H is for Hideous
By Kim Hyesoon
Translated by Don Mee Choi
He raised a flower vase to be his wife
The vase was so quiet that he didn’t dare ask her anything
He told her, Stay home
When I come home, raise the corners of your lips
He enjoyed hiding his body inside the mute vase
The vase stank
The meterman who entered the house said, I had a strange feeling
I felt as if thousands of eyes were secretly watching me
That feeling of being in an empty kitchen when a faucet suddenly turns on by itself and water gushes out
The vase never did a thing in the house
It only held a rotten flower in its mouth
It only rattled the windows, cabinets, and glasses all night long
Sometimes it jumped up on the table and bashed its own head into bits
It could only lay its body in a straight line at the same hour, same space, and fly fast
It could only float up from bed with its hair down for a few minutes
But when you stared into the husband’s eyes for a long time
you saw a crazy, homeless, mute woman wiggling out
He had a reputation for avoiding eye contact, being shy
After he died, the first thing the vase did was wash her hair in the middle of the night
After he died, the second thing the vase did was stare at herself in the mirror for a long time
After he died, the vase screamed every morning as if her face were stabbed by a pick
At dawn she went up to the roof and beat on the washbowl as if sending a fire signal
The police officer who received a call about the noise asked,
How many years have you lived here?
I don’t live here
I’m just housesitting
I change the water in the vase
I get mail
I clean the shadows
I give birth to babies,
the vase spoke for the first time
Notes:
Read the Korean-language version, "흉할흉."
Kim Hyesoon, "H is for Hideous" (Tr. by Don Mee Choi) from Phantom Pain Wings. Copyright © 2023 by Kim Hyesoon. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation.
