Translator: Wan ED/PR: Personal Ghost
“Please call me out.”
Yu Dan stood at the entrance to the hospital, and read the story of Doll Ghost.
A clown doll appeared on top of the stairs. And he urgently peeled off this skin. A scrawny man shakily walked out.
“Hello, is my mom, no, Nam Yeongim-ssi perhaps her…”
“Please wait a moment. Patient Nam Yeongim-nim… Yes. Room no. 506.”
The nurse informed them. They took the elevator and went up.
The corridor was filled with a nose-pricking disinfectant. In every room sat elders with short gray hair and blurry eyes. In the middle of a television talking alone, someone let out a shriek somewhere.
The man found room no. 506, looked around, and walked to the corner. A small, white-haired elder, who was difficult to recognize whether it was a grandma or grandpa was looking at the TV with the eyes like a dead fish. The man looked at the elder for a while.
“Was it because of dementia, that you keep forgetting me?”
“Should we go ask how many years ago it has started?”
“No. It’s fine. What use is coming now? I can’t even say I’m sorry now anyway.”
“….”
“Mom. The ramen — it was delicious.”
“….”
The elder’s blurry eyes were fixed only on the television. They heard voices of the nurses on the side.
“Son-nim? Which son-nim? Didn’t he come in the morning?”
The man stood up startled, and left the hospital. Yu Dan and the girl followed after him.
“I guess I shouldn’t have come.”
The ghost’s translucent body trembled slightly.
“Speak when you can speak. How lucky it is when you can speak when there is a person, who will listen. People have no idea.”
He turned around without any word ‘I’m going’, and trudged forward, disappearing in a red glow.
Yu Dan stared at the empty space he left for a while.
“That was really a pity.”
The girl mumbled.
“If grandma came back to her senses just for a moment, it would be exactly like in the movies. I guess he came to her too late. Even so, isn’t it good that he could leave? I don’t know. It’s difficult, isn’t it?”
“Aren’t you leaving?”
“I’m going.”
The girl replied.
“When being bedridden every day, what I liked most was television. I wish that if I one day came out of my room, I would see the entertainers I only saw on the screen in reality…”
And she smiled widely, revealing a snaggletooth.
“One day of exciting adventure wasn’t so bad. As expected, I would enjoy life. Oppa, enjoy the most out of it too. Because You’re alive. Then bye.”
The girl waved her hand and disappeared.
Everyone sure went, huh?
For some reason, he felt like a kid left alone at the playground. Of course, it was a ridiculous thought. This was the world of the living, and they were the thing left around, alone.
Yu Dan perched on a low wall around the roadside. He was all done, but rather than joyful, his heart felt lost. Looking at the sunset glow, he recalled the last words all ghosts left when leaving.
Always live coolly.
Treat people around well.
Speak when you can speak.
Enjoy the most out of it.
Though they didn’t live long, did they realize some rules of life? They weren’t great life maxims, but it still felt like he should commit them to memory. What a strange thing. He had something to learn from ghosts too?
Yu Dan stood up.
Shouldn’t he go now too?
He put the book of ghost names under his arm and started walking. Then he abruptly stopped, and looked at the tree he just passed by.
It felt like he just saw something. Was he wrong?
He started to walk again, and stopped again. The moment he swiftly turned around after counting down to three in his head — he was faced right with the eyes in the gap between leaves.
Yu Dan flinched.
“What?! You just left!”
“When did I said I’m going? As expected, I have to at least see one celebrity in the end. When I can still enjoy myself, I have to enjoy myself to the fullest.”
“What nonsense is that!? Leave! Leave quickly!”
Yu Dan had an argument with the Gap Ghost. The people passing by gave him weird glances.
“So?”
The fox yokai asked.
“So what so? We argued for a while, but opportunely some kind of performance was held at the Cheong-gye creek. I tirelessly pushed to the front. Idols, singers, musical actors, she saw them to her heart’s content…”
“And finally left, eh?”
“No.”
The girl’s voice came from the book. Baek Ran looked down in surprise.
“You still didn’t go?”
“It’s not that I didn’t, I can’t. I tried to leave, but it didn’t work. As expected, the life feels too good. I want to stay a bit longer.”
“Congratulations. You have evolved from a minor ghost without any will, to a high-rank ghost with positive mindset.”
“Don’t congratulate, solve it!”
Yu Dan shouted.
“Or perform exorcism! I can’t live bringing this thing around all the time!”
“Why? How convenient it would be to be able to look from every corner? Summon her sometimes and use as an assistant. She will work hard.”
“No!”
“Anyway, can I go play now?”
“Please help Yourself.”
The girl ghost jumped out of the book and slipped out through the window. She looked to really enjoying herself. And the fox seemed to enjoy it too.
“If You don’t summon her, she won’t appear, so what is the problem? You can’t forcibly send her away, and she will make up her mind to leave one day. Until then, You can keep it besides the 『Monthly Eastern Painting Magazine』.”
“Don’t even say that.”
“Please don’t be so hard on this. Like that girl said, who knows when and how she may be of help? And if You meet other powerful ghosts and write down their names, You will be able to summon them too.”
“Absolutely not.”
“I think it’s at least better than leaving the book of ghost names by itself at the library, and some wicked person putting their hands on it.”
“That’s true.”
Yu Dan nodded. He couldn’t help by acknowledge this fact alone.
The fox smiled.
“I was wrong. When I said You wouldn’t be able to solve it.”
“That’s right. You were completely wrong.”
He tried to put on airs for a moment, but he just gave up.
“In fact, I didn’t do anything in particular. I just helped in a very small way, and they left on their own.”
“But that’s what is important. The help in some very small way. To become a bridge between this life and the next one. Because they couldn’t find such a link, numerous souls wander about.”
“So that’s it?”
“That’s it. The only thing I can do now is purify this book. It had to gather bad energies, while wandering around.”
“Wait a moment. Let me try it.”
Yu Dan took out the dokkaebi horn. When he touched the book of ghost names with it, black clumps floated from a book and were quickly sucked into the horn.
“Doesn’t it look like it ate it all?”
“It seems so to me too.”
“As expected. I guess it captures wicked, unlucky or dangerous things.”
“If that’s the case, it’s better to be careful. Once it eats something up, it won’t give it back.”
“I’ll remember that.”
He looked at the clean book, and felt confused inside.
He set out to work because of strange stubbornness, but in reality, once it ended, the reaction of others wasn’t so important. The thing that was truly important was this: Saying that you will do something on your own, no matter how small, and really do it. To believe that you, who suffered not knowing what to do, because you didn’t know anything, could change a little in the future.
“Like this, the book of ghost names found its place. With this, it’s really over. The bad dream is over.”
Yu Dan looked at the smiling widely fox yokai.
“No.”
“No? Why?”
“I thought about it last night. Was it homeostasis? It’s to keep on living without thinking.”
“That’s a bit different interpretation.”
“Anyway. I think I was also just living doing whatever, without any particular thoughts. But as you have said, we don’t know what may happen next. The ghost told me. You have to speak when you can.”
“What?”
Baek Ran asked.
Yu Dan took a deep breath. He felt like he could do this time
“When I opened my eyes, I thought it was fiery hell. Because I couldn’t breathe, I wedged my way out. Everything was in tatters or broken. In the darkness, I saw something huge. At first, I thought it was a giant. But it didn’t look like a person. The thing kept blazing. The eight eyes flashed with light, illuminated all four directions. I realized what the tattered things piling up around were. The thing I wedged from under from. What blocked my breathing was…”
He spoke in one breath, and then stopped. Silence fell.
“Please stop here.”
Baek Ran said.
“The reason why Your memories of that time aren’t very clear must be a defense mechanism to protect Yourself from the shock. You must not forcibly reawaken them.”
“But I want to know. What was that?”
He abruptly recalled a different scene. Iron bars jugging out from between the blazing corpses around. Twisted window frames and broken glass. Seats turned inside-out…
“Train.”
Yu Dan raised his head.
“It was a train. I remember. A train broke down inside a tunnel.”
“A train incident?”
“Yeah. It was a train incident.”
The fox stared at him.
“What?”
“There was no such a big train incident ten years ago.”
Yu Dan was stupefied.
“There is no way…”
He took out his phone and checked it right away.
It was true. Train incidents in past history. There were dozens of large-scale incidents, starting with the train collision at the Youngdeungpo Station in 1946, that killed forty-two people, but there was no such big tragedy ten years. Though hundred of people died, there was no record at all. He couldn’t believe it.
“How could it be? No way, did everyone forget? Such an enormous incident? Was it also supernatural? Not just a demon?”
“We can’t draw a hasty conclusion. Even if it wasn’t supernatural, if it had power, it could wipe out everyone’s memory.”
“What the hell was that? Eight eyes. Something enormous enough to break a train. You don’t have any hunch?”
“I have no idea.”
“Really. Frankly, I can’t believe it. You know everything. But you say you don’t know such an enormous monster?”
Silence fell.
Baek Ran spoke up again.
“Why do You think scary beings in the ghost stories just play with people and end at that? Didn’t You think it was strange? Wasn’t it because the endings other than playing would mean the stories about them wouldn’t be spread around the world?”
“What do you mean?”
“Dead people can’t spread any information.”
The instant he understood the fox’s words, he felt a chill down his spine.
“So the reason you don’t know about such a monster or supernatural is because everyone who ever met it until now are dead? So they couldn’t leave a story?”
“That’s only a theory.”
“Then what? Do you mean I alone survived? That day wasn’t an incident, and I’m the sole person, who is left from among those who met that monster until now?”
“That’s only a theory.”
Baek Ran repeated the exactly same reply.
“So I didn’t ask. Some answers will come when that thing returns. From the looks of it, You at least decided to try to think about it, eh?”
For a second, brilliance flashed in the brown eyes like glass beads.
“There is something I had realized after living for over a thousand years. If You somehow survive, You become stronger. I wish You just stay alive. No matter how insignificant You may feel, there is no meaningless moment. Please believe what I say. You’re certainly becoming stronger.”
“Are you talking from experience? Are you surviving because it was like that for you too?”
There was no answer. Yu Dan asked again.
“Can you help me, so I can survive like you?”
Baek Ran looked vacantly at him.
Then, after a while, he spoke up.
After crossing the door leading to the yard, he stepped into pouring sunlight.
“Aah. Not coming? My other nim. Guest-nim.”
Do-ssi sat at the maru, reciting something like a poem.
“We have to clean up, uncle-ssi. Who is going to come in, if he stares at them like this?”
“You don’t know, huh? In the human world, this is called aggressive marketing. You can do whatever it takes to draw an eye. In that meaning, he is our store’s strongest mascot.”
Chaeseol and Chaeu had a heated discussion, while they were drawing water.
“Middle-aged dokkaebi is a mascot? You’re giving me goosebumps.”
Heuk-yo said in passing, adding to the discussion, while she went to the front door and plastered a paper she held. Above a drawing of a porcelain dish with wallowing steam was a title ‘Menu of the month: poison’. And the phrase ‘Fifty percent discount on morning serving. With seven stamps, one cup free of charge’.
Yu Dan shouted, dumbfounded.
“What are you doing? You think someone will order poison, because of fifty percent discount? If they drink and survive, they can get one more stamp?”
“What are you talking about?! What poison?! That’s coffee! It’s six times stronger, so call it Poison Coffee!”
“Are you joking? You have missed the most important word, ‘coffee’!”
“Ah, that’s right. Do I have to do it again? That’s annoying.”
“Are you even planning to do a business? You’re doing nothing but scaring away customers!”
“Aah, doing business in the human world is too hard for a yokai. As expected, we should have opened a cooking school.”
Heuk-yo sighed and perched on the maru.
How are they always like this? Yu Dan shook his head, and turned around.
“I’m off.”
No reply.
They didn’t say goodbyes when Yu Dan was leaving. When he once asked, Chaeseol answered:
It’s because we always think it may be the last time.
What ambiguous words. Was this yokai’s attitude towards humans?
Yu Dan left the Banwoldang and walked.
There is nothing certain in this world. Even so, he unknowingly wanted to hear a certain answer. Because lies are better. So he unknowingly asked. Can you help me?
“I don’t know that.”
The fox replied.
“But as long as you remember and come to find me, I’ll always be here.”
He stopped in his tracks, and glanced back.
The place among the numerous shops on this street. An old building under an elegantly curving rooftop, like it was about to set off into the sky. The place that existed if you just turn your eyes slightly away from the city. The another world he found by coincidence.
“As long as I remember and come to find you, you’ll always be here.”
He mumbled it like a spell.
Sunlight cast down between dark green leaves. As he walked, stepping on the shadows of the trees, summer breeze ruffled Yu Dan’s hair, passing him by.
*~*~*
Translator’s note: Agghh… I have a lot of feelings wallowing up in me. Excuse me for a moment.
End of ‘Book of ghost names’ story.
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