The front of the Usuhan Housing was a dusty and chaotic mess.  It once stood as a proud landmark of the Joheun Toyang, the city’s lowest-income area.  In the mid-90’s, the government had subsidized the development of this ten-floor apartment structure so that the poorest of the poor could afford a decent residence.  The higher powers at the city hall had high hopes for this noble edifice that was built with pride and good intentions.  That’s why it was named ‘Usuhan’… meaning ‘excellent’.  It was supposed to be the model of low-cost housing to be replicated citywide—but because rent was so low and there was no tight screening of tenants, the building started to attract criminals including drug dealers, es and addicts and many people with questionable reputation.  Some rooms were sub-rented for short-time ual hook-ups and some units became gambling dens.  Instead of a safe haven for the weak and underprivileged… Usuhan Housing became the nest of human trash.

Fast forward to present times, Usuhan… this beautiful low-cost housing dream… was up for demolition.  The government finally said, “ it!  Let’s just sell the damn thing and make money.  Let’s have some commercial real estate er turn this garbage into a mall and pay us twenty times the price we got the land for.”  And that made perfect sense.  Why should the Blue House (official residence of the President of South Korea) continue to waste their resources and risk the lives of their fine policemen who constantly raided and tried to establish peace and order in a hopeless hell hole?  Enough was enough.

Heading back to the entrance of the apartment building after a short trip to the nearest grocery store, Bae Joohyun passed through the intricate obstacle course composed of construction cones, giant bulldozer, forklifts, excavators and drillers.  She repeatedly said ‘excuse me’ like a litany and begged pardon from workers with heavy equipment and the policemen patrolling the entire activity. 

Joohyun reached the front of the lobby and it was nearly as manic inside.  Plenty of residents were hauling their belongings down to the ground floor with grim faces that read, ‘Where do I go now?’ Joohyun walked close to the wall to avoid bumping into people, furniture or appliances. She headed straight to the corner of the building where the mailboxes were.

She stopped in front of box number ‘526’ which was conveniently at eye-level.  Would she see a letter there?  Surely, he must have known how desperate she was. She had written him numerous passionate letters one after another—pleading with him to write or call.  She had explained her situation and begged him to not abandon her. As a subtle threat, she had hinted that her life would surely end if she were to conclude that she had lost him completely.  In almost six months of sending mail to his last known address, none of her letters were answered.  But on the positive side, none were returned to the sender either.  That means there was a fairly big chance that he had been receiving them.  Did he have a change of mind at the last minute? Did he finally take pity on her? 

She placed her small brown bag of groceries down on the dirty floor. He heart began to pound as she inserted a key.  Allan… Allan, please… please, my love…  She opened the mailbox.  Nothing was there except a leaflet.
 

FINAL NOTICE

All tenants must vacate the Usuhan Housing premises on Sunday, June 17 at the latest.  Tenants are responsible for the removal of their personal belongings from their own units. All abandoned items in the units are no longer accessible after June 17 and are deemed subject to destruction and disposal. The Usuhan Housing administration will not be responsible for compensating previous tenants of any item destroyed after the aforementioned date.

If you have any concern, please contact Usuhan Housing Demolition Project Team at City Hall or call (TEL. NUMBER).

Thank you for your attention.
Usuhan Housing Administration

Joohyun looked inside the small square box.  Nothing else there.  No letter from him. 

He didn’t write.

He didn’t care if she needed him desperately.

He didn’t care if she ended up dead.

They were over...

Her life was over.

*****************

With so many tenants using the stairs to carry everything from refrigerator to sofa beds, Joohyun was able to take the elevator fast and conveniently. She rode it up to the fifth floor which was really the fourth—but some superstitious dummy honored the ridiculous superstition that ‘four’ is generally an unlucky number to most Asians and therefore, tenants would not want to take up residence in a floor that represented ‘death’.  Hence, level four in the building became the ‘fifth’ floor.

Joohyun stepped out of the lift a