Have you ever seen a microorganism die? Under the microscope, you see those single-celled organisms. You can see what’s going inside them, cuz they are translucent, kinda look like jelly. But that doesn’t mean that they are borderless. They have that layer, just like humans having skin, that holds them inside and separates them from other organisms. They are all individual beings. And when they die, amazing things happen. Their layer, that thin layer that held them, suddenly disappears, and what was inside their body spills out, like it never had been inside one creature. It literally pours out like, when you put water into a balloon, and you knot it and poke a needle to it and the balloon suddenly shrinks and the water just gets all splashed out? That’s how it is. And after that, you cannot tell anymore what was from the dead cell and what was floating around before that. The cell is no longer an individual.
That’s what’s called lysis. I love watching it. Maybe cuz my work is about death? Or maybe because of how I deal with the corpse? Whatever that is, who cares. It’s my favorite pastime to watch videos of lysis, and that’s good. No need to make excuses for my pleasure.
I can get up now. The corpse is all decomposed well enough. I can feel it underneath my million bodies. Yup, it’s good to go.
I got up from million mushrooms to a solid human body. It was an old man this time. Already decomposed enough, didn’t take much for me to dismantle his body. Wasn’t so nutritious though. What can I say? Can’t complain. Most dead people are old, usually. As I slowly wear my clothes back on, I find one piece of him left, a tiny bone part of a size of a pea. I pick it up and stick it in my pocket.
I run an arboretum burial cemetery. People think that I cremate them, but what I really do is I decompose them in a more natural way. I eat them, basically, not that I am a necrophile, or maybe I am. But I am definitely not a cannibal. I am not exactly a human. Didn’t you notice? Then you are dumb. Anyway, so I can’t be a cannibal, cuz I eat other species, which is humans. Period. I am being too kind right now telling you what’s obvious. What I do after the corpse dies, I hang a sign of the dead’s name on a tree. Whichever I have in my forest here. There are a shit ton. Anywhere. Nobody knows. And yeah, today’s job done. I need a cigarette.
I walk to the tree, my tree, so to say. I will never hang a plate over it with others’ names. It is my smoking spot. I put my hand in a knar near the tree trunk where I put my Lucky Strike and the lighter. I lean my back on the tree and light up the cigarette. The light from the tip of the cigarette sizzles into redness. I inhale. Breathe in deep into my nose, and phuff, I breathe out the smoke. I watch them spread out in the air, like the spores I become. And the nicotine kicks through my brain, and I feel hazy, or unclear. I feel sleepy or kind of high. Maybe it is just reducing oxygen in my brain, and this is what it feels like to be smothered. Whatever. Fuck it.
I rub the short cigarette bud on the tree trunk and extinguish the light. The tree got cigarette marks here and there. You might think I am nonsense that I said I love the tree. Well, isn’t love a process of slowly killing each other? All love ends up with ruin, destruction. I don’t love others. It is just a waste of energy.
Walking to the shack where I live. It is right next to the entrance. How long have I lived here, since I started to settle down here like 70 years ago. Surprised that I look like a twenty-year-old? You would be blown away if you know how old actually I am. Don’t forget I am a fungi woman. Or women. Or men. Doesn’t really matter. My cabin is pretty simple as I don’t eat here. Just a bed and a living room. I pull my socks off and dry them in front of the fireplace. Nine toes wiggling. The woods are almost always kinda moist at this time of the year. Always need to keep myself dry after my job. I pull out the bone I picked. This is the last bit of him left. When someone dies, one leaves one thing behind, just one damn thing. Some call it sarira, some say it is a bone particle. His is oval, a little bit squished on the edge. I lay it on my tongue and close my mouth. It is usually good what is left behind. But sometimes it’s not. I hope it is the sweet treat for the day. Soon I fall into a deep sleep.
My body is swinging as my feet are doing their steps. Brown suit flutters as I turn, swaying gently. I feel the softness in both hands with different textures. It’s a hand on my right hand, a small one. And it’s a velvet textile on my left, with a soft warm thing underneath. It’s a waist. I can see her skirt and her feet moving along with my steps, almost as if they are from the same person. And I am gently moving around the floor with her. I look at her face. A woman in her mid-50s, a charming face, her fluffy hair tied into a bun like a bunny’s tail. We sail our bodies in a living room with no one else, but only us. I notice the music. We are dancing. I guess it is a waltz. I am looking at her eyes, her black eyes. Her eyes are smiling. I can feel that I am smiling as well. The room still smells like a pie. My lips move to say something.
‘I love you.’ The deep voice comes out. And I kiss her on her forehead.
I open my eyes. I get up from the rocking chair. The fire was out, and it was dawn. I wrap myself up with a blanket and remember the dream, or should I say, the memory that the old man left behind? Eeh. Cliche. Always, too often it ends up saying I love you. Why is everyone so obsessed with love, leaving it as something that cannot be forgotten so badly even after death. And I don’t have a choice to deviate from the scenario in those dreams. I have no “I” in that shit. I just feel what they feel, and it feels kinda gross when I actually wake up. Like I am pretentious. Some of the feelings that I would never agree with, or even care about. The treat was a bad one, bad luck. Duh. Damn it. When I am lucky I have those dreams of having tons of cash in my hand. Which is always great. But today’s was definitely not. I can’t even dance with my feet, I can’t balance with one toe missing. Not even interested in ballroom dancing either. It is just so dumb, so highbrow. I need a cigarette.
When I open the front door it is foggy outside, which I like. I couldn’t even see what was out there a foot ahead. It is kinda cool to walk through this thick mist. You can feel the air that you wouldn’t feel the presence at all normally, calling it an empty space or vacant or even “void”. And I feel when it is foggy and I smoke, I inhale the water vapor with the smoke, which I kind of like. It is true that it is harder to light my cigarettes up though. As I arrive at the tree I snatched the cigarettes from the tree hollow where I left, and it felt weird. Damn, I left the box open. Fuck. The cigarettes got all soggy. I put one in my mouth anyways. I try to light it up. Flick, flick. God’s sake, come on! The lighter’s not working. Fuck. What a fucking day. Bad dreams, no cigarettes. What is worse than a bad day is the hint of silver lining of happiness that betrays you. Taking away is worse than not giving in the first place. I could have felt good with that fog smoke. I flicker a couple of times more quite of course without any luck and give up. It is too much for me to handle. I need to just decompress a bit. I start releasing myself into a spore spray starting from my head and soon I dismantle all over the tree. And I sip the juice from the tree, like what humans do at a cafe, drinking coffee or something. Small mushroom heads pop up around the tree’s body, this time it’s a poisonous yellow one. It is something that will obviously make me feel better. Watching my own body in multiple visions. It breaks my stress into smaller portions each, which makes it easier to process. The mushrooms grow bigger and bigger. Yeah, I feel better, or would rather say, “caffeinated”? So I pop back into a human form. The tree seems to wither a bit more than before, its leaves a little drier. I am kind of parasitic. That’s how much I love the tree.
I go back to the shack to change my outfit. I have work today, need to look “serious”. People take death seriously, so I wear my suit. White shirt, black jacket, black pants, and comb my hair. I take off some leaves that I collected by slurping the tree. And I tie my hair down. I look at the mirror, practicing a serious look, without laughing, but looking caring and not indifferent. It takes up a lot of energy to pretend, but I need those bodies. They are my best supper. Outfit, checked, hair checked, car key, here it is, and I am good to go. I jump into my limo and put on the address on the navigator app. Three hours away. Not too bad. I step on the gas pedal.
It takes a while to get to places with human touches from my burial forest. Curvy roads that go round the mountain. Certainly not the best road to drive with a limousine. But I don’t give a shit. I drive like I am on a rollercoaster. It is fun to drive roughly down the mountain. And I lived enough to be worried about death. I can’t even die, man. I must have a new box of cigarettes somewhere here in the front seat drawer. I click open the drawer and grope around. Tiggit. That sound of cigarette. I stretch my fingers and drag the box towards me. Yes, I got one. I open and pull out one and put it between my lips without seeing. And I pat my jacket and pull out the lighter. Flick. I lit up. I open my window. Phew. I feel the air still wet with a cigarette in between my fingers. The day is starting, the fog thinning.
I arrive in a small suburban town. I check the name of the body. Ada Miller. Common last name. Not too common a first name. The navigator says I am there. Yup. This is the place. I get off the car and check the car if it got any stains. There’s some from the mud. I open the trunk and get the spray and a cloth and wipe them out. Neato. I take out another cig. I only got one left. Yeah, better get a bunch before I go to work. I look around, looking for any stores, which is kind of hard to find in this kind of small town. I walk a bit, and I see a sign that says groceries with onion and carrot illustrations. I hope they have some. I knock on the door and open the door. An old man comes slowly out from the back door, rubbing his eyes. It is morning time. I look around, look at him. “….Sorry.”
“No, it’s all good. I wake up early.” The man grins.
I look around, and there are vegetables and fruits in wooden boxes. I pick up an apple, and go to the counter where the man is standing.
“And do you have cigarettes?”
The man points at his back. And there’s a small rack there.
“Yeah, Lucky Strikes.”
“One?”
“How many do you have?”
“Let me see… around ten boxes.”
“Give me all of them.”
“All ten boxes?”
“Yup.”
I pull out the money as he draws out the cigarette boxes. I take them and the apple in my arms.
“Thanks. And keep the change.” And I leave the place.
I open the car door with my arms full of stogies with my fingers and pour the boxes into my seat. I open the drawer and pick the boxes up and store them. And I pick up the apple that rolled into the brakes. Uh… There’s a house where I can see a dog house. I put the apple in the yard. You know, I just bought it, just because. Maybe the dog might eat it. I check the time. Yeah, it’s nine. I walk up to the house and ring the bell.
I am driving back to the forest, just like I drove here, but with only one difference. There’s a coffin in the back seat. I drive, chain-smoking. The sun was up high when I was back in the forest. This sun. It feels like the sun is filling up the air, almost surreal. Like you know, the light is so steady without any changes, that it feels like time stopped and you kinda have that illusion that nothing is gonna change and you are in that infinity loop? Yeah, that is how it is. And the forest is damn quiet today, not even without sweeping wind sound. Weird. My eyes are frowning cuz of all the light today. Geez. I get the trolley that I use for the coffins. I open the back seat door and pull out the coffin. I slam the door shut and push the trolley to the backyard where I prepare them to be ready for the forest. I put the coffin on the working table. Ready to work. The sun is really shiny, kinda hard to open my eyes. I open the coffin. The sunray gets reflected by her white face, and I frown again. Gradually my eyes get used to the brightness, and I can see her face. An old lady, with blond hair, almost platinum, crooked nose, deep eyes, thin lips. She has the impression of an owl, which I am somehow familiar with..?
OH SHIT.
I close the door back. I sit, almost falling down to the ground. Pulling my hair backward. I feel a headache. God! I should have noticed the name. Fuck. Fuck. FUCK. I knew that name, just forgot about it as it was too long ago. Am I a fucking idiot? How can I forget her name? Damn. I feel like throwing up. I run to the shack, to the bathroom, and puke.
How can I not notice my first crush?
And I let go of my mind for a while. I don’t remember.
When I finally got ahold of my mind, it was already dark. Yeah, this is better. I cannot do all this thing in the sunlight so bright, looking at her face with sanity. I go back to the backyard. I open the coffin. I pull out her body. I breathe in deeply. I unbutton her dress. When I am done with that, I take her dress off. Christ! Her body feels cold and stiff. Damn! Why was it me among so many other cemeteries? As I undress her completely, I take her body to my arms and lift her. Bodies are usually really heavy. I couldn’t be able to lift anyone up if I weren’t fungi. She is lighter than other bodies though. I remember her skinny when she was younger. Damn, why do I remember those? I place her into a tub right next to the table. And I pour buckets of water. I wash the body. Brush her off. I hold her left hand to brush off underneath the nails. Damn. I didn’t want to touch her body like this. I wash her face, all the makeup they did for the funeral. I place her back head on my left hand and gently wipe her face off with a soft cloth. I wipe out every crease, every wrinkle, which I didn’t wanna feel. Damn, at least it is better at night like this. I look up at the sky to avoid looking at her face. But I still can picture her as I touch her. There is a deep wrinkle between her brows. You grew old. Were you in agony? What was your life like? How were you? Did you have a happy life? Damn, I am getting sentimental. Fuck. Those are useless. I rinse her off several times and put her back on the table, where I placed the human-sized bag ready. I put her in the bag and zip the bag from her toes. I see her legs, her thighs, her pelvis, her belly, her breasts, her collarbone, her neck, and her face as I zip up the bag. I lift her up with my arms and walk to the forest. I am half out of my mind and just walk with her weight on my arms. I put her down as I just find a tree. I unzip the bag and pull her out. The moon is crescent today, so it was particularly darker. I take a deep breath. Damn, I need another smoke. I turn around and smoke one. No, two. Three. My neck hurts a bit and my brain is full of smoke, hazy enough. Okay. I need to do this.
I take off my clothes and overlap my body with hers. My cheeks are touching her cold cheeks. And I dismantle, my skin suddenly disappears and my body dismantles into million spores, spreading out like liquid, like slime, and covers her body up. I am a million bodies, a million selves, slowly degenerating her body from this Earth, breaking down her barrier, breaking her border, and I forget myself, and she forgets herself and will become one, all mixed up, inseparable.
You think your memories are all in your brain, and that’s stupid. Your body remembers things. Memory is the first phenomenon of your body. When dismantling a body, I go through their memories, which is the last thing that I wanted to do with her. I don’t wanna know. I didn’t wanna ever know. My million bodies try to ignore the visions and the sounds when degenerating her. Try not to know. It will make the process slower than usual. My million bodies and her body will glow in the dark the whole night to fully decompose, and I will soon lose the notion of myself.
I was a million indigo-colored mushrooms when I got back my self-awareness. It is an unusual type of mushroom that rarely comes out. The pale blue color looked like her eyes. Sun was rising. I slowly get up, and a million mushrooms morphed into my body. I see my palms still stained a bit in blue like the mushroom. I lift myself up. I take my clothes back on hastily like a girl who got naked for the first time for sex. I feel embarrassed to be naked all of a sudden. I wrap up my body tight and I look back at the place where I spent the night. And there’s one round thing left behind. I pick it up. I put my hands inside my pocket and roll it in my fingers. It is a round one, almost perfectly round. I stop at my tree and smoke almost mindlessly.
I come back to the shack and throw myself into the rocking chair. Damn. I ate my first crush. I don’t know how to feel about it. I pull out my fingers from the pocket. The only remainder of hers left in this world. Damn. I rub my face with my other hand. The feeling is driving me crazy like gurgling in my throat and I can’t handle it. Is it sadness? It is disgust? Is it self-loathing? I got no clue. Never liked me anyway. Holding this tiny piece of her left makes me feel even weirder. Maybe I should throw this away. No, I should keep it. No, I should bury it. Gosh. I don’t know what to do. I put it on the side table. I don’t know. I am confused. Maybe I should just leave it. I need to go to bed. It was too much. I drag myself slowly to the room.
And I stop. Walk back, pick up the round thing, and place it on my tongue. I sit back in the rocking chair. I take a deep breath a couple of times. After a deep exhale, I swallow it. I rock the chair for a while, and I fall asleep.
I am at a house, a living room, knitting. Yeah, I remember this place, a place I used to sneak around to see if she was around. But I was never inside the house before. This is what it looked like. Nice green sofa, soft and rounded, and a mahogany floor and an ivory wall. A still life painting on the wall. Her mom’s taste probably. I was knitting without a hurry. Cotton candy-colored yarn mixed up with pastel colors. Someone knocks on the door. My hands stop moving and put the yarn and the needles on the side. And I get up on my feet. I am wearing camel-colored corduroy pants, and a patterned knit with green and yellow zigzags. Totally her vibe. She loved earthy colors. And her short, yellow, thin, and soft hair fluttered as I walked down the hallway. I grab the knob and open the door.
And there stands a young woman, skinny, with long chocolate-colored hair, and olive tone skin, standing in front of the door.
That is me.
As the brown-haired woman notices the door open she looks up and her cheeks blossom with pink and turns her head to the side to hide it.
“Who’s this?”
My mouth moves and the voice comes out. The gentle, kind voice, that I never forgot. And the brown-haired woman nervously tries to talk. But she gives up, and she abruptly snatches my wrists and places something in my palm and runs away. I watch her hair fluttering in the air until I can’t see her anymore. And I look down at my palm. And there is a tiny mushroom. My fingers pick it up and hold it up. I stare at it for a while. And I take it closer to myself, toward my mouth. I place it inside my tongue. I swallow it. The mushroom glides down the throat.
I can feel my body rocking. I slowly open my eyes. I can see my feet on the footrest, and my body gently swaying in my rocking chair. And I notice my missing toe back, in the shape of a tiny mushroom.
Shantal Jeewon Kim is a visual artist and writer based in South Korea and the United States. She studied Art & Technology and Psychology at Sogang University (Seoul, Korea) and is a graduate of the Image Text MFA from Ithaca College (NY, USA). She conceptually explores the intersection of memory, melancholy, and translation, exploring both photography and experimental text medium. Shantal directed 4 solo exhibitions, and participated in group shows, screenings, and publications. Her writing has been published by Tarpaulin Sky, and her image-text monograph has been published by fifth wheel press. Her poetry book was published by 2024 from Gasher Press.