A Frame of Life

Genere: Narrativa

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Meglio tardi che mai diceva quello… che poi chi era non l’ha mai saputo nessuno.

Eccomi di ritorno con un nuovo racconto, questa volta in lingua inglese (ebbene sì, il clima internazionale mi sta dando alla testa).

Per farmi perdonare della lunga assenza, oltre la nuova lingua ho deciso di regalarvi anche una bella atmosfera esotica dato che il racconto è ambientato in Corea.

Buona lettura.

A Frame of Life

The rain was falling on his large shoulders while he was sitting on the cold sidewalk. He was hypnotized by the drops melting in the puddle in front of him. All the lights from the million shops around the Jonggak station were reflecting on the liquid crystals transmitting a cathartic feeling to our man.

A drop smartly sneaking into his scarf woke him up from his dreams.

He looked at his legs covered by soaked trousers and gave the input to stand up.

He couldn’t keep his shoulders straight while walking as they were collapsing under an invisible weight.

Dragging his steps towards the lights he tried to put together the 1000 pieces puzzle of the last 24 hours, when his plane landed at the Inchon airport.

His girlfriend came to pick him up, she kissed him but that was not the flavour of 3 months waiting kiss, nor the expected welcome to his new Korean life.

She dropped him at the Vook Corp. offices where he was going to have his last interview to get the job.

He stepped on a shining little shoe. The guy looked up at him and decided to let it go.

He was walking in his little black expensive suite surrounded by a bunch of other penguins. Probably the usual evening with the colleagues imposed on them by the unsaid company rules. His girlfriend told him about that.

A fat guy, probably the boss was making fun of one of them while the others were laughing at him just to please the big guy. What a disgusting scenario, he thought.

Sometimes you don’t need to know the language to know what’s going on.

That was his feeling when he stepped into the Vook director office. The head of his department was arguing loudly with So-Young, the friend of his girlfriend who forwarded his curriculum there.

They stuck in a deadly silence as soon as he stepped inside.

The interview went pretty smooth… too smooth probably. A few technical questions and that’s it, we will call you back, he said.

He turned the handle of the little tea house.

That’s funny, he thought. He found the same handle on his girlfriend’s door. The only difference was the post-it on it:

“Sorry Larry. Your luggage is on the stairs. I met another guy a few months ago, I thought I could manage it with both of you but… there’s no point in going on with this lie. He can just give me what you can’t, what I need. Y.”

End of the story, he was “not enough”. It was not the first time he felt like that. He turned his back at the door barely holding his tears and walked down forgetting about his luggage.

He was staring at the little spices floating on the surface of his tea, as if an explanation for all that could be hidden there.

Suddenly the phone started blinking with his irritating vibration.

It was a message from the Vook Corp. He didn’t need to read it, he knew already he didn’t get the job… he was “not enough”.

He left there the mobile and stepped out. There was a plane going back home in 3 hours, he wanted to catch it.

Soung-De was cleaning the tables that evening, it was his turn.

He hated the job but he had to pay the rent somehow. With a glance he saw the I-phone, he never had one of them and he couldn’t afford one. Nobody was looking at him while he was grabbing it.

There was something written on the display: “We would be pleased to have you on board starting on Monday.”

Soung-DE couldn’t speak English, probably the address of the owner, he thought.

He turned it off quickly and put it in his pocket.

© Luigi Majellaro