September 2008

            I hesitated; the view from the tenth floor didn’t appear so appealing anymore. I took one step backwards, then another, until I was finally off the ledge. “You should go home,” he persuaded me with a gentle push.

            “I am home,” I corrected, “this is my apartment building.”

            “Then you should go back to your apartment,” he said, cheeks slightly flushed.

            “What about you?” I asked. “Don’t you have to return home as well?”

            “This is my apartment building too,” he said softly. He turned away. “Run along now. I need to take a drag.” My eyebrows furrowed. By means of taking a drag, the stranger can’t possibly mean…

            “I smoke alright,” he clarified, “now run along. You don’t want to secondhand smoke. It’s dangerous for your health.”

            “If it’s dangerous for my health then –“

            “I have reasons – just leave,” he said before pulling out a box of cancer sticks. In a brief minute, his cigarette was lighted and ready to be puffed on. I whirled around and proceed to head downstairs. But then it hit me. I still didn’t know the stranger’s name.

            “Wait –“ I called out. He spun around, cancer stick in tow.

            “Yes?”

            “What’s your name?” I inquired.

            “Kim Jong In,” he answered simply.

            “Well my name is Hana –“

            “Hana Park – I know.”

            “How do you know?”

            “Some things you just know,” he responded before turning away. I frowned at his back view before heading downstairs to my apartment. Kim Jong In.

* * * *

December 2008

            I hated hospitals. It was much similar to a jail that precluded me from doing anything. With physicians and nurses hustling everywhere to attend to patients, it was certainly not quiet. What I hated even more was how they treated us like little kids. I did not want to be babied nor be fed, so I would have appreciated it very much if they didn’t touch me.

            But above all, what I despised the most was sharing a room with strangers.

            “Yah! Did you touch my magazines?” The grouchy old man who slept a few beds away from me was going around the room, questioning everybody who was a likely suspect. He appeared to be very possessive about his sources of entertainment gossip  as he bailed his fists in anger.

            “And how should you expect me to know where you’ve placed them? Everytime you accuse me of touching them, you always find them in the end,” the lady who slept next to me replied, somewhat angered.

            “You should ask that new young lady there,” commented another patient in the room. The old man’s eyes laid upon me as his eyebrows shot up in interest.

            “I’ve never seen her around before…” he approached me, “young lady, have you been touching my magazines?”

            “No, I jus