3

As always, the sorting of garbage from the downtown and commercial areas began at dawn and ended around nine in the morning. Bulldozers levelled out the heaps of trash, then dump trucks loaded with fill dirt came in to cover the trash. The pickers on the Baron’s team gathered the items they’d scavenged into baskets and carried them over to the clearing that served as the sorting area. Up and down between the dumpsite and the sorting area they went, collecting the results of their morning’s work, separating it into different categories, weighing everything, and confirming the amounts. The crew leaders wrote down how much everyone collected each day. Then, twice a month, on purchasing day, all of the items they’d collected were sold in bulk to recycling plants, and the money was divvied up according to each person’s individual haul.

Since it was the day before the Chuseok holiday, the trash from the commercial areas had multiplied over the last few days, and far more food waste had been spilling out of the trucks that came from the apartment complexes and residential areas in the afternoon. But it was clear that the real flood of trash wouldn’t hit them until two or three days after Chuseok. Here, as in the city, this time of year was referred to as the Chuseok rush. The whole country would be on holiday for the three-day-long autumn harvest celebration, after which the landfill would be deluged with paper and plastic and cardboard of all sorts. The pickers were already worried about whether they’d get a moment’s break at all the next week.

‘Go fetch some water,’ Bugeye’s mother said as soon as they got to the hut.

Bugeye grabbed two white plastic water jugs from the kitchen of Baron Ashura’s hut, which was now their home, too, and headed down to the water truck. This time of day—when Bugeye and his mother, Baldspot and the Baron, all sat around late in the morning eating breakfast face to face—wasn’t exactly intolerable to him, but he was finding it more and more uncomfortable as time went on. The Baron had naturally become head of the family, and his mother had obediently become his woman. He was strict in his rule that the family should always eat breakfast together, so Bugeye and Baldspot ate their meals at the tiny metal tray table, their heads nearly touching.

Baldspot sometimes went to the church school and sometimes didn’t, and yet the Baron was indifferent as to whether or not the kid actually ever studied. Baldspot wasn’t allowed to work like Bugeye, digging items out of the trash heaps directly, but he did his best to help out by standing in the back and putting the items that the others had picked into baskets or carrying the baskets for them. On the days that Baldspot announced he was going to school, no one stopped him or pressured him to work instead. In fact, not even Bugeye worked all three shifts like his mum did, from dawn to afternoon and on into the night. Though he never missed the morning shift, with its delivery of trash from the downtown and commercial areas, he sometimes skipped the afternoon sorting of residential trash or the nightfall sorting of trash from factories and construction sites. On Mondays, when there was more work, the Baron would order him to help his mother, but the rest of the time Bugeye could excuse himself by saying he was going to school with Baldspot, and the Baron refrained from scolding him.

This time of the day, the little shop and the water truck were always crowded with women and children getting ready to cook. Bugeye set his water jugs at the back of a long, motley line of containers, and waited politely off to the side with the others. Past the shop and the management office were a half-moon-shaped Quonset hut that had been built recently and two khaki-coloured army tents that served as the church. Some sort of event seemed to be going on: a colourful banner had been hung, and cars and vans were parked out front, the sunlight glaring off the vehicles. Hymns blared out of a bugle-shaped loudspeaker on the roof of the Quonset hut. Bugeye got his turn at the water truck and filled both jugs. He picked one up in each hand and started to walk, but they were impossibly heavy. He staggered along a ways, stopped to catch his breath, staggered some more. He was just passing the crowded shop when he spotted Baldspot’s baseball cap.

‘Hey! Baldspot!’

Baldspot turned at the sound of Bugeye’s voice and ran over, looking glad to see him.

‘Hyung! Did you come to get water?’

‘What, you can’t tell by looking? Where’ve you been all morning? You skipped breakfast.’

‘I’m going to the church school. They’re handing out ramen noodles and rice cake.’

‘Really? Can I go, too?’

‘Any kid from here can go.’

‘Great. Help me with these water jugs, and I’ll join you.’

Baldspot and Bugeye slowly made their way along the path to the shantytown, shifting the jugs from left to right as they went. Bugeye made it home much faster with Baldspot’s help. His mother carried the jugs into their shack.

‘Look at that, I’ve got two helpers today,’ she said.

When she saw that they were about to take off again without coming inside, she asked, ‘Don’t you need to eat breakfast? Your father’ll be angry at you.’

‘Baldspot said we’ll get ramen and rice cake if we go to church today,’ Bugeye said.

His mother’s face lit up slightly, and she said, ‘Ramen, huh? Better get a move on then. And bring some back with you.’

Bugeye and Baldspot darted off down the narrow path, speed-walked past the front of the shop, and headed over to the church. The hymn had already been replaced by the sound of the preacher clamouring out a prayer through the loudspeaker.

‘That’s the worship service,’ Baldspot said. ‘They don’t give us stuff until that’s over.’

Baldspot knew exactly what to do. Bugeye followed him into the army tent that was used as a classroom. Bugeye had once come looking for Baldspot here, so he knew that one tent was for the kindergarteners and the other was for the grade schoolers. The kindergarten tent had a worktable, vinyl flooring, and wooden shelves filled with cheap plastic toys, and the grade-school tent had desks and chairs and even a chalkboard that could be wheeled around—all of which had been salvaged from the trash. Bugeye and Baldspot’s target was the kindergarten tent. Cardboard boxes and Styrofoam food containers were stacked inside, and a man and a woman were hanging a banner that read in large letters ‘Heaven’s Church Mission’ against the back wall. Baldspot and Bugeye decided to wait outside the tent.

When the service ended, the door to the Quonset hut opened, and people poured out. The first to emerge were the children and the volunteers who taught night school, then a grey-haired pastor in a suit and a preacher in bedraggled coveralls walking next to him, followed by a gaggle of women who looked nothing like the folks who lived in the landfill. These outside visitors, first of all, had milky-pale skin and wore makeup, and some of the women wore fancy dresses with cardigans over their shoulders or trench coats and hats, while other women wore suits. Some had brought their children. There were about thirty or so visitors in all.

‘Okay, everyone, let’s take a photo,’ a young woman with a camera called out. ‘This way, please.’

The pastor, the church elder, the head of the women’s ministry, the preacher, and everyone else lined up automatically beneath the banner without having to be told where to stand. Most of the visitors were middle-aged women, and as they lined up in two rows, the dreary interior of the army tent suddenly brightened. Even the children stood politely next to their mothers. When they were all grouped together, the air around them smelled like a flower garden.

The woman with the camera hanging from her neck called out, ‘You kids, come over here and sit in front.’

The children who’d been standing outside the tent all rushed in, but the preacher raised his arms to stop them.

‘Grade schoolers, stay where you are. Let’s have just the kindergarteners.’

The bigger kids slunk back outside, including Bugeye and Baldspot, while the kindergarteners lined up and sat at the adults’ feet, as instructed by the female volunteers. When the head of the women’s ministry jumped out of line and grabbed the youngest child—a three-year-old—and squatted down with her on her lap, the rest of the women scrambled to follow suit and pose with a small child on their laps or in their arms. From the front, the kindergarteners and the adults lined up behind them were so drastically different in both attire and appearance that it looked like a scene from a documentary about travellers in the wilds of some remote jungle.

As Bugeye stood outside and watched them take the photo, he felt a sudden jolt, like he’d been punched in the chest. One face inside the tent began to glow brighter and brighter, while everyone else’s faded into the background. The girl’s hair hung straight down past her cheeks and just brushed her shoulders, not too long and not too short, and her face was slender and fair. Her lips glistened. Her school uniform was a dark chocolate brown, and the woman next to her, who appeared to be her mother, had one arm wrapped around her. She had to be the same age as Bugeye, maybe just a year or two older. Girls like her all seemed to have the same air about them.

Just down the hill and across a pedestrian overpass from the hillside slum where Bugeye had once lived was an entirely different world. There were middle-class homes, each with their own similarly sized yards planted with flowers and trees, and as you walked further into the neighbourhood, there was a hillside, still with its original forest, which served as the area’s sole park. At the base of the hill were expensive houses surrounded by big yards, and at every corner of the well-maintained roads was a neighbourhood patrol-guard post.

Bugeye first saw the girl while crossing the pedestrian overpass. He was on his way home from the market a few bus stops away; she was probably on her way home from school. Judging by her uniform, she must’ve been in middle school. People streamed past to the left and right of him, but the moment he saw her in the distance, he felt like it was just the two of them, walking towards each other. And that was where his memory stopped. Afterwards he took to loitering around the overpass, making his way up and down, trying to judge the time. At last, another opportunity arrived for him to come face to face with her. He saw the girl get off a bus and head up the stairs, so he went up the stairs on the other side. This time, there were hardly any other pedestrians. A man dressed in a suit and tie and carrying a briefcase came towards him fast, and trailing behind was the girl, walking at her usual slow, steady pace. He studied the tiny birthmark above her cheek and the slender pin that held back her bangs. She glanced at him once, as if he were of no more interest than a street sign or the railing of the overpass, and walked on by. Bugeye couldn’t bear to watch her walk away, so he kept going until he got to the end of the overpass before turning to look. She had just reached the bottom of the stairs and had set one foot on the footpath. He started to walk towards her and then stopped. What was his old name again, he wondered, back when he, too, was an ordinary boy who went to school like the other kids? Jeong-ho? That was it. Choi Jeong-ho. He murmured his real name to himself as he slowly headed back to the hillside slum.

He didn’t see her again until much, much later. It might have been around when the seasons were changing. He remembered wearing a heavy, corduroy jacket, which meant it had to have been winter. Bugeye was hanging out by the overpass around the same time as usual when he spotted the girl again. This time, instead of crossing the bridge, he waited for her to come down the stairs, and followed her at a distance. The girl walked to a residential area near the far end of the park, past one of the guard posts, and disappeared behind an iron gate at the top of a staircase. Bugeye was standing at the bottom of a very high wall, gazing up at the top of it, when a middle-aged man dressed in a dark-blue security guard uniform ambled up to him and, with no warning, grabbed Bugeye by the scruff of his neck.

‘What’re you doing here?’

‘Nothing,’ Bugeye exclaimed.

‘Where do you live, kid?’

‘Across the bridge.’

The security guard looked Bugeye up and down. ‘Quit hanging around here,’ the guard said, ‘and get yer arse back home.’

Bugeye thought about his father then. Were these the same kind of iron gates his father had gone around stealing?

After the group photo, another photo was taken to commemorate the donation of five hundred boxes of instant ramen noodles—care packages provided by the women’s ministry from Heaven’s Church. The head of the women’s ministry and the preacher held up a box together and smiled for the camera. Many of the visitors had cameras of their own, and they took photo after photo of each other. Yet even while snapping pictures, the women kept looking around warily and covering their noses with both hands. One young woman who’d been taking photos was spraying air freshener, as if to chase the smell away. Those who lived there smelled it all the time and so had stopped noticing it, but the grown-ups said that whenever they went to the marketplace in town, other people would look around and pinch their noses as they passed. Changing their clothes made no difference.

The tent church on Flower Island tended to have a lot of these events, as there were frequent visits from churchgoers who lived in the apartment complexes and residential areas of the city. Many came in person, but at holidays, items poured in from all directions. People from community organisations, bureaucrats from city hall, and even National Assembly members came by bearing gifts. There were events held just for the grown-ups living on Flower Island, but most of the church events were targetted at children and the trash pickers who attended church services.

At last, the visitors started handing out the food. The children stood in two lines, one for kindergarteners and the other for grade schoolers. The kindergarten line was mostly mothers and their children; kindergarteners who’d come alone were asked for their information and told the food would be delivered directly to their shacks. Bugeye and Baldspot got in the middle of the grade-school line. Bugeye didn’t notice until after they cut in that the girl and her mother were standing side by side at the head of the grade-schoolers’ line. The mother was handing out boxes of ramen, while the girl handed out the styrofoam food containers. He knew it was not the same girl he’d dared to follow all the way to her house in the woods, but it was the first time since that day that his heart had raced this fast and that he found it so impossible to stand still, just as if he were fighting the urge to pee. He wanted to get out of line and run away, but they were already well inside the tent, and his turn was almost there. He had no choice but to follow on the heels of the kid in front of him and approach the table.

The girl and her mother were giving everyone one box of ramen and one styrofoam container each. No one in line pushed or shoved. They could see for themselves from the towering stacks of boxes behind the table that there was no fear of running out before they’d had their turn. Baldspot took his rations first, and then it was Bugeye’s turn. Right before his eyes was the necklace hanging from the throat of the mother in her two-piece suit and just below that the girl’s fair face. The mother handed him a box of ramen, and the daughter handed him a styrofoam food container. The girl smiled right at him, and Bugeye felt all of the strength drain out of his legs and threaten to dump him onto the ground. Just then, the preacher, who’d been standing behind the two women, spoke up.

‘I’ve never seen you before.’

‘I just moved here.’

‘Hm. Make sure you come to church next time.’

Bugeye found himself automatically saying, ‘Yes sir,’ in a barely audible voice before turning to go, his face burning bright red. As soon as he was outside, Baldspot poked his face out from the crowd of children and said, ‘Almost didn’t get food, did ya?’

‘Ugh, that was embarrassing …’

Bugeye ran ahead, worried that one of the church people might try to stop him. Children who’d come out of the tents were already pulling the rubber bands from around the styrofoam containers and eating the half-moon-shaped songpyeon rice cakes. The rich scent of sesame oil filled the air. Bugeye and Baldspot were passing the front of the shop, their boxes of ramen tucked under their arms, when they saw a crowd of women rushing towards the church with their children in tow. News of the food must have spread. One of the women stopped Bugeye. Her eyes were fixed on the box of ramen clasped tightly to his side.

‘Did they run out?’

Baldspot spread his arms wide, and said with that giggle of his, ‘There’s still this much left.’

Bugeye was overcome with shame, not only at himself but at all of the women stampeding towards the church and everyone else he lived with on that island. What a fucking joke, he thought.

At the entrance to the shantytown, Baldspot set his box of ramen down on the ground, held up the styrofoam container, and said, ‘Hyung, can’t I have just one?’

In a gentle tone, without any browbeating, Bugeye said, ‘They’re ours, so let’s leave half at home and cook up the other half at HQ.’

‘Headquarters? Okay,’ Baldspot said with a nod, and picked the box back up. ‘If we leave the whole box at home, my dad’ll get drunk and eat all of it with his friends.’

When the two boys were nearing the shack, they could hear Baron Ashura’s drunken voice.

‘We did all our work, so we deserve to get paid now, too. That’s only fair.’

Bugeye saw Baldspot flinch, so he placed one finger to his lips and snuck over to the side door. The second shack that had been built onto the Baron’s had become the boys’ room. Bugeye hid his own ramen box beneath some folded-up blankets, and handed Baldspot his styrofoam container before motioning with his chin for Baldspot to go into the other shack. Baldspot led the way, with Bugeye right behind.

‘Boys, you’re right on time. I was just about to set the table …’

Bugeye’s mother looked happy to see them, but the Baron looked them over with suspicion.

‘What’s that you’ve got?’

‘They handed it out at school,’ Baldspot giggled.

‘The church gave you that?’

‘Oh, you know, it’s one of those things,’ Bugeye’s mother said, recalling her days since the orphanage, ‘where rich ladies come to have their picture taken.’

Baldspot opened his styrofoam container and, as if unable to stand it a second longer, shoved one of the songpyeon into his mouth.

‘Dinner first, little man!’ Baron Ashura said, rapping his knuckles against the boy’s head, but Bugeye’s mother stopped him.

‘It’s Chuseok. Let them enjoy their treats.’

She picked up one of the songpyeon and fed it to the Baron. Then, noticing the look on Bugeye’s face, she quickly picked up two more and gave one to Bugeye and ate the other. The four of them munched happily on the treats.

‘I’m sorry I couldn’t make these for you myself. We just don’t have the means. But we are getting paid today, aren’t we?’

‘It’s like I just told you,’ the Baron said. ‘We all talked it over and agreed that since the private sectors are holding their purchasing day early because of the long holiday, the district sectors should get to do the same, that it’s only fair, and we went to the management office about it. They said instead of working our usual shift this afternoon, we can sell off what we’ve collected.’

‘That’s great!’

Bugeye’s mother was thrilled, but Baldspot was still pouting from the rap to the head he’d taken, and Bugeye kept stuffing songpyeon into his face with little interest in the matter. By the time his mother had set the table with their meagre meal of dwenjang stew and kimchi, a loud, whirring sound suddenly approached, and the plastic over the windows shook. Baron Ashura, who had just picked up his spoon, looked up at the ceiling and cursed.

‘Why do those sons of bitches have to come around at dinnertime and make such a goddamn racket?’

Bugeye’s mother latched the door to keep it from blowing open, and checked that the plastic sheeting over the windows was secure.

‘Hurry up and eat,’ she said.

Bugeye and Baldspot knew what that sound meant. They were itching to finish their dinner and get outside so they could watch the action. Twice a month, the city sent helicopters to fumigate Flower Island. Likewise, twice a day, after the bulldozers finished covering the garbage with a layer of fill dirt, cultivators sprayed insecticide. If not for that, the shantytown would have been so thick with flies that no one could have done their work properly. Back in Bugeye’s old neighbourhood, the local administrative office used to send around a truck that sprayed for mosquitos. The mosquitos merely dodged the clouds of vapour and refused to die, but out here, the helicopters dumped a fog-like layer of insecticide, and the flies dropped like hail. The trash pickers had welcomed it at first, but later took to rushing away from the dumpsite and taking shelter inside their shacks without bothering to remove the dust or gas masks they wore while working.

As the helicopters churned overhead, the shantytown filled with a chemical stench. The boys, who’d been carefully gauging the right moment to make their escape, wolfed down the rest of their stew and rushed off to get a closer look at the helicopters. The Baron yelled for them to stay indoors, but they pretended not to hear him. The helicopters must have already passed by overhead, because the roofs and roads had turned a shiny black from dead flies. The only ones outside, of course, were the children of Flower Island. Excited, they all ran to the clearing from where the dumpsite was visible. The helicopter was hovering seven or eight storeys above the ground and spewing out insecticide left and right. It was low enough for the children to be able to make out the faces of the pilot and the city employee next to him. The employee, who wore a gas mask and a hard hat, waved both arms at the children to try to shoo them away, but the kids just waved back and shouted. He even tried throwing cans down at the kids to keep them from coming any closer.

‘Hey, you little idiots! You wanna get sprayed, too?’

*

At nightfall, open clearings in every section of the shantytown lit up with bonfires. On top of stoves fashioned from oil drums sawn in half, meat was grilled, and stew fixings were mobilised from land, sea, and air. Now that the three-day Chuseok holiday was on the wane, the peak season for discarded items would be upon them soon, and the people of the shantytown would be able to gorge themselves for the first time in a long time on all sorts of holiday food waste. For the past two or three days, there had already been a growing amount of discarded food past its expiration date, no doubt from people cleaning out their refrigerators. City folk were always throwing out perfectly good food that they’d either been unable to finish and had let go untouched or had bought too much of and grew sick of eating. Once-frozen rice wrapped in plastic, now slimy and defrosted. Plastic bags, chockfull of shucked oysters. Whole fish, dried out and leathery. Hunks of meat, still frozen. Yellowed heads of cabbage that were still fresh once you peeled off the wilted outer leaves. Bucket upon bucket of fish heads and tails and guts thrown out of the fish market at dawn, and perfectly edible parts of the fish left over after the day’s sale. At this time of year, every night was a feast for the people of Flower Island.

On holidays, when memorial ceremonies for family ancestors were held, those who rented rooms down in the village and commuted across the stream to the landfill would go into town and purchase simple food offerings, and even those whose families lived in the shantytown couldn’t bear to set their ancestors’ tables with food picked out of the trash, and would instead purchase songpyeon and even a small packet of meat from the shop near the dumpsite to make soup for the ceremony. The shopkeepers made a point of stocking songpyeon from the nearby town every year at Chuseok, just for that purpose.

As for Baron Ashura, he kicked off the holiday the same way he spent every other day—getting drunk in the clearing with the same guys he always got drunk with. He didn’t return until the middle of the night, when the revelry had begun to settle down. Bugeye was awoken by the sound of someone pissing outside close by. Goddammit, he thought, couldn’t they pee somewhere further away? He heard the Baron come through the door, belching nonstop as if he’d had far too much to drink.

Bugeye’s mother exclaimed sharply, ‘What kind of man are you?’

‘Look, bitch, stop acting like you’re my wife. What kinda man am I? I’m a trash picker, what’s it to you?’

‘Hand over the money. You think I don’t know that you’re blowing it all on alcohol and gambling?’

Bugeye heard Baldspot stir. He gave him a tap and whispered, ‘Hey, let’s go to HQ.’

Baldspot got dressed without saying a word, while Bugeye rolled up one of the blankets they shared. Baldspot folded up the other blanket and followed Bugeye outside. They left the shantytown with its rows of low roofs that barely concealed the sound of people coughing, babies crying, drunken fits, and fighting. The moon sat high in the sky, and the fields and river looked misty. The two boys made their way over the hill and down to the river’s edge. As they were crossing the ridge of the former peanut field, Baldspot suddenly dropped into a crouch. This time, Bugeye didn’t complain or pester him with questions, but simply followed suit.

In a low voice, Bugeye asked, ‘Where are they? Which direction?’

Baldspot pointed wordlessly to the right. Bugeye squinted at the silver grass waving along the western edge of the river. He saw something—first one blue light, then two, then three and four. They were moving slowly. The next moment, the lights were moving quickly, then stopping, then moving again, making their way down the river away from the boys. And then, all at once, they disappeared. Baldspot swallowed hard and stood up.

‘Hyung, did you see that?’

‘Yup,’ Bugeye said, and swallowed as well. Now he knew that Baldspot hadn’t made it up. The lights were far too big to be fireflies, and they made no sound as they moved. Their gentle bobbing reminded him of dancing.

Bugeye remembered how Scrawny’s mama had referred to the blue lights as the Mr. Kims, and he asked, ‘Those are dokkaebi?’

‘Told you so.’

Baldspot looked bewitched as he stared at the silver grass where the lights had vanished. Bugeye grabbed Baldspot.

‘Let’s follow them.’

‘They say it’s bad to startle them.’

Baldspot shook off Bugeye’s hands and headed down to the hideout. Bugeye had no choice but to follow him, but he kept glancing back now and then.

As promised, Mole had scrounged up some scrap lumber, cardboard, and vinyl, and Bugeye had built a roof for the hideout in just half a day with Baldspot’s help. Baldspot groped around on the table for the lighter and lit a candle. The candlelight made the hideout feel cozier than the shack. And they didn’t have to put up with the night-long din of grown-ups cackling and fighting and singing, which sounded less like music and more like pigs being slaughtered. Even the sound of cars driving along the riverside expressway in the distance was just a soothing refrain. But best of all, the stench was gone, so their noses finally got some relief. The boys spread out their blankets and lay down. The space was even bigger than Baron Ashura’s room; their entire gang could have slept there comfortably.

‘This is nice,’ Bugeye murmured.

‘Hyung, can’t we just live here, you and me?’

‘We’re only kids. They would never leave us be.’

Bugeye knew what he was talking about, because back in his old neighbourhood as well, whenever a parent suddenly died or took off, grown-ups would come from the local government office or the police station and take the kids away. After his father went missing, Bugeye’s mother would swear to him as they lay in bed at night, No son of mine is getting sent to some orphanage. Bugeye couldn’t have cared less what others thought about him or where he lived or any of that nonsense, and yet, why had he felt so ashamed each time he bumped into that girl in the middle-school uniform?

‘Should we blow out the candle?’ Baldspot asked.

Bugeye turned his head to extinguish the candle on the desk. The hideout went pitch-black, but after a moment the plastic-covered windows began to brighten, and the moonlight seeped in. Just as they were teetering on the brink of sleep, someone coughed outside. Instantly awake and alert, Bugeye sat up in bed and strained his ears toward the sound. There it was. Another cough.

‘Who’s out there?’ Bugeye shouted, waking Baldspot.

More curious than afraid, Bugeye opened the door and went outside. Baldspot followed and stood in front of the door. Bugeye walked all around the hideout, but all he saw was moonlight. He turned to head back inside when Baldspot pointed.

‘Someone’s coming.’

When Bugeye turned to look, there was a shadowy figure making its way towards them from the river’s edge. Baldspot rushed over to Bugeye’s side. It was a child. The child stopped some distance away and looked at them. Baldspot stepped out in front of Bugeye and addressed the child.

‘You’re one of the Mr. Kims, aren’t you? It’s okay. It’s just us.’

The child came a little closer. Bugeye could make out the child’s features now. It was a boy, about their age, with the same shaggy hair, stained shirt, and discarded blue jeans hacked off at the knee as all the other boys on the island.

The child came closer still and said, ‘I know you two. Grandpa told me to come find you.’

Bugeye realised then that the coughing sound he’d heard had been the child’s grandfather poking around outside the hideout.

‘What do you need us for?’

‘Our family’s sick. He says we’ll get better if we eat something.’

‘What do you eat?’ Baldspot asked. ‘We’ll find whatever you need. We can find anything in the trash.’

The child hesitated and said, ‘Memilmuk.’

Bugeye and Baldspot stared at each other a moment. Neither of them were expecting the answer to be buckwheat jelly.

‘We’ll find it,’ Bugeye finally said with a nod. The child bowed to them.

‘Thank you.’

‘But why do you look just like us?’

The child laughed quietly.

‘Because we’ve been living alongside you all this time.’

‘The people here make a living going through the trash. What do you guys do?’ Baldspot asked.

‘We farm. But it’s much harder now.’

‘The fields out there all belong to the farmers in the village across the stream. Where do you have room to farm?’

The child laughed again. He raised his arms and spun around in a circle.

‘All of this is ours. Though it’s harder with all that trash.’

Before leaving, the child added, ‘Grandpa said that after all the people leave, we’ll slowly put things back to how they were.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Bugeye said. ‘We’ll find you some buckwheat jelly.’

‘We’ll bring it to you,’ Baldspot added.

The child turned and headed down towards the river, his silhouette growing smaller and then disappearing. Baldspot and Bugeye realised that their hearts were racing and their legs were shaking, as if all of their strength had fled them.

‘We just saw a ghost, right?’ Bugeye muttered.

‘Well,’ Baldspot answered, ‘he did say they’ve been living alongside us all this time.’

Those words had left an impression on Bugeye, too, but he was more surprised than frightened. And he couldn’t help feeling a little sorrier for the child than he did for himself and Baldspot. The two boys returned to the hideout and lay down again. The moon was already tilting way over to the west.

*

When they awoke in the morning, a wet fog had crept up from the river to the base of the island, making the sky look very overcast. It was so chilly and damp that Bugeye and Baldspot slept curled up tight like two little larvae. The cold was probably what woke them. Bugeye pushed Baldspot, who was spooned right up against him, with his bum and said, ‘Time to go home.’

‘I don’t wanna go home.’

‘We need to get the ramen. We forgot all about it.’

‘Oh! The ramen!’

Baldspot grabbed his baseball cap, put it on, and sprang up to go. The two boys walked over the hill through the thick fog and into the shantytown. Baldspot, who was walking in front, asked worriedly, ‘Hyung, how are we ever going to find buckwheat jelly?’

‘I’m worried about that, too,’ Bugeye said. ‘All they have at the shop is tofu and bean sprouts, and that sort of thing.’

‘Can we ask Mum?’

Bugeye’s fist went up towards Baldspot’s head, but he stopped himself in time.

‘We can never tell her. And we can’t tell Mole or any of the other guys either.’

‘But Scrawny’s mama knows.’

Bugeye pointed at Baldspot and nodded.

‘That’s it! Let’s talk to Scrawny’s mama.’

The boys went back to the shack and snuck into their room so they could eavesdrop on the grown-ups in the other room. The night before, Bugeye’s mother and Baron Ashura had been fighting and raising a ruckus, but now they were all soft whispers and giggles.

‘You boys back?’

At the sound of the Baron’s voice, Baldspot’s eyes widened and he shrunk his head down into his shoulders.

Bugeye whispered, ‘I told you to shut the door quietly last night.’

The boys went into the other room. The Baron didn’t look angry. His voice was loud, but his face was relaxed.

‘You scamps! Little young to be sleeping away from home already. Were you out roaming around all night?’

‘We slept in one of the empty shacks.’

The Baron looked at Bugeye as if he’d expected as much, while Bugeye’s mother cut her eyes at the Baron.

‘Who are you to scold them when you’re the one who caused so much trouble last night? C’mon everyone, let’s eat breakfast. I made seaweed soup with meat.’

The Baron threw his head back and laughed, and took two bills out of his back pocket and handed one each to Baldspot and Bugeye.

‘The work team is going into the city today to have some fun. Buy yourselves something good to eat, and stay out of trouble.’

Baldspot and Bugeye gleefully tucked into their middle-class breakfast of moist white rice and seaweed soup and chonggak kimchi, and even a piece of grilled hairtail fish.

Whenever the grown-ups went across the river and into the city, they had to bathe a day in advance, or else they wouldn’t be allowed into any decent establishments. If they got on a bus or went into a restaurant, the other people would plug their noses and look around, wondering where that awful smell was coming from, and when at last the epicentre was identified, everyone would back off to a safe distance or get up and change seats. Not long ago, a request had been made to the management office to install portable shower rooms. The residents of the island were still using a public bathhouse in the village across the stream, but the days leading up to major holidays like Chuseok were strictly reserved for the locals. Trash pickers weren’t allowed in until the day of the holiday itself. Since it was the only place around for thousands of local residents to get a good scrub, it was high season at the bathhouse. Children and grown-ups would be packed in like sardines from morning to night, and since the women’s section always had more kids, it took longer to finish bathing, and there were never enough water dippers to go around. Only after a great fuss and much scrubbing of their dirt-covered bodies did the people of the shantytown turn into normal, everyday locals, just like everyone else.

And yet, no matter how well they bathed, the smell would have worked its way deep into the fibres of their clothing, so the next thing they had to do was change into new clothes. It was impossible to keep anything clean and decent in a landfill shack. The clothes they wore as they worked and slept and relaxed at home had all been selected from among the rags they pulled out of the trash. There was always the odd foreign-made brand-name article of clothing to be found among the still-wearable items, but the smell was a constant problem. Once one of them found a decent set of clothing in the trash, they would take it to a dry cleaners near the bathhouse, where everyone from the island was a regular, and leave it there for laundering and safekeeping. Anyone who didn’t own their own set of going-out clothes simply borrowed from what the others had left at the dry cleaner. Though they were always instantly identifiable on the intercity bus, once they lost themselves in the city crowds, they became indistinguishable from everyone else. Every now and then, one of the couples who’d gone into the city would return to the island still dressed in their going-out clothes to show off. Invariably, their crewmates would fail to recognise them, and the folks who’d been clinking soju glasses and cussing up a storm in the clearings would awkwardly switch to a more formal register or start throwing honorifics into their sentences.

Bugeye’s mother had been to the bathhouse on her own a couple of times since they’d moved there, but though she pleaded with the Baron to take the boys with him when he went, he shook his head each time and said that he didn’t want to have to scrub those two brats. Bugeye’s mother was always saying how much better she would feel if she could take them there herself and give them a good scrubbing and get the smell of old trash off them, but she couldn’t since they were too big to go into the women’s side now.

Around noon, Baron Ashura’s work team slowly began to gather in the clearing. They were already as giddy as children. They couldn’t stop talking about how they were going to scrub off the dirt and get dolled up and head into the city, maybe see a movie, enjoy some bulgogi for dinner, with drinks of course, and then sing their hearts out at noraebang. One of the guys told the others about how some of the people from the private sector had gone with the truck owner to some cabaret or hostess bar, and got sloshed and blew all of their earnings in one night. He described how the men had ironed their wrinkled money out flat before tucking it into the inside pockets of their jackets. ‘Know why?’ he added. ‘Because otherwise, man, the bills won’t fan out right when they whip all that cash out of their pockets.’

Since it was a day off for the pickers, every part of the landfill, with the sole exception of the area in front of the shop, was quiet and tranquil. There was no heavy equipment or trucks making their way up and down, and nearly half of the trash pickers had flown the coop for the day, leaving the paths and clearings of the shantytown bereft of grown-ups. Bugeye and Baldspot had left the path, the box of ramen tucked under Baldspot’s arm, and were headed for the hideout when they heard someone call to them from behind. Bugeye turned to see Mole and two other boys walking towards them, each carrying a plastic shopping bag.

‘What’s that? Instant noodles?’ Mole asked, giving the box an indifferent poke. ‘You got that from the church, didn’t you?’

Bugeye peeked into the other boys’ bags.

‘You’re not planning to make that Flower Island stew again, are you?’

Bugeye didn’t hide the derision in his voice when he referred to the stew Mole had made for them last time from discarded fish. The adults called everything cooked with foodstuffs scrounged from the landfill ‘Flower Island stew’.

‘Watch it, man. Don’t you know who I am? I’m the youngest member of the Co-op!’

The Environmental Co-operative was the crème de la crème of all of the private truck sectors, the one the Baron was forever envious of, as it covered the U.S. military bases, the factory districts, and the private residential areas. Along with three districts south of the river, the permit fee for the Co-op was many times higher than anywhere else. The military bases were known for ruthlessly tossing out food the second it was past the expiration date, regardless of whether it was still edible or not, and there were other items, from clothing to military supplies, in such good condition that the pickers couldn’t bring themselves to sell it all off by weight. As for the factory districts, those were a paradise of scrap metal, plastic, Styrofoam, vinyl, cardboard, and other recyclables. Mole was able to work on the second line thanks to his father and older brothers, who had been the first to arrive on Flower Island. Mole was carrying two plastic bags stuffed with small boxes.

‘You’re all gonna think you’re in heaven today, thanks to me.’

The boys took Mole’s bragging in stride. When they reached the hideout, the first thing Mole did was give the roof poles a light kick, tap the plastic door, and walk all around so he could get a good look at the place, behaving as if he were the rightful owner.

‘The roof looks good. But didn’t I say to add a window on each side?’

‘Whatever, man. Don’t talk to me about windows. It took a whole day just to make that door.’

‘Fair enough. Weather’s getting colder anyway.’

They left the door wide open, went inside, and sat in a circle.

‘Hey, this is nice … Whose blankets are these?’ Mole asked, as he lay back with his arms behind his head.

‘They’re ours,’ Baldspot said with a giggle.

‘We slept here last night,’ Bugeye explained. ‘The grown-ups were fighting …’

Mole gave him a knowing laugh and said, ‘Your mum and his dad, right? Don’t sweat it. A lot of kids here don’t live with their parents. My dad lives in one place, and my hyung and I have our own place.’

Though Bugeye was put off by Mole’s assumptions, the customs of Flower Island dictated that Bugeye had to laugh it off. Just as Bugeye had expected, Mole was different from the other kids. He looked like he could get by on his own without grown-ups’ help; he would never find himself sent to an orphanage. Two more boys appeared in the doorway. Bugeye was familiar with the two who had accompanied Mole, but these two were new to him.

‘Oy, Cap’n, long time no see.’

The boy who spoke was tall, and looked like he might be older than he appeared. He gave Bugeye a dirty look as he sat across from Mole. Bugeye had told Mole he was fifteen so he could stand his ground against him, but he found out later that the boy giving him the stinkeye was fourteen, a whole year older than Bugeye’s actual age. After everyone was seated, the belated introductions began.

‘This is the new kid,’ Mole began, pointing at Bugeye. ‘I told you all about him last time. His name’s Bugeye, and he works, too, like me.’

‘Bugeye? That’s a fucked-up nickname … Not that mine’s any better. Everyone calls me Stink Bug.’

Mole chuckled and added, ‘His nickname can go both ways. You can call him either Stink or Bug.’

The boys all laughed. Bugeye was annoyed at how the kid had so rudely told him he had a fucked-up nickname, so he made a point of laughing extra hard and smacking the ground with his palm. Stink or Bug or whatever he called himself looked caught off guard by Bugeye’s reaction: even though he’d shown no hesitation in revealing his nickname, he immediately started to scowl. They all went around and introduced themselves by their nicknames. The two boys Bugeye had met before were chubby-cheeked Toad and Scab, whose face was crusted over from eczema. Then there was Beetle, a short, dark-skinned kid the same age as Baldspot. Even though Bugeye had earned his nickname from a cop back home who’d smacked him with rolled-up police reports, he still felt that, compared to the other boy’s nicknames, there was something dashing, manly even, about his own.

Stink Bug lowered his head and looked up menacingly at Bugeye.

‘You laughin’ at me?’

Everyone got quiet. Mole looked back and forth at the two of them as though he was enjoying himself. Bugeye stopped laughing.

‘C’mon man, I was only laughing because you were laughing.’

‘Bullshit.’

As soon as the kid scrambled up off the ground and made to kick at him, Bugeye leaped up. Mole jumped between them.

‘If you’re gonna fight, then at least take it outside and make it a real fight.’

The boys spilled out into the yard in front of the hideout. Bugeye was no stranger to fights, having been through dozens back home, and he knew that boys like Stink Bug, who were quick to anger, always had a weak spot. He stood at ease, not bothering to adopt any particular boxing stance, his hands loose at his sides, while Stink or Bug or whatever started showing off his footwork, raising his clenched fists aloft and bouncing around like he was looking for an opening. Bugeye never dragged out his fights. He always threw the first punch, and could zero in on any weakness and lay the other kid out in just a few moves. When Stink Bug came at Bugeye with a high kick, Bugeye didn’t dodge out of the way, but instead grabbed Stink Bug’s leg with one hand and socked him in the face with the other. Stink Bug fell flat on his bum, and Bugeye followed with two swift kicks to the ribs. Stink Bug curled up on the ground, and gasped and hacked for air. It was almost disappointing how fast the fight had ended. Bugeye crouched down and patted Stink Bug on the back.

‘Hey, man, you okay?’

‘Get him some water,’ said Mole.

Beetle poured some water from the plastic jug and tried to hand it to him, but Stink Bug shoved his hand away, scrambled up, and ran towards the field. Beetle tried to go after him, but Mole stopped him.

‘Leave him alone, he’s just embarrassed. He’ll come back soon enough.’

Bugeye felt proud that he’d demonstrated to Mole and the others that he was not to be trifled with, but outwardly he acted as if it were no big deal.

‘What’s the point in fighting?’ he said. ‘We should’ve just laughed it off.’

‘Well, that’s why we call him Stink Bug. He’s always making a stink over every little thing.’

Since the boy in question was gone, the other kids felt free to laugh. Mole pulled four small boxes out of the plastic bag. He opened one to reveal several cans and a chocolate-coloured packet. Toad craned forward to steal a peek.

‘What is that?’

Scab leaned in knowingly and said, ‘I’ve had one of those before. It comes from the U.S. army base. It’s got all sorts of stuff.’

Mole tore open the packet without comment. Several more packets of various shapes were inside. There was a round piece of chocolate covered in silver foil, crackers in foil packets, butter, cheese, jam, square pieces of gum, even a few cigarettes, coffee, cocoa, sugar, milk, and more, but the boys simply crowded around Mole and stared down at the items. Mole fished two can-openers out of the bag. One had a longish hole drilled through one end, while the other had a curved edge like a gardening hoe. Before opening the cans, Mole took a quick glance around.

‘Hey, if we’ve got any newspaper or cardboard, bring it here.’

Beetle scampered away and came back with some scraps of cardboard they’d been saving for kindling. Mole slowly opened the cans. One contained a chunk of ham; the other, chicken noodle soup.

‘This is called a C-ration. We get them sometimes in our hauls.’

Mole opened up all four boxes of C-rations, grouped the items together on the cardboard, and distributed them equally. The four round chocolate pieces were snapped in half, and a piece was given to everyone, followed by three pieces of gum and two cubes of sugar each. The canned foods were all dumped together into their one cooking pot. They splashed in some water, set the pot on top of their makeshift stove, and lit the fire; soon, a mouth-watering aroma filled the air. When the pot came to a boil, they added the instant noodles. They could tell just from looking at it that they’d cooked up something amazing. Mole served the food. They lined up in front of the pot, holding an empty can each and a pair of disposable chopsticks that had been used far more than once.

Bugeye slurped up a chunk of meat and a mouthful of noodles, and asked Mole, ‘Why do people throw away perfectly good food?’

‘Beats me. This stuff is delicious.’

‘I wish I could eat this every day,’ Baldspot giggled, as he polished off his can of soup and ladled a second helping into it.

The boys were happy. Mole sat back, the perfect image of a captain, puffing away leisurely on a cigarette and gazing contentedly at the boys as they slurped down their food. When the feast ended, the boy they called Scab suddenly pulled something out of his pocket, as if he’d forgotten all about it until then, and held it out.

‘I brought this for HQ.’

Mole looked the item over and gave one of the buttons a push. A tinny electronic melody started to play. A brick wall appeared on the screen, and as a small round dot began to ricochet back and forth, the bricks disappeared one by one.

‘This is a brick-breaking game,’ Mole said. ‘But only pre-schoolers play it. Nowadays everyone is into Super Mario.’

‘What’s Super Mario?’ Scab asked.

‘I found one at work once,’ Mole said. ‘It was broken, though, so I just threw it away.’

Mole handed the game back to Scab, and the youngsters—Beetle, Baldspot, and Toad—sat together and took turns playing it. Mole and Bugeye went up the hill behind the hideout and looked down at the sunlight sparkling on the river’s surface.

‘Have you been to the city yet?’ Mole asked.

‘I used to live there, but I haven’t been back since we came here.’

Mole’s mood seemed to sour at hearing that Bugeye had lived in the city.

‘Hey, man, you said you lived in the slums. I’m not talking about that, I mean downtown, as in, the middle of the city. I ate a hamburger there once.’

‘I only passed through. There was a department store and a movie theatre and a bunch of bars.’

‘The place the grown-ups go is just the outskirts of the city. Let’s you and I cross the river someday and go downtown for real.’

Bugeye laughed.

‘And do what? Without money, we can’t do anything.’

*

The big, round full moon floated over the river. Bugeye and Baldspot snuck out of the hideout. They knew where they were going without having to say it out loud. They crossed the farm and the hill, and headed for the field on the other side of the shantytown. They could see a single speck of light way off in the distance and hear the occasional bark. As they approached the house, the dogs in the greenhouse began barking noisily. The door opened, and they heard the voice of Peddler Grandpa.

‘Come right in, boys.’

Bugeye and Baldspot went inside. Scrawny yapped fiercely before leaping into Baldspot’s arms and wagging her tail. The other dogs all pressed their noses to his feet and whined. Scrawny’s mama was in the middle of cooking dinner.

‘The little uncles are back!’ she exclaimed. ‘Where’ve you been all day? Did you eat?’

‘Of course they haven’t eaten,’ Peddler Grandpa said. ‘Sit down and eat with us.’

‘No, thank you,’ Bugeye said honestly. ‘We’ve been snacking all day, so we’re not hungry.’

‘We made rice cake. At least have a taste.’

Scrawny’s mama plated up two types of sweet rice cake—steamed sirutteok and songpyeon stuffed with sweetened sesame seeds. While father and daughter ate dinner, the two boys feasted on rice cake, and even the dogs munched away happily at their own dinners. It had been a long time since Bugeye had had a taste of sirutteok with its topping of mashed sweet red beans—perhaps not since one of his birthdays long ago, when he was very young.

Baldspot asked Scrawny’s mama out of the blue, ‘Do you know where we could buy memilmuk?’

Scrawny’s mama stared speechlessly at Baldspot, her spoon in mid-air, and finally asked, ‘Buckwheat jelly? What on earth are you going to do with that?’

Since Peddler Grandpa was there, too, Bugeye gave Baldspot a sly kick under the table, but Baldspot didn’t seem to catch on. He blurted out, ‘We ran into the littlest of the Mr. Kim dokkaebi. He said his family is sick. And they’ll only get better if they eat memilmuk …’

Peddler Grandpa pretended not to have heard a word and just kept right on eating, but Scrawny’s mama set her spoon down and scooted her chair closer to Baldspot’s.

‘Sounds like you met the youngest grandchild. The Mr. Kim family lives the way we used to in the old days—three generations under one roof. It’s easy to find memilmuk in the marketplace.’

Grandpa Peddler turned and said, ‘Shall I run out and buy some now?’

The three of them stopped talking at once and looked at him.

‘It’s a holiday,’ he said. ‘If you’re going to do something nice for them, may as well be tonight.’

He chugged a glass of water and stood with a grunt. Bugeye followed him out.

‘Grandpa, would it be okay if I went with you?’

‘Sure, it should only take about twenty minutes or so to cross the river and come back.’

Baldspot and Scrawny’s mama began boiling leftover food for the big dogs in the greenhouse, while Peddler Grandpa and Bugeye got in the truck. There was a well-trodden dirt path, so, though it was a bit bumpy, they were soon passing the little shop and the office, and turning onto the big paved road that the garbage trucks used. They took the bridge that Bugeye and his mother had crossed when they first came to the island, but instead of merging onto the riverside expressway, they headed for a small two-lane highway. The road turned to softer asphalt and was even lined with trees. It was the first time in months that Bugeye had gotten away from Flower Island.

As he drove, Peddler Grandpa muttered, almost as if to himself, ‘I guess there really is such a thing as a Mr. Kim dokkaebi.’

‘They said they’ve always lived alongside us.’

Peddler Grandpa glanced over at Bugeye.

‘So that story, about dokkaebi liking buckwheat jelly, is true after all. I thought my daughter was making it all up.’

‘… So did I.’

The town appeared in the distance. Way out at the centre of the vegetable fields and rice paddies, electric lights glowed, two and three-storey buildings rose up, and a newly paved road led to a main street lined with shops and restaurants, off which branched smaller roads packed with homes. The truck made a left-hand turn off the main road into a surprisingly large parking lot, where the tiny alleyways of an outdoor marketplace appeared. Peddler Grandpa parked the truck and made his way into the warren of alleys, turning this way and that, hurrying past small shops that sold freshly pressed sesame oil, general stores that sold all manner of odds and ends, and restaurants serving gukbap, and then came to a stop in front of one shop in particular. The marketplace was closed, but every few doors a shop would be open: inside, you’d see either three or four fellow vendors clustered together, enjoying their holiday meal and drinking makkolli, or else one elderly man or woman watching television alone. The shop that Peddler Grandpa was searching for turned out to be a stall that sold pre-made side dishes. With everything from seasoned greens and cooked bean sprouts to marinated tofu, it was the sort of place that people shopping for groceries in the evenings would always made a point of stopping by. It was apparent to Bugeye that Peddler Grandpa must have searched his memory and figured that this place was likely to sell buckwheat jelly.

‘You sell muk, right?’ Peddler Grandpa called out. ‘Got any buckwheat jelly?’

The auntie who ran the shop poked her head out of the door.

‘We’re out. But who eats that on holidays anyway? Come back tomorrow.’

‘I need it tonight.’

‘What’d you do? Bet a plate of muk in a game of cards?’ She cackled at her own joke.

The last thing she would have expected to see on Chuseok was someone shopping for buckwheat jelly. She abruptly shouted across the alley to another shop.

‘Hey! You sell buckwheat starch, right?’

The male shopkeeper poked around for a bit and then held up a plastic sack. He gave it a little shake as if to ask whether that was what they were looking for. Peddler Grandpa went over and checked the label. The store had five sacks of buckwheat starch in total, and he picked each one up in turn before saying, ‘I’ll take ‘em all.’

‘All of them? What, are you opening a buckwheat jelly factory or something?’

Peddler Grandpa added a crate of makkolli, as well, making ten bottles in total. He and Bugeye divvied up the parcels, and carried them all back to the truck.

‘I forgot that you can make your own,’ Grandpa said. ‘It’s the same as making glue. You boil the starch until it thickens up. Back in the old days, that’s how we made mung bean and acorn muk.’

‘I haven’t had memilmuk in a long time.’

Peddler Grandpa nodded.

‘I bet. There are a ton of things we don’t do anymore these days.’

They headed back to Flower Island. From a distance, the island looked like one long, low hill. The moon hovered just above the crest of the hill, and to the right of the field that was visible from the dumpsite, the lights of the village on the other side of the stream glowed against the side of the hill.

‘Grandpa, have people always lived on the island?’

‘Of course, I was born there. There used to be a big village there. Everyone was paid to move across the stream instead, but then a lot of people said that place wasn’t liveable anymore either, and left.’

Bugeye missed his old neighbourhood. He redrew the alleyways of the hillside slum in his head.

‘Whoever heard of a place being unliveable?’ Peddler Grandpa went on. ‘If you don’t have money, then everywhere is unliveable. Around here, we might have to put up with a few flies, but we make money, don’t we? Once the weather cools off, the flies and mosquitos will go away, and it’ll be liveable enough.’

He headed for the bridge that would take them across the stream.

‘I’m so glad you boys have started visiting. My daughter used to go out and wander around by herself. Those jerks would call her crazy and throw rocks at her.’

Bugeye listened without comment.

‘She’s been like that since she turned twenty, ever since her mama died. Folks say it means the spirits have caught her and that we have to call in a shaman and hold a ceremony to bring her back. Her mind still comes and goes sometimes, but at least she’s better than she used to be.’

The truck headed uphill, and passed the office and the shop again.

‘I guess it’s no different from living with flies … how those, whatchamacallit—things or spirits or whatever—live with us, too. Aren’t you boys afraid?’

Bugeye shook his head.

‘No, I think it’s fun.’

How could anything be scary, compared to waking up every morning to the same unchanging stench, the dust and the flies, the monstrous dump trucks pouring out hideous-looking objects of all shapes and origins? Now, even when the tip of his rake pulled out the rotted trunk of some animal, he simply kicked it away and buried it beneath other items. People threw away so many things that by the time the objects lost their shape and decomposed into smaller and smaller and more complex parts, they became strange and curious objects that bore no resemblance whatsoever to whatever the machines in the factories had originally spat out. Bugeye gazed down at the moonlit grass and nearly murmured, I want to fly away.

The truck pulled up to the front of the house, and the dogs resumed their barking. This time, they weren’t warning barks so much as a chorus of welcomes. Bugeye knew this was so because of the whines and whimpers wending their way between the barks. When he and Peddler Grandpa carried the stuff they’d bought into the house, the elderly crippled dogs were the first to run over and sniff the bags. Baldspot and Scrawny’s mama took the bags from them.

‘What is all this?’ Scrawny’s mama asked.

Bugeye answered for Peddler Grandpa. ‘Buckwheat starch. He said all we have to do is boil it.’

‘Ah, great! I know what to do.’

Scrawny’s mama emptied an entire bag of the starch into the big plastic mixing bowl she used for making kimchi, added water, and stirred it together with a rice paddle. Then she took it outside and poured it into the kettle on top of the makeshift stove and brought it to a boil. In the meantime, Peddler Grandpa couldn’t wait, and went ahead and cracked open a bottle of makkolli; he poured himself a bowl and downed it at once. Scrawny’s mama poured the boiled starch back into the mixing bowl and brought it inside, where she patted it out flat and placed it on the counter.

‘It’ll harden up as soon as it cools—wait, Dad, you’re drinking already?’

‘I had to make sure it tastes okay. After all, what’s buckwheat jelly without some makkolli to go with it?’

It had taken just about an hour and a half for them to get back from the market, boil up the buckwheat starch, and let it cool. If they’d had a square pan, the muk would have come out in neat little rectangles, the way it was supposed to, but since they only had a bowl, it came out domed instead, like part of the moon had been sliced off. Nevertheless, when it was divided into blocks and sliced up on the cutting board, it was indeed a perfect batch of memilmuk. Scrawny’s mama carried the bowl of sliced-up muk on top of her head, while Bugeye and Baldspot each carried a plastic bag stuffed with bottles of makkolli. They were headed out the door when Scrawny started yipping and yapping, intent on going with them. Peddler Grandpa picked the little pup up and watched them leave.

‘Make sure you ask them to fix your head,’ he said to Scrawny’s mama.

The moon was already hanging way up at the top of the sky, and the whole world had turned silver. The moonlight was different from electric lights: it hid the ugly things, and turned the river and trees and grass and stones and everything else close and familiar. The three of them waded through the tall grass and headed for the bend in the stream. The moonlight on the grass made them feel like they’d stepped into a new world. Bent branches and short shrubs caught at their ankles, and each time the silver grass, as tall as the boys themselves, brushed their cheeks, they shivered from the chill of the night dew that clung to the blades. They saw tall trees standing in a circle, the moonlight glimmering behind the branches.

When they reached the yard in front of the shrine, they set down the bowl of muk, uncapped the bottles of makkolli, and arranged everything neatly along the wooden ledge. Scrawny’s mama picked up one of the bottles and went over to the willow tree, where she took a big mouthful and sprayed the base of the tree with the makkolli. After she’d nearly emptied the bottle doing this, her body began to twitch and she collapsed onto the ground, her shoulders rising and falling as she retched. She lay there for a long while, her arms and legs still writhing, and then just as suddenly sat right back up as if nothing had happened. Baldspot had experienced her fits several times now, and calmly held her hand, but Bugeye was startled all over again, despite having witnessed it once before. He had a vague sense that her fits did not follow any set schedule, but rather grabbed hold whenever the feeling came over her.

‘Come!’ she said, waving both hands in front of her. ‘Come and enjoy these offerings!’

She was peering into the woods as she spoke. Baldspot and Bugeye saw blue lights moving between the trees. Then, all at once, people were there, thronging the edges of the clearing, their voices a low murmur, as they kept a proper distance. Scrawny’s mama pressed her hands against the boys’ backs and urged them back towards the river. Only then did the shadowy figures approach the shrine and help themselves to the buckwheat jelly and the makkolli. A small shadow came towards the three of them. Baldspot recognised the child.

‘We brought you memilmuk,’ he said.

‘Thank you.’

Just as before, the child bowed at the waist.

‘Is your whole family here?’ Bugeye asked.

‘Yes, that’s my grandfather and my grandmother and my father and my mother and my dad’s older brother and his wife and my dad’s younger brother and his wife and my mother’s brother and my mother’s sister and my dad’s sister and my other aunt and my older cousin and my big sister, and then there’s me, the youngest.’

The child recited each family member’s title as if he were chanting some sort of spell.

‘Do you recognise me?’ Scrawny’s mama asked. ‘Mr. Kim is your father, right?’

The child laughed and said, ‘In our family, everyone is Mr. Kim. Auntie, can Granny Willow speak through you?’

‘I’m her right now.’

‘Then have some memilmuk with us.’

‘That’s okay. I had myself a nice, refreshing drink of makkolli.’

The child returned to his family, and the sounds of murmuring voices and eating and drinking continued. After a while, the child reappeared from between the trees.

‘Come on, my family would like to meet you.’

Baldspot led the way, followed by Bugeye and Scrawny’s mama. There seemed to be about twenty people in the clearing; they were assembled in front of the shrine as if they were taking a family portrait. A man dressed in faded grey coveralls and a baseball cap printed with the words ‘New Village Movement’, looking no different from any other middle-aged man from the neighbourhood, stepped forward and addressed them.

‘I’m the child’s father. We were sick with something and unable to do much, but thanks to you we got better.’

The white-bearded grandfather standing behind him nodded.

‘Look at this,’ he chuckled. ‘My arms and legs work now.’

He pinwheeled his limbs. Dressed in an old suit with cotton pants that puckered at the knees, he, too, looked just like any other grandfather you would see in the neighbourhood. A middle-aged woman in baggy, floral print pants and a clashing shirt with a kerchief tied around her head was the child’s mother. She turned to Scrawny’s mama.

‘Please look after us, Granny Willow,’ she said.

‘You’re good, reliable folk,’ Scrawny’s mama replied. ‘You must look after each other.’

‘Come visit us sometime,’ the child said to Baldspot.

‘Wait, you live around here?’ he asked in surprise.

The child laughed again.

‘Flower Island has always been our home.’

‘The food was delicious,’ the grandfather said. His voice was filled with energy. ‘Time for us to get back to work.’

With that, they were suddenly all in motion, slipping away one by one through the trees. Spots of blue light appeared briefly and then faded. Scrawny’s mama and the two boys stood stock still, speechless.

As if having just returned to his senses, Bugeye muttered flatly, ‘What the hell was that? They look just like our neighbours. Where are they going now? To pick through the trash?’

‘They said they’re farmers, silly,’ Baldspot said with a giggle, and Scrawny’s mama nodded.

‘Granny Willow says this island belongs to them,’ she said.

They left the forest, walked back through the silver grass, and returned to Scrawny’s house, passing piles of discarded electronics as they went.