Dog House W/ Patio

A brief story for your amusement

The following is a short story based on actual events. No animals were harmed in the writing of this story.

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My day started like any other here in Ulsan. I woke up later than I'd like to admit and was barely able to clean myself up and get out of my apartment so I could make the quick ten-minute walk to work. After having been in South Korea for over a month now I was used to the abrupt change from my now Americanized apartment to the streets of my neighborhood, Mugeo-dong. It usually came in the form of a squint, a sniff, and then a recalibration of my bearings. I was getting used to the stares of the Korean people who were not accustomed to my wayguk-presence strolling down the streets. I was getting used to the growing number of people who would stop and attempt communication with me in an effort to practice their English and/ or establish a new friendship between the cultures.

This interaction normally looks like the shy beginnings of a romance. The Korean in question will hesitantly approach me like they were offering a strange dog a treat, still unsure of its disposition. If I were to return with a smile, a nod, or any other recognition short of grunting they will either begin speaking in broken English or smile and nod back. This is usually the extent of the interaction as we are both going in opposite directions. These fleeting moments tend to build up over the course of a few days and then deteriorate to simple nods as we pass much like the first time you see an ex on a busy street, apprehensive of where your relationship stands at the current time.

These norms were thrown out the window on that mid-July day. I made my way around the corner now on autopilot to work. I gave the customary nods to my new “friends of the week” and continued on by myself. And then it happened:

“Hello!” someone shouted.

I turned… no one was there. I stopped dead in my tracks, afraid that I had perhaps passed one of my friends without noticing them. Not wanting to cause any discord in my neighborhood I stood in the middle of the street turning around slowly then more rapidly, searching for the friend I missed. No one was around. No one is in the doorways of buildings, the windows were empty, the streets bare.

I suddenly felt like I was being watched, not just stared at out of curiosity, but as if I were being observed. I wanted to find the source of this sudden English intrusion. There was still no one in sight. I thought I heard a giggle but there was no way of pinpointing its location. Slightly pink, I slowly walked away from the scene dumbfounded and perturbed.

By the next day I had forgotten about my experience in the street and once again made my way out of the English Sanctuary and down the road.

“Hello! Who are you?”

Stunned, I wheeled around to yet another soulless sight.

Giggle.

And the wayguk marched on, this time more amused than unsettled knowing now that this had to be a child. No Korean adult would attempt something as attention seeking as this. But it was the giggle that gave it away: a short high-pitched giggle that could have easily been issued by a young boy or girl. The hunt was on.

I started noticing over the past weeks before this that there were a number of my students who lived in the same neighborhood as me. This made me very anxious to watch the students' reactions as they saw me for the first time that day, hoping that one would slip up and emit that same giggle upon seeing me in class as opposed to on the street from their hiding place. Nothing. No one reacted differently. No one seemed to whisper in their neighbor's ear and then glance up at Ryan Teacher and smirk. Not a damn clue.

After the fourth day in a row of random English shouts from what I could only think was a child hiding behind a car I was getting desperate. Ideas of how this kid was pulling this off stirred my imagination. A walkie-talkie. It had to be a walkie-talkie. No, no, no… It was two kids, hiding in different places! Then I realized that if I added one more, it was officially a conspiracy. I dropped my 'tag-team' theory immediately. Luckily I had not lost any sleep over this… yet.

It was Friday afternoon and I was walking down the usual route. I had thought of taking a different route to sidestep the situation but realized that this game was helping me break the monotony of my past few weeks and stayed the course. I was approaching the scene where I had been shot down four days in a row, where I was out-gunned in my native tongue by a child, where I stood slack-jawed and spinning for minutes on end. My eyes were searching every window, doorway, car, and manhole cover.

I got within three steps of my recurrent assassination site and then I heard it. Behind me, upper level, dead center: a window shade being pulled open.

My heart beat faster, time slowed, and I found myself doing a sudden about-face and without realizing what I was doing or saying blurted, with double finger-guns pointing towards the child's silhouette in the window:

“HELLO!”

After a split second of shock, the shape collapsed from view of the window and then we shared a maddening giggle as I turned again and continued on my way to work never to know the identity of my English sniper.

Posted by Schaffer at August 8, 2005 10:35 PM