Almond

by Sohn Won-Pyung

“Maybe it’s because you’re special. People just can’t stand it when something is different,

“Human beings are a product of their education, after all. You can do it.”

Books took me to places I could never go otherwise. They shared the confessions of people I’d never met and lives I’d never witnessed. The emotions I could never feel, and the events I hadn’t experienced could all be found in those volumes. They were completely different by nature from TV shows or movies.

But books were different. They had lots of blanks. Blanks between words and even between lines. I could squeeze myself in there and sit, or walk, or scribble down my thoughts. It didn’t matter if I had no idea what the words meant. Turning the pages was half the battle.

The public grew more sympathetic toward the man and began focusing on the realities of Korean society, which had allowed this to happen. No one seemed to care about the victims he had killed.

“Parents start out with grand expectations for their kids. But when things don’t go as expected, they just want their kids to be ordinary, thinking it’s simple. But son, being ordinary is the hardest thing to achieve,”

“I try to stay away from judging people easily. Everyone is different.

We have to be tougher in this tough world.

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.

Even though my brain was a mess, what kept my soul whole was the warmth of the hands holding mine on both sides.

From what I understood, love was an extreme idea. A word that seemed to force something undefinable into the prison of letters. But the word was used so easily, so often. People spoke of love so casually, just to mean the slightest pleasure or thanks.

That’s why they say small amygdalae often mean your intellectual level is lower. Because you can’t grasp the context, your reasoning skills are poor and so is your intellect.

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’ve decided to confront it. Confront whatever life throws at me, as I always have. And however much I can feel, nothing more, nothing less.