Dae-Ho couldn’t fathom how the boy got this far out. The nearest village was more than half a mile to the north. Even if the boy came from the farm at the edge of the village, which judging by his soiled hands and diapers he more than likely did, it would have taken his little feet more than half an hour to arrive at the edge of this civilian dirt road. Dae-Ho figured the boy was the son of a prostitute. One of countless infants who ran wild outside as their mothers worked. Despite the fact that prostitution was illegal and punishable by death it remained the most common expense of government officials. No one spoke out about prostitutions rings that had girls abducted from homes and trained in the arts of satisfaction. And anyone who did speak out never spoke out again. This point in particular Dae-Ho had the most difficulty forgetting because his fiancée spoke out against this very thing. “Go home,” Dae Ho griped, trying not to even glance at the boy who stood barely a meter away from him, hoping somewhere in his imagination that if he ignored the boy long enough he’d simply go away. Though as Dae-Ho’s vision slipped into the corners of his eyes, he saw the boy staring at him with a reminiscent pout that brought to mind street beggars and stray dogs. The boy suffered from malnutrition and it appeared as obvious to Dae-Ho as the boy’s bulging belly button, now pointing him directly in the face. The boy began fussing in protest of his Dae-Ho’s lack of attention. Somewhere mixed in his undeveloped pronunciation, limited vocabulary and Kaesong dialect, words struggled desperately to surface. One of which sounded likewater , though in his southern North Korean accent it almost resembled the worddoor . But Dae-Ho didn’t pay enough attention to hear details in the boy’s accent. He was too busy hushing him, not simply with the flush of air between his teeth but with gestures and suggestive expressions that to his dismay only pushed the boy to fuss and fret louder and try even harder to squeeze the words between his infant lips. Then something did slip out. Amid the tumultuous exchange of swirls and slurs of his tongue, Dae-Ho heard the word, no . It was reminiscent and more so a flashback for Dae-Ho. He felt as if he suddenly tripped over the boy’s voice and fell hard into a memory from six months earlier. Their voices sounded the same, men and women, sobbing and pleading for their lives like children. Though unlike children their voices weren’t muffled by infancy but by the bag draped around their heads. Dae-Ho stood in front of them that night at the head of a firing squad. He never saw their faces and didn’t know what crime they committed but he did what he had done each time he was asked to do something questionable. He didn’t ask a question and instead listened to a propaganda conscience that whispered, “pull the trigger.” And he did. There was the crackle of bullets, screams, shrieks then someone said in a whispered that carried in the wind, no . All of which should have gone routine for Dae-Ho but something just felt wrong about that night’s executions. Something besides the fact that with most other death sentences 112 theMeadow
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy ODQ3NA==