She is flummoxed. “But, but—”
“You really don’t remember anything?” says the thin voice. Then, muttering, “Oh my goodness, we really ought to take you to the hospital, quick.”
The words make her shut her mouth.
There are no more words as they keep on walking.
She stares at the sky as she walks. It is so dark that she has no idea whether what she is looking at is, indeed, the sky. She thinks of how she has never known such a darkness before in her life. If she has indeed been in a car crash, that would mean she’d been on a road, but how can there not be a single streetlamp?
Where is she? And where is she walking to?
“Teacher Choi, such a shame …” The thin voice, walking in front of her, is speaking again.
She doesn’t answer.
“Her mother, she kept crying … She was so young, and to die so horrifically—”
Interrupting sharply, “What are you talking about?”
The thin voice sighs. “You saw it, too, Teacher Lee, at the funeral … Oh, right, you said you don’t remember.”
Hearing a mocking tone at the trailing end of the voice’s reply, she fiercely counters with, “Why are you talking about a funeral? You said it was a housewarming, earlier—”
“You really must have hit your head hard.” The thin voice tsk-tsked. “I understand if you like someone for a long time, but to kill yourself over a crush … So young at that, the poor family—”
“Didn’t you… didn’t you say Teacher Choi was married?” she says, forcing her trembling voice to sound firm. “That her husband had an affair, that she got divorced … Isn’t that what you said?”
The thin voice lets out a thin breath.
“Whew … What on earth are you going on about … You should know better by now.”
“But you said so earlier. You said it was Teacher Choi’s housewarming as a newlywed, then it was her room … You said she was married, then she was divorced …”
“Teacher Lee, you’re talking in circles. Does your head hurt a lot?”
She shuts her mouth.
“Teacher Choi … such a pathetic tale, don’t you think?” mumbles the thin voice after a pause. “Even with those rose-colored glasses of hers, you would think she’d seen how blatantly her man was getting it on with the teacher in the next class. The whole school knew about it, but she was really stubborn in her denial … Then when that other woman stole her man, she quit teaching and kicked up that whole fuss about killing herself …” The thin voice briefly pauses.
She waits.
“Then she really killed herself …”
She can’t tell whether the thin voice is suppressing a sob or a laugh.
She feels a sharp pain as the brief but intense trust she felt for the thin voice is torn in two. Fear digs into her heart. Carefully, she steps aside a little to the right. The thin voice from her left keeps mumbling as if she isn’t there.
“Life, really, is so unfair. Everyone is born the same way, but some steal husbands, others are sucked dry and spat out like used chewing gum …”
She doesn’t answer.
The thin voice keeps talking. “Isn’t it funny? Two people are in the same car accident, but one lives to tell the tale, the other dies on the spot—”
“You. Who are you?” She cannot suppress the shaking in her voice anymore.
The thin voice casually goes on. “Don’t you think it’s so unfair? Alone when alive, and still alone when dead.”
“Where is this place?” she shrieks. “What’s happened to me?!”
The thin voice on her left gives a thin cackle. “People, you know, they’re so funny. Don’t you think? Just because they’re afraid, they go about trusting in any old voice they hear around them, even when they can’t see for the life of them.”
“What are you?” She is shouting now. “Wh-where is this? Where are you taking me?”
The thin voice continues to cackle. “Following a strange voice around in a strange place, just because it pretends to be kind …”
She cannot stand it anymore. She begins to run.
The voice keeps cackling behind her and mumbling. “She doesn’t even know who she is, or where she’s going …”
She runs. She doesn’t know where she’s going but feels some relief at how the voice seems to be getting farther away, and so she keeps blindly running.
The ground beneath her feet suddenly caves in. She stumbles momentarily. After a bit of flailing she rights herself, and a bright light suddenly fills her vision. Her eyes, so used to the dark, lose all their function in the sudden glare. She freezes in the flood of light.