No One Writes Back

by Jang Eun-Jin

Words penned while traveling do not lie; they’re not for showing off, but for making you reflect on, and take care of, yourself. I dare say that in life, it is when we travel that our minds and hearts are the most open. It’s a time when we think more than at any other time in our lives. We may even think of something that we would never have thought of in all our lives. And so, it would be the loss or the mistake of a lifetime not to write down in words those thoughts which may never have occurred to us. You can always go back and take pictures, and buy as many souvenirs as you want. But the thoughts that come to you while you travel will not come back. When you go back, the feelings and sensations you have will no longer be the ones you had before.

The good thing, though, is that there’s only one way to overcome despair. So we don’t have go through the painful process of choosing. That one way is to grit your teeth and go on living without dying.

As long as he didn’t have an address, a convenience store would always be most like a convenience store.

I say from time to time, if you want to know about someone else’s desires, you should have them pack a suitcase.

The paintings make me feel as if there’s cold wind blowing in from somewhere, even though it’s midsummer.

The bleakness felt in the extended space and the loneliness flickering across the faces of the people, their heads bent, seem to be the smallest, as well as the largest, elements the artist could choose to depict solitude.

As soon as the decision was made, all kinds of other decisions regarding life came rushing at me, as though they’d just been waiting for the chance. In the end, I was led to the ultimate question of whether or not I should continue to live.

“Numbers are easy to remember, convenient, and don’t overlap since they’re infinite, and they’re automatically put in order. Same names may exist, but not same numbers.”

He could write things that were only as big as the room in which he stayed.

That letter of farewell was the only letter between us. It was a letter that required no reply, a letter to which there could be no reply. I realized for the first time that there are one-way streets even for letters.

Then I look for a long time into the black eyes that can’t see. There must be a very thick darkness, unfathomable to me, beyond those eyes. A universe where no star or moon rises despite its darkness. Now that I think about it, I’d never given his darkness serious thought, or made a genuine effort to understand darkness from his stance. But with those black eyes, he looks at my wet eyes in turn one after the other, as though he can see. The eyes can’t see, but they can talk. The eyes can’t see, but I’m in those eyes for sure, alive and breathing. He sees me, and knows his universe. I’m sure that a moon rises, and stars fall, in that universe.

Flags of all nations are fluttering in the sky like socks hanging on a clothesline.

Life is bearable when you have someone to write, and someone who writes you back. Even if it’s just one person.