The Plotters. Un-su Kim

couldn’t forgive his hero for dying like that.

      Reseng wept in the dark. On every page of the sea of library books that he was either itching to read or would eventually get bored enough to read, heroes and beautiful, charming women, countless people struggling to overcome hardship and frustration and achieve their goals, all died at the arrows of idiots because they failed to protect their one tiny weakness. Reseng was shocked at how treacherous life was. It didn’t matter how high you rose, how invincible your body was, or how firmly you clung to greatness, because all of it could vanish with a tiny, split-second mistake.

      An overwhelming distrust in life overcame him. He might fall at any moment into any number of traps lying in wait. His tender life could one day be struck by luck so bad, it would leave him in utter turmoil; he would be gripped by terror he couldn’t shake off no matter how hard he fought. Reseng was possessed by the strange and unfamiliar conviction that everything he held dear would one day crumble in an instant. He felt empty, sad, and completely alone.

      That night, Reseng sat in Old Raccoon’s library for a very long time. The tears kept falling, and he cried himself to sleep on Old Raccoon’s rocking chair.

       BEAR’S PET CREMATORIUM

      “If things don’t pick up, I’m in deep shit. Business has been so slow, I’m stuck cremating dogs all day.”

      Bear flicked his cigarette to the ground. He was squatting down, and the seat of his pants threatened to rip open under his hundred-plus-kilogram frame. Reseng wordlessly pulled on a pair of cotton work gloves. Bear heaved himself up, brushing off his backside.

      “Do you know some people are such morons, they’re actually dumping bodies in the forest? Your job doesn’t end when the target’s dead; you also have to clean up after yourself. I mean, what day and age is this? Dumping bodies in the forest? You wouldn’t even bury a dog out there. Nowadays, if you so much as tap a mountain with a bulldozer, bodies come pouring out. No one takes their job seriously anymore, I swear. No integrity! Stabbing someone in the gut and walking away? That’s for hired goons, not professional assassins! And anyway, it’s not like it’s easy to bury a body in the woods. A bunch of idiots from Incheon got caught dragging a huge suitcase up a mountain a few days ago.”

      “They were arrested?” Reseng asked.

      “Of course. It was pretty obvious. Three big guys carrying shovels and dragging a giant suitcase into the forest. You think people living nearby saw them and thought, Ah, they’re taking a trip, in the dead of night, to the other side of the mountain? Stupid! So my point is, instead of dumping bodies in the mountains, why not cremate them here? It’s safe, it’s clean, and it’s better for the environment. Business is so slow, I’m dying!”

      Bear pulled on work gloves as he grumbled. He always grumbled. And yet this grumbling, orangutan-size man seemed as harmless as Winnie-the-Pooh. That might have been because he looked like Winnie-the-Pooh. Or maybe Pooh looked like Bear. Bear provided a corpse-disposal service, albeit an illegal one. Pets, of course, were legal. He was licensed to cremate cats and dogs. The human bodies were done on the sly. He was surprisingly cuddly-looking for someone who burned corpses for a living.

      “I swear, you wouldn’t believe the things I’ve seen. Not long ago, this couple came in with an iguana. Had a name like Andrew or André. What kind of a name is that for an iguana? Why not something simpler, something that rolls off the tongue, like Iggy or Spiny? Anyway, it’s ridiculous the names people come up with. So this stupid iguana died, and this young couple kept hugging each other and crying and carrying on: ‘We’re so sorry, Andrew, we should have fed you on time, it’s all our fault, Andrew.’ I was dying of embarrassment for them.”

      Bear was on a roll. Reseng opened the warehouse door, half-listening to his rant.

      “Which cart?” he asked.

      Bear took a look inside and pointed to a hand cart.

      “Is it big enough?” Reseng asked.

      Bear sized it up and nodded.

      “You’re not moving a cow. Where’d you park?”

      “Behind the building.”

      “Why so far away? And it’s uphill.”

      Bear manned the cart. He had an easy, optimistic stride that belied his penchant for grumbling. Reseng envied him. Bear didn’t have a greedy bone in his body. He wasn’t one to run himself into the ground trying to drum up more business. He got by on what he made from his small pet crematorium and had even raised two daughters by himself. His eldest was now at college. “I stick to light meals,” he liked to claim. “To stretch my food bill. I just have to hold out for a few more years, until my girls are on their own.” Bear spooked easily. He never took on anything suspicious, even if he needed the money. And so, in a business where the average life span was ridiculously short, Bear had lasted a long, long time.

      Reseng popped open the trunk. Bear tilted his head quizzically at the two black body bags inside.

      “Two? Old Raccoon said there’d be only one package.”

      “One man, one dog,” Reseng said.

      “Is that the dog?” Bear asked, pointing at the smaller of the bags.

      “That’s the man. The big one’s the dog.”

      “What kind of dog is bigger than a man?”

      Bear opened the bag in disbelief. Inside was Santa. His long tongue flopped out of the open zipper.

      “Holy shit! Now I’ve seen it all. Why’d you kill the dog? What’d it do, bite your balls?”

      “I just thought it was too old to get used to a new master.”

      “Well, look at you, meddling with the instructions you were given,” Bear said with a snigger. “You need to watch your step. Don’t get tripped up worrying over some dog.”

      Reseng zipped the bag back up and paused. Why had he killed the dog? When he’d gone back to collect the old man’s body, the dog had been quietly standing watch. With his back to the sun, Reseng had looked down at the sunlight spilling into the dog’s cloudy brown eyes. The dog hadn’t growled. It was probably wondering why its master wasn’t moving. Reseng had stared at the dog, which was now too old to learn any new tricks. No one’s left in this quiet, beautiful forest to feed you, he thought. And you’re too old to go bounding through the forest in search of food. Do you understand what I’m saying? The late autumn sun cast its weak rays over the crown of the dog’s head. It had gazed up at him with those cloudy brown eyes as Reseng stroked its neck. Then he had raised his rifle and shot the dog in the head.

      “Pretty heavy for an old man,” Bear said as he grabbed one end of the body bag.

      “I told you, this one’s the dog,” Reseng grumbled. “That one’s the old man.”

      Bear looked back and forth at the bags in confusion.

      “This damn dog is heavy.”

      After loading the bodies onto the cart, Bear looked around. The pet crematorium was a quiet place at two in the morning. Of course it was. No one would be coming to cremate a pet at this hour.

      Bear opened up the gas valve and lit the furnace. The flames rose, peeling the black vinyl bag away from the two bodies like snakeskin being shed. The old man was stretched out flat, with the dog’s head resting on his stomach. As the furnace filled with heat, their sinews tightened and shrank, and the old man’s body began to squirm. It was a sad sight, as if he were still clinging to the world of the living. Was there even anything left for him to cling to? It didn’t matter. It was over. In two hours, he’d be nothing but dust. You can’t cling to anything when you’re dust.

      Reseng stared at the contorted body. The old man had been a general. Throughout the three long decades of military