“Ahyeon-dong is a motherless neighborhood,” Mother says as she looks out the narrow window of our banjiha.^[1] Half-underground, we can just make out the legs of a group of guys wobbling around and spitting on the street. One guy drops his cigarette, stomping on it like he’s dancing.

“Go on up to the store,” Mother says firmly. “Make sure everything’s okay up there.”

From my mattress, I run up the staircase crammed right next to me. Within moments, I’m standing behind the counter at Paddy-Go, where I stumble to find the light switch hidden behind the mini-microwave we use for our instant rice on weekday mornings. But today’s Saturday, so we’re in less of a rush, especially since we don’t have the usual herd of mothers stumbling in at five AM to buy last-minute school lunch items for their children. It also means that I get to stay home and help out around the store instead of scrambling to catch the bus to school just as the sun conquers the horizon.

I don’t look around too closely, but I can feel that everything in the store is in its proper place, untouched since five hours ago. Five? Six? Four? I don’t bother to look at the little analogue clock that fell off the wall a couple months back, causing the long-minute hand to break off.  Now we rarely use it; when we want to know the time, we are guided by our instincts. That’s the way we do so many things in Ahyeon-dong. Right now, it’s four forty-five. 

I call to Mother.

She doesn’t respond, but I know she hears me. Probably tired, I remind myself. She mentioned some rumors that the government is planning on clearing out a couple banjiha neighborhoods near ours to make room for more apartment buildings. Father always said that what we have is just as good as the “gold spoon” apartments, but I sometimes wonder if that’s true now that he’s left us.

I sit on my stool and fidget with the radio.

It’s usually all static and annoying beeps & boops and other noises, but today’s Saturday. I raise the volume high enough so I can hear something through the static, and I recognize the song that’s playing — it’s by this Korean boy band that made it big over in America.

Mother emerges from underground and goes to unlock the store entrance and then makes her way to the register.

“Lower that,” Mother complains as she fumbles with rusted coins. “Or turn it off.”

“I like them,” I reply.

“They’re not us.”

“But the girls at school like them, too.”

“They’re nothing like us.”

I lower the music just a little, but then the static takes over, so I turn the radio off completely.

I wobble my stool back and forth, expecting Mother to tell me to stop, that one day I’m going to fall and crack my head open. But she doesn’t. Instead, she rubs her forehead and mumbles something about forgetting spare change downstairs.

And like that, she’s gone.

Except, now this guy fumbles in. Paddy-Go only holds a few anxious customers, so it doesn’t take long for me to get a good look at him, his body armored in layers of jackets and sweatpants, his face masked by a nest of facial hair as he limps to the refrigerator, his right leg doing all the action. He seizes a bottle of Soju and without looking, turns and violently grabs a packet of jwipo.^[2] Is he one of the displaced ones? Did they get his neighborhood?

He shuffles to the counter and throws his items down. 

“How much?” he groans, still avoiding eye contact.

His raspy, baritone voice is startling but nevertheless fascinating, enchanting. The way it almost reverberates casts a spell of bemusement.

“Hey, you!” he yells. Now he’s looking at me.

I call for Mother from the top of the stairs, like a call into the wild, as my cheeks start to burn.

No luck. I take another peek at the guy, his eyes glaring right into me. Through me.

Forget it. I run down the stairs and into our banjiha, where I see Mother lying on my mattress, her eyes closed and knees curled in like a baby.

“Mother,” I whisper, as I kneel and shake her with both hands.

“Mother,” I whisper, “wake up.”

For a second I’m the mother and she’s the child. There’s a moment of peace.

But soon she awakes, her body recoiling into an upright position in what seemed like an American television-worthy choreographed motion.

“Mother,” I whisper, “customer’s here.”

Now we’re bolting up the stairs.

“Sorry about the wait,” Mother starts…

But he’s gone. The store is empty. Lifeless. The entire basket of jwipo is gone. Most of the Sojubottles are gone. Boxes of cigarettes once on the counter are gone, too. Mother checks the register but doesn’t say anything.

Everything is still until Mother heads for the door, stopping only at the threshold to put her hand on her forehead and pull back her hair. Her natural beauty gleams for a moment. I follow — out of habit — and together, we leave.

“I’m sorry…” I begin. “I saw someone and–”

Mother raises her hand, silencing me. But I continue:

“I shouldn’t have left the store, I should’ve…”

“No.”

We sit down on the curb, our feet among the weeds sprouting from the sidewalk cracks. Because Paddy-Go is located on a hill, the skyline of the Nicer Seoul is visible, made of high-rise offices and glass apartments that just keep rising higher and higher, piercing the sky. I gaze at the distant world, the distant life, and I want to cry, to scream. But when I see Mother next to me, expressionless, picking her nails, barely caring to acknowledge the other world in front of us, for once I decide to ignore my instinct.

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^[1] a shabby semi-basement apartment, now often housing young students or couples unable to keep up with the rising housing prices

^[2] flat fish-jerky

– Alexander Lee