When the Candle Goes Out
On Ji-su’s thirty-second birthday, she pressed a single candle into the cake.
Just us, forever. That’s enough.
I still hear the words. Three seconds for the flame to devour the wick—three silent syllables of a question with no answer.
Just us… is that enough?
When the light died, the room turned black. In the darkness Ji-su gave a small, sharp laugh, and I felt that laugh slide like a splinter into my chest.
The Temperature of the Eyes I Hid
Yes, just us is enough. I said it, but I wanted a child. The more I denied it, the clearer the picture became. On the morning train I watched a man push a stroller and imagined myself in his place. Whose eyes would the child have? Ji-su’s cutting jawline from me, her restless gaze from herself. Each time the thought surfaced, an inner voice slammed a red stamp across it:
Forbidden.
Ji-su carved that word into her body. Alarm clocks reminded her to swallow the pill; treadmills pounded away any softness that might look fertile. Preventing pregnancy proved that sex still happened between us, and I was relieved—then immediately ashamed. Her body was no longer a door. It was a wall.
Ji-su’s Note, or My Own Hallucination
A slip of memo paper I found at work: a transcript from Ji-su’s creative-writing class.
Teacher: What situation frightens you most?
Ji-su: Being completely consumed by someone else. If I have a baby, my life is severed.
Teacher: Why?
Ji-su: Because the mother disappears. The woman named Ji-su.
I photographed the paragraph and reread it before sleep. Was it Ji-su speaking, or the woman inside her? Was I terrified of losing my wife—or had I merely wanted “Ji-su who gives birth,” not Ji-su herself?
The Body Heat We Concealed
At my cousin’s wedding I held a wailing toddler in the corridor. Ji-su approached, took the child; he quieted at once.
He’s beautiful. But we don’t need one.
Her eyes truly rested on the boy. Yet her gaze was fixed elsewhere—on the woman who lacks the courage to bear, or on the world that makes bearing compulsory.
That night, for the first time, we cried in bed. Ji-su started to speak while pressed against me, then stopped.
I know you want it. But I have to… I have to be first.
I never supplied the ending. …or I’ll die? …or I’ll vanish? The fear was identical.
Why We Fear Giving Birth
A child is the forever that outlives you. Even after your death it remains—your death repeated. We did not want that repetition. Ji-su feared the eternal trace of herself; I feared the eternity that would begin with her. So while loving each other, we severed the cord that might have bound us further. In place of a child we raised silence.
The Candle Still Burning
Tonight Ji-su swallowed the pill again. At the alarm’s chime she lifted a paper cup, took a sip of water. I switched on the television so I wouldn’t have to watch.
You’ll regret this later, won’t you?
I didn’t answer. On the screen, strangers laughed at a future that had no room for us.
Ji-su capped the bottle.
But for now…
She never finished. Perhaps that was the entire answer. A single candle still burns before us. Do we extinguish it together, or let one of us swallow the flame?
How long can you embrace a future the person you love refuses to share?