The Timeless Reaper Has A Name

"Daddy E, no! Edwin, please, not in front of our…."

My brother was over a year and a half older and somewhat smarter. As soon as he had peeped and realized what was up, he had instantly fallen over, covering his ears tightly with his hands and screwing his eyes shut tight.

"Appa, please, no! Mama!"

One gunshot was quickly followed by another and then another. I had the ignorance or misfortune to open my eyes just as my father's body crumpled on top of the still-twitching body of my mother. I did that to make sure he wasn't still holding the gun towards us with all the logic that an 8-year-old can come up with.

"Anja!" Appa had snapped when my brother instinctively ran to our mother in the midst of their heated argument. Sit down!

The weapon had been pointed in our direction for less than 5 seconds, but what more do you need to do in order to get your point across to a terrified 3rd and 4th grader?

We sat on the couch in the living room together. Our eyes streamed silent tears until the knocks came at the front door of the rented townhouse. Alarmed neighbors despite knowing nothing about our household after less than 6 months in the neighborhood or even in the country had called the police. My brother, then still a full six months away from a full decade from celebrating his first decade on Earth, had answered the door and unlocked it with streaming eyes behind thick glasses and a dribbling nose.

To soothe himself, while we waited at the local children's shelter home for our father's relatives to come to spirit us away and for many years to come as he eventually made a name for himself, Big Brother had a way to help him leave it all behind. Unlike me, once he had thrown himself to the ground, powerless to prevent fate from its course, his hands pressed against his ears and eyes shut tight, he had one fleeting moment of comfort. He had one last "good" image of Mama, her hat off exposing frazzled flyaway hair in a pitiful knot, routinely relaxed to shoulder length, and then dyed auburn, yet still in the cook whites and just came back home with our late Pizza Hut supper. Just before he squeezed his eyes shut tight and blocked out the world ignoring his rumbling stomach.

No matter what anyone said, Big Brother always had that one last good image before all Hell broke loose. Before we became orphans in an instant before jealousy and unchecked accusations led to our mother's death at the hands of her decade-plus-long lover and soon-to-be official husband, his vicious attempt on the life of an innocent ninth grader who he had played Daddy to for nearly 10 years, and destruction of his own children's reality. Big Brother held a tool so powerful that he practiced it every day.

Every time he closed his eyes, Dashan, or "Day Day" as he still allowed me to call him could still see Mama or rather Mammie as he called her, perfect and whole.

It didn't protect him entirely though, because no matter what was going on at the moment. At 21:53 sharp every evening, he at every bit of 184 centimeters and 54 kilograms, would fall into a sort of trance. He would block his ears, screw his eyes shut tight, and wail as if he was still a helpless 9 or 10-year-old and his beloved mother fell victim to a murder/suicide before his eyes.

In the night, he rocked himself and thrashed his body, even endangering his own toddler son when the boy slept over. But he had to do it. Every night, to remind himself of that awful Thursday night in March 2002 in the Southside of Trenton, New Jersey when Mama just got home from work at Fort Dix and was murdered in front of her children's eyes. He had to repeat the pose, repeat the mutterings and whinings of the young children, and had to repeat their utter helplessness and misery.

Then he could snap out of it and get on with life. His baby would call me, activating his phone and then pressing the phone icon and last dialed number, and I always picked up. When his son slept over, he would always get into bed also for a while, hours before his usual resting hours, just to loll the kid to sleep, not unlike the trick that Mama used to play on us. Not yet in double-digit years back then, we'd spent more nights than not falling asleep mere inches away from her. If our father had had any complaints then he could and often would go sleep on the floor by himself and later the couch, when they could finally afford one.

I would hear the baby babbling unintelligibly and clearly confused at the exact time I would be walking back home after finishing the day's tasks, but always ignored the toddler, far too young to comprehend anything. He knew nothing of the past, only that his beloved father was not okay and he was in danger of being pushed off the big high bed, so he needed help. Instead, I understood and spoke back to my brother continuously in English and Korean as a way of acknowledging our mutthood. When he called me Dongsaeng I knew my job was done.

For nearly 20 years, his ritual continued like clockwork and somehow remained known only to us. Outwardly he, like me, had managed to develop the facade of a normal person, pick up the shattered pieces of youth and get on with his life. Though unmarried, he was a reluctant and single father by his 27th year as an Earth dweller, with a baby’s mama who was textbook psychotic and a gold digger to boot. A talented artist, he had graduated from the city’s best Arts High School and made an easy living as a webtoon artist. His slice-of-life serial “On Our Own” depicting a sibling duo living parentless in a tiny rented room was a mysterious hit. Nobody ever questioned how he got his ideas.

Always drawn to the outdoors, his idea of fun was camping and hiking and trying to catch fish with his bare hands even if it meant wading into the water with rolled pants legs. But such settings were his place of true happiness and peace of mind.

Maybe that’s why he thought joining the youtube livestream bandwagon was a good idea? Unselfish from his heart, he already had a small Youtube channel where he gave drawing lessons and tips to budding artists. I even laughed when I saw the video of him, a true man’s man who would happily trek through the mud in the forest for hours, pause to tie an apron over his clothes before giving a painting tutorial. A charmer from birth, he was comfortable on camera and had a sizable number of subscribers.

Oh, how I wish DayDay had told me about his plans for 25 February 2022!

His son resided with his mother and sometimes he saw him if there was no urgent deadline. His work was flexible and he often stole away to the mountains surrounding the city even in the dead of winter for solo camping.

Why would he ever think it was a good idea when both he and I knew what night brought?

At first, it all went so right then so wrong.

“Idiot! You’re gonna get the pneumonia!”

It was easy to quip, watching him knelt on the banks of the stream plunging his bare hands into the icy water again and again.

“Maybe I’ll catch my dinner.” He chuckled, voice rumbling and at ease.

He said everything two times, once in English and then again in Korean for the benefit of most of his fanbase.

“Your dumb ass is going to catch your death!” I retorted but couldn’t help snickering too, from the comfort of officetel room.

Maybe there were signs.

Like the way he knuckled the side of his head, nuzzling his freshly faded crewcut , which required monthly visits to a multicultural hair salon to maintain, when he took off his knitted cap. Women loved his silky noir waves of just barely curly hair. The police officers had even complimented him on it that fateful night as if stroking his head would rub the scenes from that night from his brain while still fresh.

The way he fumbled while setting up his tent even though he'd done it a thousand times before. Over the course of the six times it took him to get it right, he closed his eyes for longer and longer periods of time. There was hope that he simply wanted to calm himself from rising frustration.

Nightfall came shortly after 6pm, so he had plenty of time to sit in the folding camp chair and stare at the sky. He was just outside of the bustling capital, but it was far enough to enjoy a stellar view. At least I hope so.

He'd eaten poorly since what happened had happened and ate a bit late. It was a mutual habit. Eat only when all of the work is finished, all of the study done, and there are no admonishing eyes to monitor you. Eat only when you could be yourself and enjoy some measure of peace, not feel like a barely tolerated and greedy nuisance.

That's how our relatives had always made us feel. A blind man could have seen that we were taken in with an eye on the financial benefits surely granted to the children of a deceased US service member parent. The remaining childhood years, under the guardianship of paternal relatives, had been rough to say the least, yet still better than the alternative in some ways.

Now I watched my brother build a little fire and hang a pot over it to prepare for himself, of all things, semi-homemade budae-jjigae. It was a dish that I had never learned to like. Give me plain kimchi-jjigae, even with no rice or side dishes any day! Why did a perfectly good stew need to be ruined by spam, hot dogs, and fake plastic cheese? Still, I couldn't help smiling a little and feeling happy for him as I watched Oppa treat himself to two packages of ramyeon noodles to make the meal more substantial.

Maybe there was another sign?

"My dongsaeng would always rather go hungry than eat this!" He grinned as his red handled metal chopsticks drew up the first bite of stew-coated noodles. "You did a good job today, so please don't forget to eat something tonight, Amaris Dongsaeng. And I'll try to come to Incheon to spend the evening together with you real soon. Let's eat and drink together again. Let's be glad that we still have each other…."

They were his final words.

"On Our Own was indeed based on a true story, check the news archives if you don't believe what I'm about to tell you……'Fort Dix Reservist Dead at the Hands of her Long Time Lover, Father of her Youngest Children, and her Teenage Daughter Critically Wounded' The orphaned youngest children were not mentioned, but indeed existed as the collateral damage."

Please, let me tell you about the children left behind, the orphans through no fault of their own, abandoned by uncaring relatives in their own tiny rented room by high school, and the origins of the daily rituals that held one otherwise entirely ordinary man's life together for nearly 20 years. Please, let me tell you about the history and what pivotal moments led to the bizarre live stream tragedy on 25 February 2022 at precisely 21:53 on the dot in front of God and the whole world.

Day Day had finally finished his meal and was lingering by the freshly revived fire. But it was already that time…21:53. When was the last time he had glanced at his phone for the time? His voice, booming, bright, and husky as it was couldn't save him up on that lonely mountainside.

Like clockwork, at precisely 21:53, the ritual took hold of Dashan as usual and he dropped to the ground. He sank to the ground in front of at least 250,000 live viewers and his red and gray hoodie instantly caught since he'd been too warm to keep his flame-retardant winter coat on.

There was nothing anyone could do.

He was high in the mountains surrounding and just outside the city limits of the capital city. Earlier he had managed to capture some shots of his location contrasted against the bustling city thousands of meters below. They were stunning contrasts.

It was I who was called upon to identify his body and dispelled the speculations of a planned suicide or publicity stunt. Day Day had been a lot of things, but stupid enough to cause himself needless agony sure as hell wasn't one of those things. It was me, under heavy criticism and still more criticism, who ultimately decided to leave him here, where he was born and where he'd grown up for more years than anywhere else despite his nationality. Where his child was and he himself was, free from the trauma no child should ever have to endure for 23 hours out of the day. Our return to the country from the United States had been strongly opposed by maternal relatives, but those people never knew us nor had they shown any form of acceptance. So who did he have back in America? A half-sister, claimed by shared maternal relatives, who was still, at last update, in therapy for diagnosed complex PTSD?

His rituals, for all they were worth, had held a traumatized little boy's and inwardly troubled young man's life together for decades.

I would never dare to betray him into the hands of those who saw only a way out of the hood, a way out of generational rural poverty, and family dysfunction that he did not know in a country that had done nothing but cause him unspeakable traumas. I tried my best to help Dashan Oppa rest in peace, sat through the typical three-day funeral in the hospital's funeral area joined only by a dutiful uncle and aunt, and then took him home. But in the end…there was no true peace of mind whatsoever to be had until his true final words were heard, on a more carefully edited video, barely audible, "Mama, I'm coming home to you."

The Timeless Reaper called Despair and Longing had finally claimed him.

The urn rests safely on a special table in my place while I continue to forge ahead every day, for me and for him, content in the knowledge that he no longer has to rely on rituals to hold on to his sanity.