How would God respond to making a mistake? Would planets collide or mountains slide into the sea? Or would the ledger of all life simply remain out kilter until a series of small events forced that ledger back into balance again? It's probably the l...
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43 years before today
Seoul, South Korea
the rising of the Pink Moon
Before going any further, you should know that Mi-Hyun doesn't murder her daughter. It was a close call, but it didn't happen. Some people are just lucky, I guess.
That's also a good thing because murder is so absolute. So complete. And in some cases, so unnecessary because there are so many other ways of making people disappear that fall several measures short of murder. For example, you can leave someone or ignore them or refuse to answer anything that they ask of you. Or you can just forget to give them a name for three whole months following their birth. That works out pretty well, too. Unless, of course, you have to lug that nameless baby around everywhere you go. Over time, the namelessness itself becomes its own burden – its own source of depression.
Before, during, and after the time of the Great Depression, the deepest and wisest thinkers on Earth have provided us with a categorization of depressions. They tell us that some depressions are spectacular and brilliant. Those depressions can be like the piercing sunlight on a winter morning or a stunning moonrise when spring has finally won its war over the cold. Some depressions are even more spectacular and louder still. They are like the explosion of Vesuvius that drowned Pompeii under tons of ash. But most depressions aren't anything like that. They are quieter. They are more like the neglected City of Troy as it was being buried by layers of dust through layers of centuries until the field above it was so smooth that only the obsessed could sense the sadness below.
Throughout the time of the Great Depression, Mi-Hyun was able to bury her secret. But then again, it isn't hard to hide a baby from the world when the world is never looking your way. By April and the rising of the Pink Moon, Mi-Hyun and her nameless baby were like an untouched archeological site – a walking, talking, crying City of Troy that no one noticed. Buried under layer-after-layer of cotton, wool, nylon, plastic, and paper was her Little Brown Bean with its miraculous three-colored eyes.
During this time, mother and daughter found refuge in one of the many partially destroyed buildings that pock-marked the center of Seoul. At night, they lived in a closet on the second floor of an old warehouse. It was the perfect hiding place because the entrance to the closet had fallen in and what was behind the damaged frame looked like unrecoverable junk. Mi-Hyun, however, was small enough to slide under the mess and that is where she and the Little Brown Bean carved out an open cavity and lined it with bits and pieces of cotton, wool, nylon, plastic, and paper.
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