IGWNI Ch 0

People often say that the moments of your life flash before your eyes like a zoetrope right before you die.

The first thought that came to my mind when I heard this was the trivial question, “What’s a zoetrope?” I thought I’d search for what a zoetrope is sometime later when I had time, but that “later” never came.

I ended up dying without ever knowing what a zoetrope actually looked like. But I did experience the process of my life flashing quickly before my eyes.

The day I first received a soccer ball as a gift at the orphanage and started playing soccer, the day I joined the soccer club and ran on the field until my shoes wore out, the days I stood out as a genius player and swept various awards, the day I was selected for the youth national team and was guaranteed a bright future, the countless days I was treated like the best player and took it for granted.

My vision blurred.

At that moment, a terrible scene cut through the good memories with a deafening roar.

A driver crossed the center line and hit the car I was in. Everything changed because of that accident. My guaranteed, brilliant future shattered. The doctor’s voice echoing in my ears, saying I wouldn’t be able to run properly even with rehabilitation. I knelt before the doctor and begged. I said I would do anything, that I would even give my life if I could play soccer again. I cried and begged. But it was all for nothing. That’s how my life changed. No, to be precise, it plummeted. It kept falling lower and lower, to an unfathomable bottom. I received a call from the British club I was about to sign with, saying the recruitment would be difficult. All the advertisement contracts I had signed were also terminated.

From a life dedicated to being the best soccer player since childhood, there was nothing left after removing soccer. The person responsible for the accident died at the scene, so there was no one to blame. At first, people who worried about me as if it were their own matter gradually stopped contacting me, and later, they didn’t answer even when I contacted them. The orphanage director’s calls asking when I would send living expenses were the only proof that my phone wasn’t broken.

The day Yoon Jaewoo’s name disappeared from the newspapers that had been clamoring about the genius’s downfall, I was forgotten by the world. I drank alcohol every morning as soon as I woke up. I didn’t have the confidence to endure a single day without alcohol. After drinking, I found the courage to go outside. I fought anyone I got into a fight with as if I would kill them. Some days I was beaten badly, and other days it was the opposite.

The money I had saved gradually dwindled. Anxiety grew like a pile of snow. To hide that anxiety, I acted even more recklessly. I visited the police station several times. Each time, my coach, who came as my guardian, warned me that he couldn’t overlook my situation any longer if I didn’t get myself together. Such words didn’t even register. Reporters wrote sensational articles about the fall of the young soccer hero. Malicious comments were posted on the articles. I became a target deserving of insults from anyone online.

There was no one who answered when I called. Even my coach avoided my calls. The orphanage director stopped visiting after confirming that there was no more money to be had from me.

That day, too, I drank in my small two-square-meter room. When I couldn’t even remember when I started drinking, I lit a cigarette. It was the first cigarette I had smoked since the accident. I remembered that when I was asked what I wanted to do after retiring, I laughed and said I wanted to try smoking.

I didn’t know that the day I would smoke would come so soon.

The day I moved into this small room, I stopped by a convenience store and bought a pack of cigarettes. It was a pack I hadn’t even opened, thinking that maybe a miracle would happen and I could start playing again.

But now I know. There are no miracles.

I took a long drag of the cigarette and lay down. The alcohol I drank on an empty stomach made the ceiling spin. The acrid cigarette smoke that stabbed deep into my lungs clouded my consciousness. I couldn’t breathe. At first, I thought it was because of the cigarette I smoked for the first time in my life, but the dizziness gradually worsened. Even in my daze, I felt that something was happening. I didn’t even remember how I got out of the room. When I came to, the scene unfolding before my eyes completely changed my thoughts. My small studio apartment was ablaze. The gazes looking down at me, lying on the floor in only my underwear, were a mixture of interest and disgust, mockery and condemnation.

Ah, I had one more thing to lose.

My human dignity.

At that moment, I lost even that, which I had forgotten.

The landlord rushed at me, trying to kill me, but the firefighters who arrived managed to stop him. I was dragged to the police station, interrogated, and wrote a statement. I spent the night locked up in jail. It was determined to be a simple fire, not arson, and because there were no casualties, it became a case of accidental fire. I ended up staying on the roof of the burned building. The landlord, seemingly intending to demolish and rebuild the house, demanded a large sum of three hundred million won as compensation. I couldn’t possibly have that kind of money. I didn’t even have the money to pay the fine. The landlord knew a local gangster. The gangster visited me every night, threatening to break my one good leg. When the gangster found out that I didn’t have a single penny left, he said he would have to sell my organs. He said if I didn’t pay, he’d take me to a doctor he knew. And with a laugh, he added, of course, he’d break my other leg that day too.

And today was that day. The day my leg was to be broken and my kidney taken.

I woke up suddenly at dawn. I got up and left the house. I didn’t want to lose anything more. I took a train, got off at a random station, and walked aimlessly. Towards the mountains. As far as the road would take me.

It rained. I walked with my limping leg to a place devoid of any human trace and stood on a large rock. The sun had long since set beyond the mountains, leaving a bottomless darkness below. The pouring rain kept hitting my face.

Darkness opened its jaws and waited for me. The moment I faced the darkness, I realized.

The surgical scar that ran from my ankle to my thigh would not disappear no matter how many days and nights I slept, nothing would make me happy like before, no matter what I did, the malicious comments on internet articles would not disappear, and I would never be able to run like before even if I waited a lifetime.

Find another path? Soccer isn’t my whole life? There are more days to live than days lived, so it’s too early to give up?

Bullshit.

There was no other path for me. Soccer was my whole life, and the countless days I would live with this body were despair itself.

I have no more hope. Today, I finally fully accepted that fact.

I took a cigarette out of my pocket and lit it. I took a deep drag and coughed. I pathetically coughed and wiped my nose with the back of my hand. I put the cigarette in my mouth and shoved both hands into my pockets.

The fall of a genius.

The title of the article written by that trashy reporter comes to mind. Doesn’t it fit this moment perfectly? Watch closely, you bastards. This is a real fall.

I stepped back a couple of steps and then ran forward. I threw myself into the cold air. The thick darkness opened its arms and embraced me.

Damn it. This is how I died.