Nowhere to Be Found

by Bae Suah

Every now and then I picture a subway train at night packed with people I used to know and random people whom I will meet by chance in some distant future. Most of the people I knew long ago now live their lives without me, and those whom I will meet by chance one day do not know me now.

Even now I think maybe my family is just a random collection of people I knew long ago and will never happen upon again, and people I don’t know yet but will meet by chance one day.

Being poor or being lonely could be either fortunate or unfortunate, but the truth is that the distinction was meaningless. Whether we were fortunate or not, we were still different, and that’s all there was to it.

He just looked blank sometimes. While everyone else was tormented by a restless anxiety, like the dizziness you feel on a spring day, which made them question what they were doing with their lives, Cheolsu was yawning and working on a crossword puzzle. He knew how to accept the tedium without the ennui.