Martoons

Cast of characters

Fred

Mr Go

Dame

*

Fred’s Last Stand     

Traffic was light and Fred’s bus arrived in good time near Central. It was still before 7.

The bus had emptied of all riders as Fred calmly stepped off.

He looked up and down the street, which was profoundly and unusually barren except for one fragile grandfather sweeping the sidewalk with an old straw broom.

There was also a permanently hunched-over grandmother puttering along, both arms extended in front of her, directing her cane as if it was a divining rod.

Two tiny, school-uniformed kids appeared from a doorway and ran by Fred.

“Migook! Migook!” they snickered devilishly, laughing uproariously.

Then they spotted the old woman and cruelly mimicked her rickety walking style. They giggled again mischievously and scurried away.

Somehow, Fred thought, this scene looks like the introduction to my last day in Korea. 

* Will today be his last day in Korea? *

He approached Central’s rear sliding door. Oddly, it was down but not all the way and Fred hesitated.

Someone must be here.

But things didn’t feel right. He cautiously rolled the door up and ascended the stairs yet found himself bracing-up.

The staff office door on the second floor was still locked; he continued up to the third. Strangely, he could smell traces of combusted tobacco. What the hell?

Go and Dame were finished in the washroom and heard someone coming.

Dame: “She’s here!”

Go didn’t say anything and went rigid, torn between two worlds. He didn’t want to confront Miss No; nor did he want to back down to her in front of Damion.

So, he reluctantly and sheepishly followed the foreigner back into the office.

“Sit in the big desk chair,” Dame urged.

Go waved him off and retreated to the couch instead. Dame took the big chair. The footsteps were now moving along the hallway.

Knock, knock.

The instant Fred saw Go and Dame, inexplicably he instantly turned around and fled, tearing down the stairs two at a time and into the street, where he ran.

As he distanced himself from Central, he resisted the urge to look back.

His feet seemed to lead him along like iron filings being drawn by magnets. He didn’t know what to make of the scene back at Central.

The time now: 07:15. It occurred to Fred Pineridge that for the first time since he’d come to Korea, he didn’t have somewhere to go or something to do.

* Is he not going to return to Central for his meeting? *

The upside was that this might be his only chance to truly explore Chinju.

As he headed down the quiet back streets of early morning, he felt emancipated and relaxed, like a dumb tourist.

A river ran through Chinju, and Central was near a bridge over that tributary. Fred walked up the bridge and met head-on with a face-burning wind.

This was the coldest week of the year and the only one when the Chinju River actually froze – and only in a few small sections.

As he looked down on a puny ice warp between some rocks and shoals, his gaze was distracted by a cacophony of jubilant children.

A vendor below had set up a makeshift skate rental booth. A dozen little kids were sliding around on every available square foot of ice.

“Ankle burners,” Fred chuckled.

He flashed-back to being a kid in Canada and joyously recalled how much clean, white ice he had to skate on when his neighbour flooded their backyard every winter.

* Do you think Fred misses Canada? *

Compared to that, these frozen puddles beneath the Chinju bridge were almost … laughable.

Yet as he saw how completely contented the Korean kids were with their little patches of grey ice in the bridge’s chilly shadows, the comparison was moot.

Wealth is entirely a state of mind.

He finished crossing the bridge and the children’s jubilation faded like the ending to a favorite pop song.

Veering into some side streets, the weight of existential uncertainty clouded his mind again.

Where will I be in 24 hours?

* Where will he be? *

He passed a phone booth and wondered if he should call Central and see if Miss No was there now.

He got as far as stepping into the booth and picking up the phone but then – oddly – couldn’t remember the number even though he’d called it dozens of times.

Fate?

He clunked the receiver back down and left the booth, pondering the nature of fate. He believed in fate only in a light, loose sense.

“Shit happens.” He didn’t think fate was an invisible hand behind everything, guiding our lives without our knowing it and over which we have no control.

People use ‘fate’ as an excuse to avoid responsibility. Fred Pineridge was not about to do that.

Time for me to guide my own fate. I’ll go back to the apartment, pack, say goodbye to Mrs Won, and leave.

I’m pulling the pin… Korea: Game over.

*

Tomorrow: Fred says some goodbyes.