Crossing the road to work, Pak Yeung-Sung waited for the cleaners to pass by as they swept that odd smell of decomposition away. He hesitated in the middle of the street, watching them. Yet the morning traffic forced him forward, ignoring the mess, the crowds knocking him through like a bony pinball. On the other side, hungry people buffeted him on their way to the supermarket. But still Yeung-Sung did not enter, lingering by the front entrance.
Instead, he continued to watch the street cleaners as they continued their work. Down the street their hazmat suits of blue shone in the morning sun. They were splashed with red, so much and so often -and were hardly given new ones- that the colours mixed together. To him the clumped group rolled downhill like a bushel of mutated grapes.
Yeung-Sung looked down at his sodden raincoat. It was thick and plastic, and now smeared with the smell and sight of death. His mother handed it to him before he left and he resisted, thinking it unnecessary. It turned out well, but he drew a frown and plucked at it, annoyed at being wrong. Sighing, he took it off with thick-gloved hands. He held it in clenched fists, his tendons splaying out of his wrists, strung tight and then finally he stepped in the door into something…squishy.
“Ugh.”
He turned his feet back for a second, scraping as much as he could off onto the bristled doormat. His frown sunk deeper and he shot a final look out into the left at the street cleaners -but they had already gone. He groaned with discontent, ‘The day hasn’t even started yet.’ But he wasn’t too angry about it. It’s not like they got paid.
Like most mornings this one was filled with activity. You could’ve seen it or heard it and, of course, the people most active were the ones most desperate to survive. Now, this alone was nothing new. Biology had long come down on that principle, the fittest; best killer; forager; farmer; ruler; inventor. They survived and prospered, each advancing up the scaffolding laid down by the civilisation before them.
And that would have continued in much the same way except for that this morning, and all mornings of the past three years, there wasn’t much scaffolding left. Systematically, modern society had been dismantled. It was left leaning over -but still somewhat functional- for years until it was time for a last push to topple it, with some hidden figure laughing behind it all, “Jenga, bitch!”
The world’s economy was destroyed in a matter of minutes. Financial records; credibility; faith. Gone. In short, money had ceased to function.
Inside the store, Yeung-Sung noticed that the crowd today was packed. People were stuffed among every aisle, standing bored under empty shelves. The queue that led to the tills was so large that he thought, if they wanted, they could’ve just made a spire of their own, a scaffolding from spine and guts to reach the ceiling (where rations were dropped in by drones). The thought made him queasy, becoming strangely aware of nasal mucus circulating in their tracts, lurching and sloshing.
He took steps away from them, trying to ignore the bustling line that was reminiscent of refugee crises on the news. Except, he knew these people were all native, neighbourhood Koreans. He knew that there was little choice for them but to come here and hope that, as one of the few active stores left, they had a good chance at their allotted rations. Would there be a cut-off point today? he wondered. Where would it be? How many people would be turned away and forced to go home empty handed, their stomach grumbling?
As this was the case, the aisles of the supermarket were full of watchful eyes, friends and strangers alike keeping their guard up. It was in everyone’s best interest not to break out of line, or cause distress in any way. Because if it did, measures would be taken -hosings, shrieking sirens, and other less pleasant forms of riot control- affecting everyone, especially employees like Yeung-Sung that would have to work overtime to clean up. So rarely would anyone try anything rash. Most of them had been there long enough to understand that.
Still, the line crawled all over with signs of discomfort. Everyone from the worn-down ‘customers’ at the front who had been in since late last night, all the way to frustrated newcomers whose line of sight of the tills were obscured by a mass of bodies; everybody itched at their necks. They all scratched their shoulders like a contagious yawn, careful not to dislodge the ID cards hanging down beneath. It was a necessity to have them handy at all times, so it became the fashion to hang them like a lanyard with strips of fabric, cloth, interwoven cords -whatever was most convenient or fancy for you. Each member hid their grade of citizenship under their shirts, fearful of jealousy, of discrimination.
Usually, the sight of the queue stressed Yeung-Sung out. And he still felt a little unsettled by the gore he’d seen earlier. However, he decided not to let it get to him and tried to shrug it off, putting on his good-mood-face. Rearranging his thoughts, the crowd now reminded him of a huge worm he saw once at his grandparents’, wriggling between the fallen snippets of branches.
Taking his eyes off it, he moved to the side way that led into the back area. He looked for his guard that would escort him past them. Absent-mindedly he tried to get past it all. He hoped that one day he would be able to go back out to the countryside one day and stay by those woods again. One day, yes, when this was all over.
Naturally, he thought, this whole Depression thing will blow over, as all times of crisis do. Eventually. It might take five years or twenty, but Yeung-Sung held on to a certainty that it would. And he’d had enough of the city; farming in a field well away from the rest of these problems, now that would be ideal.
A wary man in black and grey strode up to him and asked, “Employee?”
Yeung-Sung nodded with his mouth open. He just about held his tongue back from bantering with this guard. It wasn’t who he was expecting: He was new. Just when he thought he had gotten to know the regular roster of the store, gaining their trust over the past 6 months, a new one showed up. Their co-operation was required for his plans and now they were suddenly under threat of being exposed. This…this was strange.
Keeping expressions of his annoyance at a minimum he followed the security officer down the hall, contemplating how he could entice him into his dealings.
He was tall, wide, bulky, with loaded and prepared belts. The guard certainly looked the part. More so than any others save for his hair perhaps, which was tied into one of those shaved top knots. It split apart, flaring in thick bangs of hair. It’s kind of like a palm tree.
The island of hair swayed over a sea of shimmering baldness. It kept his attention, and Yeung-Sung was glad for it, because he knew that as the two of them walked all the way through the store by the empty, bold-white side lane that hundreds of envious eyes were in turned trained on them. As always, nobody moved to follow them. No one tried to skip the line by this path -which used to be their bakery- as they knew the cost. And what else would that be in a world with its money absent, except life?
Even distracted, Yeung-Sung found it hard to keep his stare steeled ahead of him. Their two pairs of footsteps, his and the guard’s, bounced off the marbled floor echoing off each other. His were fluffy pitter pats beneath the shadow of the guard’s much heavier boots. He noticed the sound all the more because as soon as they started walking, the background murmuring in the crowd had abruptly died down. His head almost smoked with the heat of a thousand focused leers. His pores screamed open, his body hair pulled at him to turn and face his predators. He sweat. It dripped down his neck and pooled in the shoulder of his cotton shirt. Then, like his fear was a wound exposing itself, it streamed thick down his arm and onto his hands. He was going to do it! He was going to look.
Yeung-Sung wrenched his face tight, shutting his eyes. He held his breath in the middle of the lane and scrunched the raincoat in his sweaty grip. The noise must’ve caught his escorts attention, for he swung his neck back at him. Then, as the enforcer turned with inhuman movements -reptilian almost- his topknot acted like a rudder and halted the spin so that his face slit evenly down the middle of Yeung-Sung’s line of sight. The snap of his clothing caught in Yeung-Sung’s ear and he looked to see the speed of his action unfurl before him. He gulped. His heartbeat accelerated -decelerated- unsure of itself.
The officer simply said, “Hurry Up.”
There was no judgement. No quip or smirk. Yeung-Sung regarded a man with a face that simply ‘saw’. And by virtue of seeing for so long, and being good at it, there was an implied coldness hovering in his eyes like a fog, that told him that this guard had seen things only meant for seeing, not for repeating. It confirmed what his appearance suggested; that this was no ordinary enforcer, no civilian who served simply because but a fully-fledged, trained government agent. He was trouble.
They entered the back area with the guard leading. To their right was the locker room which Yeung-Sung veered towards. The guard went further off, into the bathroom behind it. Taking off his gloves, he looked behind to see if he could spot who else was here through the open doorway into the employee room.
His manager Yi-Hwa was by the coffee machine, his back to Yeung-Sung. Sugar spilled from his spoon as he piloted nervous hands. On the left, sitting and fidgeting was Mi-Jung. She was slyly trying to adjust her bra under her outfit, in as few motions as possible. When she caught Yeung-Sung’s gaze she turned scarlet and puffed up. But he kept wandering his eyes back in her direction as something about her attitude always bothered him. From the right, his friend Il-Suk paced by the door and look at the two, chuckled, then continued his rotation around the room, playing a handheld console that he had managed to acquire recently.
Yi-Hwa then turned around. He took a sip, then coughed, saying, “Let’s go, Yeung-Sung. Stock’s almost ready, we’re going out in five.”.
Nodding, Yeung-Sung swapped out his clothes for the black polo, slacks and work boots of the supermarket. They were well worn. He wore them so often that as he stood straight up again, stretching his arms out, he felt a level of awareness, of energy coming into him, surfacing from inside in waves like a dusky photosynthesis.
Then, a loud toilet flush dampened whatever solemn moment he was about to have. A strained retching followed, resetting that uncomfortable feeling into Yeung-Sung’s mind. The extra bathrooms weren’t a planned feature of the back area, and so their walls were so thin that all kinds of unnecessary, detailed sounds seeped through. Yeung-Sung couldn’t help but zone in on them, like how the guard’s zip took two pulls to close fully, or how one of his shoes sounded hollower than the other -like a prosthetic.
He ducked into the employee room, mostly dressed, to avoid unintentionally listening to any more of the enforcer’s private noises. Pushing the thought of it out of his mind, he mumbled his hellos to the few co-workers around. Luckily the walls of this room, especially customer side, were much thicker. Only a fuzzy white noise permeated through, a thousand voices reduced to a tickle in the greengrocer’s ear. They kept the remaining few minutes before they started within themselves, with each of them mentally, emotionally preparing themselves for the day using their own method. This was not a job one could do with an easy heart.
From the opposite side of the room, Ming-Lee leaned in, too tall to walk through the doorway without stooping. He leaned against the frame. The stock is finished then, thought Yeung-Sung. Filled with a smug happiness completely angular to the mood of the room, he was a guy in his own world, one filled with the recycled plots of old soaps and dramas. He tensed his legs, juggling his centre of balance between them. To Yeung-Sung and everyone else in the room he was practically hopping up and down with happiness.
“Y’all ready?” he asked.
Yi-Hwa answered him quickly. “Yes. Let’s get out there.” He pointed a finger at each of them. “Gong; Till 2. Yeung-Sung; Till 3, Mi-Jung; Till –“.
“Wait!” she interrupted, as her name was called.
Yi-Hwa folded his finger back in.
“We’re not waiting for Park?”
Yi-Hwa turned his wrist towards him, checking the time on his watch -a luxury item, if it still ran- and he grew stern. “No. There’s no time.”
He peeked out past Ming-Lee into the corridor. Out towards the customers. He bobbed it back, cheeks pouched like a meerkat, and stated, “It is our duty to be consistent. We are all that some people have”. He scanned over his team to make sure they understood. “Let’s not allow them to get too antsy. Miss Park will arrive soon, I’m sure. And when she does, I’ll give her a talking to.” He held a finger straight up as he began to leave the room. “I’m going to check the guards on the perimeter. One minute and we start.”
Mi-Jung huffed, not satisfied with his reply. Gong Il-Suk yawned, rubbing his eyes with his free hand, console still in the other. As for Yeung-Sung, he wasn’t sure how to react. Previously he’s had reason to have both respect and disappointment for Yi-Hwa. Yet neither ever felt cemented. If any of us thought we could do his job better, he would gladly step down. But he knows that nobody envies his position. So can I blame him for being a little irrational, a little bit of an asshole at times? He kept his thoughts to himself -hoping that no events would force one of them to replace him any time soon- and looked around at his co-workers as several enforcers reported to Yi-Hwa in the corridor, discussing protocols for the day.
MI-Jung hung her head, resting on the rim of the round table that had been there longer than any of them had lived. She looked to be deep in some sort of breathing exercise and it was working, for as he watched her face whitened back to its natural colour. However, it only partially calmed her, as he saw her fumbling, fingers squeezing, compressing each other in pinches and vicegrips. It looked painful.
Groaning, Il-Suk walked up beside him. “Smaller delivery again, I’m guessing,” he whispered.
“Or stolen,” Yeung-Sung added.
Il-Suk raised an eyebrow at him, and then the door burst open behind them.
Shim Park slid into the room like a tram on heels. Her entrance cracked some of the newer walls, obvious against the white. There was a noticeable tear in her denim jacket, Yeung-Sung noticed as she promptly sifted her arms out of it. She turned to the lockers and once again there was a brief quiet. Inside the employee room, everybody stood around and waited for her, looking at the lime coloured flooring.
Park came back with a face that suppressed everything but her intense annoyance.
Yi-Hwa wandered back into the room, ready to announce the start of the day, but then spotted her. “Ah, glad to have you with us, Park.” Immediately forgetting her, he turned to the rest and said, “Let’s go.”
They filed out with Yeung-Sung at the back. Leaving the room, he looked once to Park and saw the outline of her face soften slowly, before flowering into a carnivorous smile. It chilled his spine as he stood with the rest in the corridor. All of them had to harden themselves up before a shift, but Shim Park was different. Before work she needed to relax herself and allow herself to become approachable.
In the corridor were the register boxes, stacked by the entrance. Yi-Hwa held his hand out to keep them for a moment while the last few guards made their way to their stations first. Then, without warning, Park strode out past them, scooping up her till from the side and walking out into the front. They all had no choice then but to follow so that they could seem like a unit -which was the whole point of waiting for her in the first place. First, Mi-Jung grabbed hers, holding it with her red fingernails peering out from underneath, resting the container low on her hip. Then Il-Suk picked his up, pulling it out one side then the other. He groaned again, resisting his duties to the last. Yeung-Sung could tell that he was already thinking about playing on his handheld again, thinking about it laying on the employee room table all alone.
Lastly, it was Yeung-Sung’s turn. He lifted it with the weight on his knees -and almost dropped it when a different guard stumbled through the doorway.
“Bitch!” he yelled down the corridor. Clutching at one side of his face, he searched for Park with the other side. Hearing him, she glanced over and gave him a wink. Standing in his way, he trembled with anger and Yeung-Sung fully expected him to launch into her. But he didn’t. Jogging around him to meet with his team, he left the injured guard where he was, locked in his fury.
The floodlights illuminated their every move once they were all inside the main area. And for them, it revealed the horde of civilians that they had to attend to before the end of the day. Yeung-Sung heard the enraged guard shout once more. Park was in front of him now, and he could see her smile widen -loving the attention- and that chill in his spine sparked again. Though he definitely still felt wary around her, he also had to admit that that he admired her too. It was strong wills like hers that would reverse the Depression, that would get us all out of this situation.
Yeung-Sung sat at his till. It was an ordinary supermarket cashier’s counter -with a conveyor belt, glass surface to scan infra-red through, a large register- but it was walled off into a long booth. Like a toll gate. But unlike in the stores back when they used old money, the conveyor belt never moved, the scanners were long devoid of any laser and the register was filled to the brim with only stacks of brown paper bags. And beneath all that, Yeung-Sung’s till in particular had something special; a secret box haphazardly built into the underside.
Sitting with his back straight and pretending to look ahead, smiling to his co-workers, Yeung-Sung dropped a hand down and felt its contents.
About…fifty. Nice.
Lifting his arm back up, he looked over his shoulder at the stocker for today and gave him a slight nod. But it was Ming-Lee, and he somehow managed to turn a wink back into a theatrical routine, with a grandiose flourish that involved his whole upper body. Yeung-Sung folded in his forehead and cringed in confusion of it. This completely defeats the purpose of being subtle.
While turning back to face the day, he quickly observed the floor and checked for any reactions that someone might’ve had to this. Not that it mattered; all of them knew about the secret of his box -even unlikely allies like MI-Jung and his manager have even helped him to set this up before. Still, it never hurt to keep his non-compliance from public view. Especially with the case of his new guard, whom he still hasn’t sussed out. Clearly, he was no ordinary enforcer, but why would he be here unless he had some streak in him somewhere that wasn’t wholly subservient to the estate? That’s what Yeung-Sung’s working theory was; that his assignment here was a punishment.
The enforcer did not seem like one to chat with, and stood over Yeung-Sung, making him deflated. Rippling through a stack of bags he sighed. He missed his old guard. This one felt so oppressive, standing there watching every movement, everything at once like a perfect camera. It felt impossible to escape his sight, with numerous eye tattoos lodged in his face that followed you around. Not that they seemed real in anyway -they were simple black lines after all- but Yeung-Sung had nowhere near the amount of confidence to try and attract any more of his attention after earlier. In reality, the guard was at attention like any other, patient, but his menacing hulk maintained his presence all by itself. Yeung-Sung wasn’t alone in his view, seeing discomforted customers from afar rippling out pointed fingers. Most everyone at the front were regulars, and they were all too aware of the change, as it affected them too. Mostly in a negative way, Yeung-Sung thought dimly.
The guard of course paid them no mind. Yeung-Sung would’ve bet he’s had experience with this sort of thing, and noticed that he instead focused his attention upwards, up at the booth at the other end of the store. This was a security room, high up enough to be equivalent to the fourth story. Yi-Hwa stayed there during the shift, monitoring from above, using the intercom as he saw fit, which right now was to start the morning welcome speech.
It came suddenly, letting off its mechanical growl out of each corner of the store as Yi-Hwa picked up the intercom. “A very good morning to all and welcome! For any newcomers, here’s how we do things…”
Yeung-Sung hated the thing Yi-Hwa became whenever he spoke in his booth. It felt like a mixture of ego and laughter -loving the power that was provided- and of a public servant drugged up with fear. Whatever it took, he would overlay the day with quaint notices like it was just a regular Thursday, like theirs was one of any number of supermarkets the public could go to -maybe they had a loaded loyalty card or heard about the discounts for buying in bulk. Except no one was a newcomer. No one came to buy either, only to receive ‘appropriate’ sustenance, and listening to the speech was optional, so the gates had already been opened with the first customers piling at the entrance.
Yeung-Sung’s first customer barged down the make-shift corridor. He was still a kid, by the look of him, wearing baggy tracksuits bottoms and a puffer jacket that spilled out on one side. Yeung-Sung clicked open the register. Hoisting out the top bag, he opened it up and asked, “Class?”
The kid had his ID at the end of a black cord of thick plastic that hugged his neck like headphones. He pulled on it. [D Class]
He held it out, watching Yeung-Sung stubbornly until he was given a nod. The guard grunted, wanting them to move it along as Yi-Hwa continued nattering on in the background, describing what ‘may’ or ‘may not’ happen should somebody not abide by the rules.
Yeung-Sung felt a stifling in is throat, like a lump the size of an apple core. Whether it was for the kid or just from the paranoia of possibly being discovered, he wasn’t sure. Swallowing it, feeling coarse ridges down the walls of his neck. He continued the rote.
“Staple?”
“Rice. Two, please” the kid answered. Swiftly. Concisely.
It was a smart choice, Yeung-Sung had thought. But it didn’t change the fact that because he was of the lowest class, he could only choose one other item.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
He went to the most common next choice, “Protein?”
The kid shook his head inside the oversized neck of the jacket, which bobbed its bubbly layers.
Shocked, Yeung-Sung went down the list, “Supply?” expecting him to take the next best option. However, he starving kid shook his head again, his neck so tiny and frail.
Yeung-Sung leaned in. “You’re sure? Don’t be stupid here, you get only three things, and just rice is not enough for someone your age”.
The boy’s expression never changed. His mouth was sealed beneath acne-scarred lips.
“Come on” Yeung-Sung pleaded.
A flicker of hesitation appeared in the boy’s eyes.
“Let’s go, Yeung-Sung!” his unfamiliar guard yelled, “Are you always this slow?”
“Commodity please,” the kid whimpered, out of the enforcer’s earshot. As he did, the enforcer took the first of two steps that he’d need to close the distance. He was intimidating enough from afar, Yeung-Sung decided, but felt the urge to reason with the child. He saw in him someone with the fortitude to survive, but not the self-restraint to make it through long periods of suffering and withdrawals.
“Kid trust me. Just take some meat -chicken, beef- don’t kill yourself for a treat,” he said. The guard approached.
“I know you’ve probably waited in line since yesterday to get a chance at this but I’m telling you its not worth it. Please.” He whispered quickly to him before the two both tilted back and the guard butted himself into the conversation, his hands itching around the holster at his side like a warning.
“It’s for my sister,” he breathed just as he moved back, his eyebrows anxiously creasing, convulsing as he took in the fearsome sight of the guard. Yeung-Sung noticed the scraggly attempts of a beard under the kid’s chin.
Yet Yeung-Sung refused to take be dissuaded. “No, take some soy, at least.”
The guard analysed both faces before him before landing onto Yeung-Sung and asking “Is the customer not complying? Then stamp him and move on.”
The kid’s eyes swelled up. Luckily, he was smart enough not to answer back.
“Eh… no it’s fine,” Yeung-Sung said, turning to pack the bag with the first two items. “It’s my fault. Still waking up.” He pulled his face into something that he thought would resemble a smile and hoped that the guard wouldn’t take matters into his own hands. He saw the kid breathe out in relief behind the massive presence of the guard then went over to the stockpile tables.
He grabbed the items: Two portions of rice. Then he walked over to the commodity table. At hip level, small packs of things not absolutely necessary for survival were laid out all over. These were the scarcest form of ration. He hovered over them -teabags, biscuits, alcohol, cheese- what did he want? He thrust his hand into the menagerie blind, not trusting himself to make a fair decision and placed the featherweight parcel into the shopping bag. Hoping it was something nice, he walked back to the counter.
On the inside curve of the till was a stamper. Yeung-Sung rested the bag down and took it up with one hand, then prompted the kid for his ID with the other. He reluctantly drew it out again, his shoulders taught, concerned whether the walls of the impromptu corridor really secured the secrecy of his identity, not that he had anything worth taking except his name. He handed it to Yeung-Sung who turned it over in his hand, its cord resisting the pull.
On the back of the ID was a calendar in boxes. Yeung-Sung looked for today’s date, which lay blank at the end of intermittent rows of stamps. The irregularity of the pattern concerned him. You can’t be missing this many day of food. Are you okay? Pausing with the stamper centimetres above the yellowed card, Yeung-Sung felt an influx of questions he wanted to ask the kid. All of them resolved in the thought that, if he stamped his ID now, the kid would go on for up to five days with nothing of real sustenance except two cup-fulls of rice. But in the end as he had always done, as was his job, he forced himself to stamp away the child’s food privileges.
It was not his place, too risky a gift to grant someone he hadn’t come to know. The kid would’ve noticed. He would’ve tried to get more food again. In the same store probably -Yeung-Sung doubted that he had the smarts to use a different one. Inevitably, this action would expose Yeung-Sung, draw unnecessary surveillance into his activities and in the end…well he would be ended.
Handing back the marked ID, Yeung-Sung caught the kid’s reaction and tried to give him a hopeful smile, unsuccessfully. The kid had already resigned himself to his fate. His face a little softer than before, he tucked the ID back under his puffed-up jacket and then held his hands together, open, eagerly awaiting his rations -and that commodity he waited so long to have a chance to grab. This part of the job was the worst for Yeung-Sung; which is why he had the hidden box.
Out of this compassionate habit he wandered down the side of the till with his right hand spidering along and found it within reach. He picked the first thing that he felt out and held it like a ball within his palm, unbeknownst to anyone watching. Rubbing his thumb over its soft top of it he felt a fuzz, not hair but the spiked vine of a beef tomato.
His hand jerked back up with the fruit safely in its grasp. He came up from behind the brown bag while simultaneously, the second shadowy footsteps of the guard followed his voice,
“What’s taking so long?”
Yeung-Sung froze. The guard ‘saw’ into him. He looked back in a snap, glared directly into it. He dared not to look away, not to betray the movements of his arm awkwardly down by his side, plopping back the tomato carefully, trying not to bruise its skin. He pushed the bag into the kid’s hands.
Talk, he told himself.
“We’re done. The -eh-, the stamp wasn’t wet enough. Had to do it a few times” he lied.
The kid bowed and with his ‘shopping’ under his chin like it was something precious (a puppy perhaps) ran behind Yeung-Sung and the guard, out quickly through the exit lane. Clearly tensed, holding something on his side, the guard watched the kid scamper off for a moment before confronting Yeung-Sung. The next customer had already approached and was anxiously waiting for this huge man to be finished, not wanting to interrupt.
“You’re intimidated by me?”
“O-of course.”
“Well,” the guard said,” Don’t be.”
His topknot swayed in the direction of the crowd like a traffic warden telling them to wait. “As long as you follow the rules, properly, you have nothing,” he said, emphasising ‘nothing’ with an angry snort, “-nothing to worry about.”
Unsure of how, or even if he was meant to reply he said “Right, okay “, then added, “thank you.” He tried to start with the customer, but the guard shifted over and blocked him: He wasn’t finished. Coughing roughly, he brought himself in close enough for Yeung-Sung to get a whiff of him -a scent like a ham sandwich salted with deodorant- and warned him.
“But if you ever do decide to break protocol,” he said, smiling darkly at the frightened mother behind him, “then you’re of no use to the state.” He tapped his holster in a sensual manner. The small arms pocketed within it pressed into his girth, the gun almost disappearing underneath his uniform-covered gut-. “Do we understand each other?” he finished.
Nodding, Yeung-Seung replied formally. “Understood”.
After that he decided to give the produce box a rest for the day. There was no way around it: he had to be cautious of this guard. He’d have to endure his tensions and mood swings and ignore his own conscience in the face of emaciated men and women. He managed to will away embarrassment by not looking directly at the customers. Especially difficult was ignoring the disappointed few who had gotten used to his service. Among them were some he knew well, and he could sense that they didn’t understand that he had no choice, feeling them cultivate a resentment towards him.
Hours passed and the crowd diminished, slowly, bringing down the ambient roar of the supermarket. After noon only a few hundred remained, accepting whatever few items remained -the store no longer giving options. There was at least some rice. Almost always, anyway. And then it was time for lunch.
Gathering into the back area, as soon as Yeung-Sung lost sight of his guard he pulled Il-Suk aside.
“What do you know about this new guard of mine?” he asked. He didn’t try to keep the panic out of his voice but let it seep out and tremble amongst his words. It felt good to release it.
“Not much, man, let go of me- “he insisted, pulling apart Yeung-Sung’s grip on his collar.
Yeung-Sung hadn’t realised that he was practically pinning his friend to the wall. He hopped back, backing away with his arms up. “Sorry. I’m a little on edge right now. This guy – he’s hard to the core this one. Not like a regular civilian enforcer. What’s he even doing here? Il-Suk, I think – I think he was sent here.”
Yeung-Sung paced in a little corner of the room, pressing his fingers to his mouth in worry. The two were alone inside the employee room. The rest were smokers, so he thought that they must’ve had a little while to discuss this and figure out what to do, in private, their senses peeled for any signs of entry.
“What?” Taking a sharp breath, Il-Suk walked up and shook Yeung-Sung out of his panicked thoughts.
“Yeung-Sung, you weren’t told?” he asked. There was a suggestion in his voice that Yeung-Sung did not want to admit he could’ve heard -I liked that old guard.
“No-“
Il-Suk motioned to the entrance, saying, “Didn’t you see the clean-up crew as you came in?”
Inside the corner, Yeung-Sung sank with both hands over his head, his face inside the crooks of his elbows. His stomach knotted itself. His organs were reduced to tumbleweed, scratching up his insides. He felt the hot taste of blood in the back of his palette, a feeling that coursed down all through his body, his feet especially burning where he stepped in bits earlier. He brought himself up, conscious of the fact that at someone could come in at any moment and sat at the employee table with his body like deadweight. He didn’t want to talk -there was no want - but he had to know. “How- what happened to him?
“Shit”. Il-Suk rushed across the table to cup his hands over his friend’s. He bowed in reverence over him, trying to share in his grief. Yeung-Sung simply felt empty now, the rush of emotions evaporating leaving him a husk. He noticed that the handheld was still far on the other side of the table -meaning Il-Suk was truly trying to be a friend here, that this wasn’t a ploy. Since that was the case, he accepted his condolences, bowing his head too, closing his eyes together with him for several solemn moments.
“I’m so sorry,” Il-Suk told him. “I thought, you know, that somebody else would have been responsible enough to report the news to you.” He palmed his forehead, making a moist clap and swiped up, squeezing the hand through his hair. “Not me”. He was bent back in his chair and holding on to the top of the table to keep himself from drooping, when he noticed the handheld. In a sudden rage, he swiped it further away so that it was completely beyond reach.
Sighing, he stated,” You’re right, man. I do spend too much time in my own head, away from the real world.” He shrugged. “But, I guess, can you blame me?” Il-Suk cursed once again. “Of course they expected me to explain it to you.” He looked at the back door with fierceness tightening up his expression as Yeung-Sung continued to try and take in today as a whole.
After a point, Yeung-Sung thought that he had achieved a level of power of experiencing death, that he wouldn’t be fazed by it, as everyone else seemed to be. It was something to be stepped over like an inconvenient part of the landscape. Or it was to be pulled out of your head like a weed that didn’t belong there. It’s been like this for three years. He’d seen it enough. But it was only now that he understood just how lucky he had been in his position, protected and provided for as long as his service continued. In his acceptance of his fate he kept to his own corner praying for change, tending to the small group of people that he cared about, rationalising his disdain for any other out of selfishness. And though he kept that corner of compassion as compressed as he could, it extended its reach enough so that death, at last, had come to him in a personal, unavoidable way -and he needed to know why.
“You didn’t answer my question, Il-Suk,” came his cold words.
“Huh?”
“What,” he breathed, “happened?”
As Il-Suk opened his mouth to tell him the two employees were suddenly aware of the back door swinging open. The others were back. Oh, come on! Il-Suk jumped up like he was going to follow the group out but landed by Yeung-Sung’s shoulder and gave him a rushed, hushed explanation.
“They say it was rebels. Park must have given them the info. Look at her, you don’t think she’d do it?”
Yi-Hwa and Park were chatting, all cheery and oblivious to the mourning that had been taking place inside the employee room. Yi-Hwa went on ahead to fix a drink while Park stayed, sorting through a stack of papers. Shortly after, she approached the two at the table and that cheer from before curtained away revealing that wolf-cub smile she had -ferocious; cute. Watching her, picturing her as the reason why this day had been all crocks of shit for Yeung-Sung, he gritted his teeth. A rotary glance saw her catch his expression and she smirked at him -oblivious or not- sending a clear message about their relationship to each other. And her relationship to the world around her.
Yeung-Sung had imagined nearly every customer he ever served during the years, every stranger on the street -some even before the Depression- as hollow. Park was not like that. He sensed many things inside her, many things that possibly conflicted with each other, screaming just under her skin. Hatred; power; change -it was something like that but unidentifiable, unrestrained. Unlike his manager, Yeung’s Sung felt a combination of not only fear but respect for Park. He looked just then at Yi-Hwa as if he was comparing them and, although Yi-Hwa glared back, making a mighty show, his aura was a husk behind Shim Park’s.
As though Yi-Hwa sensed this judgment he sneered at him from across the room.
“Finished staring, Yeung-Sung? Yeah, good, ‘cause break is over.” He clapped his hands as the last employee -Mi-Jung- re-entered the employee room, with that familiar flush of embarrassment about her face.
“Right” Yi-Hwa cheered, “back to work!”
During the second half of the shift, Yeung-Sung kept his eyes on guard. With his eyes red and throat craggy, he hardened himself and looked for small victories. Two items. Three. He performed his job as was expected until he felt his guard’s suspicions fade. He found patterns in the way that the topknotted man surveyed the store. Ignoring the customers attentive needs, he gave them the basics and dropped in single piece of fruit, at times a vegetable. Then, he pushed them along on their way asserting their quiet cooperation with a hurried flicker over at the tattooed guard unfamiliar to the patrons, who sped past with sweet iceberg’s hidden in bags, as if they were being smuggled under the blind spot of a lighthouse.
Yeung-Sung’s workflow increased overall. He was up and down with each order in seconds before stamping and shooing, which kept the line moving with the smooth rigour of a stretching serpent. The guard even nodded his approval once or twice, as his queue remained consistent, while at the other tills there were hold ups, small little outcries or demands that were solved with loud solutions. Throughout it all Yeung-Sung had kept his focus. He had to help as many as he can, and he was loathe to leave any of the fruit to be discovered -or, in the best-case scenario, sent to waste. Executing his twin jobs had consumed so much of his attention that when he heard a faint, familiar voice say, “Pak dear, it’s me,” -he had hardly noticed.
Surprise cut him out of his mental loop. Processing his mother’s voice the instant that the enforcer looked away, Yeung-Sung let the pear that was in his rising hand leap out -over and behind him- as he swerved to see that it truly was her, wide-eyed in disbelief. He had to move. So he dove for it, with a desperate crack of speed he didn’t know he could draw upon. And in the whirl of motion his stamper fell to the floor also but unlike the fleshy quiet of the pear it clacked and rang out against the flooring.
Yeung-Sung’s mother leaned over the counter, concerned. “Oh, I didn’t mean to spook you like that.” She leaned further, her head reaching over the open register and examined him. “Are you alright, dear?” she asked. Under her simple dress her ID slipped out, the letter ‘C’ dancing its cord like a marionette.
He had it the ground hard. However, this was no time to go easy on himself. Pouncing back up, level to the counter he delivered the pear swiftly under the till and out of sight. Too quickly, though. Immediately after, Yeung-Sung felt the pain of a strained ligament from the nook of his left forearm that sparked an angry message into him.
“Ow” he let out, clutching reflexively at it, still kneeling by the till.
He heard a distinct click. “Ma’am” a newly familiar voice said from the same direction, “step away from the register”.
NO.
Yeung-Sung knew his mother and could have described in one word: stubborn. Even though she was slightly above his line of sight -he had the full view of the underneath of the till- he imagined her perfectly well with her arms out at her sides, cocked head, flared nostrils and ready to face-off with anyone cocky enough to sass her.
“What are you going to do, stamp me? My boy needs help, I’m his –“
The shot rang out as Yeung-Sung forced himself up and saw what was in his head played out in reality. A last footfall was overridden by a sound like a metallic tree trunk that snapped itself in half, tearing out throughout the store.
The many-eyed man who held the gun grunted, “That was only a warning shot”.
“-That’s my mother, you fuck!”
Yeung-Sung found a second dose of that adrenaline speed and vaulted the counter to be by his mother’s side, hoping to God, the state, the rebel movement- whatever there was left to hope in- that she was okay. Three different sounds -a scream; wail; shout- tore hooks in his throat trying to get out. But his vocal cords lay flat and he tasted aluminium all down to his sternum. Then he saw her.
“Arrgghh,” he moaned, a human-shaped guitar with the strings disdainfully detuned.
‘A warning shot’ appeared to mean ‘a non-lethal shot’. Quivering on one knee, Yeung-Sung’s mother was shot through the other foot. The impact was angular, skidding a trail of blood which dragged her foot back, painting over the shoeprints of today’s customers with the broad strokes of four toes. The point of final impact smoked and had nailed her to the floor.
He tore off the sleeves of his shirt. It was something he had seen somewhere, somehow and for some reason was the first thing that came into his mind. He applied it with pressure to his mother’s wound as she stared back at him with bloated eyes. Yeung-Sung came in close and let her bite his shoulder through the first beats of pain. Only moments later, her head faltered, so he let her rest on him -forehead to forehead-, feeling their warmth pulsate, juggling tension as if rowing a shared canoe.
“For fuck’s sake, get some help!” he ordered his looming guard, shouted it past him for everyone to hear. Of course, the ends of his corridor were already filling with the disembodied busts of people peeking around the corner. Yet they stayed out, stayed quiet like children, sneaking around the outskirts of their parent’s study. He thought that there would have been instructions bounced around, calls made by every second person. He was important, wasn’t he? But…
This is the Depression, he realized. He really had been lucky, grown lazy over the past few years while passively watching death wreck the lives of distant players. Now death had closed in a step further into his life. The shadowy steps- the fetid smells- the blackness all around him - he had been feeling its presence all day.
The enforcer stood uncaring before him. His gun was lowered but still very much a threat. His eyes ‘saw’ him again. He commanded him in that grunting voice of his,
“Get up. I don’t care if she’s the secretary of state, she broke protocol”, he hoisted Yeung-Sung up by the neck, continuing, “she didn’t listen to orders.”
Struggling in his grip, Yeung-Sung pulled his fist backwards, loading a punch in his arm like a spring.
He was hardly a rebel, but he didn’t like what was going on. He wasn’t part of a group -the government, rebels or any kid of self-serving collective. Yeung-Sung grew a few vegetables and in secret, handed them out. So, before he punched the enforcer he considered whether there was a line here he would cross; Would he accept the responsibility of going against the grain, or would he continue to live quietly, to lie in wait for the inevitable “movement” to come and wash him out from the institution that he was imprisoned in.
But before he made up his mind, he felt a tug at his ankle. He turned back. Looked down.
“Yeung-Sung, I’ll be fine” croaked his mother, “Don’t -don’t be stupid, don’t give up your life for a single second of revenge.”
To make her point she staggered to her feet. She gritted her teeth, blood expanding her head like a hot air balloon, forcing her limbs to rise. And brought forth a wicked smile.
Yeung-Sung went to help her but she held him to stillness with a look and she limped haggardly, withdrawing from the corridor. The queue parted; nobody came to her aid, but they let her through. Watching her, Yeung-Sung felt lashes of shame and then, as the sprinklers were suddenly set off, he braced his teeth up at the control booth. He squinted in disgust, trying to make out Yi-Hwa through the wet spray.
“Stay calm everyone” the intercom groaned, as if it could feel the artificial rain, “Service will resume in a few minutes while we re-stock the last items for today. Thank you for your patience”. A harsh noise followed -he must’ve put the mic down- but underneath a moderate static fuzz, Yi-Hwa was still audibly talking, muttering to someone else like they were in the room with him. “-Him? Oh, yeah, he would be the one that was at the third till. Oh wait, the mic is still- “. It was cut off.
Yeung-Sung backpedalled, hitting his counter. Confusion rang in his head and all around him, with all his co-workers flocking to his till. Even the enforcer looked confused. He shrugged his shoulders and nodded past the other workers towards the back rooms. “Take your few minutes, civilian,” he said, perhaps a little less coldly than before, “Clean yourself up.” Yeung-Sung was thrust into the fray.
“Are you okay, man?”
“Who is asking for you?”
“Maybe you should take a break.”
The last one was Shim Park. She stood a stride away from everyone else with her arms folded. Yeung-Sung still sensed that energy, blazing within her even as she spoke. Her eyes kindled while looking him over and the flash seemed to say “Run”.
Yeung-Sung came back swiftly to his counter and grabbed his till, as well as the box under it in one lurch, forcing it from the desk. Something else was going on and he could only have come to one conclusion as to what it was. Wet from the sprinklers, he found it difficult to keep a tight grip on the boxes. Yet he sauntered backwards into away from the tills, keeping the fruit box lidded by the till. As he was leaving the main area of the store, he felt the rain like a breath from death, splashing on his neck like iced worms. And, he noticed another sound join the buzz of confusion; the sprinklers; the static.
It was a march. Like leather ants, a force of men burst in through the front doors and windows of the store. Splitting into two lines, they advanced through opposite ends, their unisonal steps rippling through, inciting a further level of panic into the store. And it was clear they searched for him. Just as he saw this, Yeung-Sung disappeared into the back hallway.
Where could he go? Yeung-Sung breathed deep and tried to keep calm, annoyed that he was following Yi-Hwa’s orders even at this time. He looked and saw the door to the stockroom. It might give him some time. He thought about his stash of produce, hidden at points around inside. The fruit -they were here because of the fruit! He was certain of the fact. Making his way to the end of the corridor his thoughts blew around him. Although it felt impossible to hold on to, for a moment he grasped an idea out of this whirlwind and was struck by the simplicity of it. Wait! If there’s no evidence, I can deny all of this.
Inside, he shut the door of the stockroom, bolting it and piling several boxes on it. He followed that by throwing a couple bags of rice, some sacks of potatoes against it.
Now that he was here, he could shut out the chaos. Here was quiet; a simple ‘ohmm’ of the overhead lights and the muffled demands of men far and away. Yeung-Sung rested against his improvised barricade and gave himself a moment of solace.
Around him was a stockroom large enough to warrant the title of warehouse. It was simple but well organised. Grey walls combined with brown boxes. Running between it all were veins of dark iron scaffolding and huge arteries; crusted red rebar pillars that held the whole place up. Yeung-Sung worked his eyes hard, trying to remember where he had stored his bounty, skipping through visual information like a boxer does rope. It blurred together into a void. But he shook his head, scampered up the nearest scaffolding and trusted his instincts to help him find them.
And he did. Lifting his boxed vegetables onto each level before scaling it himself he came upon the grove he had created, hidden on the inside of a cube of crates. He thought first about drawing it closer around him, hunkering down and waiting for the search to be well over -but that was an optimistic strategy. Instead, he aimed for the roof.
On the outside alley of the storehouse were the main stairs up as well as a mechanical lift. There was also a way up through the control room. However, in the warehouse there was also a hidden hatch up; obscured by over-stacked containers. It came up from behind the other entrances in an awkward way, and so had fallen out of use, many even forgetting it even existed. Yeung-Sung was counting on that.
That hatch was his new goal, but it wasn’t as simple as just reaching it. He still had to transfer the entirety of his fruit stash up a further two levels of scaffolding. They weren’t light. With each box, up each step, Yeung-Sung fought off the fatigue that had been building throughout this odd day. And as he made it to the latch a distant bulb popped, its lampshade swinging. The scaffolding rattled underneath him too. Yeung-Sung looked at that patch of darkness and he couldn’t help a gloomy thought enter, saying that despite whatever he did, what lay waiting for him atop the supermarket was certain death.
But what was strange was that no one had come. There was no banging on the barricade, nor was there any attempts at cutting through the sliding back door. Yeung-Sung wasn’t sure how long he had stuck himself here, but it definitely wasn’t that long. He wasn’t going to question it, he had finally decided and lifted the hatch of the roof. The sounds of the city in the early evening flooded down -traffic, trains and the general fuss of people trying to make themselves heard above the noise of the buildings that surrounded them.
Yeung-Sung flinched. Breathing in the air, taking in the light, he remembered how musty and weak the environment inside the warehouse was. He felt like he had broken the wall into the real world out of an artificial box. Even still, the light above him felt much brighter, heavier almost and he had to blindly haul himself up, his breaths reaching deeper, his muscles responding slower to his demands.
He visored himself from the intense sunlight with one hand. Looking around the roof, he tried to get his bearings. Since the waste skips were parked against the back wall all he had to do was tip the produce down into it. Them climb back down and pretend that he was only looking for some stock. Of course, then there would be the matter of whether his co-workers would sell his story out to the armed forces downstairs. Yeung-Sung sighed, still trying to avoid the glare of this unusually bright sunlight and walked towards the nearest curb.
He had made it this far. It was a busy day and yet he still managed to pull this out by pure desperation -honestly, Yeung-Sung was impressed by himself. I wonder how Yi-Hwa found out about my illegal fruit, he thought, but that thought was dropped after he looked properly down at the block around him.
It dawned on Yeung-Sung that the sun could not have possibly been so high in the sky this late. This brightness, he saw as he peeked up through slitted eyelids, came from a spotlight beaming down many, many feet above. It surrounded everything he saw in an artificial amber. He looked out to see its perimeter but was met with the sight of dozens of black dots hovering in the airspace; helicopters and drones. He rushed to the other side of the roof and down in front of the store was an oil slick of black; patrol cars; barricades; soldiers surrounding the entire perimeter. Collapsing down in awe at the edge of the roof he felt like he was in an experiment, implanted all this time in a greenhouse. This was bigger than his little grocery operation, he realised.