Jennifer felt the dryness of the golden wheat crops all around her, brushing against her bare legs. It scratched and tickled her skin, and when she opened her eyes, she saw that she was in a field of it that stretched to the horizon in each direction. Amber waves of grain. She wondered if she was in Nebraska, or maybe Kansas. She hadn’t spent a lot of time in the central region of the States, as there wasn’t much there, but looking around her then, she realized how beautiful nothing could be.

She reached down and ran her hands through the wheat, the grains crumbling at her touch. But the ground beneath also began crumbling, the wheat field now seemingly existing in air through which she waded, her arms outstretched and pushing herself along in a sweeping glide through the grains. What she had thought had stretched to the horizon didn’t, after all. The wheat was high and it had blocked her view of the mud flats just beyond. And she soon became mired in that mud, her body covered in the thickness of it. But still, she thought, the mud was beautiful, the way it coated her body and gave her warmth, protection.

Something urged her onward toward a lone tree barely visible in the distance. It looked so far away, and she didn’t think she could make it. She crawled through the mud, her hands and knees sinking into the ground, but she was strong and she pushed her muscles hard, forcing her body forward, knowing that she needed, although she didn’t know why, to reach that tree. The ground began to harden beneath her and she was able to move more freely and eventually stand. As she rose from the ground, the mud on her body disappeared. She held out her arms, tilted her head back, and felt the sun on her, and she walked with her eyes closed for some time, letting her instincts lead her.

When she opened her eyes again, she saw her mother smiling down upon her, a faded image, a memory. The tears streamed from Jennifer’s eyes and she tried to grab on to the memory, but her hands passed right through and the image rippled, waves of it folding onto itself over and over again until it disappeared entirely. She fell to her knees and began crying, missing her mother. Soon, though, she saw a hand reach out to her and when she looked up, she saw Jong Kook’s mother, who then helped her up and, without saying a word, pointed to the tree ahead.

The tree was closer than before. She could see it in its entirety, the dark trunk and light branches clear against the blue sky. She was walking but felt like she was gliding, all sense of hardship behind her and nothing but peace driving her forward. She reached forward and touched the trunk, and as she did, she saw the color and texture of the tree begin to take hold of her hand, merging with it and rising up her arm all the way to her shoulder, and she panicked, trying to free herself from the tree. When she was finally able to pull away, she saw her arm, like a branch, and from the tips of her fingers, a leaf had sprouted, and from that leaf, a red apple, brighter than any she had seen before. She watched it take shape