Station 5: Korea

Will you forget me please

The year is 2045. Over the past year, a new government party has taken charge: Bigger Korea. The largest Chaebols have been bought over by the State and merged into a single entity. Everything from energy to entertainment and land, they own them. KORAIL, or Korea Railroad Corporation, is the national rail transport company in South Korea. Declaring a war on time and efficiency, a first-world country is defined as one which isn’t where the poor have cars, but one where the rich can use public transport. No longer are trains just a means to and fro between destinations. The train is your destination–a lifestyle for all Koreans. 

Somewhere in Korea, a teenage girl who is pretending to be an adult grazes her card against the vending machine, seducing it into dropping a pack of instant ramyeon. Next to her, an adult woman pretending to be a teenage girl is spamming the button for free perfume samples she can never afford. A man sits behind them reading what he already knows is the news, which is no news to him. In another cabin, men in suits talk business language below overnight campers who talk the language of zzz’s. 

In an unknown research facility, a woman is locked inside a life-sized bell jar modeled by the carriage of a train. The gasses diffuse from above and cling around her like an ominous shroud. The air progressively turns to a deeper shade of purple, coloring the precarious nature of her existence. That woman is me. Kim Tae Hee, everyone’s favorite data analyst at KORAIL. Dragging my feet slowly around the confines of the jar, I hold each set of breath for as long as I have each time, at least it is something I can still call my own. My hands feel the walls for any screws or loose doors but to no avail. I learned to acclimatize my lungs to a more passive breathing technique which helps. My heart still suffocates for her though. 

On the opposite side of the closed train, A woman stands at the control panel directly outside the cabin’s door. The buttons obediently light up as they are supposed to. Readjusting her glasses, her other hand tucks a clipboard containing a list of names between her arm and hips. Several names are red, others black, and a select few are crossed out(including hers). Taeyeon stands up and stares at me. Her gaze is unaffected by years and decades. Maybe she remembers. Or I am nothing but yet another subject in a web of faces that will come and go. She continues to look directly at me. Unaware that her best friend from high school is inhaling each breath of death. 

#

I first met Taeyeon at Namsan Foreign Language High School. She was the typical North Korean migrating south after the reunification. She sat behind me when we were 15 years old,  I knew she existed and it was all I thought that I needed to know. So when my body was succumbing to the weight of a drowsy head, half asleep in an English lesson and she said: “Wake up your mind! Our nineteenth winter slayed!” It was like I discovered an infant saying her first words. As she and her buddy mocked each other’s tastes in shows, I made a vow to myself to ask her about our favorite movie. 

Awkwardly standing behind her, I requested for permission to sit next to her during lunch the same way I would ask a teacher. I rehearsed it three times before I did it. It turns out we both liked the same actors and parts of the movie. We even watched the same influencer who posts movie reviews of what we loved. 

Before this, I always saw Taeyeon as that enigmatic but hard-working girl who was told by her parents she has to work hard to not go through the same struggle her parents did. We progressively engaged in discussions about movies and shows, then the next day’s homework and tests, and then the places we wanted to see from sets. I stopped visiting my old friends from other classes and instead sat along the benches with her. 

There always comes a point in a friendship when two people are no longer say-hi-along-the-corridor friends, but real friends whom you could pour yourself into a cup and let them drink you whole as they taste what berries you are made of. Sweet or Sour, Plain or complicated. Icy or burnt. Becoming friends is a game of table tennis where both of you are trying your best not to embarrass yourself by dropping the ping pong ball. After a while, it becomes a rally and you’re comfortable with it, it’s a mundaneness that can drag on by choice. But finally, you cannot wait any longer and smash the ball as hard as you ca, because you need to win something. That happened the first time we went out. We watched a fantasy, coming-of-age movie at the nearby mall. 

The movie follows the lives of two normal students through the later years of their high school, college, and post-collegiate yearnings. After finishing the movie, we sat down and were discussing why the movie was named as such. It’s about two normal middle school students. One is a normal, smart, likes-to-read boy who cares about social justice. The other is a normal poor daughter of a widowed mother and abusive brother. She was a normal antisocial misfit, he was a normal handsome athletic boy on the school team. Normal things happen and when they transition to uni they switch roles. I said. 

“What was so special about them was that they were as normal as possible. They realize that they have been good for each other, despite all the troubled times of depression, hurt, and rejection.”

“I loved the ending. When he asks if he should move abroad, and she tells him that he should go, she will always be there for him.”

“Sometimes I don’t feel like I can ever be a normal person.”

“Don’t say that, you’re just like everyone else here.”

“It’s got nothing to do with being from the north, though it has it’s own implications.” 

“Is it weird that I like our math teacher?” 

A silence she is counting stands between us, she’s waiting for an eye-to-eye moment which I don’t have the courage to offer. I look at everywhere except her. Holding onto my chair and truth, I say: “Do you like her as a teacher or…” I was too scared to say it and so I took a sip of the macchiato in front of me.” 

“Yes.” 

“I think she is hot too,” I confess to her, the milky foam choking me as a punishment and now I’m hoping for an eye-to-eye moment.

“RIGHT.”

Her smile was the cure that brought me back to life. What happened next was a deep dive into each other’s types, fantasies and kinks. If we were an ice cream, we’d be anything but vanilla. Taeyeon felt she developed mommy issues as a result of her mother’s lack of love towards her. We imagine what our math teacher would wear in bed(the red and white flowery Hanbok she wore on Chuseok day).She would ditch her husband and kids to find us in a discreet love hotel. We imagined us and her role playing as doctors, patients, the devil, and the angels. 

Time passes and we order more drinks. A couple and some other high school kids glance at us and we just laugh at them. The next day, which was a Saturday, she sent me a message: “Good morning :)” I found a cute cat video and sent it to her. We swarmed each other with random messages throughout the day. We did nothing else. Nothing but us existed. When the new week birthed and it was math lesson with Ms. Youn, I looked at her and she looked at me. She smirked at me and I broke out crying. 

On my birthday, I brought her into my house while my parents were overseas. Like most people, she was amazed by my family's symbols of wealth and freedom. 

“Why does your house need a lift?”

“I’ve been asked this question so many damn times. How would I know?” 

She awes when she sees Lotter eagerly scrambling towards me. Lotter is a first-edition AI dog my parents bought to compensate for their increasing absence from home. It was more loyal and playful than Benji based on the engineer’s programming. Grabbing it on both sides, I muster all the strength I gather from carrying my school books to bring the doggy to her face. It nuzzles its nose against her cheeks. She was officially part of the family. 

On our second last day of school, she shouts my name from across the classroom. She then hands me a letter and tells me to read it.

“You want me to come?” I ask her.

“Oh no sorry, I thought you would’ve been interested but I can just ask out Ms. Youn on a week long date instead. A guy from our class turns to look from his work and I ignore his curiosity. Picking up her sarcastic tone, I beg her to go together like I am proposing to her. I would kill her if she said no. To be in jail than to be alone. And of course, she said yes. 

rom Incheon International Airport eastward and to downtown Toronto, we put our faith in a website claiming to be a four star hotel and settled in. The hotel was a station’s ride away from the festival and right away the clock was pushing us faster than there was time to worry.

We were rocks sliding down the Canadian mountains. We made sure we recorded and captured each interview and introduction with the international actors. Sprinting into gift shops, we bought anything we could find for them to sign on. A poster shop sold an original motion picture soundtrack of an Oscar-winning director and we splashed the cash. Most of the shows here were independent films made by independent voices, allergic to the commercial pressures of mainstream cinema. We were originally pulled into them by sunk cost fallacy but left with respect and dignity of our time. 

To be more efficient, we tag-teamed by sending one or the other into a line a few minutes before each program ended. We were the biggest fangirls in a five-kilometer radius, snapping photos with every movie director we could find(especially the handsome ones). Taeyeon was right–our two luggages were well fed and we needed a third child. 

The last day before our flight, she insists on going to one of the beaches. My clothes gripped onto me like a mother, protecting her child from getting exposed. She insists that I didn’t need to change but she will either way. Not wanting to disappoint her, I wore a straw hat and a white, flowery-printed beach skirt. In contrast, she wore a button-down shirt covering up a tie-dye bikini with denim shorts. I want to lock myself up for imagining her going all out. 

As the sun began to lie down on the ocean water, we sat on our blankets on the soft sand between the boardwalk and the water. Volleyball courts with little bodies jump in the air to get the perfect spike, while even smaller bodies crawl close to the waters. Above them, seagulls sang and celebrated their dinner catch. Taeyeon asks me to wait here. When she comes back, she carries one watermelon vodka and another strawberry lemonade vodka. “My treat.”

“Do you think one of the movies we watch could win it?” She asks. 

“Perhaps, The robots in A Head Full of Dreams were very expressive and fluid. Or EVIDENCE could win.”

“It won’t.” She bluntly cuts in. “Animations don’t stand a chance.”

“But it deserves to win. It's unique and funny. And then the big reveal at the end using the moon was smart. The diff visual styles are unparalleled.”

“It won't because it's an animated film.” I ask her why not. “Old men are grown-up kids who are scared to put a children's film in the top spot, no matter how much they like every wonder and joy-filled frame. I love the rich themes and strong relationships too. Perhaps they will win Best Adapted Screenplay or Animated Feature Film but never the Big Daddy.”

“I love animated films.”

“What’s your favorite?”

“A one where the animation pops your eyes and its plot simple. Like Plastic Pond.”

“I would like that too.” Her arcing smile arches at something inside of her and she giggles. “You know. I wouldn’t call it a movie. Watching that movie is an experience of you entering the wonderfully realized world. Not knowing what will happen and picking up the rules of the world as the movie progresses. This is why I love animation. It’s not a genre and should not be called that. It is a form of media used to show real-life things as unreal things because the unreal can portray real things more accurately and beautifully than the real form can ever do. Like that time the screen evolved into a pastel of nothing but blue, red, and purple to convey the sorrows of a girl alone and afraid in the forest.”

“I agree wholeheartedly. Thank you Taeyeon-films.”

“This is the first time I ever went overseas. I wanted to make it special.”

“So was it special?”

“Yes. And I’m glad you’re here with me, sharing these crazy turbulent teen years.”

“How long has it been?”

She holds up her fingers, flicking them back and forth in an attempt to make me laugh. 

“Wow, three already.”

“Mom would never allow this. Staying up late on the beach and drinking with friends.”

“Remember when we saw your parents in the mall and you shoved the drinks into my hands?”

“Ha, we were lucky. Imagine if it was one of the old men from Sugarbook. I would have been evicted instantly.”

“At least you’d earn some pocket money from them for your new rental.”

“Fuck off.”

By now the sun has gone completely into hiding. The only noise is the crashing of the wave of waves. Our well of conversation topics had gone dry and we live with the silence. 

“Remember that woman who signed my book? She left me a message: Hold every moment dear to your heart, always. We have to remember these days. Because there’s no guarantee that they will last forever.”

“Let’s make an emergency code word: if anything happens and we need each other. Don’t care how stupid or embarrassing it is, we’ll be behind each other’s backs unconditionally.” 

“Sure. What word should it be?”

I was transported back to Ms. Youn’s math lesson. When it comes to solving the expression a plus b squared, she always said there are three types of people in this world: Those who know the 2 a b, those who forgot the 2 a b, and those who think the 2 a b is magic. I didn’t have to explain those three syllables to her. She recognised exactly where I was coming from.

In the pitch darkness of the night, we couldn’t see each other anymore, and I gave myself the freedom to stare at her silhouette without fear of being judged. As the sea breeze swings her hair, I can see what I do not want to see–a jigsaw puzzle in the shape of a nineteen-year-old woman that requires an infinite number of pieces. I saw a girl who was dragged into a world of trouble and just wanted to escape the North before the separation. A girl who wanted to know what it feels like to be wanted. But she was different. And I’m different too. Together, this difference of differences made us indifferent from each other, and I wanted to love her with the same irresponsibility that others have troubled her with as I second guess myself if she was wearing her outfit to impress me all along. 

As she pulled back her hair, I pulled her into my waist and whispered into her ear I love you. She reciprocated. And hidden by the darkness, we enjoyed being the messy humans that we were. All those times I pretended to be cold by replying to her messages days later or when she was lying and I wanted her to make me look like a fool even more. We kissed for as long as we could before walking back to the hotel. It didn’t matter. I had everything I wanted. In bed that night, I thought about it. She probably would have said yes. But fear was louder, and so I curled up with my back against her. It was the last time we ever slept together. 

#

And then it all stopped. We were serial study students and had our own ambitions. She wanted to study law abroad while I was happy learning data science at SNU. We loved the movies we could never be inside. But more than that, the next morning the air around had changed. Her silence speaks more than herself. We stopped texting daily, and then weekly and even monthly once. I decided if she didn’t want to invest the effort then I would do the same. I can only wonder if she was waiting for me to do it. Perhaps we were in a waiting game, trying to wait longer for the other until we both lost. I rarely heard from her once we entered university. Time naturally separates us down our own paths. Occasionally, I saw a photo of her social media and assumed her life. 

As we grew, the state also became more immature. It cried when it saw something it did not like. My mom called me one day after work as I was microwaving leftover kimchi fried rice, telling me to look over my shoulder. I was wondering what she was talking about. “They’re looking for people now.” “The state is always looking for people. but I am one of them.” “That’s not the reason silly girl.”

But she was right. The journalists were no longer journaling but reading off scripts by people who’ve never done journalism in their life. The news told no news other than what was already known. 

My first and only job has been as a data scientist for KORAIL. Staring at sheets of digital numbers to calculate the new fares and train station engagement, it is a nicer way of telling people that I search up which bubble tea stores near train stations are trending. It was difficult but fun. The computer was my rod as it churned through the pot of data for anomalies. When it caught an anomaly, it was the chance for me to define the next chapter of the Korean landscape. I joined at an excellent time where we began expanding into the collapsed north. The easiest new station was connecting Pyongyang. However, mapping the other hotspots(or lack thereof) was a problem-solving nightmare. 

When I finally had proven myself worthy, my boss Yeong-Cheol invited me into his office. No invitation ever has an easy decline option. I put pen to paper promising not to leak any information on a new project. They wanted people to crave trains. Playing with their senses, the team and I began finding the smells and colors people wanted to smell and see.I learned that prisoners became meeker in pink cells and people linger in malls longer when they’re scented. I should have learned this sooner to lure the hot people in college. I could have been a walking drug. People getting high from my presence. 

The next time mother called, I could hear her voice but not her words. What she wanted to tell me was blocked by the invisible contract that the party was invited to every conversation in Korea. More people were getting trialed and thrown into detention centers so we had to be careful not to throw any buzz words. 

“Kim Tae Hee. They’re looking at people from within too.”

She never used my full name since I became an adult. “I understand Mom. I’m a good girl and you know that.” I stole a glance at my roommate thinking she would side-eye her disappointment which she doesn’t. I told her not to go out too often and we wish each other goodbye. 

I hang up the call and look once more outside the window. Men and policemen walk in silence, in fear of not each other but the true puppetmaster. Behind every police officer’s booming voice is a grown up boy who is drafted against their will, listening to old men with even older ideologies. Several more nephews and younger cousins that I used to meet have been apparently called up ahead of schedule, with a plague of words spreading that the state wants to lengthen their service to the nation. Across the street, several K-pop stars are plastered across buildings and billboards, reminding me that I am the same age(if not older) as those who’ve been called to a life of stardom despite the same starting point.

I’ve received messages from international friends sympathizing with the torrid space I’m in and that they’re homes will always be open for me. A girl I met from an overseas exchange semester emails me asking to buy a radio just in case, which is now hidden under my bed. It was only a matter of weeks before shops were banned from selling conventional radios. 

I decided to continue living with my roommate Min-ho from university. In the privacy of our apartment, we bemoaned the government's increasingly apparent cowardice towards public disapproval. The country is collapsing into fractures. There’s been an increased crackdown against same sex marriages. Min-ho was worried about me but I played down any possibility of me getting caught. I deleted my accounts on such dating apps. 

I wasn’t a socialite spending my salary on friday or weekends. So when this edition’s rule of the month involved a curfew beyond 10.30 pm, I continued to coop up in my room embroidering and pirating movies for binge sessions. The festive spirit of Christmas has long since departed for better pastures. It didn’t bother me that I wasn’t allowed to go to a bar and dissolve the words inside me, I could make my own bar in the kitchen: Tae Hee’s Teehees. I’m glad there’s less late-night traffic polluting smoke and noise where I live, even the cars had curfews too. 

Flexing their political muscles, the Korean Broadcasting System announced that all ministries required more representatives of the state. In the past few years, Taeyeon has been relegated to all but a thought stopping by my mind every few weeks. Fate would rewind however when she was appointed under the pseudo-job of ministerial ambassador. I vaguely remember her mentioning the reason she could study abroad was under a government contract. 

Her reappearance via a forced welcome email to all employees returned my attention to work better than any Maxim Coffee ever has. Although the person she is now is nothing like the 19-year-old girl she was before. Through the words of colleagues, Taeyeon has created a kingdom of her own within KORAIL. This kingdom walked with her wherever she went. Minds would automatically get colonized by their phones in the hope of avoiding eye contact and its inevitable confrontation with a member of the state. We too were members of the state. However, what I did was a collaboration as a public servant for the state. She is the state. As much a part of the government as the men in blue roaming the streets with their flashlights and rifles. 

There’s a new section on the news listing enemies of the state. It used to be exclusive to a club of left wing journalists. But each day saw new additions: those avoiding their military conscription, social media activists, convicts. Anyone could be called. Including those in the public service. It’s only a matter of time before secrets within the government are made transparent. 

Less than a week after the first public service member, a board member of the environmental agency, was detained,. A man under the same designation as Taeyeon came to talk to me. Even if it was Taeyeon, my hair was not as long and straight when I was in Toronto but braided. I reminded myself that I was not talking to a colleague of Taeyeon, but a pseudo-informant of the state. Anything I said could and is probably recorded inside one of the dozen pockets in his toneless uniform. 

“Tell me. You’re under a top secret/restricted department working on a special project is that true?”

I’ve been anticipating this talk ever since they entered the company. His coffee aroma wafts across the entire room. Suddenly the office feels smaller and I’ve become a giant and I am looking down at Little Jack. I’ve been briefed about this by my boss on what I should say. I tell him everything he wants but nothing more. As we play our literary hide and seek, I catch myself speaking marginally faster than usual and try again. 

“And don’t you think that exploiting people’s senses is wrong, Ms Kim?”

“I do not see the problem with garnering people’s attention. The gas screened by third parties to be chemically healthy and is 99% transparent so they would not even see it. It’s their choice if they want to stay on the train or not. We see the trains as an enlightenment to one’s daily commute. Think of it as bringing their favorite vape flavors: banana milkshake, sour apple, cold coke to them without the need to pop one out. Why should people bring the rainbow when we can give it to them?  It’s not as though we are keeping them captive in a prison.”  I wanted to say more but realized I touched something I shouldn’t. It sounded as though my sentence was incomplete but I left it hanging. He pauses and thinks about each word.

“And can we put any type of gas into the ventilation systems and it will work seamlessly? What I mean to say is, do you think I can contact this chemicals company and they’d be able to make any kind of gasses?”

“Mhm.”

I feel like a student being told by her teacher that I got the answer wrong again. And only when she gets the answer she wants will she leave me alone. Only then am I free to leave. There are times when a moment happens and I save it in my memory because the moment does not end there. Good or bad, it ripples into your future, chaining me to the consequences of my immature decisions. The smell of coffee sticks onto me when I left the room. The scented air seeps through my lungs, bearing its weight on my chest. 

It is a minute to 4.30pm so I let my colleague know I’m done for the day as I make my way down the lift. At the door, I pass my bag through the X-ray scanner and tap my pass out of the gate. As I roam the second floor of the car park, I look at the red building across the junction and try to imagine what the graffiti looked like before getting remastered with gray tape and traffic cones. 

With the apps I still have, I purchase some groceries and essentials online, including another scarf to protect myself from the colder winters. I tried to hop onto social media but quickly got bored from seeing the same things from distant friends I don’t talk to. 

Once again, I pass my bags through the machine and scan another card to enter my apartment. My roommate took a half day leave today and was already home. She asked me how the day went. I don’t think I’m safe. 

#

The news spreads quickly in whispers that a new center is created. They’re no longer using rats but enemies of the state as test subjects. Through an airborne nano agent, there’s a new biochemical substance can collapse one’s reasoning entirely. There would be no physical damage. Their belief structure will reset itself. Effectively brainwashing them. At the time I emailed them, they highlighted several prototype gasses. I didn’t internalize that this would be the consequences of my actions. So far no one who has gone in has ever come out. There is no evidence but the trust of other connections. 

I am becoming a hypocrite–pitying at the poor whom I would never dare to be a part of–finding the most profitable job that widens the inequality by exploiting one’s weakness and addiction to pleasure. My work is and always has been artificial. To me, humans have been a number count, where the higher the incidence, the greater my pay. Should I have cared more for the passengers who were riding the trains while I shy away in my car? Should I have limited the spike in prices just by an extra cent? I found solutions I wanted but never dared to raise up. 

Outside, protests have been ramping up and the state has come even more prepared than ever before. Youths without emotional baggage charge towards the blockade of policemen with their line of defenses. Bottles of tear gas catapult from behind temporarily dispersing the crowds. But water always returns to its equilibrium position by the pull of gravity. My mother calls me for the third time. But this time I declined. I sent her an ambiguous message I assume she can understand. Now is not the appropriate time.   

And then it came. One dinner, a violent knock reverberated from our door. I pat my roommate back down and tell her I will get it myself. I already have a suspicion of who it is. They called me before asking to meet. I take everything I will need, which isn’t much. 

“Ms Kim Tae Hee?” 

“Yup, that’s me.” 

“Please follow us.” With Korea’s borders now closed, there was never any escape. I am now beyond the turning point. I’m brought to the science block of a university and they make me join the line for two hours before I am thrown into what they call a waiting room with a chair, a hard bed, and rations. I am too smart for my own good. They know I know too much about their tactics. The tactics that were stolen from me. And now were weaponized against me. 

Back in that meeting, I told him that their critical weak point is the mind. Once you control their attention, they are all yours. What they are now doing is psychological warfare. I was able to sustain myself on the laughable amount of food they provided so far. But this entire act is a comedy show, and I am going to be the punchline.

I watch the shadows trot across the floor for two and a half days when a police officer opens my cell and walks me through the corridors. I dreamed what I would do to the next person that opened me up. Perhaps a dump and run escape or act dead in the cell. They haven’t touched me and therefore haven’t fueled enough anger for me to strike. 

For an independent grown adult, I am laughably easy at being told around and following instructions. Perhaps I deserve what I’m about to get. I didn’t tell anyone about my imminent investigation. Besides mom and some university friends, there was no one else that needed to know. It’s also less draining on my mental energy to explain when the state can do it instead. Their actions speak thousands of words for my convenience's sake. For a long time, I’ve been ready to go. I look forward to what happens after. It just sucks that the process of getting there is a pain. 

I’m now in a test room with a control panel and a section of a train cabin at the center. My liberty begs me to try one last thing. I put my hand on his shoulder and bring my body uncomfortably close to his. “Dear sir, I am sure there is some misunderstanding. I haven’t done anything wrong.”

For a moment I throw him off guard but he then pushes me and orders me to stay here. Oh well, seduction is always an option worth trying. He doesn’t answer my question because he knows I am technically correct. Unfortunately, politically correct answers are up to interpretation. 

The officer returns with a man in a lab coat and leaves, warning me that if I make any noise he will come back with consequences. The man’s voice is stern and professional. I’m just another subject to him. I slowly walk into the glass jar. He assures me it will be quick and harmless. What a pathological liar. 

Fizzle noises begin to creak in and I realize the future is now. Three days is a lot of time to think about one’s mortality. Slowly, I feel my mind loosening from the trials of logic. Without any reasoning, one plus one feels greater than two. It’s such a difficult mental exercise to execute. Who would have thought of such a proposition.

Suddenly, a woman enters the room and begins talking to the guy. The man’s eyes widen and he bolts out the room. The woman presses the button stopping any more gas. She then turns to look at me, and I realize I don’t want to die anymore. Not in front of her. 

Taeyeon looks at me, and I look at her. “I never wanted you to be anybody else.” She must have known I was working at KORAIL and saw my name on a blacklist. Her face is met with confusion at my new appearance, and then regret. I try to say something but the glass is soundproof. Some mist formed on the glass and I remembered our promise. 

 Trying my best to write laterally inverted, she looks at the hollow letters I draw out. 2ab. My legs begin to shake and so does out. But all she mouths out is I’m sorry. She came all the way here just to see my final act. Is it possible to change the ending? Is there a chance to witness the miracle that I can see her again? If there isn’t, I have one wish to ask of her, can you forget me please. 

At this point, I’m in a partial state of hallucination. Understanding instructions and my environment is a privilege. I forgot what time it was. All I knew was that I was an unwitting experiment, the products of a chemical reaction using trains and societal decay. 

At the same moment, my phone rings and someone is knocking on the door. The only person who would notify me is mom. Reluctantly, she reopens the ventilation and declines the call before the man returns. She holds the phone and stands behind a confused man. He obviously expected my dosage to be higher than usual. 

Unable to control myself any further, despair bursts me into tears that I am going to forget the only person I ever loved. Through my blurry vision, I see a single teardrop fall from her eye, or was it sweat, I couldn’t tell in time.