Works · Short fiction
The Temperature of Hell
지옥의 온도
A star cram-school lecturer from Gangnam dies and finds his son, who took his own life, waiting for him in an afterlife where competition counts for nothing.
Synopsis
A man comes through a dazzling tunnel into a fog and finds his son Min-jun, who fell from the twenty-fifth floor of their luxury apartment. The father is a Seoul National University graduate, the top-billed lecturer of Daechi-dong and owner of the hottest cram school in Gangnam; the boy was sent to five cram schools and wanted only to draw comics.
In a single unbroken conversation, the son shows his father a world he cannot yet see: a place where no one compares themselves to anyone, where artists are happiest and the weak and foolish are valued. His mother, a poet the father dismissed, is here too, and does not want to see him.
Before he fades away, the boy points to a narrow bridge that only one person can cross at a time. Everyone who tries is dragged back by the others. Alone, the father strides toward it, sure that no one could ever be a match for him.
Why it works on screen
- Korea's private-education arms race, seen from the afterlife, in a single two-hander scene.
- Written for a newspaper series on competitive education, with a quiet, devastating ending.
From the opening
There was light, but it was not bright. It was like being wrapped in a thick fog. How much time had passed since he came through the dazzling tunnel? At last the man could dimly tell that he was facing some kind of presence. Oh, he breathed. It's my son. Min-jun, isn't it? My God! Thank you, Lord. I thought I'd never see you again, and here you are.
The hand he reached out to hold the boy cut through empty air. You'll need time to adjust. There's a lot you have to learn here, Dad. The boy seemed to give the flustered man a faint smile. He still couldn't make out so much as eyes, a nose, a mouth, but that was the sense he had. The last time he had seen his son was still vivid. The horror of a body that had fallen from the twenty-fifth floor had, not long after, become a handful of ash.
So there is a heaven. I knew it. But Min-jun, why is it so empty? You won't see it yet. Not the birch wood behind me, or the white-eye up in the pagoda tree. You didn't hear the splash, did you? A pair of wild ducks just went into the stream. But you don't look very happy, Dad.
Translated from the Korean.