The Afterlife

1) There once happened I.

There.

Once.

Happened I.

There once happened I, who merged the universes together; I, whom one life could not satisfy; I, whose laughs and smiles and tears and cries were one in one in me.

There once happened I, a mother, a friend, a lover, a daughter; I, a woman, a human, a life; I, a story whose ending, on its recurrent beginning, multiplies.

There was a part of Sihyeon that always remained sixteen.

That very year of her life was so similar to and so different than the rest of her life, and it was the year her life lead all the way up the straicase, all the way up to where she was standing, and looking back every now and then at that which she once was, at that from where she had become.

There was a part of Sihyeon that always remained sixteen, sat on the clean floor of her reading space early in the morning between the arms of her mother, trying not to doze off while said mother combed her hair for her.

The early morning colors painted Sihyeon along with the trees sitting outside her window, and all the green, all the yellow and red and brown and blue made home of Sihyeon's clear head, the one that was so immersed in the relief her mother's hands in her hair brought her.

It made her forget how heavy her brain was, and it made her freely mistake herself for a normal person, a human who deserved to live as much as everybody else, a child that deserved to be free as much as everybody else.

"Is it bothersome?" Sihyeon had asked times and times over, but it was never not new to both their ears; if Sihyeon did not ask, it only meant to went stiff all over after all, so the question was a relief, and the answer was tenfold, "it always takes a lot of time to brush."

"But what else do I need time for?" The mother smiled lightly, taking her time with the strands as if their tenderness drew life again and again before her eyes miraculously, "you worry not, my dear; I did not complain."

"You will not," Sihyeon scoffed; although she was not all aware of what was around her, Sihyeon picked up on many of the human traits, on many of their habits and truths, and so it was easy to figure things like what her mother would simply do, and what she would keep away from her child, "you would not want to hurt me."

"I do not think you will be hurt," her mother denied, and Sihyeon listened carefully - it was always part of why she had asked anyway - she wanted to listen, and she wanted to know; she wanted assurance, "but do you intend on hurting me?"

"What?" Sihyeon turned around at once, surprised and confused by the new words to her ears, and she looked at her mother's smile bizarrely, as if the wrongness on the world would untie itself before her sharp, questioning stare, "why, mother? Why would I?"

"I saw the scissors, kid," Sihyeon's mother turned her around at last, picking her hair again and bringing the comb home again; it was taking longer than it needed, but they had time, and they had each other to savour said time together, and so they did, "do not think I am clueless."

"I do not," Sihyeon denied, suddenly the confusion that knotted inside her unfolding into guilt, "I am sorry."

"You should never cut your hair, young one," she disapproved, and she put her lips over Sihyeon's head in the comb's stead, "you should keep it grow," she whispered, and Sihyeon leaned in for the sound of love her mother served, "because every time it grows, your mother's love for you grows as well."

Somewhere inside Sihyeon, this promise was kept safe and secure, perhaps protecting her whenever she needed so. She always believed it - that all those promises she and her family had thrown every now and then around their world gathered around her whenever she would need it, and they would protect her every time she had seeked protection most.