This is a story about my uncle and a note he left. An uncle I had never met or even heard of, so I can’t tell you much. I just don’t have any memories to draw from. The story started for me on a Saturday or maybe Sunday evening when I answered the phone, it was a call from the law, for my father. I handed him the phone. After a few minutes, he hung up and started to pack a small bag without telling anyone what was going on. Later I learnt that he was going to collect the body of my dead uncle who had been living on an island where he had died alone. No one had told me about him including my father whose brother he was. This is a story about him, but there just isn’t much to say. This is all I have, to tell you. There was a man I did not know. He went to an island where he knew nobody’s name, and nobody knew his. All he had when they found him on the side of the road was an old, crumpled up note in his pocket with my father’s name and address. I wonder why he went there. Maybe the wind and the sea had called him. I looked at a map of the island and tried to imagine his life but all I could find was a story full of emptiness.
My uncle went to an island.
He lived and died by the sea.
He left a note for his brother.
And this story for me.
Originally from South Korea, Heain Joung holds an MA in Creative and Critical Writing from Sussex University. Her short fiction can be found in Full House Literary, Flashback Fiction, FlashFlood Journal, Tiny Molecules, Gastropoda, among others. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee. Twitter (X) @heainhaven
No comments:
Post a Comment