Diary of a Murderer

The doctor said, “Your memories will gradually disappear. Your short-term memory and your recent memories will go first. It can be slowed but it can’t be stopped. For now, take the prescribed medication regularly. And write everything down, and keep those notes on your person. In time you may not be able to find your own house.”

I was forty-five at the time of my last murder. Looking back, it dawns on me that my father was also forty-five the year he suffocated under the pillow. What a strange coincidence. I’m writing this down, too.

Just stay alive till we cross the desert. If not you, my dear, who else would endure this barren hell with me?

Though Ina was the origin that Seojin returned to, wasn’t Seojin a shelter for her during the arduous trek of her life? Unlike the origin that she was for him, one might be tearfully grateful at the sight of a shelter, but there was always yet another shelter.

The bruises seemed to be talking directly to Seojin: You may think this woman is yours, but the real owner is elsewhere.

I don’t regret it,” he said. “Everything that happened before I met you reminds me of a recent dream. You know how no matter what you dream about, in the morning you always wake up in the same place you were the night before.”

Because it makes the past feel that much more terrible.”

I’m floating in lukewarm water. It’s peaceful, tranquil. Who am I? And where is this place? A gentle breeze blows into the emptiness. I continue swimming, but no matter how much I paddle my arms, I can’t escape. This silent, still world becomes smaller and smaller. It becomes infinitely small until it becomes a single dot. It becomes a speck of dust in the cosmos. No, even that disappears.

living solely in the present means descending to the life of an animal.

And the poems I wrote with my victims’ blood, my poems that forensics officers call the scene of the crime, are buried in the cabinets of the police station.