Almond(2)

“There’s someone lying in the alley.”

“Really?” he said indifferently and sat up.

On television, both teams were about to play another round of a high-points game that could turn the tide.

“He could die,” I said, fiddling with one of the chewy caramel packs neatly lined up on the display stand.

“Is that so?”

“Yes, I’m sure.” That was when he finally looked me in the eye.

“Where’d you learn to say such creepy things? Lying is bad, son.”

I fell silent for a while, trying to find the words to convince him. But I was too young to have much vocabulary, and I couldn’t think of anything else truer than what I had already said.

“He could die soon.”

All I could do was repeat myself.





3


I waited for the show to finish while the shopkeeper called the police. When he saw me fiddling with the caramel again, he snapped at me to leave if I wasn’t going to buy anything. The police took their time coming to the scene—but all I could think of was the boy lying on the cold ground. He was already dead.

The thing is, he was the shopkeeper’s son.

*

I sat on a bench at the police station, swinging my legs hovering in the air. They went back and forth, working up a cool breeze. It was already dark, and I felt sleepy. Just as I was about to doze off, the police station door swung open to reveal Mom. She let out a cry when she saw me and stroked my head so hard it hurt. Before she could fully enjoy the moment of our reunion, the door swung wide open again and in came the shopkeeper, his body held up by policemen. He was wailing, his face covered in tears. His expression was quite different from when he had watched TV earlier. He slumped down on his knees, trembling, and punched the ground. Suddenly he got to his feet and yelled, pointing his finger at me. I couldn’t exactly understand his rambling, but what I got was something like this:

“You should’ve said it seriously, now it’s too late for my son!”

The policeman next to me shrugged. “What would a kindergartener know,” he said, and managed to stop the shopkeeper from sinking to the floor. I couldn’t agree with the shopkeeper though. I’d been perfectly serious all along. Never once did I smile or overreact. I couldn’t understand why he was scolding me for that, but six-year-old me didn’t know the words needed to form this question into a full sentence, so I just stayed silent. Instead, Mom raised her voice for me, turning the police station into a madhouse, with the clamoring of a parent who’d lost his child and a parent who’d found hers.

That night, I played with toy blocks as I always did. They were in the shape of a giraffe and could be changed into an elephant if I twisted down its long neck. I felt Mom staring at me, her eyes scanning every part of my body.

“Weren’t you scared?” she asked.

“No,” I said.

*

Rumors about that incident—specifically, how I didn’t even blink at the sight of someone being beaten to death—spread quickly. From then on, Mom’s fears became a reality one after another.

Things got worse after I entered elementary school. One day, on the way home from school, a girl walking in front of me tripped over a rock. She was blocking my way, so I examined the Mickey Mouse hairband she was wearing while I waited for her to get back up. But she just sat there and cried. Finally, her mom came and helped her stand. She glanced at me, clucking her tongue.

“You see your friend fall and don’t even ask if she’s okay? So the rumors are true, something is weird about you.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I said nothing. The other kids sensed that something was happening and gathered around me, their whispers prickling my ears. For all I knew, they were probably echoing what the girl’s mom had said. That was when Granny came in to save me, appearing out of nowhere like Wonder Woman, sweeping me up into her arms.

“Watch your mouth!” she snapped in her husky voice. “She was just unlucky to trip. Who do you think you are to blame my boy?”

Granny didn’t forget to say a word to the kids, either.

“What are you staring at, you little brats?”

When we walked farther away, I looked up to see Granny with her lips pressed tight.

“Granny, why do people call me weird?”

Her lips loosened.

“Maybe it’s because you’re special. People just can’t stand it when something is different, eigoo, my adorable little monster.”

Granny hugged me so tight my ribs hurt. She always called me a monster. To her, that wasn’t a bad thing.





4


To be honest, it took me a while to understand the nickname Granny had so affectionately given me. Monsters in books weren’t adorable. In fact, monsters were completely opposite to everything adorable. I wondered why she’d call me that. Even after I learned the word “paradox”—which meant putting contradictory ideas together—I was confused. Did the stress fall on “adorable” or “monster?” Anyway, she said she called me that out of love, so I decided to trust her.

Tears welled up in Mom’s eyes as Granny told her about the Mickey Mouse girl.

“I knew this day would come . . . I just didn’t expect it to be this soon . . .”