What We Owe To What Came Before

“Hey.”

Snrkr cough wheee-ze huh?

My throat’s dry.

I’ve fallen asleep at my desk. Littered with my trinkets – a red minecraft sheep with its accompanying lego set, art prints from the comic arts festival at the local library, piles of unread books I dug out from my bookshelf in hopes of reviving that overachieving 10 year old book nerd who died in academic papers and essays sometime in the last few years. I look through my groggy eyes, all of it blurry through the eye boogers, and wipe the slob off my face from drifting off. If anyone else were here, this would be embarrassing, but I’mma do laundry soon anyways. Besides, it’s my sleepytime clothes – I can be a little gross in them, right?

Breathe in, time? 1:15 am. Hmm. I should just hit the hay, right? There’s no more writing that can be done. The pencil and rough skinned designed-in-bugs notebook August gave me for class to put our research in almost taunt me, saying “Haha, you can’t write!”

Ugh. So much more behind than anyone else. So much more I want to do, so much I’m missing. So much I can’t write, and so much worse of a writer than anyone else. So much —

No. No, it’s too late for that, I’m too tired to fight the thoughts off, sleep will do a much better job. I’ll worry about my piece tomorrow. Again.

Knees creak a bit, chair lightens up, I groan and get up. Distance from the desk will do me good anyways, I’m tired of the dimly lit room that stays that way more often than the sun comes in since daylight savings ended. God I miss 7 pm sunlight, something about it bathed you in a sense of yearning that I can’t muster up right now.

I push my chair into my desk, and turn around to face my bed when I see a familiar face. My face goes a bit pale, I feel a little cold but not surprised. It is that late after all.

“Hey. Little too late tonight, huh?” He’s crossed legged on the bed, back to the wall, facing me, leaning against one of my pillows. Smug look, but I could be too tired. I don’t know. I don’t care to know. He’s got my attention.

“Not tonight, man. Please.” I figure appealing to his more logistical side would work. This conversation won’t benefit anyone right now. Reminding me would just make both of us spiral. But some nights, he takes that chance because it’s the only way he can live in these moments. 

“Oh boohoo, not tonight, then when? What, your therapeutic way to channel my energy to show us off, capitalize on the damage, too vulnerable now all of a sudden?”

He knows that hurts both of us. He has his hair in a bun, the way I currently do. The default for when I get too lazy to take care of my hair, some way to hide away the shame. Smirking through his smudged glasses, he knows even me seeing him again reminds me of too much. But he sits so confidently now, seemingly laser focused on one purpose: pain.

I sigh, close my eyes and take a deep breath in again, eight seconds. 

“Breathing’s not gonna make me go away this time.”
“It’s not about making you go away, it’s about putting you in a box and dealing with you when I have more energy to do so.” I breathe out for eight seconds. 

As I open my eyes, he grimaces, cringing almost. 

“Therapy’s helped us sooooo much, now, hasn’t it?”

Stings. I turn away, heading down the hall to the bathroom to brush my teeth. Running water, light glares, he stares in the mirror alongside me, almost teleporting.

“Maaaaannnn we look gross. But too lazy to shower right now, save it for tomorrow, right? Just like always?”

He picks his teeth, shoving me to the side as I stare on silently, going through the motions of washing my face.

I climb into bed and he spins around in the wheely chair – there’s not much space for him to do so though. Clothes littered on the floor, not knowing where the dirty ones start and the clean – and half-clean jeans that might be ok for another wear – stops.

The buzz of the lamp fills the silence between us, an eternity filled with all my shame, regret and guilt of the decisions he’s not proud of me for. My 40 minute timer lamp is on and counts down to when it automatically shuts off. Minutes passing by one by one like how you should count sheep when you’re in my position, except with that unfriendly clone with an aura of red and fearful embodiment of who you really are. Eh, actually he’s not that bad. Just…a bit of a critic

“Sooooo…what were you writing about?”

He knows. I know he knows. I answer honestly anyways.

“The writing capstone. Us. Korea. Maybe even beyond that, but I haven’t gotten there.”

“Oh? What, couldn’t remember the finer details?”
“No– I just–I couldn’t face it again. Not after last March.”
“Yeah, that poem only did it so much justice, no one really knows what happened.”
“Maybe if I was there again, maybe if I could face it with some level of certainty this time.”

“Oh? If?”

No. No. No. I can’t. Not again. Please. I know I egged us on, I know but this won’t help–

I can’t think of another thought before we’re there again. Subway platform, people bustling in and out, god everyone’s dressed so nice here. A tall girl in a pretty pleated skirt texting on her phone, a businessman with a clean suit and briefcase talking in Korean on the phone. The voices over the PA announce local arrival times of trains. In Korean, of course, and I can only make vague mentions of the time, or how far away a train is. I repeat 죄송합니다 (joesonghamnida) over again in my head, like a ritual, in case I bother anyone, in case I bump into someone, like the clumsy American they may see me as.

A bench. A lonely bench. There he is. Suitcases, bags littered about, phone in hand, tears everywhere, shaking. He’s shaking and he’s wearing sweatpants and a hoodie, even though it’s humid outside. 

When did I fall asleep? I don’t hear the lamp clock anymore. And there Red is next to me, standing, crossed arms, taunting me almost.

“There we are, huh? What, a year and a half now?”

“...Yeah.” I say with a resigned indignation. It’s too late to reject the journey we’re on now. This has to happen, conscious or unconscious, Red’s here to help us face this. At least, that’s what I try to tell myself.

He’s trembling. Holding himself. I wrap my arms around myself, almost feeling what I felt then. But I can only look on from a distance, cursed and blessed from a future that moves beyond this moment, beyond this pain, but arriving here all the same. Like trains of time transporting me to and fro, no rhyme or reason. Just to the past. Oh, so casually to this past.

“Sheesh. Bottom 5 moment, huh?” He glances at me to see my reaction. Red’s face is somber now, eyes squinting, eyebrows furrowed in disbelief. Frustrated, or annoyed? Maybe. I know he’s back there, in my head in that moment in Korea, screaming at me to make a decision. I feel beholden to empathize with him, even though I know I keep digging us the hole:

“Do you remember what you were doing in this moment?”
“Weighing our options. Better than you could have, the sniveling mess you were.” He looks blankly on.

He doesn’t mean that, I think. But I know he’s right. Though my denial of him, my brows furrow, as if some part of me thinks No…you were doing much more.

Infinity passes between us. Time feels like it’s stopped as the scene keeps playing out in front of us. We know what happens. We know what’s coming. We know what led to this, and we know what choices were laid out in front of us. And I damn well know the tortuous future that lay ahead.

“Why didn’t you do more?”

There it is. The question I dread the most, coming from the self I dread the most. Don’t you dare ask me that, I want to respond with vitriol. Don’t you dare bring me back here, only to rub my face in it all. Don’t you–

“We had it all. Nothing was lost here that couldn’t be regained. And yet you pulled the trigger on the worst fucking choice we could’ve made.”

His voice gets a bit louder now, turning his head towards me, face so acrimoniously looking, I can’t dare to even glance at him.

“I had no choice, Red. We were scared, we were lost, this trip, this dream wasn’t everything we were expecting.”

“We KNEW that, though? That–oh well, some parts of this aren’t as pretty. But we had the strength, we had the willpower, we…we could’ve summoned the courage!”

Here we go.

“It wasn’t just about that, though. We’d barely eaten that week, we couldn’t even go to the bathroom. Strangers looking on, foreign lands and no one else there with us, not even the school that was supposed to host us. You think we could’ve made the commute to the job? To the school? I was trying to protect us.” My eyes still look onto the scene, and he’s crying now. It’s like he knows he can’t help but bring us back, but his response is almost as if he, too, can’t take us fighting like this. The fighting, the hating myself.  Just like when I, when we, were young.

“We’re SO much stronger than you think we are, but you keep hiding behind this guise of protection! Pushing onward would’ve been our best protection!” Red’s yelling now, angry. Spits fire.

“I had to do something! We were breaking, we had no one!”

“No one this, no one that, we don’t need anyone, we’ve had us!”

“And you think your constant criticisms would protect us now, huh?” I start yelling like him. I look at him this time, no fear, just…knowing he was wrong. Or rather, wanting to prove he was.

“MY criticisms give us some chance at surviving the most logical way possible! Fuck these feelings man, you woulda been ok.”

“NO. WE wouldn’t have been. God, this is all you do. ALL you do! Preaching to me about the guise of protection, while you ignore it all and keep pushing with no regard for how it affects us!”

I stoop to his level. I didn’t want to. I don’t want to put him down like he does me. I know he’s important in his own way, I just know. But I don’t care right now.

He faces me now. Our eyes locked, fury overtaking them. I know this is cyclical, I know this won’t be productive, I know I eventually leave Korea, I know this decision was already made, I know the rumination doesn’t help, I know I know I know I know.

But I don’t care. He brought me here, after I tried to give him the time of day. 

“We’re not doing this again. I’m tired.”

“I think we should. Because YOU decided to write about it. Maybe make something of it, maybe prove yourself to somebody, anybody who would give a damn. But how many times are we gonna reflect? To what end, Aman!? You blame me for bringing us here, you brought us here first!”

He might have a point. But I can’t let him know that. Because this is supposed to be artistic for us, in a cathartic way. The way your damage can be good. The only way.

“I could unpack this in peace if you weren’t here. Unpack all of this. Talk about it the way people would relate to, to connect to.”

“Oh!? Unpack? Connect? Ok, fine, let’s do it then, I’ll show you I’m better than this, above all this. That we don’t need to show anyone anything, except ourselves.”

No more subway in Seoul. The scene blurs. No, just…blurry. 

What have I started?