TO THE SMILE

Chapter 16 - Father in my dream

Beloved Seon

Part of a boy's story: father in my dream

After graduating from college, which was both fun and painful, I applied for several teacher exams to become a teacher, but failed twice in a row, and in the meantime, my mother was taking care of home life by paying a lot of burdensome debt without my even knowing it. And as a result, we had to pay off the debt by selling our small but precious home, and we had to move to a small two-story house that we had to pay rent for. Because of that, my mother and I often quarreled.

Since I was already over thirty, I felt frustration and temptation of suicide again. But before I die one more time, I decided to try one more time for the dream of meeting you. and I had to study at home or in the library at that time.

One day I heard someone struggling up the stairs to the second floor with a very serious cough as I was studying at home. That person was none other than my mother. Even though her body was so uncomfortable, even though I argued and made many mistakes with that person, she was coming home with her uncomfortable body to prepare my lunch. At that time, I suddenly had this thought perhaps she always taken care of me in this life, as if she had been guilty of great crime against me like murder in our previous life. I felt that she was so devoted to me that I really had nothing to say.

It made me more awake and made me study harder. After that, studying hard every day, I happened to have time to reflect on my life during a break on a spring day about a month later. The reason might be that there was something that kept my consciousness from the past preventing me from moving forward, and I realized that if I couldn't solve it, I would never be able to get out of the pit of the past.

And I thought about whether I had still been resentful of my father, who was an incompetent head of household, had countless domestic violence and severe assaults, and left without contacting one day. But sometimes the person who was kind to me. And I found out that there was no answer if I lived that way. So then I thought I should forgive my father. No, I thought if I needed, I should go a little further and ask for forgiveness first. I thought that would make my life easier. And I could feel that I had been released from the tight knots that had fastened my heart.

Then, a mysterious thing happened. A few days later, on the day when I was only studying at the library, I was so tired that I lay my face down on the desk for a while.

Suddenly I was in a strange place I had never been before. The world was about the size of half a soccer field, so I was standing in a white space all around. And around me some strangers started passing by. However, the atmosphere of the people was unusual. The people I ran into looked at me with a very hard expression, a bloodless cold face and eyes, and passed me by. I thought I had seen them somewhere, and I didn't think I had seen them. They all walked beside me, but they didn't look like living people.

When about a dozen people passed me by looking at me indifferently, and I thought that I was among the dead, and I was in great fear because of that, someone suddenly called my name in a friendly voice from somewhere. And again, in a friendly voice. I came to my senses and turned my head in the direction of the voice.

A little far away stood a handsome gentleman with a good appearance. And after a while I knew by feeling that this man was my father.

Ah, was my father such a cool person? I thought for a moment. In my memory, he was always wearing small, dirty, old clothes. I had never felt this before. That day, for the first time in my life, he wore a nice suit.

Although he didn't make any gestures, he gave a relaxed expression to me, who was at a loss for fear. It was as if he was telling me to come to his side. And I slowly went to my father's side. The closer I got, the more my fears began to disappear. And then, when all fear had gone and I was in a state of true calm, and at some distance from my father, as if it were a signal to stop approaching, he slowly put down the black bags in his hands. Also, although he didn't say anything, I could fully feel with a strong intuition that the bags he had put down were a gift to me. I was thinking of getting closer to my father.

Then I abruptly got up. I was tired and fell asleep because I had been studying continuously all day long, and I had a short dream. But the dream was just too vivid.

And it made me think deeply. Why did my father... in front of me? two gift bags?

And then I can't remember how many months or years passed, but one day, while flipping through a family album at home, I happened to see a picture of both my father and mother taken before their wedding. the strange father who appeared wonderfully in the dream was in the picture.

My father appeared before me in the most handsome form on the record of this world. At the same time, what I intuitively felt was that my father must have visited me for the last time as he passed away. As soon as I decided to ask him to reconcile. I strongly felt that he was  eventually dead somewhere.

Now, after a lot of time has passed and I have decided to write a novel, I think I know one of the two gift bags while arranging the characters in my novel when the novel is nearing completion. It told me to write a novel and to tell the world the stories of people like the people I saw in my dreams.

So, what about the other gift bag?