Thinking....
A memory floats to the surface of the mind, and opens itself up to you.
It's a memory you know, and only you know.
We can only have one specific view point of things can't we?
So that memory is yours, even if you were with someone.
The 25 year old woman leans her head back against her headboard, taking in the small bedroom she's in. The neon light that says '죽을 때까지 살다' lights up the room in a faint green blue color.
'Live until you die.' She reads the sign in her head. It makes sense. The line is from a movie she watched when she was younger, and growing up. The young woman sighs, and directs her attention towards the lights that turn on in the hallway. There are quiet footsteps, and she relaxes when she realizes that the person who has walked in is the landlady looking for her rent. Only the landlady has the keys, but it could have been someone else. She knows it's the landlady by the sound of her fringe opening and closing in the kitchen, and since the rent is on the table, the landlady is gone in a few seconds.
So then, the young woman stands and listens to her own breathing for a few minutes.
Still alive.
It's like a limbo of waiting. Waiting, and then waiting some more...and then even longer. What exactly was she waiting for? What is the purpose of just standing there? Even she doesn't know herself. It's all just laid out for her.
Eventually, her mind turns to the moment she heard the words 'live until you die' for the first time. Her parents, and her brother sat in the living room, faces turned towards the small television in the room. Well, it wasn't that small, but to her younger self, it was always being being blocked by something nearby.
The movie was an action one, starring her favorite martial artists actors, whom she had learned of through her father who was a movie junkie himself.
'too much fighting' her mother used to complain, but once the movie started, it was all she could focus on.
The woman recalls in her memory the sound of her brother making noises of awe, and the laughter that followed the scenes where someone was hurt comically. She recalls the way her parents would sit close to each other, and hold hands in the middle of the movie. She recalls how most of the time through the movie, her father was folding clothes and her mother was eating. Her brother, younger than her, used to always sit on the couch closest to the door, so he could get to the kitchen whenever he wanted a snack.
The movie itself, had the plot circled around one man who had lived in one home all his life, and seen things that earned him respect. He wasn't old either, and when someone came into town, it would be the classic straight forward beat down. However, the last guy, she can remember distinctly. He was a monk, but he was someone who seemed more of a gangster. He had come into town on the mission of finding the center of the negative energy in the area, and on his quest of teaching his religion, was going to purge it. The monk and man had one talk, about what their lives were centered around.
'What is it that you always are fighting for?" The monk asked.
"It is because the men who fight me wish to only fight, and so I grant them that wish." The fighter had replied.
"Then you sate the needs of whole armies." The monk had replied gruffly.
"There is a saying brother, everything is destined, and it is as it should be."
The monk and the fighter shared a cigarette. (Which the young woman found disgusting at the time)
"Live until you die." The monk had said, and the man, who fought, simply smiled and nodded.
Thinking back onto it, there's not really a way to respond to that, but she understood.
The young woman slipped into a black dress, pinned up her hair, and put the hood of her coat over her face. Her belongings sat on the nightstand, and her phone buzzed when a two word reminder popped up.
'Family anniversary.'
She was still alive, and she would live until she died. That much, has been ingrained into her memory.
