If you've ever been woken up in the middle of the night by the screams of horror right outside your window, then you would understand why sleep is so difficult to find.

If you've ever been forced to dream of hungry murderers and crashing police sirens, because there is nothing better to dream about, then you would know that dreams do come true.

Murder is real.  Death is real.  So real that it happens nightly in this vehement neighborhood, where I dare not go out after sunset.  Violence hides in the hedges and carcasses bathe in the light of a wild moon, making me wish that I was wild.  

I eat my thawed vegetables and leftover rice, watching the sun set through the cracked glass of my kitchen window.  The light gnaws through the curtains and chews away at the wood of the dining table.  I wait for the first outburst of police lights as I swallow my meal. 

I've thought about it, and I think that there are two ways to be horrible.  The first, is to be dangerous.  The second, is to be human.

I would much rather prefer the first than the second, which is why I rely so much on that notebook.  The notebook containing all those ideas on how to be dangerous, how to be wild.

The people in living in this neighborhood must all feel the same way--they aren't afraid of danger.  They bathe in the blood that is shed by night, and reside in the palace of police sirens that reign by day.

But I am different, I am not one of them.  I do not find myself flourishing in the reels of violence and incongruity.  I wish to be sheltered, held by the hand of my own safety to continue living, long enough to fulfill the visions of my camera.

If only I were afraid.

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When I was young, and stubborn, and hormone-driven, I took my first photography class.  My instructor was an elderly woman who sighed often, but she was sturdy, and kept me on my toes.  She read me like an open storybook and every morning she greeted me with a smile, even though her heart was dying.  Every morning was the same.

Kyungsoo, what should we dream today?

Every morning, I would keep silent, and fix the lens of my camera as if they needed fixing.  I never answered her questions.

In my second year, my instructor left the earth and the classroom empty.  I came to class one day and I couldn't recognize the teacher at the front of the room.  It disappointed me more than surprised me.  

I suddenly missed the questions about new dreams and uncooperative Kyungsoo.  And the tired smile and the questions that I never answered.  I wished I that I had answered them earlier.

Dejectedly, I gave up photography for two years, and began to wonder instead why they always say laughter is the best medicine.  

It came to the point where I was positive that I had proven them all wrong.  Laughter is not medicine.  Laughter does not cure anything--not the sense of happiness, or the brink of sadness, not even the urge to satisfy others.  I've proven them wrong, for how does laughter bring back what death has already taken?