2016년 3월 13일 일요일


     Working as a hairdresser isn’t an easy job at all. I get orders from the clients, but then the orders are almost always too vague. Otherwise, if they have a picture of the hairstyle they require, the picture is almost always that of a very handsome or pretty celebrity. I am quite sure that they won’t look like them even though they have the hair. Anyways, there were two students who visited my hair salon last week. They both put curses on me the day after I had services for them. I have no idea why they don’t like me that much. Oh, I may know the reason for the girl who asked me to shave her hair, though. She asked how much it costs to get a wig right after she saw the mirror. The letter from the other is here. Hmm… why does this come from “Shaolin Monastery?” I didn’t know that he was from China… Anyways, it also says that his hair got bald too… Whatever, I did nothing to his scalp to make his head bald. Strange things happen to me a lot these days, and I feel very tired. Maybe I should take a nap for a while, asking for my friend to take care of the shop.

    Walking down the street, I met Yejoo, who used to be the “Queen Lion” of the “KMLA jungle”. She used to call herself like that. She graduated early for being such an excellent student, and did get double eyelids by plastic surgery. I asked her if she was having great days, even though I expected so.


     “Hey! How you doin’?”

     “Um… Not so good, actually. “

     I was kind of confused.

     “How come? You have accomplished almost everything you wanted, haven’t you?”

     “How dare you say such thing? You don’t know anything about me, do you?”


    She seemed to be offended a bit. I know I was a little bit careless, but was I that rude? Well, she walked away. A small letter slipped out of her bag, but as I picked it up and called Yejoo, she was already gone.



    I knew I shouldn’t read the letter; I knew that it is part of her privacy, but I kind of got curious and also felt upset for her of showing such irritation to me. Self-justifying myself, I opened up the letter. The letter went:

Dear Jenny

                  Hey, Jenny. How's it going? Well, you see, I'm having a hard time, after that "incident". I hope you're not in much despair as I am, cuz' I feel like I'm living out the worst days of my life. I can see you wondering why I have sent you letter, since I had never gave you any letters before. But, I had to write my words in letter, because I won't be able to see you in the face when I'm saying it to you. Jenny, despite all the time we have spent together and all the love we have given each other, I think...I think..we should breakup. I see neither hope nor future in our relationship anymore. You would never know how it feels when the image of you and Mitchell snuggling together punches my mind every second. It's just.. I just can't stand it anymore. I know I still love you (although I don't know you have the same feeling), but I think the time has come to say good bye.

I got the reason why Yejoo was so irritable. I kinda felt sorry for her. I continued reading, now feeling even guilty.

    You know what? To be frank now breaking up with you, all the accouterments I bought you, the gems, food, restaurants, were actually fake. The event of our anniversary? It wasn't actually our event. The name just happened to be the same with us luckily. The time I told you that you look fabulous in front of the movie theater, I was actually talking to the Darth Vader statue. 

‘Whoa, this guy is such a scum,’ I thought. I then kinda got interested, and started speaking ill of him. I kept going on.

   Am I hurting your feelings? If so, good cuz' you deserve to be hurt. You are such a selfish creature. I know every human has selfishness in themselves, but they at least try to pretend they care about other people. I love myself, but I tell you that I love you for the sake of it. You were selfish not just in your mind, but with your acts as well. You never show any effort to tell me you love me. Do you even love me? Well, I'm starting doubt it. But then again, your answer to this question is no longer important. You've lost your chance, and it's too late.

I didn’t know this guy really much, but it did offend me too. No matter what, she was “the Queen Yejoo” of the “KMLA jungle”. I decided to write a letter to him, as if I were Yejoo. This might’ve worsened the situation, but I thought that it couldn’t be worse than this situation where two people are about to break up? It might be good if I wrote a very hard poem to him, containing very profound meanings that would make him regret his decision. I started to write a poem down. And this is what I sent to the man:


A sky full of stars

Raise thy flag high
Where doth thy loyalty lie?
A pigeon caress'd by
the cold glance o’the night?
A star
barely visible
embedded on the iris of thine eye?

When thou findst life, dance!
Even if thou dost not, still dance!
Dance with thy flag,
Fly with thy pigeon
For when thou dancest
When thou fliest
thou shalt see that star

Alone, I am obligèd to endure
To fight for faith
oh so fragile.
Dost thou speak the truth?
Dost thou speak o’the truth?
Dost thou speak?
Dost not. No need

Though I am swayed
by normal peace,
Oh, innocent like a wolf wearing a sheep's skin
I shall not go gentle with
the abyss, the fall o’the star.
When I face the deepest part of your eyes.

Opening my windows,
I got to swim somewhere
but I could not find thee there.

I endlessly searchèd for thee
However, here your eyes are,
so weary and flickering.

Hath the travel been painstaking?
A star
barely visible
too vague to light up the dark for thee

Brother, raise thy flag high
where doth thy loyalty lie?
It lieth neither on the battlefield
nor on the blood thou shedest.
Our heart
until the star regains its glory,
shall be red

Go, find, and fight to raise
the flag in the end!
There will be an unexplain'd force.
Thou wilt be attracted.
The loyalty will lead thee.
Take its hand and fly
to the brink of the universe.
Thou shalt find it.

댓글 2개:

  1. I enjoyed the work overall despite the fact that this was a story about my break-up :(
    I liked how you tried to incorporate two pieces of chain-writing.
    However, I felt like the connection between the separate stories were quite weak. Especially in the beginning, you talk about your job as a hairdresser, but you suddenly move on to talk about meeting Yejoo (me) on the street without much linkage. I thought that your job as a hairdresser would've been much more relevant if you had provided a better linkage to the rest of the story or if it had served a significant role later on in the story.
    Also, for those that are reading the metafiction despite the fact that they don't know me, phrases like "queen lion" or "kmla jungle" may need some more explanation.
    Ending with the poem had both positive and negative aspects. I thought it had a lot of impact and left the reader with something to think about. However, it's hard to understand from the poem the point that the writer was trying to make when he sent this poem to Yejoo's (my) ex.
    +I would've liked to see a title!!!:)

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  2. I think I have to agree with Jenny, above, and also have to add that this is an example of "biting off more than can be chewed." When in doubt, "keep it simple," and this is not simple. Metaficition is hard enough to write only using one piece of source material, but you've used and referenced at least 3, and none of it links together to form a comprehensible piece of writing. All in all, the goals of the assignment are to write something that could survive as an actual short story beyond KMLA, and while this is funny and poking fun at classmates, it isn't doing much else besides. The poem is interesting, but ending things without anything further to contextualize it isn't achieving much. The initial idea of a mystified hairdresser was good and you should have stuck with it. In the future, take the assignments more seriously and put more thought into things.

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