I remember the day I was born.
Was it a blessing from the heavens?
My brain was mature enough to process what I saw as reality from the very moment of my birth, and I realized this fact at the threshold of the world.
Sudden, sharp light poured over my closed eyes.
Because I had received nutrients and oxygen through the umbilical cord, my respiratory system—unused my entire existence—failed to work properly.
I was suffocating. My chest felt tight.
Smack—
“Waaaaaaaah.”
I tried to endure it, but I could not help crying at the stinging pain in my buttocks. Thanks to that, along with my cry, my first taste of air wrapped stickily around my throat and flowed into my lungs.
“Congratulations! It’s a healthy baby!”
Someone who was clearly the source of my pain showed me to my mother with a bright smile. In my mother’s tearful gaze, I could feel her love for me so acutely it pierced my heart.
Mother took me in her trembling hands and held me in her arms.
My body reacted before my mind.
Scent, and touch.
I think I must have felt relief in that familiar fragrance and body heat.
Then, my crying stopped.
“Oh my! Honey, look!”
At my mother’s excited voice, father made an emotional expression.
“I know… It’s amazing. Could the baby really recognize its mother?”
It was the first day I was born into this world.
* * *
“Mama! When is Papa coming?”
As soon as I passed my first birthday, I could speak in complete sentences.
“He got off work. He’ll be here soon.”
Ssssssss.
Mother answered as she fried my favorite meat in the pan.
It was my favorite time of the day.
Around sunset, the red-stained twilight crept over the cliff at the edge of the yard and seeped in through the window. The vivid natural colors, as if paint had been dissolved, looked incomparably beautiful and mysterious to my young eyes.
Wind brushed quietly in through the open window. The smell of frying beef was drawn in, mingling with it.
Even now, I miss those days so much it brings me to tears.
“Yummy mell.”
I wobbled along on my tiny feet and toddled over to wrap my arms around Mother’s leg.
“Oh my! Our Seoha, are you hungwy?”
Mother turned around and looked at me, smiling brightly.
If I told anyone, they would obviously say it was a lie, so I had never spoken of it, but the memory of that time remains as clear as a photograph to me.
* * *
By the time I was two, though no one had taught me, I could read. It was thanks to the Korean alphabet charts and picture books Mother had posted on the wall.
“Now, today let’s read Puppy Pungpungi!”
Mother sat me on her lap and opened the book.
Father leaned back against a pillow nearby, watching us contentedly with a relaxed posture.
Mother’s finger moved slowly along the letters.
“Pungpungi let out a rolling fart today too.”
Mother’s gentle, tender voice.
My gaze locked onto the text before the pictures.
Before Mother could finish reading one line, I began reading the next.
“But it’s okay. A fart means our body is working hard.”
Mother’s eyes went wide. Then she smiled with her eyes and looked at me.
“Huh? Have I read it too much? Did you memorize it already?”
Instead of answering, I began reading the next sentence.
“It smelled, but Mama Puppy hugged Pungpungi tight. Pungpungi loved Mama’s embrace the most.”
Rustle.
Before I knew it, Father quietly stood up. He moved to the bookshelf and began looking for another book. Soon, he found something suitable and brought it to me.
“Then… can you read this too?”
It was a cover I had never seen before.
“Yeah!”
The picture of a laughing monster was scary, but I took the book and turned past the cover to begin reading.
“Once upon a time, beyond a great mountain, there was a dokkaebi village.”
As I began reading the letters clearly and precisely, Mother and Father flinched as if startled.
“In that village lived a dokkaebi who stole and watched one person’s dreams each day.”
The more I read, the more serious their faces became.
“My goodness. He was really reading. Is our child a genius? Honey, this is amazing, right?”
Mother alternated looking between me and the book, covering her mouth with her hand.
“To think a child like this came from parents like us…”
Father held me and was silent for a long while.
At that moment, my chest felt ticklish and strange. I couldn’t understand why my parents were surprised, but I could feel that everyone became happy when I read books.
From the next day, new things began to be posted on the walls of my room one by one.
At first, they were simple number charts and arithmetic.
“One plus one is?”
“Two!”
Playing numbers with Mother was fun.
When I answered, Mother would be overcome with joy, hugging me and bouncing up and down.
Papers with colorful pictures and numbers were posted on the wall, followed by multiplication tables, the English alphabet, various constellations floating in the sky, and even a day-of-the-week chart.
“Seoha, what day is it today?”
“Thursday!”
“Oh my, well done, my baby!”
Every morning, Mother would point to the day-of-the-week chart on the wall and quiz me, and when I got it right, she would pat my bottom and praise me as if she were immensely proud.
I was so happy to be praised that I spent the whole day looking at the posters on the wall. But that joy was short-lived; they soon ceased to hold any meaning for me beyond boredom.
* * *
Chomp, chomp.
In late summer, the couple sat on the wooden veranda eating watermelon to beat the heat.
Their son Seoha ran around the yard giggling before sitting in a corner, observing ants intently.
Cheolho was worried that the child who had loved books so much seemed interested only in other things these days.
“Honey, Seoha hasn’t been studying much lately?”
At her husband’s words, Miyeong nodded indifferently.
“You’re probably right.”
He had thought the child was a genius; had it only seemed that way because he was his own child? He regretted that work had kept him from spending time with his son lately.
“Hmm. I wonder why?”
Seeing Cheolho’s worried face, Miyeong snickered.
“It’s because he knows everything already. It must not be fun at all.”
“What do you mean?”
“I took down the things on the wall a while ago. He memorized all the picture books. Addition, subtraction, division—he was doing four-digit mental arithmetic.”
“Really?”
Four-digit mental arithmetic?
‘That’s not easy even for adults.’
“Yes, but I was wondering if it’s right to teach fractions to a child not even four years old. I was thinking of discussing it with you anyway.”
The joy that his son was indeed a genius was short-lived. He too began to share Miyeong’s concerns.
‘When do they learn fractions? Around fourth grade? That means he’d have to be over ten years old…’
“Still, it doesn’t seem good for him to just play because he has nothing to do. Let’s give him something to read.”
Miyeong nodded at Cheolho’s words.
“I think so too. I don’t want to force him, but parents shouldn’t stand in the way of their smart son’s future. But I think I like how things are now, too.”
Seoha, who had been squatting for a while, took a ridiculous lizard-like posture and carefully crawled on all fours toward the wooden veranda.
“Why is he doing that?”
“He’s worried he might step on the ants without seeing them. He always moves like that near the anthill. He’s my son, but he’s a kind-hearted child by nature.”
Seoha’s innocence was so cute and lovely that Miyeong didn’t want to force change into their lives. She judged that there was nothing wrong with a child playing like a child.
Miyeong snapped out of her thoughts and waved Seoha over.
“Come here! Let’s eat watermelon!”
Seoha smiled broadly and got up.
“Watermelon!”
The sight of her son carefully getting up and then pattering toward her was adorable.
From that day, a luxurious encyclopedia set took its place in Seoha’s room.
It was a masterpiece with over 200 years of history, selected by Cheolho after consulting directly with several publishers. The expertise of the science section, which world-renowned scholars Albert Einstein and Carl Sagan had personally participated in, was excellent enough to be in a different class from other encyclopedias.
A hefty sum was spent from their tight household budget, but there was no sign of regret on the couple’s faces. It was because Seoha, instead of playing in the yard, had become completely immersed in these new books.
Even observing ants became drastically different from before.
“Mom, look at this! The ants walk in a line. They follow something called pheromones.”
Miyeong blinked at the unfamiliar word that suddenly popped out of Seoha’s mouth.
“Did you read that in a book too?”
“Yeah! I wondered how they found their way home from far away, and now my question is answered.”
Miyeong smiled slightly at Seoha’s speech, which was unbecoming of his age.
She had worried whether the child would really like the thick encyclopedias, but it had been a useless concern. Just as parched earth absorbs sweet rain, Seoha was soaking up knowledge.
At first, he had been crazy about dinosaurs like any other child his age, but gradually his interest shifted to deeper things. The cause of dinosaur extinction, the conditions necessary for animals and plants to survive, and even the Earth and the solar system.
The couple watched Seoha devouring his books with proud faces.