Friday, January 13, 2012

The Pineapple Strawberry Gang

The carpet’s colours cast me back. To Primary School No. 4 and Kim Jong-Il pulling me into our hideout behind the boxwood hedge. Somehow he’d gotten hold of two candies. Not Korean candy, but something entirely forbidden: Japanese candy. Morinaga Chewlets. Silky pineapple for him, sweet strawberry for me. I was so excited, I swallowed mine immediately. I began to cry. Jong-Il boldly took his candy out of his mouth, bit half off, stuffed it into my mouth, and punched my head.
     He changed, yes. But when I bowed, longest and deepest, it was to that six-year-old boy, my friend.

Images: Korean Central News Agency and Hi-Chew.
at

1 comment:

  1. AnonymousJanuary 14, 2012 at 4:21 PM

    A very sweet image but I fear he may have been more nefarious than this (though who knows as a child?) A new novel - The Orphanmaster's Son, makes the scene sound incredibly awful, actually--worse than I had realized. Adam JOhnson. It is a novel, of course.

    Still, I love the vignette aspect here. This is a great form. K.

    ReplyDelete