The Specters of Algeria by HWANG YEO JUNG

Author:HWANG YEO JUNG [HWANG YEO JUNG]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781739822576
Publisher: Honford Star
Published: 2023-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

*

“My name is Kim Cheolsu. I was in the same theater company with Jeong Yunho,” I said, introducing myself to Tak Osu.

“Jeong Yunho? Jeong Yunho … I don’t recall,” he said.

“He directed A Hundred Years Ago Today,” I said.

“A Hundred Years Ago Today …”

“I heard that you took a look at the script for him. You commented that the work was too straightforward … and that’s why you advised him to add a guy who ran …”

“Oh! Yes, I remember. A friend of my nephew’s.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“So you were in the same theater company as him, huh?”

“Yes.”

“Are you an actor?”

“No, I was in the directing team.”

“Who was the director?”

“Kang Teukchul.”

“Kang Teukchul? Kang Teukchul … Oh, Kang Teukchul! Isn’t his real name Sky, or Mountain, or something?”

“It’s Sea.”

“Yes, Sea. Kang Sea. The little kid has become a director, huh?”

“Yes.”

He laughed, clapping his hands, and drank some soju. I filled his cup again, and we toasted and drank together.

He filled my cup, asking, “So, what brings you here?”

“Well, I … came because of The Specters of Algeria …” I said.

“What about it?”

“I want to read it.”

He finished another cup in silence.

“You mean the script?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“I don’t have it.”

“Oh, then if you could tell me who does …”

“Why do you want to read it?”

“Well … I …”

I couldn’t tell him that the desire had come over me out of nowhere. It had in fact come over me out of nowhere, but nothing ever really happens without context. There was the forty-ninth day memorial rite, for instance, and AlphaGo, and buckwheat noodles, and the girl at the alteration shop, and the finger of the universe, and Mirae. Wait, not Mirae. Anyway.

“It’s a long story …” I said.

“A story can only be so long. It couldn’t be as long as life,” he said.

It could be as long as life, actually. If I started arguing over the context, everything would turn into cause and effect, and if I started tracing cause and effect, my own birth would be the first of all the causes. Wait, no, it wasn’t as if I fell out of the sky one day …

“You’re thinking too much. Just spit it out, anything. Once you do, it’ll all come together,” he said.

“Well, the thing is …”

“Oh, come on. Start by telling me what you did before you came here.”

“Here?”

“Here, Algeria.”

“Oh. I took a walk on the beach.”

“And before that?”

“I had something to eat.”

“What did you have?”

“Beansprout and rice soup.”

“Was it good?”

“It wasn’t bad.”

“And before that?”

“I talked to my mother on the phone.”

“What did you talk about?”

“Nothing much.”

“You must have talked about something.”

So the conversation continued, and I ended up saying more than I’d expected. The words branched out, at first in chronological order, then according to topics. I didn’t go all the way back to the moment of my birth, but I had never said so many things out loud about my past before.

The last thing I talked about was the first story I ever wrote. He asked me why the title of the story was “Introitus.

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