We Do Not Part

by Han Kang

Having decided to write about mass killings and torture, how could I have so naively—brazenly—hoped to soon shirk off the agony of it, to so easily be bereft of its traces?

to this day, I haven’t eaten a bite of anything from the water. Sea critters are what ate away at those people, aren’t they?

How much further into these depths can we go? Is this the silence that lies below the ocean in my dream?

This hush—it feels like I’ve crawled inside cotton wool.