Join

Smoke

“Smoke” is the name of a story on the subjects of Korea and international relationships. It’s only at the draft stage, but I’m hoping to turn it into a novel some day. Some day!

Smoke Eleven

The mood in this PC Bang is bleak. Most screens switched off and the ones that run blink urgently, error messages forming solitaire cascades. Still this small corner of connectivity on this far deep space of the south continent is…

Smoke Ten

Under the gloom of moonlights I wander the streets of Aramis, scouring the intersections for PC Bangs, those unofficial shelters for Korea’s refugees, the engine room of the diaspora economy, racks of aloe drinks and snacknuts. Beneath a giant podpark…

Smoke Nine

Surrounded by rain. Nowhere to go. Rain sheets all evening. Loose laces in my boots. The sirens stop at about the same time as the feed dies out. I take a shower then, in the dark, and leave the extraction…

Smoke Eight

By the time I get back to the flat it’s dark. My PCB’s almost powered up. Only old Cherries and Devomail anyway, including that missive, the Arts letter. Flicking through the softcopy as fresh wireless data chugs through the air,…

Smoke Seven

At about 5pm I take the umbrella out again and walk down to the markets in my rubber boots, sloshing through the sudden laneway cascades, thinking of our new house. I’m trying to remember what it looked like on the…

Smoke Six

After testing that the thermal pulse has also been connected, I affix our little coffee exploder to the burner, and very soon I’m sipping the speedy brown stuff, looking at the boxes on the door/table in the loungeroom, their wooden…

Smoke Five

At 9am the crates arrive, secure and solid packed, eight of them in all, one for each room, with two more for the loungeroom. The delivery scanner nods briefly when I open the screen door to him, and we unpallet…

Smoke Four

A small patio shelters one half of the small garden from the rain and sun, the white posts of its supports ringed by vines of an almost glowing green. I remember the smooth concrete floor and the warm blue walls…

Smoke Three

‘Aramis is still in the dark’. ‘Aramis is in the planning stages of streetlight-facilitation’, they say in the planning podcasts. It manufactures its own leaves. Beneath the dike, under the glow of the eave-lights, I reach Blvd. 2, Apartment 109…