I'm Waiting for You and Other Stories by Kim Bo-Young

Author:Kim Bo-Young [Bo-Young, Kim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780008433819
Google: MiP9DwAAQBAJ
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
Published: 2021-04-14T23:00:00+00:00

4

“YOU LOOK TERRIBLE,” AMAN SAID, LAUGHING, BUT NOT laughing out loud. Each of Aman’s personalities felt their hearts stir with a strange joy and declared they would treat someone to a meal today, burst into song, or clapped a friend on the shoulder with a hearty suggestion for a round of drinks. Unaware of the fate awaiting them.

“You’re a ragbag of everything,” Aman remarked.

I was astounded. How could the “whole” of a self be so crass?

“Oh, hi there, Hell, and the countless dead things in Hell. Hi, Naban, and Naban’s many disciples. Why, you lot are a mismatched jumble . . . Where’s Tanjae? Have you left them behind because they’re the youngest?”

Alas, bother. I expected no less from the Prophet of Division; Aman could not see me as a whole but only as separate elements.

“Come here, Aman,” I said. “Your divisions have gotten out of hand, and so have the universe’s. Let us go back to how we were before.”

I sensed a sadness emanate from Aman, as if I had uttered something heinous and merciless. I must make allowances for Aman. The entity believed in death and interpreted change as a termination.

“You are sad now, but when you return you will understand. It will be a natural process, nothing unusual.”

I felt Aman huddle up.

“You have no reason to refuse. Not that you can refuse.”

“I’m not worried about me. I just feel sorry for Naban.”

What was that supposed to mean? But I need not ruminate on the matter. The distorted views of a corrupted entity were not worth my attention.

I increased my density, compressing my body as though squeezing my flesh together. I created a complicated gravitational field targeting Aman and pulled them in geometrically. What followed might resemble two galaxies clashing and merging into one, or two stars in close proximity rippling hotly from the sheer force of each other’s gravity until they fused.

Matter traveled back and forth. At first the only things to come were molecules floating around the atmosphere. Then the bigger things came. Minor disasters would be breaking out all over the Lower Realm now. Organisms would be meeting mysterious mass deaths, fish washing up dead on shores, birds falling from the sky. Everything happened in one fleeting moment for me, but it took decades to unfold in the Lower Realm.

Aman grieved for every death. As if to say every life was distinct, every personality unique, and that I had no right to dictate those lives.

“Death is an illusion. Do not mourn,” I told Aman.

“But I can’t help but mourn . . .” Aman began. It was in that instant that Aman struck me as human. I felt their sorrowful eyes boring into me. They finished, “. . . the death of Naban.”

THE DEATH OF Naban.

What a strange thing to say.

There was no death. The personalities of Aman and Naban would of course never manifest themselves again . . . but that was not death. Their memories would live on in me, eternal as the universe itself.

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