Writings
Planaria
by Jeon Sang-guk, translated by C. La Shure
Where did the planaria go that used to live in the stream? The children were examining planaria in tanks of varying water quality. To be honest, the children were hoping that the planaria in the polluted water tank would die quickly. They grew excited when the planaria in the detergent-polluted water began to move strangely. The planaria that had been cut in half were doing fine in a tank of spring water, and now all looked alike.
“What do you call an organism that has no distinction between male and female?”
“A hermaphrodite.”
“Where is the planaria’s mouth?”
“In the middle of its stomach.”
“It’s anus?”
“Its mouth is its butt hole.”
“How do they move?”
“They swim as if they are crawling.”
“No matter how you divide a planaria, each of the pieces will become a new planaria. What do we call this?”
“Asexual reproduction.”
“The planaria only reproduces asexually, right?”
“No, they also reproduce sexually.”
“What is sexual reproduction?”
“When the male and female combine to make a new creature.”
She stubbornly rejected sexual reproduction. The first condition of our cohabitation was that we would live together but be free of the obligation of a husband and wife—that is, that we would not have children. Also included in our agreement was that I not try to find out the reason why she didn’t want children. “Rejecting childbirth is a challenge to God.” This was the extent of my reaction to her resolution.
“It is said that once a person has attempted suicide, they will be haunted by that temptation for the rest of their lives,” the doctor who had administered the stomach pump said, warning me that I could not neglect her for even a moment. “The burns in her abdominal region are rather severe. She was in a stupor from the poison she drank along with the alcohol, and furthermore she was crouched when she urinated, so the burns were naturally severe. You would be best off pretending not to know about this in the future.” He was saying that no good would come of shaming a woman. He had ignored from the start my insistence that I did not know her.
Another part of our tacit agreement was that we would not bring up in conversation the details of how we first met. The children in my science class who went on the field trip, though, saw to it that the secret became public knowledge, and everyone knew that the lifeless body discovered beneath the waterfall at Mt. Yeonyeop became the teacher’s girlfriend. The Mt. Yeonyeop Waterfall is a waterfall in name only, a small stream that flows over a fairly short cliff at the very end of the valley. The children were engrossed in catching planaria at some distance from the waterfall. I turned my back on their bright laughter and made my way toward the waterfall. The foot of the mountain was covered with wild cherry blossoms in full bloom. Birds were singing exquisite mating songs. The sudden sight of her lying spread out on the corner of a broad, flat rock beneath the waterfall was yet another part of the scenery. I shuddered with fear when I approached her. She was foaming at the mouth. To be honest, I glanced first at her pretty legs before even wondering whether she was still alive or not. It was only for a moment, but it was clearly lust.
“OK, we’ll now find out just how strong our planaria flatworm’s powers of regeneration are. How many planaria did you cut up with a razor blade two weeks ago?”
“Five.”
“And how many are there now?”
“More than fifteen.”
“That’s right. Each piece of planaria has regenerated into a complete creature. What does this family with so many new members need to survive and grow?”
“Clean water.”
“But Teacher, yesterday Suncheol put tap water into the tank we were filling with only spring water.”
“Fine. Kim Suncheol, from today you are going to be examining what happens to the planaria in the tank you put tap water into.”
“Teacher, can I say something?”
“What is it?”
“Remember those planaria that disappeared during our experiment that one time?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I think I know what happened to them.”
“...?”
“The bird ate them.”
“The wren. The one that flew into the lab a while back.”
“Ah, the wren....”
The children and I had seen the bird one early spring day. I taught the children the bird’s name. Even if something exists in the world, it may as well not exist if you don’t know its name. A wren had flown into the lab. It pecked at the cracker crumbs the children had scattered, its short tail feathers sticking up. The wren would disappear somewhere and then reappear a few days later. It was clear that it had found a way out of the lab and into the outside world. It was amazing that that tiny bird's brain did not forget the way out. When I got home I told her about the wren.
“No. Most likely it didn’t find the way out. It is probably hiding somewhere in the lab.” She always spoke decisively.
I wanted to stop her short. “Like you, trapped inside me.”
“No. Nothing can contain me.”
She was right. One day the children found the dead wren beneath a sink in the lab.
Like the wren, whose body shines with a luster during mating season, when the bird song came from her body she spoke and acted quickly. Even her way of talking changed. “Damn it, you’fe never theen me naked before? Get lotht.” And then there were her outings to unknown destinations.
I finally learned of her destination through the mouth of my half brother, who lived in my city. He said he saw her at a karaoke bar downtown. What he saw was her singing by herself in a small room tucked away in the back of the karaoke bar.
I finally mustered up the courage to ask, “Did you go to a karaoke bar a few days ago?”
Her response was cool by comparison. “Yes, I went.”
“These tapes, were they all recorded there?”
“Yes. Did you listen to them?”
“No.”
“You’d be better off not listening to them. You know I can’t sing well.”
“What’s it like to hear to your own singing?”
“Strangely enough, whenever I sing I get a perfect score.”
“They say that you only get a perfect score if you don’t sing with emotion.”
“Well, that’s me.”
“Getting a perfect score isn’t the issue. This city isn’t all that big.”
“What’s so wrong with going to a karaoke bar?”
“You could go with me.”
“No, I wanted to go alone.”
“That’s pathetic. A girl going alone.... Next time take me with you.”
“No. I won’t be going to the karaoke bar anymore.”
“It’s best not to try to confirm rumors.” This was what Sa had said when he brought the news that she was frequenting the motel. Sa, a children’s story writer, was the most supportive of anyone when we started living together. I was also thankful that he thought nothing of the weight of the secret he carried. “She doesn’t want to get married, doesn’t want children—that may actually be better for you. You used to go on about how you were going to remain a bachelor. Then again, even now you’re clinging to the single life. At any rate, there is quite a special bond formed when people with like thoughts meet. The question is how beautiful that bond will be, and for how long it will last. The decisive reason the woodcutter could not go up to heaven was his widowed mother here on earth.” What he was saying was that if I thought she was worth it, I needed to be able to abandon other things. To be as unconcerned as possible with what others think. And he ordered me to make no effort whatsoever to break our tacit agreement when he brought the news of her coming and going to the motel.
But I made a tacit agreement with myself that our tacit agreement could be broken. “Have you been to a motel lately?” I asked her.
“Yes. I have.”
“Surely you didn’t go by yourself, did you?”
“I can’t go by myself?”
“Do you know what people do at motels?”
“What you’re trying to say is that it’s a place where people who’ve agreed to have sex go, right?”
“Anyway, it is certainly a filthy place.”
“No. There are people who think just the opposite.”
“It’s not normal.”
“What is normal?” She began to speak quickly. “Making babies, finding your roots, currying favor with others, finding the faults in others, saying that you love someone, whining about how lonely you are, is that what you call normal? In the end, what you really wanted to make sure of is that I went to the motel alone, and not with some guy, isn’t that right? Am I wrong?”
I regretted breaking our tacit agreement. She became aggravated when she thought others were taking too great an interest in her. Once she was able to deal with the emotions that welled up, she deflated like a punctured balloon. Her face drained of all color and her lips became white and chapped. She spoke less and ate next to nothing. It was strange. It was surely by chance, but whenever she was like this something bad happened to those around me. I heard that my father, who was locked away in a church retreat because of his senility, had damaged something at the retreat, or that my half brother had caused some problem or another. My family had given up on me, the eldest son. Past forty and unmarried, I was living with a mysterious woman, and on top of that this woman had not once shown her face at a family gathering. My family was unified by their animosity toward her.