The Girl Who Wrote Loneliness Read Online Free PDF Page B

pad.
    “Like what?”
    I whisper into her ear my secret, something that I have not told anyone in all of my sixteen years.
    “Like a poem or a novel.”
    Cousin’s eyes grow wide.
    “You mean you want to be a writer?”
    Scared that Cousin is going to throw cold water on what I said, I keep speaking, trying hard to explain that this is what I have wanted to do for a long time, and that there is nothing else I’d rather do. Cousin tilts her head, lifting her pen from the letter pad to her chin.
    “I thought those kinds of people were born different, you know?”
    I am so distressed to think shemight say, “That is why you will never be a writer,” so I keep talking. “They are not born different. They think different.”
    Cousin does not say anything and is lost in thought. I pull myself closer to her, my face red with the fear that she is unable to understand what I am saying.
    “It’s no different from your wanting to be a photographer, taking pictures of those birds.”
    Cousin folds up her letter and puts it away in her locker, then lies down next to where I am stretched straight on my back, my eyes on the ceiling. Cousin lifts her legs toward the ceiling, crossing her slender ankles.
    “What are you going to write about?”
    For a moment, the pitchfork at the bottom of the well passes in front of my eyes.
    “That I don’t know yet.”
    Cousin is tender toward me, more so than usual, and I get to talking about how I struck my foot with the pitchfork. I even show her the sole of my foot.
    “Look. It’s all healed now but it still hurts when I walk too long, as if my tendon’s being pulled.”
    Cousin gazes at my foot.
    “What does this have to do with wanting to write?”
    I cannot find the words to answer her question. How do I explain to her, that if do not keep something pure inside my heart, I will inevitably strike down at my foot again with a pitchfork? Instead, I say to her, “Only this will protect me.”
    I feel silly about my overly emphasized words and so I add, “No need to worry anymore about the pitchfork, because I threw it in the well.”
    Cousin sits up.
    “What did you say?”
    “The pitchfork. I said I threw it in the well.”
    Cousin stares at me as if she’s completely clueless.
    “Deliberately?”
    I nod.
    “Why would you do that?”
    I cannot answer. I do not know how to explain that I was scared. I was scared that one day I would take it down from the shed again, intending to turn the barley hay over, and hurt my foot again. Cousin still looks puzzled as she speaks to me in a dignified tone.
    “When we go home for a visit, you should tell Uncle so that he can pump out the well.”
    I could not speak.
    “The water is probably all tainted by now. Did you think about the fact that people drink from the well?”
    The water? I am speechless, never having thought about how the pitchfork would have tainted the water.

    When Oldest Brother comes for one of his visits and takes us to a bakery near the entrance of the industrial complex, Cousin announces in a loud voice, pointing at me, “She says she’s going to be a writer.”
    “A writer? You?”
    Oldest Brother looks at me so dumbfounded that I throw Cousin a mean glance.
    “What’s the matter? It’s not like it has to be kept a big secret.”
    Oldest Brother takes us to a Chinese place for jajang noodles and walks us back to the Job Training Center, sending us in with a bag full of milk and pastries and things. Then he walks across the athletic field with his eyes on the ground and his towering back hunched, and disappears through the center’s gate.

    At last, my sentences begin to take shape. Short, very simple. The past in present tense; the present in past tense. Clear like a photograph. Lest the door tothe lonely room close again. Let the sentences convey Oldest Brother’s loneliness as he walked toward the center gate, his eyes on the ground.
    When I heard Ha Gye-suk say, clearly, “Your life seems different from