KEG 30

Yellowed walls reeking of mold and a tacky calendar from who-knows-where.

An office where a copy of Mencius, brought in by thugs who didn’t even read books just to keep up appearances, was rotting on the bookshelf.

There, an older thug turned to me and said,

“Hey, you bastard, Seongho. Go make me some coffee.”

Hawk—tuah!

He was the boss I used to work for back in my loan shark days.

He loved drinking instant coffee while playing darts. He was a chain-smoker who ignored no-smoking zones, and whether indoors or outdoors, he’d spit phlegm anywhere as soon as it bubbled up.

“Did you call that bastard who borrowed 4,000 the other day?”

“Yes.”

“Did he say he’d pay?”

“He asked for more time.”

Thwack!

Hyung-nim said, “Hah, that fucking bastard. Give him money, give him time… at this rate, he’ll be asking for my underwear next.”

It was hard to tell if he was marveling or just mocking, then he threw another dart.

He wasn’t very good at it. He just enjoyed the act of swinging his arm with all his might and driving something into the board.

“Seongho, what do you think people mean when they ask for time?”

“I think it means they aren’t ready yet.”

“Then what do you think they’ll say when they’re finally ready?”

I tore open a packet of instant coffee and poured the contents into a paper cup while thinking about the question.

Hyung-nim would occasionally ask me difficult questions; rather stolen content than expecting the right answer, he enjoyed watching me struggle with them.

“I think they’ll still ask for more time even when they’re ready.”

“Why do you think that?”

“I think it’s because they’re anxious. They want to be prepared for any unforeseen variables.”

I didn’t go so far as to spit in his coffee, but I did stir it with a teaspoon that hadn’t been washed in three months.

He was the one who took me in when I was just a piece of trash, brawling in back alleys, but back then I often thought that if he hadn’t taken me in, I might have turned out much better. I was the one who messed up my life, but I resented Hyung-nim for being the one who created that turning point.

I obeyed him, but at the same time, I despised him.

“Yeah, no matter how prepared people are, they still feel anxious. Not feeling anxious isn’t a sign of confidence, it just means you’ve stopped thinking.”

Thwack!

After throwing another dart, Hyung-nim rolled up his sleeves and took a sip of coffee to wet his throat. Then he picked up a new dart.

“Then why do you think people borrow money?”

“Because they don’t have any.”

“Why do you think they don’t have any?”

“I guess that’s just how life turns out.”

Thwack!

“Why do you think people end up without money as they go through life?”

“I think money disappears because we try to avoid difficult situations.”

He picked up another dart and raised the corner of his mouth in a crooked smile. He said: Seongho is the only bastard who would answer such a question seriously. Then he continued with his line of questioning.

“Life is a series of difficult situations, so why do you think those losers keep scraping by and spending money like there’s no tomorrow?”

“Since we were born, we have to survive somehow.”

Thwack!

“Who asked to be born?”

I made eye contact with him as he gulped down his coffee and turned his gaze toward me. It felt like a question born of his awareness that I was an orphan.

“It’s not a world where you’re born because you asked to be.”

“True. We were just carried ten months and then thrown out into the world.”

“Just like these darts,” he said as he picking up three darts at once and rolled them in his palm. The darts dancing in his hand were old, stained with grime, and mottled.

They were the ones that had survived being roughly tossed around, sometimes disappearing somewhere or breaking.

“A gangster I knew in Suncheon died yesterday. They say he got drunk and fell into the river.”

Thwack!

“Isn’t that meaningless?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Why?”

I’d said I didn’t know because I genuinely didn’t understand, so being pressed for an answer put me on the spot.

Whether he fell into the river or into a cesspool after getting drunk, if that was the end of his life, shouldn’t we just accept it? It had already happened, and there was nothing we could do to change it. Why should I feel futility?

“Because I didn’t really know him.”

Thwack!

“Would it have been better if that bastard had never been born? He was a fucking terrible guy. He caused nothing but trouble his whole life, and even in his dying moment, he just polluted the river.”

Hyung-nim handed me a dart, saying I should give it a try too. I took it and took my stance in front of the dartboard.

“Is there any point in adding more words to a life that’s already over?”

Whizz–

The dart left my hand and stuck miserably into the wall.

It didn’t even make it onto the dartboard.

“It is. It’s fun to judge dead guys who can’t speak for themselves.”

Hyung-nim walked over to his worn-out desk and pulled out a box filled with new darts from a drawer. Clatter, clatter—the look in his eyes as he pondered which color dart to throw was as innocent as a child’s.

He was seventy years old and still acting like a fool.

“Think, ask questions, experience it firsthand, and get broken.”

He eventually picked up a yellow dart before taking aim again.

“That’s the right of the living.”

Another dart was thrown.

***

Before I even opened my eyes, I muttered to myself through parched lips.

“That old man always acting all high and mighty…”

It was because I’d had a dream from my days as a loan shark for the first time in a long while. He was a bastard I didn’t really want to see, yet he showed up periodically, a truly annoying fellow.

“Where am I?”

I opened my eyes, sat up, and looked around. I was in the woods.

The black leaves of the towering trees hung like a curtain across the sky, and their roots were tangled in grotesque shapes resembling tens of thousands of black snakes. On top of that, the disturbing warmth and writhing sensation made it feel as though I had entered the belly of some creature rather than a forest.

“Meh–”

“……?”

I looked to my left, where the sound had come from, and saw a baby black goat staring up at me.

“Meh–”

Munch, munch–

Then, when I looked to my right, there was another one. The second goat was chewing on my clothes.

I dusted off my clothes and stood up, moving to a different spot.

“Go away.”

Despite my warning, the baby goats kept following me. I ignored them and continued walking.

With the steep uphill and downhill paths repeating, it felt as if I were crossing several mountains.

“Is anyone there?”

“Meh–”

“Anybody–”

“Meh–”

The number of baby goats had grown to five by then, and they were trailing right behind me. I felt unauthorized copyas if I were a shepherd from an old folktale walking in single file through the gloomy forest.

Thunk–roll–

As I walked, something other than a tree root caught my foot, so I looked down. It was a black, shiny fruit about the size of a plum. I looked up at the tree and saw branches heavy with the same fruit.

“What is this….”

I rolled the fallen fruit with my foot and noticed bite marks on it.

“Did the goats eat these?”

Suddenly, I remembered the dungeon in the underground parking lot of Yongsan IxPark from last time.

Could eating this turn them into monsters? Were they all human?

I turned around, looked at the line of baby goats following me, and said,

“Is there anyone here who was human when they were born?”

“Meh–”

“Meh–”

Anyway, these damn goats sure know how to answer.

Though to be honest, it was not really an answer, they were just echoing whatever sound I made, like wolves howling.

“Excuse me.”

I grabbed one of the goats, flipped its eyelids, lifted its tail to check its sex, and laid it down to feel its belly.

It was strangely docile, it let me flip it over and stay still while I touched it. It looked just like a domesticated animal that had been handled a lot.

Bulge, bulge.

“………?”

“Meh… ku… ku… kuk-”

The body of the third goat following me writhed into an amorphous shape.

Its face repeatedly contorted and smoothed out, becoming increasingly sleek; feathers sprouted from its front legs, while its hind legs grew thinner, its hooves fell off, and claws emerged.

Just like a bird…

“Coo-coo-coo-”

“Shit.”

I quickly backed away from the transformed baby goat. It was the form of the pigeon monsters that had emerged from the dungeon before.

The only difference was that while the pigeon monsters in the city were as big as heavy construction equipment, the one in front of me was only about the size of a child’s tricycle.

Bulge, bulge, bulge.

Perhaps spurred on by one of them changing, the remaining four goats also began to shift their forms with metaphysical ways.

“Scree-”

“Coo-coo-coo-”

The baby goats transformed into pigeon monsters and sewer rat monsters.

“Fucking hell…!”

I ran away without looking back.

No matter how small they were, monsters were still monsters. If I charged at them, there was a high risk I’d end up injured myself.

Thud, thud-thud!

“Wait, am I inside a dungeon? Where’s my gun?”

Just as I was about to fight, I realized the gun I’d been carrying on my shoulder was gone.

“Guk-guk-!”

Thud!

“Ugh!”

A pigeon monster flying in from my left blind spot slammed into my head. My body staggered, and my knees buckled. My brain shook, and I felt a sensation of paralysis spreading through my entire body.

Even if a normal bird had flown into me at this speed, it would have been a concussion at the very least. But when a creature with the mass of a hunk of iron collided with me, I was helpless as I fell face-first to the ground and rolled down the slope. Twisted trees whizzed past my eyes.

Crack, crack, whoosh–

“Argh!”

After rolling for a while, I slammed into a thick tree trunk and came to a stop.

“Cough! Cough!”

It felt as if all the air had been forced out of my lungs by the impact; I could barely breathe.

Hanging onto the tree trunk, which jutted out like a clothesline, I coughed until my breathing returned.

“Squeak- Squeak-”

The unpleasant screech of a monster pierced my eardrums.

A rat-like monster, as big as I was, was climbing the tree trunk toward me. It had been no bigger than a tricycle a moment ago, but it was growing bigger and bigger.