Sublime

Hyeonamsa.

Buildings soar up in the distance, enormous digital billboards blazing from their tops. As always, she stops in front of the pedestrian crossing and looks up at those screens. Faces larger than life move enormous lips to speak inaudible words.

And if you are unable to forgive me, will you at least remember that I seek it of you?

The pale green trees undulate as a single mass, their flowers a riot of unbelievably beautiful colors.

Han-shan.

Back on the platform at Wangsimni, it wasn’t only the pain from the operation that caused her legs to tremble. When the train eventually roared into the platform, she staggered behind one of the metal chairs and hid herself, afraid that something inside her would make her throw herself in front of the solid mass of the train.

She’s a good woman, he thought. The kind of woman whose goodness is oppressive.

Basho,

Teishin,