The Great Storyteller

Somebody was shouting.

Juho was looking at the stroller that was still coming down the hill. A stroller coming down a hill was not a problem in and of itself. However, this was different. A stroller was rushing down the hill on its own, away from someone.

No one was holding the stroller’s handlebar. No one was around the baby. The stroller was plunging down the hill, and with an ominous sound, it finally fell.

‘Thud.’

It was hard to tell if the sound had come from the stroller or from his heart. Thud. The stroller that had been plunging down the hill toward Juho had suddenly changed its course toward the right. There was a wall there, and the stroller didn’t seem sturdy enough to protect the baby from the cold concrete wall.

‘I hear it.’

At that moment, he had heard the sound of the baby. It hadn’t been the sound he remembered. The baby inside the stroller had been wailing. He saw the baby’s red lips through the stroller’s translucent cover.

He had run towards it without hesitation, getting closer to the baby. However, he wasn’t fast enough. He had to be faster or he wouldn’t be able to save the baby. At that rate, the stroller would ram into the wall. The sound of the baby’s wail distracted him.

‘Who was screaming earlier? It was probably the mother,’ he thought. Her scream overlapped with the voice in his memory. “I’m so sick of this!” His heart was pounding. ‘What if the baby gets killed? What if the stroller rams into that rock solid wall?’

“Get the stroller!”

He recognized the words that jumped out of his mouth. “Get it!” Who was he shouting to? He saw the baby’s hands reaching towards the sky and lept. He fell on his side, holding the stroller. Then, he felt a strong impact against his back.

“Gah!”

“Wah! Wah!”

He felt dizzy and he was breathing raggedly. His heart was pounding, but he heard a cry.

‘A cry. The baby’s alive. The baby’s not dead.’

He picked up the stroller. The baby was covered in a bundle of cloth, and there were no apparent injuries.

“My baby!”

The mother rushed down the hill toward the baby, who was still wailing. Juho leaned against the wall and collapsed.

“Thank you! Thank you so much.”

“Oh, no. The stroller fell. You should go to the hospital to make sure the baby’s OK.”

“Yes, of course. Thank you. Goodness, I can’t thank you enough.”

He heard her thanks from the distance. His ears were ringing. It almost felt like he was under water, and he felt sluggish. When he snapped out of it, both the mother and the baby were gone, and he was standing on an empty hill by himself in a dazed state.

“I wonder… if the baby’s going to be OK.”

He looked at his hand. It was bleeding. The small wound was throbbing painfully. His palm started to heat up. It was slightly itchy and painful at the same time.

Soon and slowly, he went on his way, his pace picking up gradually. ‘I must write!’ His mind commanded him, ‘You must write, now!’

He looked through his pockets, but there was nothing. No pen, nor paper.

He looked around. There was no paper, anywhere. ‘I have to write before this feeling fades away.’ He couldn’t find the tools he needed and clenched his hands into fists. The wound was still throbbing.

He ran through the hills with every bit of strength he had, up and down.

Gasps of warm air came out of his mouth.

‘I have to go write. I have to write out what I’m feeling. I have to start my story while this feeling is still fresh. I have to write it out while it’s still raw, before I start trimming it with rationales. I have to embody this feeling in my writing.”

“Ah!”

He tripped on a rock on the ground, but thankfully, he didn’t fall. Juho restored his balance and continued running as fast as he could. Doing all of that just to write.

He was running out of breath and he felt water going into his nose. The water that surrounded that world was going into his body. The screams of the mother were still lingering in his ears. The fear of death was still raw in his mind. The wailing of the baby was still haunting him.

He finally arrived home and slammed the door open, taking his shoes off in a hurry and running into his room. ‘Pencil, pen, it doesn’t matter. Paper, paper, paper. Quickly, fast!’

“Sigh.”

Juho swallowed anxiously. His mouth was dry. He needed to drink something. There was a water, a deep ocean, and he had to pull what he was looking for out of that it. He had to dredge it out. It had to come up nearly to the surface.

“Mother, baby, wailing, distance, death, wall, scream, hills.”

‘It needs to be more specific.’

“The mother looked young. She had a mole… two moles under her eye. She was red around her eyes and so were her eyes. Her hair was short, and she didn’t wear any makeup. She was panting. Her chest was moving up and down. Her hands were shaking like her voice. She was wearing a navy blue shirt with blue jeans and sandals. Her lips were dry, and her tongue was red.”

‘More.’

“What about the hill? There were six telephone poles. There were also red bricks, a gray wall and the asphalt. Residential area. It wouldn’t have been weird if somebody had been watching. It wouldn’t have been weird to take notice after hearing either the baby or the mother.”

It was exactly like how he remembered. He might not have been the only person who heard the scream. Of course, the people in that neighborhood probably heard it too, even if they had covered their ears. That’s sound. One can’t simply ignore it because he or she doesn’t want to hear it. It’s not like eyes. The ears listen until the very end.

“A little more, just a little more.”

He moved his hand frantically. A trail of blood followed his pen.

*

When she came home from work, she realized that all of the lights in the living room were switched off. ‘Juho must be home by now.’ She walked in as she switched on the lights.

“Son?” she called for Juho. There was no response. ‘Did he go somewhere?’ After moving the groceries to the kitchen, she looked around the living room. Then, she saw that the door to Juho’s room was slightly ajar and heard him in his room.

She opened the door.

“Oh my goodness…!”

Juho was in his room. He had grown much more mature as of late and he was the genius author, the talk of the town. She had been glad at first, but as time went on, her concerns grew with his fame. Even after more than forty years, there were still countless things to be learned. She wasn’t sure of what to do. She didn’t know what to tell her son as a person who lead an ordinary life. Thankfully, her proud son had been doing well on his own.

Now, he was trying to do something. As his mother, she was able to tell on instinct. Without even sitting on a chair, he was writing on his knees on the floor, surrounded by pages and pages of paper while pouring out his inspiration like water.

Being careful not to make a sound, she backed out slowly. She wasn’t sure of what he was up to, but of one thing she was certain, ‘I can’t disturb him. I can’t disturb my son.’

“Keep it up, son,” she rooted quietly for him as she sat on a chair in the kitchen.

*

Juho left for school, struggling to massage his burning back. In the morning, his mother had seen the scattered mess in his room and slapped him on the back. “Clean your room!” she’d yelled.

“Yawn!”

On the hand covering his mouth, there was a bandage wrapped around it, and he was startled by the blood on his pen.

His eyelids felt heavy from writing into the morning. Though it hadn’t been refined, he tried moving around bits and pieces of his story. As a consequence of that, he was going to school with hardly any sleep and he might as well give up trying to stay awake for his classes. “I’m sorry, teachers.”

“Hey… What’s with your face?” As he was passing through the gate, a voice called for him from behind. He turned around and saw Seo Kwang waving at him. He had asked, surprised by Juho’s appearance.

“I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.”

“My friend, need I remind you that sharing is caring?” though Juho had already explained, Seo Kwang asked insistently.

“What do you mean, where? We’re at school.”

Like the vigorous youth they were, they were boisterous from the morning, but Juho went to the class with his eyes closed halfway.

“Hey, wake up.”

As expected, he’d slept through the morning classes. He raised his head at the sound of Seo Kwang’s voice. It was hard to wake up. As he slowly bobbed his head up and down, Seo Kwang said, “Go wash your face or something. Make sure to tell me the website before you go.”

“Being a student is exhausting.”

“What are you talking about? Nothing’s easy in this world.”

Juho rubbed his face to force himself awake. His body felt stiff from leaning onto the desk all morning. Then, he stood up and opened the window, but the breeze wasn’t cold enough to wake him up.

“Let’s go eat, I’m starving.”

‘Yeah, I should eat.’ He stood up and asked, “Sun Hwa and Bom are joining us for lunch, right?”

“If you’re late and get in trouble, I’m not going to take responsibility for your decisions.”

“Is it that late?”

“Well, not enough to be scolded by Sun Hwa.”

The two headed for the cafeteria and saw Sun Hwa and Bom waiting for them in the distance.

Just as Seo Kwang had said, Sun Hwa didn’t look very happy. Bom was next to her, busy trying to calm her down.

“You two! Why are you so late? Do you have any idea how important a meal is to a student? I’m not rushing here for no reason, you know.”

“Don’t look at me. We’re late because somebody wouldn’t wake up.”

Seo Kwang naturally shifted the blame onto Juho. It was true, however, so there wasn’t much else to be said.

“Sun Hwa, we should go in before it gets late.”

“Juho Woo, if they served something good for lunch today, you’re a dead man.”

“Haha.”

“Stop laughing! I’m trying to stay mad here.”

The four went into the cafeteria. Thankfully, the daily menu hadn’t been very special, and there were plenty of seats since a good number of kids had already left.

“Lunch isn’t very good today,” Sun Hwa complained.

“Yeah,” Bom agreed with her.

‘At least there are some solid chunks in there,’ Juho thought as he looked at his bowl of soup. There were pieces of mushroom and tofu floating around.

Thinking back to the time he had wandered about the soup kitchen, this was more than enough to be thankful for, so he put the food in his mouth without complaining.

“So why are you late?” Sun Hwa asked. She seemed displeased for some reason.

‘Maybe it’s her lunch… but then, she would’ve had the same expression even if the lunch was delicious.’

“I was having trouble waking up.”

“What were you doing at night staying up?”

He thought about her question, ‘How do I explain this?’

Juho had written throughout the night. He’d started writing because he’d ran into various sources of inspiration when he had gone out for a walk. He had gone for a walk because…

“I didn’t get the award,” Juho answered as he reached for a side dish. He regretted not finishing his composition at the competition.