Sublimation(21)

He would make a thoughtful noise, shuffling over to the fridge and opening it, pulling out the big plastic jug of cold barley tea. You always considered that very much an old man drink because of him. He poured you a glass, and then himself.

“If she wants to talk to you, she’ll ask.”

“But I want to talk to her, and I’m asking.”

He slid the glass over to you. You picked it up begrudgingly and drank the cool, slightly bitter tea.

“It’s harder, when you’re the one to leave. Let it rest until she’s ready, Soyoung.”

“Fine,” you said. And then you never talked about it with him again.

You remember this conversation like an old video cassette played too many times on a VCR. But now you’re wondering if you’re remembering it the other way around. Maybe your memory is fallible, and you were the one who declined to talk with her, because you thought Rose should get a choice. Because your grandfather respecting Rose’s autonomy seems strange, since his last request was for her to reintegrate with you. But he was probably an instance himself, so maybe her autonomy did matter to him, just until it didn’t. Or maybe it was a long game of emotional manipulation, which you could almost respect. Or maybe he loved you more than he loved her. You can’t ask him. He’s dead.

Isn’t that what it comes back to? He’s dead, and you can’t ask. All you have now is your instance, here in the car with you. Her face your face. Her grief not your grief.

You want to go home.

You glance at Rose. She’s still staring out the window. You look back at the road.

She gets the emotional distance. She gets the different language. She gets to look at the funeral through foreign eyes and foreign perceptions, and you don’t want to be her but you want to understand how she sees. You want to be able to see through eyes that are not your own. And in your heart of hearts, you admit that you would like to be someone not yourself.





ROSE


A traditional Korean funeral is held over three days, ending with the burial. Most people are cremated now. Korea is a small country and has only so many mountains. But your grandfather was semi-traditional, and his burial plot has been purchased for decades. Your grandmother is buried here as well.

The gravesite is familiar. A hill on the outskirts of Seoul, a clearing in the middle of the forest underneath the blue sky. This is why you’re wearing black hiking boots instead of heels. All around you, family and friends and strangers in black, their wet eyes, your aunts and cousins exclaiming over you. You must be so tired from the travel! It’s so good to see you again! How’s your mother? You nod at your other mother. You speak Korean and stumble over your syllables.

The burial happens. The coffin. Shovels. Dirt and sod.

Your grandfather’s grave is a large mound of earth encased in a stone foundation with a shiny black granite marker. Your chest hurts to look at it, the sort of bone-deep dull sadness when a part of you that you thought was already dead dies.

Your instance walks over. You glance up as she approaches. She had been standing near her fiancé, while you stood near Minsoo and his daughter and your other cousins.

“It’s weird being here when it’s not Chuseok,” she says. Her eyes are red-rimmed.

“Oh you think it’s weird to be here?” you respond, and she laughs and you laugh and the laughter feels like a thin soap bubble film stretched across your conversation.

“Don’t laugh,” Minsoo says, without any heat. “The aunts will get mad.”

“Sorry. It’s just that, you know. This still doesn’t feel real.”

Minsoo peers at you. “Are you okay?”

Two days ago, you were home in downtown Brooklyn. Your biggest emotional hurdles were making sure you did the laundry before you ran out of socks or updating your dating app profile or deciding whether to get dim sum or American brunch with Clarissa over the weekend. You hadn’t thought about your instance, your family in Korea, or your grandfather, in months, and even when you thought of them it was in passing, as if they were a dream you only vacantly remembered, something tamped down and deliberately buried.

A beat of silence that stretches too long. Your instance laughs. You don’t laugh.

“Shit, of course she’s not okay!” your instance says. “She just learned Harabeoji died two days ago, and now she had to fly all the way here for the fucking funeral, what were you expecting?”

“Uh—” Minsoo says. Your instance’s voice had spiraled into a shout. Everyone’s staring.

“Are you okay?” you cut in, staring at your instance. Her face has gone all blotchy under her makeup.

“I’m—I’m going to get some air,” she says, and you almost reach for her when she turns on her heel, but Minsoo catches your hand instead.

“Let’s give her a moment to cool off,” he says, but you chase after your other self anyway.



* * *



A plethora of related terminology borrows the language of instancing. For instance, software development. When Soyoung “Rose” Kang, in her real-true-American-job, downloads a copy of her company’s repository from the cloud, that’s called instancing, the same way the three steps across the immigration gate was instancing. A perfect copy is duplicated in a new location.