Clear Water rest > Bonds Gallery

On what looked like a TV or billboard,
there were photos of celebrities on TV programs.
It was a show filmed at the sea.

The TV showed a recording of them having fun and laughing.
I don't really like these couples.
I don't even watch TV.

After watching for a while,

I walked over to where our group was.

"Look here. The tape's been chewed up," the club leader said.
She unwound the tape from the camcorder and said,
"It looks fine on the outside."

I rewound the tape and pulled it out by hand,
and sure enough, there was a series of chew marks, as if it had gotten caught in the machine.
She skillfully straightened it out.
And then I checked the player mechanism.
I put the tape back in and started it up. There was a slight misalignment,
but after a while, it started working properly.

"Did I break it? How did the tape end up like that?" I don't remember touching that.

I think to myself,

"This camcorder is now prohibited from being taken out."

She said.

And then, winding a cassette next to her,
"I turn on another one and a song comes out."

"You're turning on the reverse side of side B."
Taepyeong tells me.
A peaceful pop song flows from the machine.
It can rewind and play simultaneously. I carefully examine the structure of the cassette player.

It's right next to me.

It's a stream.
It's a stream in the countryside where I used to live.
The weather is clear and warm.

The water is clear. The sun is very bright, but not hot.
It feels like early spring or early summer.
The stream is about ten feet wide.
It's a little deeper than my knees.

I sit on something like a tube,
and float on the water.
And then. A grape falls. I quickly grab it and eat it.

Youngho dropped it, but I picked it up and ate it.
Because of that, the book I was reading got a little wet.
But it's not a big deal.

Boulders, trees, and willows are planted on both sides of the stream.
I start circling the stream.
I slowly draw circles, floating in the water and spinning.
I feel a little speed. It's fun.
I'm deliberately circling in circles for fun.

The water is so clear you can see pebbles on the bottom.
A thin ripple crashes. Pebbles and sand are visible on the bottom.

Over there is H.
She was my wife in a dream from a past life, someone I loved.
- Let's just let her rest.
"I tell myself. She's also resting here by the stream.
I didn't want to bother her.

No worries, bright. Relaxed. We're spending time here, as if we're having a picnic by the stream.

.....
-2

I'm at the animal hospital I run.

It's a small, one-room shop,

long and rectangular.

There's only one door.

It's late at night, so
I'm trying to make room on the sofa in the middle and sleep.
I'm getting sleepy.
- Ah. I should lock the door...
I think this, and drowsiness is creeping in.
I'm half-asleep.

Then suddenly, customers come in.

They're a family.

They're laying out a pile of dog supplies and clothes on the counter.
They're looking to buy them. There must be four or five of them.
These are items that weren't in stock.
They're just left out because they usually don't sell.

I feel good. So I look at the price tags.
- These are all 10,000 won each. The customer tells me. "Okay. Ten thousand won." I figure I'll be fine with charging ten thousand won per item.
I don't look at the price tag. They were left in stock anyway, and since I'm buying this much,
I don't really need to pay the bill.

The store brightens. I think it's because the lights are on.
While these customers are paying,
a tall man comes in from outside.

He seems to be trying to get in, or doesn't know how to open the door.
"Open the door and come in."
I say as I open the door for him.

This man seems to be here to buy something.

I need to call a wholesaler to replenish the missing items.
Since I don't sell that many items,
I think I'll just stock up on a small quantity.

As I'm doing this,
I hear a voice from inside, from the back of the store.

"I'll pay you one thousand won for this. Take it."
He's telling me.

I quickly go inside. In the operating room, there were three or four Chinese people, wrapped in bandages and gauze on a tray.
They were injured and had treated themselves.

"No. Just go away!" I yell at them.
For someone to treat someone at a veterinary hospital? How poor must their circumstances be?
I wasn't angry that they had entered my hospital through the back door without my permission and treated someone in the operating room, but rather that they had no choice.
So I told them to just leave without paying.

I went through the back door they had left through.
In the operating room, there were several used bandages and gauze on a cart.
The back door led to a storage room, and I went there.
But—the left side of the storage room was a faucet used for another household's household.
The right side was a shelf where I kept my belongings.
I found this sight unfamiliar.

This is because the storage space was divided in half like this. What if people next to me take my stuff as I walk back and forth? I couldn't quite grasp the reality of my storage space being shared like this.
It felt so strange...

A young, slender girl put her arm around my shoulder.
She put her arm around my shoulder, feigning friendliness.
She looks only about 20. I'm a man now in my 50s.
Does she see me as her age?
I find this a little strange. I think.
She's Chinese.

She seems to have known me for a long time.
She smiles so intimately and speaks to me. It's in Chinese.
She says she has a cold.
I recall the Chinese I learned a long time ago,
and try to continue the conversation.
-Chinese) Young people these days...

But I can't remember the words or characters,
so I can't speak for long.
-Try to speak properly, she says. It doesn't sound like Korean, but like she's speaking from her heart.
-Wow, Hunhao. I say, "Good."

She's wearing short sleeves and a short skirt.
We're walking through a very spacious store.
The dim yellow lighting is bright.

I feel good being so close to this young woman, arm in arm.
I forget my age.

Because she's so friendly with me, I'm starting to like her too. I want her.

...

I take the train from the north of Seoul.
I'm taking the straight train down.
I pass through several transfer stations along the way.

After changing trains three times, I leave Seoul.
I head to Nonsan, my hometown.
I take the bus.
I get off the bus in Nonsan and head to my hometown.
It'll probably take an hour to walk home.

I bring home something square.
It looks like a rather large box. I deliberately brought this back to my hometown.

I'm laying the foundation.
I'm digging a small area and leveling the foundation.
It's quite large. I'm digging out the dirt in a space that looks to be about 500 pyeong (approximately 1,600 sq ft) and
I'm building a solid foundation. I'm building it with cement and rebar.
And now, a solid foundation has been created.

I'm going to install a square structure on top of this.
But not right now.
I think I'm building something here, creating something,

to share my skills and knowledge with others.
That's probably why I brought that square box down from Seoul.
I've now laid a solid foundation.

For now, one planned step is complete.
I'm taking a short break.