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The sun was setting by the time she arrived in front of an office/residence building on the riverside in the evening. Instead of entering the building, she walked out toward the riverbank. She thought a fear that cannot be understood clearly was the real fear. If she were to find a metaphor for that feeling in the first film she had worked on as a screenwriter with her friend Yeon, it might have been like the fear about an empty cup.

저녁 무렵 그녀가 강변에 있는 H오피스텔 앞에 도착했을 때는

해가 지고 있었다.

그녀는 건물로 들어가는 대신 강변 쪽으로 나아갔다.

무엇인지 알 수 없는 두려움이야말로 

진정한 두려움이라는 생각이 들었다.

그녀와 연선배가 함께 시나리오 작업을 했던 

첫 영화에 빗대 표현하자면,

그것은 빈 찻잔에 대한 두려움 같은 것일지도 몰랐다

Interview by literary critic Jeon So-yeong

When someone hands me an empty cup, I tend to form some sort of a relationship with that person. He could fill that cup or I could, but either way the cup will be filled. Kwon Yeo-sun used the metaphor of an empty cup for that awkward situation.

When the script was almost ready, she jokingly told Yeon that she had at last attained peace like a river. Yeon nodded as she put down an empty cup in front of her.

“It’s over. Let’s all forget about it.” (Yeon)

Koh nodded and drank up the cup that Yeon had filled for her. 

At that moment, Yeon must have lowered a bucket deep into her desire while watching her trepidation, rage, and despair in the same way that she was now looking at the river. 

The act of putting down an empty cup already caused an effect and created an intended result. 

As an empty space makes an outline, as a reflected image reveals what is reflected, by casually putting down an empty cup inside of her, Yeon made her squeeze out the most bitter juice from the parched suffering all the while she was writing the screenplay.  

시나리오가 완성되어갈 즈음

그녀는 마침내 강 같은 평화를 얻었노라고 연선배에게 농담처럼 말했다.

연선배는 그녀 앞에 빈잔을 놓으며 말했다.

“끝났어. 다 잊자” 

그녀는 고개를 끄덕였고 연선배가 채워준 잔을 단숨에 비웠다.

그 때 연선배는 그녀가 강을 바라보듯 

그렇게 그녀의 흥분과 분노와 절망을 지켜보면서

그녀의 욕망 깊숙한 곳에 두레박을 드리웠을 것이다.

빈잔을 내려놓는 행위는 이미 어떤 영향을 미쳐 

의도한 결과를 만들어낸다.

여백이 윤곽을 만들고, 반사된 것이 반사한 것을 드러내듯,

연선배는 그녀 내부에 가볍게 빈 잔 하나를 내려놓음으로써

그녀가 시나리오를 쓰는 내내 퍽퍽한 고통의 육즙에서

가장 쓰라린 즙을 쥐어짜내도록 만들었다.

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Kwon Yeo-sun (Born in 1965, in Andong, Gyeongsangbuk-do Prov.)

: 1996 Debuted with novel “Niche of Green“

2018 Won grand prize at the 19th Lee Hyo-seok Literature Awards