“Heavy Snow”

Kyungha-ya.

That was the entirety of Inseon’s message: my name.

I met Inseon the year I graduated. I was hired by a magazine where the writers mostly took their own photographs, but for important interviews and travel articles we’d pair up with freelancers we’d booked ourselves. Going on the road meant as many as three nights and four days spent in company, and, on the advice of my colleagues, who said it was best for women to team up with women and men with men, I called several photo production houses until I was introduced to Inseon, who happened to be the same age as me. For the next three years, until I left the magazine, Inseon and I went on monthly assignments together. We’d been friends for well over two decades by now, and I knew most of her habits. When she started a conversation with my name, I knew she wasn’t simply checking in but had something specific and urgent she wanted to discuss.

Hi. Is everything all right? I removed my woollen glove to send my reply, then waited. I was pulling the glove back on when another text arrived.

Can you come right away?

Inseon didn’t live in Seoul anymore. She was an only child, born when her mother was nearing forty, and thus encountered her mother’s growing frailty earlier than most. Eight years ago, she had returned to a mountain village in Jeju to care for her mother, who was in the early stages of dementia and whom she lost four years later; she’d remained in that house on her own ever since. Before she left, Inseon and I used to drop by each other’s place all the time to cook and eat together and to catch up, but what with the physical distance, our visits had grown less frequent. Eventually, the interval grew to an entire year, then two. My most recent trip to Jeju had been in the autumn of the previous year. During the four days I’d stayed with her, in her unassuming stone house with exposed wooden beams, she’d introduced me to a pair of small white budgies she’d brought home from a market two years ago. One of the pair could even say a simple word or two. Then she led me across the yard to her woodworking shop, where she said she spent the better part of her day. She showed me the chairs she’d made from tree stumps, planed but without any joinery. Sit down, feel how comfortable it is, she urged. Later she threw some wild mulberries and raspberries in a kettle and made me a sour and rather bland tea over the woodstove. While I drank the tea, grumbling about its taste, Inseon, in her jeans and work shoes, tied her hair firmly back, stuck a mechanical pencil behind her ear like some master artisan featured in a TV documentary, and got to work measuring and drawing lines on a board with a set square.

She couldn’t mean come to her Jeju house. Where are you? I asked in my next text, just as Inseon’s message arrived. It was the name of a hospital in Seoul, though not one I was familiar with. Then came the same question as before.

Can you come right away?

Then another message.

Bring ID.

•

The first thing I saw was the black lettering on a grimy banner boasting “Nation’s Best.” I walked toward the hospital entrance, wondering why, if it really was the nation’s best in surgical-wound closures, I had never heard of the place before. I passed through the revolving door into a dimly lit lobby. On one wall there were some photographs of a hand and a foot, missing a finger and a toe. Knowing that my memory might distort the images into something more fearsome than they actually were, I forced myself to look. But I was wrong; these photographs grew more painful the closer I looked. My eyes reluctantly moved on to the next set of photos: the same hand and foot, now with sutured-on finger and toe. There was a marked difference in skin tone and texture on either side of the suture lines.

I realized that Inseon must have had a similar accident in her workshop, that that must be why she was here.

There are people who actively change the course of their own life. They make daring choices of a kind that others seldom dream of, then do their utmost to be accountable for their decisions and the consequences of their actions. So that in time, no matter what life path they strike out on, people around them cease to be surprised. After studying photography in college, Inseon spent a decade steadily pursuing this badly paid profession. To make ends meet, she took on any work that came her way, but she was always broke. She ate little, spent little, and worked a lot. She packed a simple lunch wherever she went, wore no makeup, and cut her own hair using a pair of thinning scissors. Amazingly, these habits came across as natural, unaffected, even stylish. Then for some reason I never knew she applied and was admitted to carpentry school. Not long after she arrived in Jeju, Inseon set about converting the shed, once used to store harvested mandarins, into a workshop, and started making furniture.

Inseon was slender but tall at five feet seven, and I’d seen her handle and transport camera equipment since we were in our twenties. I didn’t consider her too frail for the work, even if I was surprised at her choice. I did worry about her frequent injuries, however. Not long after losing her mother, she’d got her jeans caught in an electric grinder and wound up with a thirty-centimetre scar from knee to thigh—she’d tell me later, laughing, I tried and tried to pull it out, but it was no good; the grinder kept roaring and turning and gosh, it was monstrous. Two years ago, she’d broken her left index finger and ruptured a tendon while trying to stop a pile of logs she’d been stacking from falling; she’d needed half a year of rehab and treatment.

But this time it had to be worse. She must have severed something.

•

Inseon-ah.

I called her name. She was lying at the farthest end of the six-bed room, her eyes anxiously trained on the glass door I’d just entered through. It wasn’t me she was waiting for. Perhaps she was in urgent need of a nurse or a doctor? But then, as if suddenly coming to, Inseon recognized me. Her large eyes opened wider, before growing as thin as two crescent moons nestled in a bed of fine lines.

You came.

I saw her mouth the words.

What happened? I asked, approaching her bed.

Above the loose-fitting hospital gown, her clavicle looked even more prominent than usual. Her face was about the only part of her that looked less gaunt than when I’d seen her last, though perhaps this was due to swelling.

Sliced my fingers off with the electric saw, Inseon said in a whisper, as if to minimize engaging her vocal cords, which suggested she’d hurt her throat rather than her fingers.

What? When? I asked.

Two mornings ago.

She slowly slid one hand toward me and added, Want to see it?

Her hand wasn’t entirely bandaged up, as I’d expected. The tips of her first and middle fingers, both of which had been severed and reattached, remained exposed. Bloodstains, a mixture of fresh red and oxidized black, covered the sutures.

My eyelids must have blinked and fluttered.

Quite a sight, isn’t it? Inseon said.

I saw her face flicker with self-reproach.

It doesn’t matter how cold your hands get, she said, you never wear cotton work gloves when you’re using power tools. It was entirely my mistake.

Hearing someone open the room’s glass door, Inseon turned her head. From the sudden relief on her face, I knew it was the person she’d been waiting for earlier. A woman with short hair and a brown apron who looked to be in her early sixties approached us.

This is my friend, Inseon said to the woman. Then, to me: She’s been taking care of me.

The carer smiled and said hello. She pumped some hand sanitizer into her palms and rubbed it meticulously into both hands, then brought over an aluminum box from the bedside table and placed it on her lap.

The part that was basically a miracle, Inseon resumed, was that an elderly woman I’m friendly with, who lives down the way from me, had an appointment at the hospital that day, and so her son had come to drive her into downtown Jeju.

As Inseon spoke, the aluminum box opened with a click. Two syringes of differing sizes, a bottle of alcohol disinfectant, a plastic case of sterile cotton, and a pair of tweezers were laid in a neat row inside.

The woman meant to drop off a box of mandarins for me, Inseon was saying, so they stopped by my house. When I didn’t come to the door although the light was on in my workshop, they stepped inside to check if everything was O.K. and found me lying there, unconscious. They first tried to stem the bleeding, then carried me to the back of the son’s truck and rushed to the hospital. The woman was clutching the glove that held my amputated fingertips on the drive over. Then, since there’s no hand surgeon on the island, they got me on the earliest flight to Seoul—

Inseon’s whisper was interrupted. The carer had jabbed a needle into the still bloody suture of Inseon’s index finger. Inseon’s hand and lips trembled simultaneously. I saw the carer proceed to disinfect a second needle with an alcohol-soaked cotton ball and, deftly and without hesitation, she pricked Inseon’s middle finger. Inseon didn’t open her mouth again until after the woman had disinfected and replaced both needles in the aluminum container.

The important thing now is to make sure the blood flow doesn’t stop, she said.

Though she was still whispering, voiced sounds did creep in between her words now and then, perhaps from the strain of trying to stifle the pain.

We have to make sure scabs don’t form on the wound, she went on. They said that we have to let the blood flow, that I have to feel the pain. Otherwise the nerves below the cut will die. So we do this every three minutes, to prevent that from happening.

And what happens if they die? I asked numbly.

Inseon brightened suddenly, and I almost found myself smiling back at her beaming, childlike face.

They’ll rot, of course. The reattached tips.

I stared at Inseon’s fingers, freshly bloodied and swollen and looking even more livid than before. I raised my head, wanting to look away, only to meet Inseon’s eyes.

Honestly, I’d rather give up, Kyungha.

Inseon’s eyes shone beneath her darkened lids. If only I’d let go of them right at the start, she said, then we’d have simply stitched up the stubs and been done with it back in Jeju.

I shook my head.

You work with your hands, don’t you? I said.

Yes, you’re right, she said. And even if I were to give up now, a lot of people go on to live with the pain.

I understood then that Inseon had seriously considered amputation as an option. Perhaps every three minutes, as she endured the needles. But the doctors would have told her about phantom pain. How, although the pain of keeping her fingers intact might feel worse now, if she gave up on reattaching them, she would have to live with an agony for which there would be no remedy or relief.

•

Is that snow?

I started at Inseon’s words and turned to look behind me.

A large window faced out onto a road, and outside a sparse snow was falling. I watched the white, thread-like flakes draw empty paths through the air. When I looked around me, patients and carers alike were silently gazing out at the snowfall.

I studied Inseon’s profile as she looked out the window. There are people who, though not notably handsome, give the impression of beauty; she was one of them. It was the sharp gleam in her eyes, partly, but, more than that, I was convinced it was due to her personality and the care she took with words. She remained poised even now, despite her bloodied hand, her loose hospital gown, and the I.V. line dangling from her forearm. She didn’t appear frail or crushed in the least.

Looks like a big storm, doesn’t it? she said.

I nodded in reply. It really did. The light had dimmed considerably.

How does something like that fall from the sky? Inseon said in a whisper I could barely hear.

“I mean, if I can’t trust him not to watch episodes before I do, then how can I trust him with anything?”

Cartoon by Teresa Burns Parkhurst

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She went on whispering, as though she didn’t need me to answer her, as though she were speaking to someone else.

Then her voice was suddenly clear, free of pain.

The reason I asked you to come today, she said, is that I have a favor to ask of you.

Unable to look away from her eyes, which were suddenly alive and gleaming, I waited for her to continue.

•

This is the first time I’ve witnessed such a storm. Once, ten winters ago, I saw snow heaped up to my knees on the streets of Seoul, but the snowfall itself wasn’t dense enough to fill the sky like this. Now, seat belt on, sitting at the front of a bus making its way down a coastal road as the storm bears down, I look out at the palm trees swaying in the gale. I know the wet surface of the roads must be close to freezing, but it feels unreal to watch this much snow simply vanish, not a trace of it sticking to the ground.

I start to feel uneasy. Wondering if I made the right choice in getting on the bus.

The plane I was on two hours ago made an extremely shaky landing at Jeju Airport. As the plane slowed to a stop on its glide down the runway, the young woman seated across the aisle from me tapped on her phone and murmured, Oh, no, every flight after ours is cancelled. The young man with her remarked, Lucky us. The woman laughed. You call this lucky? Are you seeing this weather?

When I made it out of the airport, the snow was coming down so hard I couldn’t fully open my eyes. A porter in a neon vest advised me to take the bus. Warnings for snow and high winds had been issued for the island, and he didn’t think any cabs would be willing to go all the way out to the village in the uplands where Inseon lived. He said that all the buses, no matter the route, would put on their tire chains and continue to run, but if it snowed through the night they, too, would suspend operations, and there was a good chance the uplands would be marooned by tomorrow morning.

I was anxious. It would be dark by five o’clock, and it was already half past two. Inseon’s house was isolated from the rest of the village. I would have to walk at least half an hour from the bus stop to reach it. It didn’t seem possible to find my way alone in this weather. All the same, I couldn’t just stay in downtown Jeju and wait until morning. Hadn’t the man at the airport said the hill roads could be closed off tonight?

Not long after that, an express bus pulled in. This bus stopped at P—, the southern coastal town closest to Inseon’s village. I could take the bus to P— before transferring to the local bus to make the rest of the trip. But, as the express bus took me around the island, I worried that the small local bus that would get me to Inseon’s village would stop running on account of the snow.

•

I have made my way here at Inseon’s request. Because she said, I need you to go to my place in Jeju.

When? I asked.

Today. Before the sun sets.

What she was asking was close to impossible. Even if I took the quickest route from the hospital to the airport and managed to get on the next flight to Jeju. I thought she was making an obscure joke, but she looked perfectly serious.

If you don’t, she’ll die.

Who will?

My bird.

I was about to ask what bird when I remembered the budgies I’d met when I visited her the previous autumn. One of the birds had said hello to me and started chattering. I was surprised at how similar its voice was to Inseon’s. I hadn’t known budgies could imitate not only human pronunciation but vocal tones as well. Even more remarkable was that the bird had been able to carry on a quite plausible conversation by responding to Inseon’s questions with a mix of replies like “sure” and “yeah,” “no” and “dunno.” Inseon urged me, Go ahead—try talking to him. Tell him to come and sit on your hand. I hesitated, but her smile emboldened me to open the door of the birdcage and hold out my finger. Want to sit here? I asked. To my embarrassment, the bird immediately answered, No. Then, as if cancelling out what he had just said, he hopped onto my finger. I remembered feeling moved by his near-weightlessness, the scratch of his tiny feet against my skin.

Ami died a few months ago, Inseon continued. Now only Ama is left.

If I remembered correctly, Ami was the bird that had spoken to me. The one with streaks on his otherwise white head and tail, of a yellow paler than lemon. Inseon had told me her birds were expected to live for another ten years—what had brought on Ami’s sudden death?

Please go and see if Ama is still alive, Inseon said. If she is, give her water.

Unlike Ami, Ama was completely white from crown to tail, which made her look more plain, and, though she didn’t speak, she could perfectly echo the sound of Inseon’s humming. Ama had flown up onto my shoulder at almost the same time that Ami had come to perch on my finger, and I could feel her body, as light as Ami’s, and the same rough texture of her feet through the fabric of my sweater.

All right, I said, nodding, weighing the seriousness of Inseon’s request. I’ll go home, pack, then get on the first flight out tomorrow morning at dawn—

That won’t work.

I was a little surprised, as it was not like Inseon to interrupt.

That’ll be too late, she said. It’s already been a couple of days since the accident. I was rushed into surgery that night and incoherent until yesterday. I contacted you today as soon as the anesthesia wore off.

Is there no one in Jeju you could ask?

No one, she said.

What about the woman who found you?

I don’t know her phone number.

I thought I heard a hint of unusual urgency in her tone.

I’d like you to go, Kyungha. Look after Ama in that house. Just until I’m released.

What are you saying? I wanted to ask, but she continued before I could cut in.

Luckily, I filled her water dish the other morning. And made sure she had a good amount of millet, dried fruit and pellets, too, in case I was working until late in the evening. It might have been just enough to survive on for two days. But not three. If you can get to her today, there’s a chance she might still make it. But by tomorrow she’ll be dead. That’s for sure.

•

Where are you headed? the bus driver shouts in Jeju-mal. I don’t have a bag with me and my oversized clothes don’t look like those of a tourist. He must think I’m from here.

To P—, I say.

Where?

I speak up. Could you let me know when we get to P—?

Though we aren’t far from each other, it seems the driver hasn’t heard me clearly. The roar of the wind drowns me out. I assume he’s asking for my destination because most of the stops we’ve passed by have been empty. I’m the only passenger on the bus, so if he sees from afar that no one is waiting at the upcoming stops, he can drive past without slowing down.

•

Is Inseon used to this kind of snow?

That first year we started travelling together for work, because Inseon never brought up her home town and spoke without a noticeable accent, I assumed she had been born and raised in Seoul. Then one night I heard her talking to her mother on the pay phone in the lobby of our lodgings and realized she was from the island. She spoke in a dialect that was hard for me to understand, aside from a handful of nouns. Smiling, she asked a string of questions, made a few playful remarks, then laughed at some private joke before setting down the receiver.

What were you and your mom talking about that was so funny? I asked.

Nothing much. She was telling me about another basketball game she saw on TV, Inseon replied easily, her smile lingering. My mom is like any other grandmother, really, she went on. She was almost forty when she had me and is well into her sixties now. She doesn’t know the rules that well and watches mainly for the crowd. She gets lonely when there’s no work, since her place is so out of the way.

She sounded impish, like someone letting slip their best friend’s little quirks.

She’s still working at her age?

Of course. The women there work even into their eighties. When it’s time to harvest mandarins, they help out in each other’s orchards.

Inseon smiled again, returning to the earlier topic.

She likes to watch football, too. Even bigger crowds. She watches marches and protests on the news with the same interest. As if she’s hoping to spot somebody she knows.

After that day, whenever there was a lull during our travels, whether on trains or buses, or in restaurants where the food was taking a while, I asked Inseon to teach me some Jeju-mal. I had loved the rich sounds and gentle intonations she had used on the phone with her mom.

At first, Inseon was reluctant. I doubt it’ll do you much good when you travel to Jeju, she said. Everyone will be able to tell you’re a mainlander. But, when she saw that I was genuinely interested, she began to teach me the basics. I was most intrigued by the unfamiliar conjugations. When we attempted short conversations and I used the wrong tense out of hada—haen—hamen—hajaen, Inseon corrected me with a smile.

People say our word endings are short because we have such strong winds on Jeju, she said one day. The sound of the wind clips our words.

These were my impressions of Inseon’s home—an unadorned language of abrupt word endings, a girlish grandmother who loved to watch basketball when she longed to be around people.

•

I can tell we have finally entered P— when I see the signboards for the post office. I reach out and press the bell to signal my stop, and the bus slows to a halt. The wind outside seems to ease up then, too, as if on cue. But, no, when I get off the bus, I see that the wind must have died down at some point along the way. I feel as if I’ve stepped into the eye of the storm. It’s a little past four in the afternoon but so dim that it seems as if another heavy storm is approaching.

The streets are lifeless. No passing cars on the road, either. Only heavy snowflakes making their unfathomably slow descent. A traffic light glows bright red behind the dense arrangement of falling snow. As the snow lands on the wet asphalt, each flake seems to falter for a moment. Then, like a trailing sentence at the close of a conversation, like the dying fall of a final cadence, like fingertips cautiously retreating before ever landing on a shoulder, the flakes sink into the slick blackness and are soon gone.

•

Wiping the flakes from my eyelashes, I try to find my bearings. This is the coastal road; local buses don’t stop here. I have to remember where the bus stop by the intersection was, the one Inseon pointed out to me before.

It is unbelievably quiet.

If it weren’t for the chill of the icy particles falling and settling on my forehead and on my cheeks, I might wonder if I was dreaming. Are the streets empty because of the storm? Or are the lights out in the shops because it’s a Sunday? The metal chairs upended on tables and the pavement signs lying toppled behind locked doors have an air of disuse. Mannequins behind one window wear flimsy autumn clothes. The only place with its lights on in this silent little town is a tiny corner shop.

I need to find a lantern and a hand shovel. The corner shop may not carry what I’m looking for, but I can ask whoever’s there to point me in the right direction. I can also ask where I might catch the bus to Inseon’s village. But, as I head toward the shop, the lights go off. A middle-aged man in a jacket walks out. Seeing him wrap a chain around the handles of the glass doors and turn the padlock with practiced ease, I quicken my steps.

Wait, I call out.

But the man is climbing into a minivan parked out front. I start running, wiping the snow away from my eyes as best I can.

Please—wait!

The countless crystals soak up and erase my voice. I hear the car start, the sound muffled by the wintry calm. The vehicle backs up onto the empty road. I wave my arms at the driver. Then look on helplessly as the minivan speeds away.

•

I startle when I find the bus stop.

I had thought it deserted, but there’s a woman who looks to be well over eighty standing by the pole. Her back is bent and she has a cane. A light-gray woollen hat is pulled over her short white hair, and her quilted coat matches the hat. On her feet are dark rubber shoes lined with fake fur. She looks over at me as I approach, tilting her tremulous head to one side. I nod in greeting, but she goes on staring. Wondering if she missed my gesture, I bow my head again and notice a hint of a smile flit across her small, lined face.

I stand next to her and observe her profile until she slowly turns her head toward me. Empty, dispassionate, her eyes briefly meet mine. The look is neither friendly nor cold—in fact, it leans toward muted warmth. I realize that she reminds me of Inseon’s mother. In her small frame and dainty features, but most of all in her air of indifference mingled with subdued kindness.

•

Enjoy your visit, Inseon’s mother had said to me the last time I saw her, with a similarly apprehensive air, even as she spoke in a clear Seoul-mal. And with the dispassion that marks people who have long suffered and have been tempered by anguish—an equanimity that signals their readiness to withstand whatever misfortune might still be in store, all while remaining vigilant, even in the face of joy and good will.

I was surprised to see her mother, whose awareness I’d heard had been slipping, looking unexpectedly kempt and collected. I wondered who she had mistaken me for. Later that night, Inseon told me that her mother frequently forgot that she had a daughter and sometimes lapsed into childishness, mistaking Inseon for her own older sister. When Inseon’s mother had smiled at me, her creased eyelids had nearly closed and the light in her eyes had dulled. Seeing her reach out her hands, I had extended mine. We’d looked at each other, our four hands overlapping, and she’d searched my face curiously, cautiously, as if to determine who I was. When she eventually let go of my hands with a gentle smile, I bowed and left the room. I found Inseon by the kitchen stove.

What are you making?

Bean porridge, Inseon said, without turning around. I mixed black beans with white beans. Half-half.

She began stirring the large pot with a long wooden paddle. I went to stand beside her, and finally she looked at me.

She needs protein but she can’t digest anything else, so I make this for her. Usually I only make as much as we’ll eat, but I’ve made more since you’re here.

I watched the dark-gray porridge, flecked with black, thicken as Inseon patiently stirred.

It smells really good.

It tastes even better. Inseon smiled assuredly and switched off the gas.

Were you planning on using this? I asked, pointing to a large bowl on a rack. She nodded. I put the bowl on a wooden tray and brought it over to her, and she ladled the porridge out. It felt easy and familiar to stand over the kitchen sink and lend a hand, as if we were sisters for whom this kind of wordless back-and-forth was second nature.

That’s a generous serving.

You know the saying—a good appetite, a long life. My mom’s going to live a good long life.

Inseon balanced the tray in her hands and headed to the main bedroom. I darted past her to open the door. Inseon stepped inside and closed the door behind her, leaving me to myself. I wandered about for a bit, then laid two sets of spoons and chopsticks across from each other. I ladled some more bean porridge into two large bowls and placed them on the table. I pulled up the chair, sat down, and stared at the steaming bowls.

Inseon returned and picked up her spoon. I did the same and tried the bean porridge. The warm, nutty flavor filled my mouth.

It’s so good, I murmured, and, hearing this, Inseon said in her confident way, Have as much as you want. There’s plenty more.

•

It seems the bus isn’t coming, after all.

Even if one were to pull up now, by the time we reached Inseon’s village it would be too dark for me to find my way.

It’s time to find a bed for the night.

But first I have to call Inseon, I mutter out loud. My breath wafts into the falling snow.

I have to tell her that I’m giving up. That there’s a snowstorm.

I glance at the woman beside me. Shouldn’t I tell her before I go? Won’t she need my help?

I gather up my nerve and speak to her.

Samchun, I say.

Inseon had told me to address older people here as samchun. Only outsiders say ajossi or ajumoni, halmoni or haraboji, she said.

Have you been waiting long? I ask.

The woman turns her blank eyes toward me.

Is there a bus coming soon?

Slowly, she lifts one hand from the cane she’s leaning on. She points at her ear, eyes twinkling. Then shakes her head from side to side, as a wan smile unfolds over her face. Her thin lips, which I thought would never part, open at last.

With all this snow . . .

Her head continues to tremble as she turns away, as if to say she won’t be making further conversation. She casts her eyes to the distance.

Her eyes glint even as they remain steady. I follow her gaze and, unbelievably, a small bus is turning into the intersection, its roof buried under a thick layer of snow.

•

The bus grinds to a stop with a sound that reminds me of chalk on a blackboard. That squealing, too, is muffled by the placid snow.

The front door opens. Damp heated air rushes out and reaches my nose. The driver, who has one cotton-gloved hand on the gear lever, addresses the woman.

Were you waiting long? Two buses got stuck uphill in the snow. You’ve been waiting all this time in the freezing cold, have you?

As earlier, the woman points to her ear and shakes her head without answering. Using her cane, she slowly climbs onto the bus, and I follow behind, as if in a trance. The bus is carrying no one else.

Are you going to Secheon-ri? I ask.

Yes, that’s right, the driver says politely in Seoul-mal, and I sense a distancing in his changed tone.

Could you let me know when we’re there?

Where, exactly? he asks. We stop four times in Secheon-ri. It’s a big village.

The driver stares at me as I hesitate. I can hear the squeak and swish of the wipers as they clear the snow off the windshield.

This bus usually runs until nine, but there won’t be another one today, he says.

I don’t know the name of the stop, but I’ll recognize it when we get there. I’ll let you know.

Unconvinced by my own words, I tap my card. I sit behind the woman, who leans on her short cane for support. The snow on her hat has already melted into droplets beading the napped wool.

•

Dusk is rapidly setting in. The bus passes through the bank of gray-white snow clouds and mist I saw all the way from the coastal road. The houses dotting the road are now gone. Snowy deciduous trees stretch out on either side in a seemingly vast woodland.

The bus slows to a stop. The woman gets up from her seat. She hasn’t told the driver where she’s headed, but he seems to know where to let her off. The woman walks to the rear door, cane tapping as she goes. She tilts her head to glance back at me with an expression I can’t make out—is it a faint smile, a parting salute, or simply a vacant look?—before turning away.

Should he be letting people off in such a deserted spot? I look around and glimpse a low wall of porous black rocks through the trees. A house. The driver waits for the woman to set both feet firmly down on the snowy ground before closing the door. Her stooped figure trudges through the heavy snow and gradually recedes. I shift in my seat to follow her until she is out of sight. I don’t understand it. She’s only a stranger I happened to stand beside at a bus stop. Why, then, do I feel in turmoil, as if I’ve just bidden someone farewell?

“Working out is easier than cancelling my membership.”

Cartoon by Amy Hwang

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The bus slowly continues up the gentle slope for another five minutes, then stops. The driver turns off the engine, pulls the handbrake. Please wait while I chain the tires, he shouts.

I see that it has got even darker and that the wind rushing in through the open door is growing turbulent. The blizzard is about to resume. It’s almost as if the calm that’s surrounded us since the bus stop in P— emanated from the woman herself, and now that she’s gone, it, too, has retreated.

•

I shouldn’t have got off that bus.

Its chained wheels had left tracks in the snow as it slowly drove off, but, by the time it disappeared into the storm, huge snowflakes had already covered the tracks, erasing all trace of them.

Dim as it was, the snow gave off a grayish glimmer that lingered in the air, by which I could still make out things around me.

I oriented myself and started walking. I veered away from the main road and crossed through the fields on paths lined by snowcapped basalt walls. I passed pitch-dark greenhouses and came to a road that ran through a copse of needleleaf trees. Here, where the road was just barely wide enough for a small car to pass through, the snow came up to my knees. To walk through the snowdrifts, I had to plunge my legs in, then pull them back up. My sneakers and socks were drenched. There were no buildings I could use as landmarks, and, as the trees around me were increasingly sunk in darkness and half smothered with snow, I couldn’t tell exactly what they were—all I could rely on was my sense of uphill and downhill, my memory of the road narrowing and widening.

•

I have no idea when my phone slipped out of my hand. As the gray-blue twilight vanished, I’d come to the first fork in the road and turned on the flashlight on my phone. With not much battery left, I had planned to use it only when I had an important choice to make, like right then. I clearly remembered the path to Inseon’s house as one that split off into two trails and was confused by the outlines before me, of three footpaths of different widths running through the woods. I thought the flashlight would allow me to recognize the route to take, but the white trees all spilled their shadows at once in my phone’s faint light, which only made the place that much more unfamiliar. Still, I had no time to hesitate. I moved toward the widest of the three tracks. The very next moment, the ground gave beneath me and I fell through a heap of snow.

I instinctively covered my head with both arms. That must have been when I dropped my phone. As I tumbled down an incline, my head and body were pummelled by stones and rocks, but I didn’t black out.

•

Did it become this dark in that short amount of time?

Did I lose consciousness, after all?

I push up the sleeve of my coat with my trembling left hand. I feel for my watch, knowing very well that it doesn’t light up in the dark. I see only blackness.

My teeth won’t stop knocking together. My jaw throbs so much I worry it’s about to come loose. The chill burrows its way into my hood and past my scarf. I hug my shivering knees as tightly as I can and think.

•

I wonder about the bird.

Inseon told me that to save her I had to get her water that day.

But when does the day end for a bird?

These little ones fall asleep like a light going out.

That was how Inseon had described it one evening last autumn, after she had let the birds out for an hour to fly around and then returned them, one after the other, to their cage. Before she draped a blackout cloth over them, she briefly looked the birds in the eyes.

They’ll be wide-eyed and chirping like this, but as soon as the light’s gone, they’ll fall straight to sleep. It’s like they’re hooked up to a power source. Even in the dead of night, if I pull this cloth away, they wake right up and start chirping and chattering again.

•

I want to sleep.

I truly believe I will finally be able to drift off.

•

But there’s the bird.

When did the wind start blowing again?

My body is no longer curled up in a ball. My fingers have unclasped. I raise a sluggish hand to my face to wipe the ice away from around my eyes. I’m stunned to see light, a midnight blue barely discernible from the darkness.

Has the day already dawned?

Or am I dreaming?

I lie back as neatly as I can and look up at the sky. I can’t believe it. The surrounding blackness is no longer absolute. It’s stopped snowing, too. The pale swirling in the air is the wind stirring up old snow. Revealed in the moonlight. For the winds have scattered the snow clouds and a half-moon now hangs over the woods.

•

A bluish glimmer emanates from the dry stream winding its way up through the woods like a long white snake. I take one step at a time, leaning forward so I won’t fall back. The moon appears but is obscured repeatedly by the changing clouds. All the treetops are swaying in its wan light, emitting a deep-blue hue, as if they’ll never darken again.

At last, I spot the fork in the road.

This time, I don’t make a mistake. I head down the gentle slope for a bit, then follow the road as it levels out, relying on the light of the moon reflecting off the untrodden snow. The rustling and creaking of the woodland, the sound of my legs plunging into knee-high snow, the rasp of my breath, all commingling into one.

•

There is something out there. Something luminous.

Once I emerge on the other side of the brush, a long stretch of dark-blue road appears. As it winds around the woods, the path brightens, until I see a radiant pool of silver at the end. Breathing hard, I forge ahead as best I can through the snow. When I reach the bend, I rub my eyes again and look directly at the light.

Inseon’s workshop.

The iron door gapes open, revealing an island of light inside. Did someone else get here before me? I shudder. Then it hits me.

No one’s been by since that day.

While they rushed to load the bleeding victim onto the bed of their truck, no one had bothered to turn off the lights. There hadn’t even been time to shut the door.

It stands wide open, as if expecting someone now. Wind gusts into the workshop, sucked inside along with the lustrous snow.

•

I close the door. I bolt the latch so that the wind won’t blow it open.

There are logs lying in stacks on the floor. I step between them. On the concrete, beneath the dusting of snow carried in on the wind, I notice splotches of blood. By the workbench, under more snow, a pool of blood has hardened to ice. That must have been where Inseon lay unconscious after injuring her fingers. A partially cut log, an unplugged angle grinder, ear protectors, and various pieces of wood mottled by darkened blood lie on the workbench.

Taking care not to step on any blood or logs, I walk across the space. Nearing the back door, which opens onto the inner yard, I notice that there are logs lined up by the wall that have been painted black. Seeing the gradations of black on bark, I get the sense that these trees are speaking.

Turning the doorknob, I push on the back door, but it doesn’t budge. I pull. Nothing. I thrust the full weight of my body against it. I feel the door shove through the snowdrift on the other side to open a handspan. Releasing my weight, I stop and reach through the gap to clear the snow away. I repeat this until I am able to squeeze myself sideways through the opening.

Pushing through the snow, I head for the darkened house.

•

In this murky gloom, Ama is probably asleep. I know that until I turn on a light she’s unlikely to wake up and make her sharp chirp, as I’ve seen her do in the mornings when Inseon removed the cover from the cage.

When I absently caressed the white back of Ama’s neck as she perched on my shoulder, the bird would stoop lower, then hold still, as if she were waiting for something.

She wants you to pet her more.

Obediently, I stroked the bird’s warm nape again. She bowed even lower, as if in greeting, and Inseon laughed.

More. She’s asking you to keep going.

•

I enter the house through the unlocked front door. Standing in the entryway, I remove my woollen gloves and stash them in the pocket of my puffer coat before pulling my soggy sneakers and socks off my numb feet. I slide the inner door open, step up onto the wooden floor, and feel along the wall. I find the light switch and flick it on.

A faint wailing of wind seeps through the rafters, the windows, and the doors, accentuating the lifelessness inside. The wide window facing the dark yard reflects my whole body back to me. Lowering the hood of my coat, I see my bloodied face and wild hair.

By this window, Inseon has placed a table she made from cryptomeria. The birdcage sits on it. The blackout cover and a few cleaning tools hang neatly from the metal hooks she’s attached along one side of the table. The cage has one fixed perch and two matching swings, all made from bamboo that Inseon cut and sanded down and positioned at equal heights to prevent a struggle for dominance between the birds.

In the thunderous stillness, which is as chilling as any sudden loud eruption, I walk toward the cage and its unoccupied perch and swings. The water dish is dry. The wooden dish that Inseon fills with dried fruit and the square silicone container for pellets both stand empty. A handful or two of chaff is all that remains, strewn across a ceramic plate. And beside all this lies Ama. ♦

(Translated, from the Korean, by e. yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris.)

This is drawn from “We Do Not Part.”