A Clearing in a Wide Oval Bowl / 김효리 Hyo Rhi Kim

A Clearing in a Wide Oval Bowl

김효리 Hyo Rhi Kim

*In conversation with Esch in Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward. I use language from the chapter “The Eighth Day” in the book.*

Back then, we finished watching Seeking a Friend for the End of the World. A romantic comedy (though I found the movie lacked wit and cleverness to be considered comedy) about not seeking a friend for the end of the world. (I mean, the protagonists were kind of obsessed with romantic love rather than friendship, not that friendship needs to exclude romantic love, but I digress.) I went on a rant on why the plot was dissatisfactory and why I thought the ending was dumb. Spoiler alert: The woman, who through the whole duration of the movie desperately tries to get to her parents to see them one last time, ditches the one opportunity to do that (an opportunity only made possible by the man in love with her) in order to die with the “love of her life” she just met.

“I would rather die alone, out in a field, (I might as well be naked) thinking of all the ones I have loved (and God, lichen, time, and all the things I won’t tell you) rather than one person I was temporarily fixated on. That person might not even be ‘the one,’ once the hormones have calmed down.”

“You are definitely weird.”

“Why? How do you want to spend the last days or hours before the world ends?”

“Definitely not alone.”

During a time of looming doom, I don’t want anyone’s smell on me. (Get Manny off of you, Esch.)

No blessings for heroes. (I really dislike heroes, Esch.)

Nothing to cloak.

I want to think about people, and I don’t. Haven’t people crowded my mind enough already? Joe said he won’t let me die alone if I got covid.

“Please promise me you will leave me alone,” I said to him. Firmly.

Who wants to die having a man into the Hero’s Journey, hovering over you expressing his love and appreciation and what you meant to his life, when you just want to focus on feeling what it is like to die? Your own death.

To the friend who I watched the movie with, I once said that I always get the feeling that he sees himself as Odysseus and all the people who cross his path as side characters that exist for his journey: his trials, his learning, his enlightenment. (I thought I loved him at some point, but the infatuation passed, Esch. No one died in the process.)

I said bye-bye to our friendship, because you can never be a friend to a hero. You can only play the role of a friend.

A clearing in a wide oval bowl seems like a good place to greet Death. With nothing made to be known to another. Alone. Small and Immense.