherever he goes,
he will laugh like a crow.
He
takes off his hat
and places it on the ground.
And
the impulse to
stomp that hat
with the sole of his shoe.
That impulse
descends to his shinboneā
but then
majestically vanishes on the spot.
What remains.
A faint soul.
Complete compensation
for the ruins of a lonely jeogori.
His
spiritual arithmetic.
He
puts on the jeogori
and steps out onto the road.
It isā
as if
he isn't wearing anything at all.
He
walks with a heavy heart.
Continuing his thoughts,
barely continuing them,
he enters the night.
The night
does not easily make way for him.
He had always thought.
Night is
denser than day,
night is
longer than day,
night is
narrower than day.
Nevertheless,
for him,
it was a place where nothing unusual happened.
He
walks with strictness.
Carrying abandoned memories,
with the soul of the jeogori
following behind him.
He
dampens his collar.
He draws a map without qualities,
neither built
nor navigated.
Unaware of it,
he
goes deeper
into the night.
He adventures
without knowing it's an adventure.
His actions
are merely being carried out
by himself.
Butā
why
can he not discard
what should be discarded?
The suffering
does not change.
He
thinks of a self
that is not himself.
Dragging his tired legs,
stepping on the lights,
he continues to step on the lights
to get closer.
I am two, I am three,
words and numbers mingle.
He
simply throws
himself away.
The air
overturns the sound.
Everything
becomes commonplace.
Even what was not commonplace
becomes commonplace.
He
finally
thinks it doesn't matter.
LOVE PARADE
He
He does not stop walking.
The pavement
flows like chocolate,
slipping away
from beneath his feet.
He
has no choice but to keep walking.
The reason isā
music.
That night,
he was deeply immersed in music.
Light danced
in the fog,
and it
seemed magical
to him.
He
flows
into the restaurant.
Without even deciding
the direction of his body,
he leaves everything
to fate.
He
falls.
He spills.
Even the result
is excluded from meaning.
He
cuts out thoughts.
He fragments them.
And
those thoughts
cease to be his own.
The fragments
each dance.
He
steps back.
Words
gradually lose their depth.
A dry acrobatics.
No one listens to it.
Even if someone didā
K
has already left.
What remains isā
one woman.
He
always looks for her.
The woman
is always in the same place.
He
leans beside her.
āToday, I had many things that made me angry.
Did you too?ā
he asks.
The woman
nods her head.
He
does not know the meaning of it.
He
does not know.
The woman
touches his cheek as if washing it.
āDid you go out to play?ā
He
answers yes.
He
does not drink alcohol.
But
alcohol appears to him
like mercury.
The woman
sometimes cries,
and sometimes
showers him with words.
But
to him,
it means nothing.
He
strokes the womanās hair.
āAre you having a hard time?ā
The woman
shakes her head,
with tears in her eyes.
He
does not understand it.
Nowā
he
has already returned to his usual self.
Wearing a jeogori,
he walks down the street.
The day
is coming to an end.
Dark
and light thoughts
rise and fall
like a hat placed on his head.
He
shuffles the books
like playing cards,
to find something.
But
nothing appears.
The clock
strikes eight.
The lamplight
fills the room.
He thinks,
If I start now,
there will be no problem with digesting dinner.
He
I don't wish for digestion.
I just
want to forget.
Blank paper and colored pencils.
He opens a door,
then opens another,
and anotherāā
He enters.
And
he draws.
A complex and beautiful technique.
He
forgets everything.
The wide field,
the stuffiness.
He goes deeper
and deeper.
He believes he can return.
Butāā
he also knows
that he cannot.
Still,
he pretends not to know.
He
falls asleep.
PS: Retouching Yi Sang's writing is not an easy task. I worry about whether it might detract from his work.
I also worry that his intended meaning might be mistranslated. Rather than trusting AI 100%, please read the original text if possible.
WEINOVEL Team