Woo-jin realized, would be the only thing telling the Last Dude that he too was loved. This distant retard’s voice recorded on brittle paper would be the only source of light in that final man’s heart. Whatever he’d done to earn this fate, this eternal hauling of rocks in a vast waste, Woo-jin would assure him that his suffering wasn’t for nothing, that as a human being he still deserved love, despite the fact that anyone who could possibly love him was long dead.

