In 2000, I received an email from a friend of mine living in Tokyo. He was visiting Seoul at the time and sent me and couple of other friends of his a message describing his impressions of the city. He also threw down this literary gauntlet:
actually, here's an assignment for you all: since i'm sending this to three different people, i'd like each of you to write one paragraph continuing further this story along whatever lines you see fit. i'll look forward to reading them.
Well, I couldn't pass that up. My response did run longer than the one paragraph he asked for but he didn't seem to mind. He liked what I had written and I was the only one who took up his challenge. I liked what I had written as well (mostly for its utter lack of redeeming social value) and put it up on the site shortly thereafter.
Here's the story complete with pretty title graphic:
I wander the city streets amid the throngs of humanity and breathe the thick smog that hung heavy in the hot summer air. Korea has never been a major tourist spot, and most Americans you run into are in the army and stationed there. There are however some older tourists on the streets, veterans of the Korean War drawn to the peninsula by the hype surrounding the conflict's 50-year anniversary.
I decide to spice up the afternoon with a stroll through Kimchi Crease, Seoul's notorious red light district. The sweltering heat is broken by a refreshing summer rain and I quickly don my raincoat but leave the hood off so I could feel cooling drops pour down upon my head. Prostitutes, both the supple and the soiled, mistake me for a soldier on leave because of my close-cropped hair and beckon me from open doorways. It feels good to be the object of so much attention but I am content to have my money stay put in my wallet.
I am so lost in the strange beauty of the street scene that I run smack into an old man coming around a corner. He grabs my shoulder to keep from falling over as I hold onto his elbow until he is steadier on his feet. I apologize to the man, a shorter-than-average bespectacled American of about seventy, who tells me it's no problem and continues on his way.
At the end of the alley from where the old man emerged, an ambulance and a couple of police cars are at the scene of what is apparently a murder. The body of a young prostitute is zipped up into a clear plastic body bag and her blood sloshes inside of it as she is loaded into the back of the ambulance. The police question some of the other working girls, who cry and shake their heads.
Whatever good feelings that had come over me are now completely gone and all I want to do is relax in a nice, safe part of town with a book and a cup of coffee. The rain is coming down much harder now and I pull my hood up over my head as I walk away from the scene. When I put my hands in the pockets of my raincoat, I feel a sharp stabbing pain in my left index finger. I yank my hand out of my pocket and see that something has sliced my finger almost to the bone. With my other hand, I carefully reach back into the same pocket and extract a very bloody and very sharp scalpel. The old man I ran into must have planted this on me; it couldn't have been anybody else. If this is true, chances are that not all the blood on the scalpel came from me and I am in fact holding onto the murder weapon used on that young girl.
Part of me wants to return to the murder scene and tell the police but another part of me fears that the cops will never believe me and arrest me for the for the crime instead. I choose cowardice, taking off my jacket and wrapping it around my hand to keep from dripping a trail of blood, and get away as quickly as possible.
About an hour later, I wipe my blood and fingerprints from the scalpel and throw it into the Han River. That night, I remove any indentifying material from my raincoat and burn it in a trashcan in some dark alley.
I lay on the bed in my hotel room and stare at the ceiling, my finger washed and bandaged with a shredded section of towel from the bathroom. The realization that I have caved into my own fear and have allowed a killer to continue to walk the streets washes over me with waves of guilt. I can only hope that sleep will offer me some release.
No such luck. In the dream I am the old man inside an antique store here in Seoul. I ask the proprietor to show me a Korean War-era US Army medical kit that he keeps in a glass case near the cash register.
"Were you in the war?" he asks.
"Yes," I reply.
"Army Doctor?" he asks, staring at the medical kit.
"Hospital corpsman," I answer.
"Oh, like a medic."
"Something like that."
I buy the kit and leave. A little later on I see a young hooker on the street lifting her skirt and showing me her exposed bush.
"Hey Joe, Grandpa Joe, you like?" she asks.
"Sure thing," I answer. "How about that alley there?"
Little bitch. I'll fix her wagon.
She is leaned against a garbage bin at the end of the deserted alley and licking her lips seductively.
"Close your eyes," I say.
She laughs but does what I ask. I reach into my medical kit a draw out a surgeon's scalpel. It is a bit tarnished but still very sharp. With my first swipe I send the blade across her trachea. Her eyes open wide and she has an expression of shock on her face as she tries in vain to stop the bleeding by holding her hands against her throat. Fearing she might run for it, I aim my second swipe lower. I sever the tendons behind one of her knees and watch her crumple to the ground.
I kneel beside her and smile when I see the tears from her eyes stream back across her temples and disappear into her raven hair. I pull her hand from her throat and use some gauze bandages from my kit to dress the wound there.
"Dying isn't allowed," I say. "Not yet anyway." I grab some surgical tubing from the kit and quickly hog tie her.
The only problem is that her face looks so sweet and innocent, I don't know if I can continue. Fortunately, I am a resourceful man. I rip her blouse open to expose her pert little breasts. With two deft flicks of the wrist my scalpel blade lops off both nipples, which I paste to her forehead to make her look like a young demoness with budding horns.
"I think you're a bad little girl now," I say and punch her hard in the face.
I'm sure she would scream out if she could, but the cut throat prevents her from logic a complaint or cry for help louder than a whisper. She gurgles plaintively as I let my scalpel work its magic, carving words, squiggles, smiley faces or whatever else comes to mind into her tender young flesh.
Suddenly, my ears perk up.
"There's a cop on the beat four blocks away," I say to her. "I have to be gone and you can't be alive when he gets here."
"Please Joe," she hisses.
"My name's not Joe. It's Walter, Walter O'Reilly. My friends call me Radar."
actually, here's an assignment for you all: since i'm sending this to three different people, i'd like each of you to write one paragraph continuing further this story along whatever lines you see fit. i'll look forward to reading them.
Well, I couldn't pass that up. My response did run longer than the one paragraph he asked for but he didn't seem to mind. He liked what I had written and I was the only one who took up his challenge. I liked what I had written as well (mostly for its utter lack of redeeming social value) and put it up on the site shortly thereafter.
Here's the story complete with pretty title graphic:
I wander the city streets amid the throngs of humanity and breathe the thick smog that hung heavy in the hot summer air. Korea has never been a major tourist spot, and most Americans you run into are in the army and stationed there. There are however some older tourists on the streets, veterans of the Korean War drawn to the peninsula by the hype surrounding the conflict's 50-year anniversary.
I decide to spice up the afternoon with a stroll through Kimchi Crease, Seoul's notorious red light district. The sweltering heat is broken by a refreshing summer rain and I quickly don my raincoat but leave the hood off so I could feel cooling drops pour down upon my head. Prostitutes, both the supple and the soiled, mistake me for a soldier on leave because of my close-cropped hair and beckon me from open doorways. It feels good to be the object of so much attention but I am content to have my money stay put in my wallet.
I am so lost in the strange beauty of the street scene that I run smack into an old man coming around a corner. He grabs my shoulder to keep from falling over as I hold onto his elbow until he is steadier on his feet. I apologize to the man, a shorter-than-average bespectacled American of about seventy, who tells me it's no problem and continues on his way.
At the end of the alley from where the old man emerged, an ambulance and a couple of police cars are at the scene of what is apparently a murder. The body of a young prostitute is zipped up into a clear plastic body bag and her blood sloshes inside of it as she is loaded into the back of the ambulance. The police question some of the other working girls, who cry and shake their heads.
Whatever good feelings that had come over me are now completely gone and all I want to do is relax in a nice, safe part of town with a book and a cup of coffee. The rain is coming down much harder now and I pull my hood up over my head as I walk away from the scene. When I put my hands in the pockets of my raincoat, I feel a sharp stabbing pain in my left index finger. I yank my hand out of my pocket and see that something has sliced my finger almost to the bone. With my other hand, I carefully reach back into the same pocket and extract a very bloody and very sharp scalpel. The old man I ran into must have planted this on me; it couldn't have been anybody else. If this is true, chances are that not all the blood on the scalpel came from me and I am in fact holding onto the murder weapon used on that young girl.
Part of me wants to return to the murder scene and tell the police but another part of me fears that the cops will never believe me and arrest me for the for the crime instead. I choose cowardice, taking off my jacket and wrapping it around my hand to keep from dripping a trail of blood, and get away as quickly as possible.
About an hour later, I wipe my blood and fingerprints from the scalpel and throw it into the Han River. That night, I remove any indentifying material from my raincoat and burn it in a trashcan in some dark alley.
I lay on the bed in my hotel room and stare at the ceiling, my finger washed and bandaged with a shredded section of towel from the bathroom. The realization that I have caved into my own fear and have allowed a killer to continue to walk the streets washes over me with waves of guilt. I can only hope that sleep will offer me some release.
No such luck. In the dream I am the old man inside an antique store here in Seoul. I ask the proprietor to show me a Korean War-era US Army medical kit that he keeps in a glass case near the cash register.
"Were you in the war?" he asks.
"Yes," I reply.
"Army Doctor?" he asks, staring at the medical kit.
"Hospital corpsman," I answer.
"Oh, like a medic."
"Something like that."
I buy the kit and leave. A little later on I see a young hooker on the street lifting her skirt and showing me her exposed bush.
"Hey Joe, Grandpa Joe, you like?" she asks.
"Sure thing," I answer. "How about that alley there?"
Little bitch. I'll fix her wagon.
She is leaned against a garbage bin at the end of the deserted alley and licking her lips seductively.
"Close your eyes," I say.
She laughs but does what I ask. I reach into my medical kit a draw out a surgeon's scalpel. It is a bit tarnished but still very sharp. With my first swipe I send the blade across her trachea. Her eyes open wide and she has an expression of shock on her face as she tries in vain to stop the bleeding by holding her hands against her throat. Fearing she might run for it, I aim my second swipe lower. I sever the tendons behind one of her knees and watch her crumple to the ground.
I kneel beside her and smile when I see the tears from her eyes stream back across her temples and disappear into her raven hair. I pull her hand from her throat and use some gauze bandages from my kit to dress the wound there.
"Dying isn't allowed," I say. "Not yet anyway." I grab some surgical tubing from the kit and quickly hog tie her.
The only problem is that her face looks so sweet and innocent, I don't know if I can continue. Fortunately, I am a resourceful man. I rip her blouse open to expose her pert little breasts. With two deft flicks of the wrist my scalpel blade lops off both nipples, which I paste to her forehead to make her look like a young demoness with budding horns.
"I think you're a bad little girl now," I say and punch her hard in the face.
I'm sure she would scream out if she could, but the cut throat prevents her from logic a complaint or cry for help louder than a whisper. She gurgles plaintively as I let my scalpel work its magic, carving words, squiggles, smiley faces or whatever else comes to mind into her tender young flesh.
Suddenly, my ears perk up.
"There's a cop on the beat four blocks away," I say to her. "I have to be gone and you can't be alive when he gets here."
"Please Joe," she hisses.
"My name's not Joe. It's Walter, Walter O'Reilly. My friends call me Radar."
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