How We Say Goodbye

0.01 since you've been gone

Winter. Again. That time of year where warmth felt like a luxury not many could afford. No matter how many times I crawled into a ball to preserve the heat or the layers of fabric I hid beneath, I couldn't escape it. Or maybe it's just me. I think this coldness comes from inside. My heart is so familiar with it.

I cling on tighter to my flimsy blanket. The cold tiled floor i'm sitting on isn't helping my case. I was supposed to save up for a sofa. Or even a cheap rug from the flea market down my street would have done. Later. I tell myself. I will later.

First I must remember to pay my gas bill.

＊ ＊ ＊

I knock on Mrs Kang's door exactly four times, waiting three seconds between each knock. This is how she knows it's me.

"Minsoo," I say to my infant son. He's perched between my hips and arm, clinging like a monkey to tree.

I can see my reflection in his big doughy eyes. My adoration, which takes the shape of a warm smile. It's what he sees.

"Be good today, okay?"

"Maam ma." He responds back, with all the articulation a 10 month old could muster. I take this as his willingness to comply, and give him a quick peck on the nose before Mrs Kang opens her front door, bearing her signature expression.

Irritation. Mild Disgust.

She peels him off of me. Minsoo struggles in her arms. When she shuts the door in my face, I hear him cry.

This sound echoes in my head, following me all the way to work.

＊ ＊ ＊

When I had mapped out my future at sixteen, I imagined twenty-three year old me to be at the height of my business career, living comfortably and going steady with a man who matched my ambitions. Instead, I was a single mother, balancing between two jobs and still barely making enough to keep a roof over my head and food on the table.

My income was divided between rent, food, public transport, Minsoo's baby food and extraordinary expensive babysitting fees (Thanks a lot, Mrs Kang) and a weekly allowance i kept on the side to cover my parents living costs and dads medical bills.

My mum and dad live in Hadong, a rural and out of the way town nestled in the Jirisan Valley. It was where I grew up and spent all my childhood years creating fond memories: running across its rice fields, bathing in its flowing rivers, sleeping beneath its scarlet skies. Although Hadong had a reputation for its peaceful, friendly, and rural atmosphere, it didn't offer nearly as much in terms of career opportunities.

At nineteen, I packed my bags and bid farewell to my parents, rushing off towards Seoul - the city of dreams. Where everything was possible - but where nothing came easy. I had learned that the hard way. I suppose even now, life was trying to teach me that.

It's 11AM on a Monday morning, and I'm in the office reviewing through last weeks account of our company sales. Our company, ALFIΔ, prided itself in developing some of korea's greatest skin care products. Last month, a new director had been hired for our particular marketing department.

Since then, he's all the ladies at work have been talking about. ALFIΔ's sales have risen noticeably since his appointment, which of course meant that he was clearly very good at what he did. But that wasn't the only thing his female employees appreciated about him.

"My ovaries are in pain again," Yoonah with the big hips groans when she catches sight of the Director walking past. He smiles as us, in that brief polite sort of way, before disappearing into his office.