Dance Is Forever

The Dance of a Cigarette Butt

One day, long ago, I stood in the middle of the dark living room, staring blankly at the floor lamp in the corner. I had gotten home late from evening study hall. The house was empty. I approached the lamp, switched it on, and removed its shade. With the naked bulb exposed, black shadows emerged on the wall.

I stood before the wall and slowly raised my right arm. Then my left. My shadow mirrored every one of my movements. Like an audience possessed by me. I turned around and pressed the power button on the audio remote. A song my mom often listened to came spilling from the speakers. Chŏng Sura's "Joy."

I slowly began to move my body. I stamped my feet to the rhythm and clapped my hands. I peeled off my cumbersome uniform blouse and skirt and tossed them aside. I swung my hips from side to side, heaved my shoulders up and down. I spread my legs wide and leapt from one end of the living room to the other. Raising my arms in a circle over my head, I bent into a deep bow at the waist. I rolled around on the floor and kicked my legs in the air, dancing with passion.

Objectively speaking, what I was doing couldn't quite be called dancing. I'm interpreting it as a kind of contemporary dance, but if I could have recorded myself on a camcorder that day and watched the footage back, I think I would have had an entirely different opinion. It wasn't dancing but more like writhing. At seventeen, before I'd even really lived, I felt worn out. Because I had a strong feeling that life would indeed turn out to be nothing but having to carry on, enduring the tedium of it all. My schooling so far had suggested that this loss of control over my life would likely continue into the future.

As predicted, I lived according to a set path. As soon as I graduated from college, I started working at a small company, then moved to one new workplace after another, each bigger than the last. I had a rigid posture while I worked and suffered from neck pain. Later, when the pain spread to my head, I lived off of painkillers. I thought all my coworkers hated me deep down. But that was fine. I didn't like them either. I worried over money every day and lost my confidence often. I only barely managed to file my taxes, pay into my pension, and remain qualified for my employee health insurance plan. Enduring and living became synonyms. The hunch I'd had that night at seventeen had proven right. I had to live while struggling. I had to struggle to live.

Every time I saw someone's hand grinding out a cigarette butt, I felt startled. Because that cigarette butt seemed so much like me.

Imae's Dance

I rarely laugh, but when I drink soju, the laughter pours out. I was counting the number of soju bottles I had emptied, passing day after day of senseless laughter, when one day I found myself already forty years old. Suddenly, I wanted to understand my mom better. I nagged her more and more. As I got older, I worried more for her than I did for myself. I had nothing left to do now but grow old, but I was consumed by the depressing thought that all my mom had left to do was die. Getting older was fine, but I wished my mom would live forever.

I worried about her because she never got any exercise. From time to time, I would suddenly reach out to feel her round, protruding belly. She hated that and ran away when I did it. I nagged her not to just stay at home and told her she should try learning how to dance. As she trimmed walking onions with a bored look on her face, she asked: Why would I learn...