A dream story.
There is a nine-story residential-commercial building between apartment complexes. Before the apartments were built, it stood in the middle of an empty lot and was the tallest building in the area. But after the apartment complexes came in, it no longer felt like such a special building. Still, as old buildings often do, it had a wide site around it, so when seen from the apartment complex side before crossing the road, it did have a subtle sense of presence.
I had only ever been to the jjimjilbang and bowling alley in the basement, so I was curious what the apartments above looked like. There was a separate elevator for residents, and if I took that elevator, going up to the ninth floor would not have been a problem. But because I felt guilty about looking around a space where people lived, I had never actually tried.
After becoming a college student, I decided to gather my courage and go up. I thought I could simply get off on the ninth floor and walk down the stairs. First, I bought an ice cream from the supermarket in the basement, ate it, and got into the elevator marked for residents only. When I pressed the ninth floor, the elevator began to move slowly. Literally slowly. It seemed to take about four or five seconds per floor. I was afraid someone might get in on the way up to the ninth floor and say, “Huh? I have not seen you before.” Fortunately, no one got on, and I reached the ninth floor alone.
The apartments were corridor-style. There were seven homes on one floor, and only one elevator. If the elevator had to be replaced or repaired, people would have to walk, but I thought perhaps it was not too bad since it was only nine floors, and I slowly came down the stairs. Through the stairwell window, I could see the apartment where I lived. Around the seventh floor, there was a box on the stairs. I did not know what was inside, but it was covered with newspaper, and a plastic bowl had been placed on top of it. Instinctively, I thought it must be farm produce, but there was no way to know. Then, from somewhere, a sharp, acrid smell began to drift in. I wondered what was happening, and suddenly smoke appeared outside the window. The smoke was so thick that the apartment complex I had seen just a moment earlier on the right was no longer visible at all. A moment later, the fire alarm began to ring. Without realizing it, I ran back up to the ninth floor, and because the door of one apartment was open, I went in out of curiosity.
“Knock, knock, knock.”
The door was open, so I had almost peered inside, but I could not simply walk in, so I knocked. All the room doors were closed. Then, from behind what seemed to be the bedroom door, I heard a woman’s voice.
“Just take it. There is money under the rice cooker.”
“No, that is not why I came. There is a fire. Did you not hear?”
“That is why I opened all the windows. So bad air or smoke can come in and then go back out.”
“I understand. But the smoke was black before, and now it is turning white, so I think the fire is already being put out.”
“If you have no business here, please leave. This is a home where people live, not a place to sightsee.”
“I am sorry.”
It seemed there were more people like me, people who had come to look around, than I had expected. Since the apartment was beside the stairs and the door was often left open, I thought she must be bothered by people quite a lot.
When I had come down about four floors, I saw a stream of water outside the window. The fire seemed to be on the fifth floor. I remembered that there had once been a fire in the basement jjimjilbang, and at that time all the residents had run down the stairs to evacuate. It had been raining, so a nearby elementary school had quickly lent them tents, which were set up in the parking lot. It had been sad to see elderly people and children standing together beneath a tent that said “Happy Sports Day.” Fortunately, a lot of time had passed since then, and compared with back then, the fire trucks had arrived very quickly. It seemed the fire was already almost out.
The next moment, I was walking inside the apartment complex. I heard a faint ringing sound in the distance and turned around. Smoke was pouring out of the middle of the bowling alley building. Since it was pitch-black smoke, the fire seemed to have spread to some extent. The ringing sound was probably the fire alarm. Apartment residents opened their windows one by one and looked out, and people walking like me, as well as people in the playground, stood up and watched.
“Shouldn’t someone report it?”
Someone said that, but while I was thinking, if they were going to say that, why did they not report it themselves, two fire trucks had already arrived. Firefighters got out of the trucks, two of them went inside, and the rest operated the equipment and sprayed water. Maybe they had decided to shoot once, and if the glass broke, keep spraying, and if it did not break, have the people who went in first open the window. The stream of water went straight through to the exact spot in one clean shot. The window from which the smoke was coming out was very narrow, so I had assumed they would break the glass, but the water stream went precisely inside. When the firefighters who had gone up opened other windows too, the stream of water moved back and forth, spraying evenly. Thankfully, after a short while, white smoke came out instead of black smoke.
That night - actually, there is no middle. I have no memory of coming out of the building, I do not know why I have memories both inside and outside the building when the fire happened, and I do not know why it was suddenly night - the news reported that there had been a fire, that firefighters had gone in and sprayed water and extinguishers, and that drugs had been found in the apartment. It was one night’s dream, but it contained too many stories. In dreams, everything makes sense. Everything feels natural, and if something does not make sense, it feels like my fault. But after waking from a dream, I realize that what did not make sense was not my fault, and I come to think that things I had thought were natural may not have been natural at all. The first thought I had after waking was this: perhaps the apartment with the open door also had a reason why it had to leave the door open, and perhaps there had been drugs inside that box on the stairs too.
Korean original: 화재, 그리고 세 개의 공간