You walk along the dark Duteopbawi (두텁바위)1, where there are no streetlights, and see the back of a woman lying deep in the forest, in front of an artificial pond. She has a hunched back, with her arms pressed tightly against her sides and her legs drawn together with no space between them. Her greying hair clings to her sweaty neck. You are on a call with someone.
“Hey, there’s a starving ghost here. All the homeless are ghosts living off taxpayers’ money. If I walk a bit further, I’ll get to Seoul Station2. There’s an old lady who grabs the collar of your clothes and says she knows some young women. If I follow her, she tells me that women with severed arms and legs are crawling around in motel rooms. In another room, there’s a carry case full of chopped-off arms and legs that crawls around by itself. Hey, there’s a carry case next to the ghost. Isn’t that the old lady who sells her body? Ugh, that’s disgusting.”
The woman’s back sways though she was as still as a rock. Damn it, I gently tugged on the collar of your dress.
“What? Who are you?!”
Startled, you curse and look around, suddenly pressing the record button on your mobile phone. The woman clenches her fists. Blue tendons bulge beneath the reticulated calluses spreading across the back of her hand. She suddenly turns around. The woman screams at the top of her lungs.
“Help! Someone please call the police! They’re hurting people! What the hell are you ghosts doing, not catching that guy?!”
You’re the one who should be punished. I took your mobile phone and hurled it with all my strength into the pond. I grabbed your head in shock and bent your waist at a ninety-degree angle. Today is the last day of my walk.
1.Name of a street in the Dongja-dong, Huam-dong and Galwol-dong areas of Yongsan-gu, Seoul. This neighbourhood is home to the largest population of rough sleepers, including those living on the streets in front of Seoul Station, the Dongja-dong favela and kosiwon (small, inexpensive rooms available for short-term contracts).
2.From the 2000s until recently, elderly women and rough sleepers in economic poverty have been openly mediating sex trafficking in the area around Seoul Station, where there is a large mobile population.