The TS Memoir of a Misogynistic Novelist

The call was disconnected.

It wasn’t Hwa-won who hung up. I hung up myself. I couldn’t understand it, but a nauseating, indescribable, horrible, dirty, and ugly feeling dominated my body.

Not knowing what I was angry about or what had hurt me, I shoved all of it into a forgotten corner of my memory, locking it away. The nature of this anger was something I shouldn’t understand. I didn’t want to know either.

Hwa-won no longer sent calls or texts. I hung up arbitrarily and waited for a while, but nothing came back.

Am I sick of it?

If so, it wouldn’t be strange. My recent self was pathetically pitiful, and disgustingly clichéd. It was a disjointed melodrama that shouldn’t even be shown in a novel.

Thinking I should wash my face with cold water, I went to the bathroom, and in the mirror, there was a girl who looked like a complete beggar. Her dirty white hair felt unpleasant. I couldn’t help but let out a wry smile at the lack of tear stains in her eyes.

Who are you?

I intended to wash my face, but my mind changed.

I filled the sink with cold water.

And holding my breath, I plunged my head into it.

It felt like my mind was being sharply awakened, as my head turned a shade of blue. The instinctive fear of water and the blocked air drove me into a corner.

I didn’t even make it halfway to my limit when my body rebelled against my will and pulled my head out of the water. This young body had no power to resist instinct and fear.

Gasping and trying to catch my breath, when I looked ahead, the mirror reflected a girl who was even more disheveled and looked like a beggar.

Who are you?

Still, the extreme method had a definite effect; my head was cold, and I could think more clearly about the situation.

As for Hwa-won… I don’t know.

Someday, a day will come when we can talk again.

When that day comes, let’s have a conversation.

Let’s resolve the misunderstandings through dialogue.

So much goes unspoken.

I didn’t even know what the misunderstandings were, but still.

Anyway, it was all probably a misunderstanding.

It had to be.

I turned on the computer and started writing.

Writing was always a disgusting task. It was the same as pouring the vomit inside me onto everyone. If that’s a bit dirty of an expression, you’re welcome to rephrase it.

It was an act of tearing apart and scattering my flesh and blood.

This makes it sound like such a holy story. Of course, I was certainly not Jesus. It was an obvious thing that didn’t need denial.

However, in the end, in terms of consuming others’ flesh, this story was essentially in the same place. Is this blasphemy?

Only, Jesus’ flesh became bread, and his blood became wine to satisfy them, but those who consumed my flesh surely suffered from food poisoning; thus, there was indeed a significant difference between the two.

Ultimately, writing was no different from that grotesque desire to devour.

Please eat me.

Eat me, and praise the taste of my meat and blood.

Please love me. I am a delicious feast.

Worship, awe, faith—anything is fine. Give it to me.

Hatred, love-hate, lust—anything is okay. Give it to me.

All of that was given under the name of love.

Love was a struggle to become quality meat.

To become meat sold with a first-class mark in the supermarket.

…

I was truly a pervert. All writers must undoubtedly be insufferable perverts.

Writing is masturbation.

I’ve said before that this bleeding strip show is not pornography.

For me, it certainly wasn’t pornography. But did the voyeurs who watched others’ masturbation think so? They would pay to say, “Please watch my masturbation.” What else could a pervert shouting that be if it’s not pornography?

Writers were exhibitionists, and readers were voyeurs. It was a truly nefarious combination of supply and demand.

But that’s why I write.

We all hide secret wounds and desires within.

Sometimes, we want to show that.

Everyone hides a desire to want to engage in prostitution.

It was a type of self-destructive urge.

It had been a long time since I touched ‘the womb.’

Still, it was impossible to write a proper story. I had only made slight touches to the plot. In ‘the womb,’ the protagonist girl wasn’t a character. In the plot I wrote, the girl’s role was solely symbolic. We didn’t call such a thing a person.

She was merely a being that could do nothing but mechanically repeat the writer’s words.

The new plot was somewhat different.

The girl who used to coldly mock the world, drag down her mother, and insult her father was no more. Now she could not respond to the violence inflicted upon her body with that same indifferent attitude.

She became an exceedingly ordinary person—one who could reject, feel pain, cry, be sad, resent, resign, hope, pursue, give up, and seek revenge.

Not a symbol, but an ordinary, just person.

One who acts.

What do they act for?

For love.

The girl became weak and miserable.

That weakness, that misery could never be called beautiful, but it was noble.

And so, I wanted to tear that nobility apart and bring it down.

To the mother who raised her, a baby.

To the mother who gave birth to her, this womb.

To the father who sowed the seed, this rib.

I erased it all.

Now, such literary symbols and pretentiousness were unnecessary.

What was needed was only reality and delusion.

The girl’s belly was swollen, and giving birth in the bathroom was a mockery of the divine.

The girl abandoned her baby in a coin locker.

And now, she would not return home.

Neither of her two mothers, nor her father, nor the two mothers who abused and neglected her, nor the father who harbored lust for her, had loved her. At least they didn’t abandon her in a coin locker.

At that point, the girl’s revenge had already lost its meaning and justification.

Because the girl had become their rightful heir.

The girl leaves.

Where she would go, she didn’t know.

Both her two mothers and her father were alive.

She would live too.

This is true blasphemy.

Whether it was good luck or bad, the girl’s baby was discovered by someone and survived.

The child went to an orphanage.

The child grew into another girl.

~

After finishing the revision of the plot, I read it again.

Once, twice, three times.

After reading it, the only thought was that this really wasn’t my writing.

If it were the me of before, the one who had been male, I would have never written such a thing.

Still, compared to the previous plot, I felt quite certain it had been written better, but even so, I couldn’t find the fragments I had lost in this writing. Because what was lost doesn’t come back. I had come too far to go back to pick up something that had fallen, and now I could no longer even pretend to search for it.

However, in realizing the despair in that story again, I had already despaired over too much. I didn’t have the luxury to care about ‘such things’ anymore.

I lost too much. If I had lost one thing, I would try to find it, but since I had lost everything, I could not seek anything.

I didn’t accept change; I resigned myself to loss.

Yet still, I couldn’t give up writing because this was the only proof I had left. I didn’t know what it was proof of, but it must be something important. Because of that unknown proof, I moved forward, placing my hands on the invisible ground ahead.

Whether I stumbled because of the darkness or because my eyes were blinded, I didn’t know,

But there was a missed call on my smartphone.

It was Muk Ha-neul.

I felt like she had called once last night, but I couldn’t answer because I was already asleep. And until now, I didn’t have the energy to respond.

I wasn’t in the mood to have a voice conversation with anyone, so I opened the chat and sent a message.

[O]

[What’s up?]

It didn’t take a second for the reply to come.

[Don’t worry, it’s all over.]

[I was busy lately, didn’t know, but there was an article about that, right?]

[Yeah, I was thinking of imposing on you for a bit, but now I’m fine; I borrowed a bit from Professor Seo.]

[So you’re at Professor Seo’s place now?]

[No, somewhere else.]

[Where?]

[Just a person’s house that I know.]

[Is it the woman’s house you met before?]

[How did you know?]

[You don’t have any other acquaintances, do you?]

[Ugh.]

[Hahaha;]

Texting was nice. It was good not to show my face or reactions, pretending to be fine. I could laugh off Muk Ha-neul’s jokes. It wasn’t that I felt bad because the words were true.

[What’s keeping you so busy that you’re not even sending texts?]

[I wrote. I had some preparations to do, so I didn’t go to school and stayed holed up.]

[You skipped school?]

[Don’t worry about it; it’s almost over anyway.]

[That’s good.]

Talking about trivial and ordinary daily matters felt oddly comfortable.

At least, among my messengers, Muk Ha-neul was the only one with whom I could have such a conversation.

Not to mention Ham Yejin or Hwa-won; even Jae-Ah would have noticed something’s off. Professor Seo was never someone to have this kind of chat with, and my former editor Kim Sung-kyu had lost contact. As for Gu Ji-ye, well… probably because of Lee Cheon, she was pretty busy.

So this trivial conversation was a little, sweet.

[What’s it like to have rumors of dating an entertainer?]

[It’s fucking annoying, shut up.]

[I was a bit jealous when I saw that.]

[Stop screwing around.]

[We had a somewhat mutual confession, you know, that’s a bit harsh.]

… That had happened, hadn’t it? It wasn’t a complete confession, but somehow it felt like that event was really long ago, even though it hadn’t been much time.

I chatted with Muk Ha-neul for a long time.

There were no meaningful discussions. Yet, it felt somewhat easier. Being with Ham Yejin was like being in a cradle, while being with Muk Ha-neul felt like being on a playground.

The mood, which had erratically fluctuated, felt like it was settling a bit.

Until suddenly, a strange conversation came up.

[Senior, this is just a word of caution, but]

[Just a piece of advice.]

[Don’t get too close to that person you’re currently depending on.]

What?

[Wounds always belong to those who believe.]

Suddenly, Muk Ha-neul warned me about Ham Yejin.

Strangely enough, it was no different from when Ham Yejin had warned Muk Ha-neul before.

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