The Blue Flower

03 The Fields of Seocheon

03 The Fields of Seocheon

Two days went by filled with cleaning of their new quarters, the entrance gate and area and washing the clothes of Lord Igong's servants from the inner garden or the "real garden" as some of the other girls called it. They felt betrayed by it, sitting at the laundry tub, washing clothes and then even being not in the real garden. Hwa-young didn't care if it was the front garden or the real Fields of Seocheon. The result was the same: everyone of them was waiting to either be transferred to one of the hells or be reborn into the next life. Whatever took the "personnel" in Heaven so long at Samdocheon River, Hwa-young hoped it was soon resolved. If she ever considered her days at the palace among the maids as hellish - which in her definition would mean so annoying it could be considered torture - then her time among this group of girls was the increased version. Because other than the palace maids gushing and giggling and gossiping of the royals or the king's young chief guard, these girls here in the garden were dead. After the first shock, most girls started complaining about the ways how they died and didn't look pretty doing it. Or raged over the someone they blamed for their deaths - either truly killed by those accused or indirectly by stupid decisions and worldly circumstances that could have killed anyone. And of course: complaining about the work. Many of them thought after death, when the Grim Reapers came and escorted them to the Samdocheon River, they would be treated like royalty, tested for their sins and moved on to the next life, just like that.

Others were still caught in the shock and the realizing - or rather the fact that they were able to realize what was going on and not being able to forget for an unknown amount of time - of everything that was happening. Some of those girls already tried to kill themselves. Not that it was working since they are already dead. The girl that had all those bruises ended up having one of the worst cases of diarrhea last night that Hwa-young had ever witnessed. She still laid sick in bed, being freed from her duties for the day. Which is also meant that these duties had to be taken over by the rest of the girls. Which led to an even more annoying mood of everyone.

"Ah, why are we the only ones?" A girl cried out dramatically and threw the sheets she was washing back into the laundry tub. Water was splashing onto the stone tile floor and onto the girl's skirt and apron. "The garden has servants! We are only here because they can't figure out whatever is going on at the river! That's their job they can't do, why do we have to suffer for it?"

While the girl right next tried to calm her down, the rest of the washing crew just gave her some looks and continued their work. The complaining girl spoke even louder. "Why should I calm down? We're stuck here for who knows long, when everyone of us just wants it to be over with. Dying was difficult enough, but now serving in the afterlife? I served enough in my life! And these stains on the sheets! What did those garden servants, do they won't get out..."

Hwa-young let go of her sheets she had washed rigorously the past minutes and stood up, walking over. "What kind of stains?"

The girl stomp with her foot like a child throwing a tantrum and crouching down again. "I don't know! But since we are in a garden, it should only be soil, right? But they won't get out. I've never seen such stubborn stains!"

Someone of the other girls scoffed mockingly. "Stains cannot be stubborn. They're not people."

Before the complaining girl, who was glaring at the one who spoke, could reply, Hwa-young crouched next to her. "Let me try. I have washed out all kinds of stains when I was alive."

She then grabbed the sheets and started washing. The water was darker than her tub's still clean one. With a slightly vicious motion she rubbed the soap against one of the stains trying to get it out. The girl she was helping stood next to her, watching what Hwa-young was doing. Except for the other girls chattering and the splashing sounds of laundry washing, everything was silent.