Entry #32: Testing the Waters

Fuck it. I’m posting a rough draft of the first five pages of the new manuscript. I’ve already received a negative review, which is fucking with my righteous mind, but I gotta keep “soldiering on.” It’s atypical for a writer to put his rough work on display but I’m a praise-whore and need some validation or at least a good ego-crushing so I can abandon the draft and get back to the process of getting rejected by literary agents.

Here it is.

The 10:15 from the Southern Bus Terminal in Seoul softly hums a dreary tune down the lonely country highway. Whirr, whirr, whirr, badum, badum, whirr. The sun is at its peak in the pale blue of the winter sky, the dried out stalks of rice shorn close to the frozen earth in endless fields sprawled across the rocky landscape. The big city is now a distant memory lost in the infinite forgetfulness of the barren countryside, growing and devouring all signs of color, civilization, humanity. If the city is a wild, blinding spectrum of neon and a frenzied melee of flesh, the countryside is only a blur of concrete grays and dry and dying browns.

The cold of this winter has been brutal. It is a bitter and starving trans-Siberian cold. Inside the bus, the radiators furiously pump concentrated gusts of dry heat at my feet and nowhere else. I wrap my coat tighter around me, nestling my hands in the shelter of my armpits. I’m making this trip with only the clothes on my back. Where I’m going, I won’t need anything else. I won’t even need the clothes.

The bus is mostly empty. A few elderly folk scattered through the length of the carriage loll in their seats, occasionally fidgeting or coughing dry, hacking coughs. A television set high and to the right of the driver flickers soundlessly, the cable news anchor reporting in words that can’t be heard. I turn my gaze to the window, melt a small section in the icy frost with my fingers, and watch the countryside pass by.

It whispers to me.

“This is your fate. You’re on a ride into the belly of the beast and all that will be left when it’s all over is an empty, browning husk.”

I ignore the voice. What choice do I have? The alternative is to be branded a traitor in a foreign land and thrown in prison with hardened felons for three full years. I would be a piece of meat thrown to the tigers. In a country like this, even hardened felons are fiercely patriotic.

“Jeungpyeongibnida. Jeungpyeong.”

Jeungpyeong. This is my stop.

I step off the bus and the bus leaves me behind in a black fog of diesel exhaust. I survey my surroundings from where I stand. I’m at a small intersection with a bus stop, a gas station on one corner and a small diner on the other. It’s a little past noon and I have some time so I walk to the diner and take a seat at an empty table.

The few other tables are occupied by groups of mostly three, my future comrades and their parents. The young men are downcast and slurp their soups vacantly, their eyes in the bottom of their bowls. They look sick, pale and skinny with closely cropped hair. The mothers don’t eat much; they gaze dolefully at their sons and occasionally place some food on their plates with chopsticks. Eat more, they urge weakly. The fathers are carved from stone, stoically observing their sons, un-eating and un-speaking.

It is an awkward, oppressive silence that fills the room. I need to get the fuck out of here. It’s all just too depressing. I order my soup and choke down the steaming hot bowl, scald the damn butterflies in my belly as fast as I can.

The road leading to the division is a winding, two-lane country road. In contrast with the city with its skyscrapers and layers of store upon store, stacked high like hotcakes, the impression I get of the country scenery is simply that it’s flat. The terrain itself is mountainous but covered by nothing but amber waves of straw and dead grass. The country homes and farms are a jumble of concrete, curved roof tiles, and corrugated steel sheets. As I walk along the shoulder of the road, I marvel at the division’s outer wall which stands so high and imposing in relation to its surroundings and am struck with the notion that it was built more to keep people in than to keep people out. It broods high over the road, everything a little more gray and dead in its shadow. I walk in its shadow.

The front gate of the base is even less welcoming, with long rebar spikes protruding from oil barrels and metal horses painted yellow and black. Caution. Danger. Beware.

So these are the gates of hell. It has frozen over and can be found in North Chungcheong Province.

As I walk through the gate, I overhear a mother’s plea for mercy.

“Please take care of my son.”

The officer at the gate offers her assuring words, but the rotten grins of the guards and drill instructors behind him say otherwise. They are the grins of wolves as they look out at untended flocks of sheep.

I follow the herd of people past a large, open field to a small, run-down auditorium. Inside is a sea of black, permed hair and unsightly comb-overs and garish faux fur coasts. They all face the front. I can’t see above their heads and so I distance myself from them, choosing to stand near the door. A lady catches sight of me and tells me to hurry up, get up there.

The crowd is pungent with the smell of cheap perfume. I jostle, squeeze, and push my way up to the front; the crowd steadfastly watches the front, oblivious to my intrusion. I budge through the last of them into an area where neat rows of metal folding chairs have been set up. A soldier, the brim of his helmet low over his eyes, grabs my arm and pushes me into the next available seat.

“Legneun shoulder neolbi pigo handeun fist jwigo knee above put up.”

What?

His teeth clench, jowls twitching, when I don’t respond. I look at the others sitting to my left and understand, copying their stances, feet shoulder-width apart and fists resting on their knees. The remaining seats fill up and the soldier walks up to the stage and glares menacingly out at us.

Another soldier is at the podium and all the recruits sit still and listen. I don’t understand what’s going on or what’s being said so I open my mouth when everyone else does and just sit still.

The soldier leaves and an officer walks up to the podium and delivers a long, winded speech. I can’t catch anything because I’m sitting in the back and the amps obscure his words. When he is finished, all of the recruits yell out something in unison and then the soldiers descend on us and herd us outside to stand in neat rows, four nervous young men to a row.

Run.

We run in formation for the first time and as we run, a few parents run alongside the road, waving and shouting to their children. “Be strong!” “We love you, son!” I don’t mind so much when their shouts fade in the distance.

If you were patient or bored enough to read the whole thing, take another minute to leave me some feedback. Be honest. Be brutal. I may seem overly sensitive and critical about my work, but there’s nothing to worry about. I’m also my biggest admirer and think I’m the real deal. Even if you say it’s complete rubbish, I’ll just assure myself that you have no taste and promptly delete your comment. I really won’t but only because of my disinterest in this blog.