The final scene of the holo depicts Moon’s troubled return to earth, a slow-moving, almost haunting montage of his metamorphosis from an astronaut into a late twenty-something Korean man catching the subway to Incheon. Nobody recognises him. His journey decelerates as he switches from subway to bus, and then to foot. Somehow, of course, we…

In the feature holo a young engineer becomes the first Korean to land on the moon. The Aramis Drive is packed with pods, lasers carve advertising daemons in the crackling air and for once I’m grateful for the busyness, seeing the holo drive pumping like it should, a packed house to compensate for the emptiness…

I’m the writer in residence in an empty house you’ll never see. I’m sleeping in a small box, floating on a bed of sea noise. We will never visit the holo drive, though I have been there several times, posing as a motor sports enthusiast. The plastic caverns of the refreshments hall. I’m considering applying…

Just as the last police barrier was being trundled off by truck you waltzed into the hotel via a kitchen door, one tall Korean sea monster with two giggling seaweed-clad hoju in tow. The reaction of the conference delegates was like two hundred dominoes going off in great spirals and cascades of laughter. Instead of…

That’s when I realised you were some kind of environmental activist. It wasn’t until we were inside the lobby of the hotel however that I finally realised the ‘costume party’ we were crashing was in fact an international conference on ocean pollution. The conference, hosted by the local electronics magnate, had attracted over two hundred…

I was dreaming of our eventual reunion on Jeju-do. I was sitting at an outdoor bar with a group of friends, and you just appeared out of the sea mist, like an animated garbage god. Drawn in some sunless studio, no doubt. Your manhwa self wore a shade of pink I hadn’t associated with you…

The room was never completely empty, of course. You managed to hide yourself amongst my possessions, the loose ties and woolly scarves, mittens. I’d meet you on the subway, when your picture fell out of the text book I was reading. I’d meet you in the laundromat, when your red polka dot top found its…

Whatever else happened, it was certainly you who came up with the name. How about PCB, like a little PC bang! We settled things over a single shot of vodka in some poorly-ventilated bar, making patents and intellectual property plans. Technological dream boosters. High on Chris de Burgh’s emotions, if only ironically. The day you…

When I got back to my tiny room everything had changed. Someone has been in here. The bed had been made, sheets strangling the mattress in a silence of white. The small bin had been relieved of its guilty burden: chocolate cake wrappers, empty grape soda cans. I opened Windows to the applause of street…

Zero smokes, and drinks soju while he waits. Rumbles of traffic and subway bass. Two empty bottles on the table now. He’s been pouring one glass for himself, then placing a second in a growing pod on the other side of the table. He’s one third of the way through a pack of Smokes. The…