The Strange Engraving on My Desk
Every Wednesday at three I still find myself turning the classroom doorknob. A laptop has replaced the math book, the chill of the A/C has replaced the chalk dust, but none of that matters. What matters is that my feet still carry me down this corridor on their own. And whenever the door is ajar, that low baritone drifts after me.
Come in now, Seon-yi.
That was my name twenty-three years ago. He always called me last, after the bell had released the others. Like a delayed act of revenge he kept me behind and made me circle the empty classroom once.
“Why do you insist on taking your cap off when you enter? Is this your bedroom, Seon-yi?”
Each time I set the cap on my desk it blurred, the way thoughts blur inside the skull. When he stepped closer the back of my neck tightened. I am well past twenty now, yet every time I stand outside an interview room, every time I try to approach a senior I admire, the same tug at the nape returns. Whenever I feel a gaze on me I hear the rear door of the classroom sigh open.
The Angle of Desire
I wonder if the teacher knows I still dream of slipping in through the back door. Or if he knows and is simply waiting.
I remember the exact angle at which he stood—between blackboard and desk, about sixty degrees. A precise line of sight aimed at my seat. A casual remark in the middle of class—“Seon-yi, you won’t ask a question today either, will you?”—was louder than any laughter around me. It was not reproach; it was a manner of paying attention.
Seventeen is a strange age. I had been taught that an adult’s attention is always a kindness, yet this was different. Even a brushing glance felt like being pinned like an insect. One afternoon, after the others had gone, he walked over and lifted my pen.
“Why is your handwriting such a mess?”
“Sir, these notes are important.”
“Important things should be legible. Again.”
Alone in the empty classroom I rewrote the notes, my hand trembling though I didn’t know why. He stood behind me. I believed I could sense his breathing. Or perhaps I only wanted to.
Two True Fictions
Case 1: Eugene’s Faculty Office
Eugene, 32, fifth-year secretary at a large corporation. Whenever a superior calls, she remembers the back door of the teachers’ office.
At lunch the manager came to Eugene’s cubicle. Her fingers froze on the elevator key.
“Eugene, could you step outside a moment?”
The company corridor stretched like a school hallway; the manager’s back looked as broad as her homeroom teacher’s. Instead of the teachers’ office, a conference-room door opened. An unfinished report lay inside. As the manager turned each page Eugene was again fifteen, watching her teacher flip her exam sheet.
“Do you know why you’re here?”
“…I don’t, sir.”
“Then you’ll stay longer until you do.”
That day Eugene spent two hours in the office. Even now the memory is razor-sharp—two hours no one else was allowed to overtake. When the manager reached the last page he said:
“You always stay to the very end, don’t you?”
Eugene’s throat tightened. Someone, somewhere, still keeps her standing in that original spot.
Case 2: Min-seo’s Voice Recorder
Min-seo, 29, flight attendant. Each night she listens to a recording made thirteen years ago by her homeroom teacher.
Min-seo keeps forty-seven audio files on her phone. On the morning subway, in the galley during a three-minute lull, she plugs in her earphones.
“Min-seo, why do you always sit at the back?”
“I don’t like eye contact.”
“So you’re avoiding me? From now on you will look me in the eye.”
Each clip is forty-five seconds long; she plays them dozens of times a day. At seventeen she entered through the rear classroom door; at twenty-nine she boards the aircraft through the rear service door.
Why do I still listen to his voice?
At the end of every recording Min-seo raises the volume a notch. A male colleague passes; she cups the earpiece closer. The voice leaks anyway:
“Min-seo, it’s time you met my eyes.”
Why We Crave This
The singular gaze of childhood is an addiction. Severity, punishment, coldness—finally, the illusion of being chosen. That day in the teachers’ office, over the exam papers, he summoned me alone. A child adores such intimacy. What matters is the delusion that the teacher sees only me. In truth he saw all twenty-eight students, yet I remember being the sole object of his sight.
That delusion outlasts everything. I still hunt for its trace—conference-room doors, red-eye flights, the darkest booth in a club. I long for someone’s cool stare to find me. The desire is, in the end, the wish to be punished. Or rather, to preserve forever the memory of once having been punished. Even if the trembling never returns, I want someone to remember the me who remembers that trembling.
In Front of the Last Door
Are you still standing at that door? Closed or open, it is the door where you hope to be called to attention.
Twenty-three years have passed, yet I keep knocking. No one answers, yet the door is always open to me. And I am still standing there, awaiting sentence.
Teacher, where are you now?
Are you still teaching me, even today?