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Dec. 5, 2027

I should write a story about loneliness, maybe about an astronaut like me. The story should be about how she couldn’t bear her home planet and left it as if she was sent into exile. She ends up wandering in outer space. But she fails to find an answer there, so she returns to her planet full of pain, to see only one person, to be comforted and empathized by that person

내가 수술을 결심하게 된 이유 중 가장 큰 몫은 직업에 있었다.

The biggest reason that I decided to get the surgery was because of my job. 

타인에게 공감하지 않음으로써 상처받지 않을 수 있다.

수술이 처음 소개되었을 때 의학계에서는 그렇게 설명했다.

누구나 머릿속에 거울을 가지고 있다.

상대방의 마음을 비출 수 있는 거울이다.

그 거울을 통해 상대방의 감정을 관찰하고 모사하며 공감을 이끌어낸다.

상대방의 화난 마음, 상처받은 마음, 

그로 인해 내 안에서 피어나는 공감대의 형성,

그 감정이 나를 상대방과 같은 처지에 놓이게 한다.

I wouldn’t get hurt if I didn’t empathize with others. The medical world had this explanation when the surgery was first introduced. Everybody has a mirror in his or her head. It’s a mirror that can show another person’s heart. People empathize by observing and mimicking other people’s emotions through that mirror. Their anger and hurt shape empathic feelings in me. Those feelings put me in the same position as others. 

# Interview with literary critic Jeon So-yeong

Sharing pain by shadowing means empathizing with someone else’s pain. I-ra and Do-ah called that ability a superpower. That naming is meaningful because it implies that empathy is not easy. People in the future decided to have their empathic abilities removed to protect themselves emotionally, because you can’t be hurt when you can’t empathize with someone else’s suffering. But did they become happy once their empathetic abilities were gone? No. Perhaps trying to share someone else’s feelings, however painful they may be, is the last means to make a person more humane.  

‘또 그림자 하는 거야?’

‘네가 아파하는 걸 내가 나눠가지는 거야’ 

‘Are you shadowing me again?’ 

‘I’m sharing your pain.’ 

나는 절대로 도아가 될 수 없으므로,

그 아픔을 나눠 가질 수 없다는 걸 알고 있는데도 혹시 몰라서.

도아는 내 그림자가 되어 내 아픔을 조금씩 나눠가졌다.

나도 그럴 수 있기를 빌어.

I could never be Do-ah, so I could never share her pain. But Do-ah took away my pain little by little by becoming my shadow. I hope I can do the same for her now. 

도아가 일어나면 끝내 하지 못한 이야기를 마저 할 것이고,

끝내 풀지 않은 공식을 풀어낼 것이다.

네 행동을 따라 할 것이고, 네 말을 따라 읊으며

너를 등 뒤에서 끌어안고 괜찮다고 속삭일 것이다.

When she wakes up, I will tell her a story I couldn’t tell her before and solve an equation that I didn’t solve before. I will mimic your actions and say the words you say, and I will hold you from behind and whisper that you’re okay. 

도아와 함께 있으면 조금씩 가슴께가 아려온다.

근육이 뭉친 것처럼 말이다.

어쩌면 우리 사이의 가장 강력한 감정 하나가, 

내 모든 것을 원상태로 돌려 놓을지도 모르겠다.

When I’m with Do-ah, my heart starts to ache, as if it’s cramping up. Perhaps, this strong feeling between us might return me to my original state. 

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Cheon Seon-ran (Born in Incheon, Jul. 7, 1993~ )

Debuted with “A Broken Bridge” in 2019