Portrait of a Swallow

Lead Tin Yellow

Reader Discretion: Mentions of assault and attempted rape

Present

Dawn came early as he returned through the front gate of his home after another futile attempt to find her. Most nights he would ride on the bicycle he once shared with her to remote towns, searching for any sign of her, any hunch that would point him towards his north star. But it was all for naught, for he came back empty handed each time, the seat on the front of his bike mocking him.

He visited her home, but it was vacant, the three months of abandonment dilapidating the structure, a fine layer of dust covering the modest home like a blanket of snow. Walking through her home, he saw the remnants of what she left behind. There wasn't much, save for the straw mat she slept on, and another space left for her father. He sees his distorted reflection in the dirtied mirror, and wonders how she spent her entire life unaware of her own beauty, shying away from it as if it weren't true, her magnificent visage leaving him spellbound, the beautiful witch casting him under her spell.

Though he didn't know which was better, returning home after a sleepless night without any inclination to her disappearance, or waking up after she had just haunted his dreams, the cruel figment of his imagination taunting him throughout the day. Regardless, he remained hollow, his innards scooped out from within leaving him a shell of a man he used to be, merely a walking apparition that was slowly vanishing in her absence.

He hadn't felt useless in his life until now, though a modest painter, he hadn't experienced many moments of defeat. He promised her that he would take care of her, as he remembers the assurances he would whisper to her like a secret in the stillness of the night, when the sheets had fallen off their pressed bodies, as he would tuck that wayward strand of hair from her eyes. She would only answer with the curling of her eyes that would rival the moon, its incandescence coming second to her eternal glow, before she placed her lips on his fevered skin. The memory invades his mind and he pulls his hair in frustration as he attempts to banish the thought. His lack of success has rendered him tantalizingly close to hopeless, but as he looks upon the rising sun in the east, the faint glow emerging from the horizon, he hears the morning chipper of the ever-vocal swallow, and his search for her is renewed once more.

Parking the bike in the front lawn, he hears the gate open behind him, and as he peers over his shoulder a cloaked petite woman appears in front of him. As she reveals herself to him, confusion flits through his face as her utters in a questioning tone

"Do Hye Ji?"

***

They sit in awkward silence in the common room as he pours them a cup of tea. She looks the same, but also slightly different, a mild quiver in her lips, the restless jerking of her leg betraying her nerves. Serving her a cup of tea, he looks to her to begin to speak.

"It feels foreign for me to accept a cup of tea from you, Sir," she begins, a slight shake in the hand as she grasps the cup, the hot tea a welcomed distraction to the tension in the air.

"Nonsense, Hye Ji, tell me, what brings you here so early before the sun has fully risen?"

She fiddles with her fingers as she stares down at them, anxious about how to begin. She takes a deep breath before meeting his eyes once more

"I really liked working here, Sir, you were always so kind to me," she begins as she gathers courage to speak further.

"I'm glad Hye Ji, but you left so abruptly, I—"

"I know Sir, I apologize, but there were things that were out of my control," she interjects as she looks straight ahead, her eyes vacant as she remembered her time at the Ri household.