Almond

by Sohn Won-Pyung

I won’t tell you whether it has a happy ending or a tragic ending. Because, first of all, every story becomes boring once the ending is spoiled. Second of all, not telling you will make you more engaged in this one. Lastly, and I know it sounds like an excuse, but neither you nor I nor anyone can ever really know whether a story is happy or tragic.

Mom thought that if I ate a lot of almonds, the almonds inside my head would get bigger. It was one of the very few hopes she clung to. Everybody has two almonds inside their head, stuck firmly on somewhere between the back of your ears and the back of your skull. In fact, they’re called “amygdalae,” derived from the Latin word for almond because their size and shape are exactly like one. When you get stimulated by something outside your body, these almonds send signals into your brain. Depending on the type of stimulation, you’ll feel fear or anger, joy or sorrow. But for some reason, my almonds don’t seem to work well. They don’t really light up when they are stimulated. So I don’t know why people laugh or cry. Joy, sorrow, love, fear—all these things are vague ideas to me.

Mom said everything was for my sake, calling it love. But to me, it seemed more like we were doing this out of her own desperation not to have a child that was different.

“Do you know why I kept coming to see you?” “No.” “Two reasons. For one, you didn’t judge me the way other kids do, thanks to your special brain. Though, it’s also thanks to that special brain, I killed a butterfly for nothing. My second reason is . . .” He grinned a little before he continued. “I wanted to ask you something. But fuck, I couldn’t bring myself to ask . . .” There was heavy silence between us. I waited for Gon to speak while the clock ticked. Slowly, he whispered, “What was she like?”

People said there was no way to understand Gon. I didn’t agree with them. It’s just that nobody ever tried to see through him.

I remember Mom clutching my hand tight when we used to take walks. She never let go of my hand. Sometimes when I tried to wriggle my hand free because she gripped it so hard, she’d shoot me a look, telling me to hold on tight. She said families walk hand in hand. Granny would hold my other hand. I have never been abandoned by anyone. Even though my brain was a mess, what kept my soul whole was the warmth of the hands holding mine on both sides.

If I can’t protect myself from being hurt, I’d rather hurt other people.”

People shut their eyes to a distant tragedy saying there’s nothing they could do, yet they didn’t stand up for one happening nearby either because they’re too terrified. Most people could feel but didn’t act. They said they sympathized, but easily forgot. The way I see it, that was not real. I didn’t want to live like that.

Had Granny been in pain? As I was now? Had she, nevertheless, been relieved that she was the one in pain, and not me? Plop. A teardrop fell on my face. It was hot. So hot that it burned. Just then, something inside my heart exploded. Strange feelings flooded in. No, they didn’t flood in, they flooded out. A dam that had existed somewhere inside my body burst. A sudden surge. Something inside me broke free, forever. “I feel it,” I whispered. Whether it was grief, happiness, loneliness, pain, fear, or joy, I did not know. I just knew I felt something.

Then I asked myself, Would I be able to give this child unconditional love no matter what it looked like? Even if the child grew to be someone completely different from my expectations? Those questions led to the creation of two characters who prompted me to ask this question: If they were my children, could I love them? That’s how Yunjae and Gon were born.