We Do Not Part

by Han Kang

Life was exceedingly vulnerable, I realized. The flesh, organs, bones, breaths passing before my eyes all held within them the potential to snap, to cease—so easily, and by a single decision. That is how death avoided me. Like an asteroid thought to be on a collision course avoids Earth by a hair’s breadth, hurtling past at a furious velocity that knows neither regret nor hesitation.

I had not reconciled with life, but I had to resume living.

When had everything begun to fall apart? Where was the fork in the road? Which rift and which break had been the tipping point?

I continued in the manner that those who left me had said they couldn’t bear to witness.

There are people who actively change the course of their own life. They make daring choices that others seldom dream of, then do their utmost to be accountable for their actions and the consequences of those actions. So that in time, no matter what life path they strike out on, people around them cease to be surprised.

Dreams are terrifying things. No—they’re humiliating. They reveal things about you that you weren’t even aware of.

I remember the feeling of aching love, how it seeped into my skin. Clogging the marrow in my bones and shriveling my heart…That was when I realized. That love was a terrible agony.