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She suddenly wonders what it feels like to pass Eupsan Tollgate. Although she has never ventured outside of the city since she came in through the closed tollgate six years ago, she thinks the expressway toll tickets piled up like playing cards inside a plastic case resemble unpaid bills. She feels that the bills with due amounts that must be paid, that were sent to her every moment of her life, are heaped in front of her helplessly.   

A moving truck left the city through a High Pass Lane. Household goods loaded onto the 1.5-ton truck appear to be hers. Maybe her stuff from the studio were packed and sent to another city while she was manning the Eupsan tollbooth. 

읍산요금소 앞으로 뻗은 도로는 칠백 미터 지점 쯤 에서

고속도로 상행선과 하행선 두 갈래 길로 갈라진다.

통행료는 통과할 때마다 지불해야 한다.

통과하는 횟수는 백 번일 경우 백 번 다.

뫼비우스 띠라고 했던가.

차들이 부메랑처럼 되돌아와 부스 밑에 설 때마다 그녀는

자신이 들어앉아 있는 부스가 

뫼비우스의 띠의 시작이자 끝인 지점에 자리하고 있는 것 같다. 

The road that stretches before the Eupsan Tollgate splits into northbound and southbound lanes at about seven hundred meters. Toll must be paid every time a vehicle passes through the tollgate. If one passes through one hundred times, it should pay a toll one hundred times. It is something like the mobius strip. Every time vehicles stop at her booth, returning like a boomerang, she sees the booth she is sitting in as the beginning and end of the mobius strip. 

# Interview with SNU Korean literature professor Bang Min-ho 

The overall ambience of this story is gloomy and bleak, reminiscent of a live-in maid’s difficult life. The lead female character is divorced, her son living with her husband, and working parttime, barely making ends meet. Her job of receiving toll money happens in a matter of seconds and she sends off vehicles in an instant. Her life seems to be inconsequential and fleeting like her job. The woman’s lifestyle is overlapped with her job in this story. 

그녀는 의자 밑에 놓아둔 가방에서 은색 파우치를 꺼냈다.

파우치 지퍼를 열고 립스틱을 꺼내든다.

립스틱을 바르자 입이 얼굴과 겉돌면서 붉게 떠오른다.

그녀는 립스틱을 덧바른 뒤 도로에 두 눈을 고정시킨다.

석양이 깔려와 부레처럼 부풀어 보이는 도로 위로 차가 한 대 나타난다.

차는 읍산요금소를 향해 느리지도, 빠르지도 않은 어중간한 속도로 달려온다.

차 종류와 색깔이 잘 분별이 안 된다.

그녀는 방금 립스틱을 발랐다는 것을 망각하고는 립스틱을 덧바르며,

검은색 그랜저가 아니기를 속으로 간절히 바란다.

She takes out a silver-colored pouch from her purse. She opens the pouch and takes out a tube of lipstick. Once she puts on the lipstick, her red lips seem to detach from her face and stick out. She wears some more lipstick, her eyes glued on the road. 

A vehicle appears on the road, swollen like an air bladder under the setting sun. 

The car approaches Eupsan Tollgate in a moderate speed, neither fast nor slow. She can’t tell the car’s model or color. Forgetting that she has already put on her lipstick, she adds more on her lips and fervently hopes that it is not the black sedan.