Teenage Essay
My father, not the type to tell stories, tells only one story. Just one and only story, over and over again. The story is about me, his one and only son, and, according to him, the term son is up for interpretation. He says I am more broken gourd than son.
The story evolves, grows tumors of extra details that has never been there in the years passed. In fact, the story has grown so much with passing time that even my father gets increasingly more surprised by the new versions that come out of his mouth. There are hundreds of versions of it drifting in time, but no one can uncover the truth because whatever was has transformed to what is now and whatever now could be infinitely different then.
And in the purest form, the story goes:
Eunju Namkung, age six, punched Ian Park, age eight, in the nose. His nose bled and he cried. Eunju cried too, because she was afraid of getting into trouble.
And this is a version that has been spoken sometime between then and now:
Eunju Namkung, a mere age six, a sweet little kindergartner, was playing with Ian Park, who was in second grade, but had no friends of his own age to play with. He had said something stupid with his goofy mouth and stupid big front teeth and stupid monkey ears, all curled at the edges, with the weird mole mounted on his right ear. He was making fun of her for being smaller, for being a girl. She was standing there, her cute fists balled tight, letting his voice trail off, watching him shake his head and smirk a smirk that asked for no forgiveness. Her braided pigtails got tighter and tighter, constricting by the power of her rage. The force seeped outward and outward, rippling from the stain of anger, a marble in her body, thinning away so that her cells could feel the dose of venom, while the mind lost track of the central fact of his injustice. Eyes closed, without a word, she got up, came to him, gave her hand to his face— his goofy face was lit with bonging and alarms. Her knuckles met his
The story evolves, grows tumors of extra details that has never been there in the years passed. In fact, the story has grown so much with passing time that even my father gets increasingly more surprised by the new versions that come out of his mouth. There are hundreds of versions of it drifting in time, but no one can uncover the truth because whatever was has transformed to what is now and whatever now could be infinitely different then.
And in the purest form, the story goes:
Eunju Namkung, age six, punched Ian Park, age eight, in the nose. His nose bled and he cried. Eunju cried too, because she was afraid of getting into trouble.
And this is a version that has been spoken sometime between then and now:
Eunju Namkung, a mere age six, a sweet little kindergartner, was playing with Ian Park, who was in second grade, but had no friends of his own age to play with. He had said something stupid with his goofy mouth and stupid big front teeth and stupid monkey ears, all curled at the edges, with the weird mole mounted on his right ear. He was making fun of her for being smaller, for being a girl. She was standing there, her cute fists balled tight, letting his voice trail off, watching him shake his head and smirk a smirk that asked for no forgiveness. Her braided pigtails got tighter and tighter, constricting by the power of her rage. The force seeped outward and outward, rippling from the stain of anger, a marble in her body, thinning away so that her cells could feel the dose of venom, while the mind lost track of the central fact of his injustice. Eyes closed, without a word, she got up, came to him, gave her hand to his face— his goofy face was lit with bonging and alarms. Her knuckles met his