Miss Pigeon

31
The Story of Miss Pigeon, 1995


Awakening didn't cry. On her face, she didn't show tears nor made a crying sound. But Dano knew that she was also crying. Dano knew she was all tears. That is, she was crying with all her face. All face muscles of hers were crying. It seemed, to Dano, as if minute particles of tears had been oozing out of her muscles. On top of all that, Awakening did all the filial piety she had not done since she had left her mundane father, and she did more than the rest of the family had done through their lives.

Awakening did, on behalf of all her secular family, did observe 49-day condolence prayers at Eunhaesa Temple, Youngcheon. The prayer ritual, which was held after all the secular funeral procedures had been done, was followed by more sophisticated procedures which needed patience.

Toung Doung's funeral at his worldly house took five days from start to finish. Because he was not pronounced dead in a hospital bed, his dead body didn't have to be frozen away in a dark hospital freezer. It was on the first half of April and the air was so aptly cool that he could also get away with lying through the condolence visits in the room, behind folding screens and in a cozy coffin with covers, though.

The bereaving relatives also took advantage of the geographical advantage of the rustic community. They put up tents in the garden orchard and treated the visitors who had just left the condolence room with meals, meats and drinks. The condolence visitors from the neighborly rustic towns made ant lines all through the funeral period, paying tributes to his life of honesty, integrity and diligence.

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Whereas the rest of Toung Doung's offspring got more involved in the after-death ritual and the management of the grave mound, Dano got preoccupied with the "reconciliation and reunion with his father." Illczin planted lawns and watered them, and manicured them. Divinist Odagaga had once told Dano that he had been able to "meet" his deceased father.

"How is it possible for one to meet one's parents again after death? Dano had once asked him. Mr. Odagaga had only beamed. Dano once had gotten a wind, at around the time when his father Toung Doung had been digging the family well, from a celestial tip (from cerebral images during sleep) that his father would work as a site supervisor of the Celestial Work Place. So his dead father might not have been in the grave; His father might have been nowhere, or he might have been everywhere.

Dano's dead father once or twice might have "come" to his first son's Mokdong Apartment, but he might have been disappointed at what he had seen. One of his nephews, or, Illczin's second son said in the presence of the relatives that "I saw grandfather in white durumaggi, (*Korean man's traditional garment which is loosely outfitted) one day at dawn. Innocent young men might have been able to have the opportunity of seeing the dead spirits. Illczin once asserted that he had seen white ghosts dancing on the rooftop of the water mill plant. Dano's third son Kyo (First, Tai; Second, Hua) would later admit to spotting "the white human shape" at his room of Eunma Apartment Complex at the very night of the move.

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In secular financial terms, his wife's accessory store was doing well while Dano's book copies were not profitable. His new book on "the conversion approach" as well as his old ones only got the contract money of about 500 dollars. There had been no more phones, faxes, emails or something from the publishing houses. There always had. The scant letters of recognition and praise for Dano's principle of the interpretation of the English prose showed that his readers were scattered yet unorganized.

There was an intermission type of episode in Dano's journey from savagery to civilization: From a flint man to an online netizen. It was just like an experiment, accidentally made, though, with which to verify the efficacy of communication with an animal species classified as avian class. Say, a ship was in distress, with sails broken and blizzards blowing. A poor creature, shaken by terror, starved and frozen, sneaked into a Mokdong apartment house of Dano's, seeking haven. Spotting a small pigeon, which had flown in, on a snowy day, from an open glass window on the veranda of the 8th floor, Dano approached him with a great care, with a sound of cooing and a gesture of feeding. A wet pigeon walked toward him with a grudging and suspicious gait. Returning from the Daechi-dong store at eleven o'clock at night, Tschai, sighting a strange visitor, expressed dismay at Dano's idea of keeping it. After some exchanges, she O.K.ed the guest's conditional stay: Come spring, it will have to leave.

The avian guest turned out odd. As if to have a right to do so, the busy body who would later be named Goosoon issued a noisy wake-up call at five in the morning. It was not the same kind of a severe din made when cicadas alarmed their villagers. Tschai showed irritation at the noise and the droppings, of all the nuisances. She had some knowledge of the avian droppings. She said the droppings of the pigeons were the most virulent in that they contaminated and eroded soil, and even the concrete pavement. Like the rest of the other world cities, Seoul had the enormous pigeon population around the city, mostly around the subway stations and city parks. Tschai was spreading the waste papers wide under the pigeon's nest.

What the uninvited guest irked the hostess more than the excretion of it was that it expressed its overt emotion toward Dano and Tschai too obviously. That is, it expressed familiarity toward Dano to an exhilarating degree whereas it revealed hostility toward Tschai to the extent that she pouted. It cooed rhythmically and literally necked Dano whereas it pecked at Tschai's hands fiercely.

Once a provisional lodging was permitted to the poor pigeon, Tschai suggested that they name the maverick. She wanted to know first how a biedulggi is termed in Chinese words. As Dano said 'Goo' (鳩), she named it Goosoon (鳩順) by adding a feminine suffix 'soon'. On what grounds she judged the small avian invader a female but not a male? Because the animal liked Dano so much.

Goosoon liked to be inside the room. Very presumptuous. When Dano was noticed to be moving inside the room she approached the glass window and pecked at it with its bill and asked to be let in. Dano was wondering whether it was wise of him to destroy the border between the animal however small, and a human, such as it is. In fact, millions of pets had been allowed to be inside the human living quarters. Once let in, Goosoon liked to sit beside Dano, and appeared flattering when Dano was reading, and obsequious when typing or writing something. She didn't eat much. Goosoon didn't get scandalized by rapacity. She ate a minimal amount of grain and drank a few drops of water. She liked to bathe, say, in a small plastic water basin. Dano dried her after that and let her warm herself on the ondol room floor.

Goosoon liked to be touched. Dano liked to keep company with her by keeping her inside the parka or something during the early morning stroll. She seemed to enjoy the warmth there inside. Getting to the Mokdong Park, Dano used to let go of him and walk freely on the park. She was flying here and landing there and seemed to enjoy watching the folks stroll and play shuttlecocks. At times she disappeared in the peer throng. Then Dano called her out "Hey, Goosoon," then she came flying to him. When going back home Dano opted to go first, saying "Goosoon, I'm coming home." When coming back home Dano found her already in her nest.

On the wee small hours of an early spring, Goosoon returned with mud all over her and exhausted. Dano wondered what had happened to her. Was she violated? Or raped or something? She did not croon nor alert in the morning. The next time he knew Goosoon appeared to be incubating eggs or something. Once she alighted on the nest, she did not come down unless when she was sipping some liquids. She hardly touched grains. Dano and Tschai discovered that there were two small eggs in there. Tschai was so touched by her sincerity that she gave a pledge that if she were to hatch eggs into kid birds she would allow them to stay for an extended period of time.

When three weeks or so were up, Dano found Goosoon got agitated: The eggs remained as it had been. It was a sad Sunday afternoon. The weather was warm; The afternoon sun ray of spring was shining through the glass window. All were gathered there: the Dano-Tschai couple and the poor Goosoon. Dano sought an expert opinion. A human voice from the receiver of a related authority advised Dano that he shake the eggs. "If you found the eggs in a liquid state, that means it would not be hatched," he said. Dano tiptoed and took the eggs and calmly shook them. They were full of liquid. Before he knew, just out of the blue Tschai shouted with rage: "What a useless brazen creature not to bear her young!" Her shouts would have sounded thunderous to the ears of the poor creature. Goosoon went flying out never to return.