The Righteous Perish

Part 4

"Let's give a warm welcome to former general of the South Korean army, Kwak Ha-Yoon!"

The students looked up. General Kwak felt their eyes sizzle into her skin. She was tall and big-boned, with thick sturdy limbs and a plump belly. Glossy black hair slapped her shoulders. Small eyes gleamed like wet pebbles beneath wispy brows. A small broad nose curved into full lips caked in plum-colored lipstick. Oceans of cheeks billowed with red-brown sun damage. Livid footsteps cah-lacked thunderous criticisms across the floor. The class coughed, their nostrils wilting into slits. She reeked of vodka and dead flowers, like some goddess rudely awoken from centuries of sleep.

"You know she's only thirty-eight? Youngest general ever. They say she was promoted out of pity."

"By General Moon, no doubt! He said she was like his daughter!" 

  "A female war hero...never thought I'd see the day!"

"My God, I have so many things I want to ask her!"

"Didn't she torture a Cambodian model?"

"Silence, students," scolded the female professor, "Kwak Ha-Yoon is a respected general! You think she'd come all this way to be insulted?!"

Fuck! Kwak thought, sipping her "water." She loved wearing tweed blouses, especially with pencil skirts and onyxes glittering at her throat and wrists. Nevertheless, they were coarse and itchy, pressing her organs inward, pulsing against bone and dust. And the medal! She took a deep breath, clutching the rusted gold that drooped like a broken bone. She couldn't forget the day that earned it. One press-- the scream of a dying soldier. Idiot. Another-- the maggot-eaten eruption of flesh and blood, shattering beneath her bullets.... Two more-- war-hardened bodies exploding into pulpy pink gore. Damn fools deserved it! Yet there was also another memory-- Ka-ploosh! The guttural splash of acid, the hard, ripened glow of a faceless girl. You never saw her! She never existed! She shook her head. Good to escape her, when everyone wants you to remember her.

"Fuck," she whispered, "This candle smells like Captain Crunch's fart!"

"Pardon me?!" barked the professor.

"Ah, look, this pen is bright orange!" The General danced, singing off-key: "Fanta, Fanta, doncha wanna Fanta?"

Kwak's high-heeled foot swerved sideways. She stumbled, nearly falling onto the coffee-stained floor. The students erupted into laughter.

"See?" one hissed, "I told you she's a drunk."

"Silence!" Kwak barked.

The students shuddered. She had a coarse, callused voice-- as deep and dark as a grave. Yet one girl said,

"I thought giants lived in the mountains."

"We do," Kwak replied, "Because we eat spicy city girls like you."

The girl's jaw dropped and the class exploded into laughter. Kwak examined her brown-painted fingernails and continued,

"Now, everyone wants to know about the Battle of Pyongyang. Let me tell you, it was Hell. I wouldn't be standing here if I wasn't a skilled sniper. I've heard...."

"Did you really kill 500 men in 15 seconds?" a boy interrupted, "It's technically impossible."

The class laughed. Kwak took a hearty swig of "water" and went on:

"On a serious note-- it's 2096! We've strengthened the uzi until it's a killing machine that our ancestors could only dream of! When I fought, there wasn't time to mourn. None! If a comrade died, you moved on, firing onto the next Hermit-King, and the next, til you shot no more!