How are you guys? I missed you the past few days. Ben came down with his first cold, so we've set up Sick Kid Bay here on the hill. Luckily, Sick Ben is less needy than Sick DH.
Here's an excerpt from a short story I'm working on.
<Working title: To Go>
Sunhee stared as buildings became toys. Green and brown ran together faintly, like a sad seaweed soup scraped together from empty cupboards. Puffy stratocumuli appeared and disappeared like steamed rice buns in someone’s hungry dream. The constant thrum of non-noise blanketed anonymous emissions, coughs and burps, sighs. Closing her eyes, she rubbed her belly with both hands. With Soojin running out of space in there, Sunhee found it difficult to get comfortable even while stretched out on her bedroll on the floor. Now, shrinking away from her chain-smoking husband, her bulbous body propped unnaturally forward, she thought that perhaps Soojin wasn’t the only one feeling stuck.
The lights blinked and Sunhee looked around, alarmed. Both of them unable to speak English, a heavy blanket of dread had settled on her shoulders ever since Minsu got the message from his cousin in Chicago that there was work for him at the factory. She had not left Busan in the nineteen years since her birth, and the arrival of this day had surprised her, despite the month of anticipation. Early that morning her brother-in-law had driven them to the airport with a borrowed car that seemed to run only in fits and starts. Half-drunk, as was his custom, he swore at mopeds and pedestrians who narrowly escaped his unlicensed path as they rumbled out of Busan. Even with the windows open, the sweltering, muggy morning was more concentrated inside the car than out, like a jar of fermenting kimchee. Her husband Minsu snored with his mouth open for most of the drive, quieting now and again for a cigarette. Sunhee arrived at the airport sweating and sick to her stomach. She had no family but Minsu, but in Busan she had her tailoring job and a few friends.
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