Sockeye Bar looked like it could have been a place of elegance once. But that grace was now a shadow. Above the entrance was an eyeless face, mouth hung open with a neon salmon in its jaws. Wallpaper shriveled, oak furniture cracked, and seating booths collected stains. Dim red lit the room circled by thick clouds of cigarette smoke. Along the walls were Frida Kahlo, Salvador Dali, and Antoni Tàpies' works, which overlapped with wanted posters.
Rhea sat on a stool at the counter and asked Delton to get her a drink. He stood behind the bar in a white button-up shirt and a blue bowtie. His long dreadlocks were pulled behind him, jaw moving as he toyed with the chewing tobacco beneath his gums. He poured her a glass of Bacardi.
"You okay?" he asked as he handed her the glass. She usually didn't drink.
"Fine," she said. Fire burned beneath her boot. "Car working all right now?"
He nodded. "You're good with that type of stuff. Dad always wanted a son?"
"No. I just had a knack for how stuff worked."
Rhea's eyes dropped to the counter in front of her. Years of use carved as dents and scrapes along the reclaimed pine cut from a hundred-year-old tree; its remains now displaying a handsome amber color. Age curved the edges as it seeped smoke and drunken laughter. Carved luna moths flapped across the pine with six-inch wingspans.
A few Frenchmen were enjoying themselves in a corner booth, all looking far from sober except one odd form at the table's edge. A dark hat with a wide brim masked his eyes and the soles of his shoes shined with reflection against the hidden blades. A toothpick between his teeth wiggled back and forth with the movement of his jaw, a deck of cards in his hands he shuffled repeatedly but never made a move to start a game. He sat and listened to the men ramble on.
"I think that one is Lycus Rosales," Delton said to Rhea, low enough the man wouldn't catch wind of his name. "Stay away from him. He likes to mess with people."
"What does that mean?"
"It means he knows the human mind. How to access and manipulate it. Commonly called an incendiary. I imagine him as a virus. Finds some weaknesses that can grant him access to lives in an organization. Learns members' values and belief systems, motives, reasonings, behaviors, and targets and influences them in whatever way that will bring on mayhem. He can come off as frighteningly trustworthy and knows how to change his form to the point of being nearly unrecognizable. He's like a shapeshifter, the way he can alter his appearance, his voice, even his walk and movements, and become anyone.
"I spoke with him once and I didn't realize it was Rosales. His hair was orange and he arched his back to look twice his age. Asked me a lot of questions about myself. Like he was probing me. Mapping me. The only way I knew it was him was because I had glanced at him enough times to notice his wardrobe. He changes a lot but he always wears those boots. But speaking with him can be unnerving whether you know who he is or not. Analyzing you; physique, and psyche; asking questions that take the conversation down personal paths. That's what he does. He gets personal with you; acts as though he cares about your thoughts and worries."
"Sounds quite analytical."
"Acute observation can grant you lots of unspoken knowledge."
Alton entered the bar and sat down beside Rhea with a smile. "Rough day?"
Delton poured him a glass of Grey Goose.
"You could say that," Rhea sighed, gazing into her drink. "How was the job?"
"Fine. Now that we've done our part, it's time to wait and see how everything unravels. I'm kind of excited."
"Did you know the broker?"
He shook his head. "Orin received the message from a runner. Whoever they are, the work they produce is excellently detailed and thorough."
"What are you going to do with the Tovex?"
"You'll hear about it," he grinned.
(Later that week, an explosion went off in the red-light district, killing three and injuring eight, damaging a strip club owned by a man who had stolen blasting caps from him.)
Two in the morning was the high point in Sockeye's business and possibly three tables would be filled. On this evening a few occupied seats at a corner table and a small party in the back claimed the pool table. Alton left after he finished his drink, leaving Rhea at the counter to let Rusakov's demands fester, materializing themselves as knots in her throat. No matter how many glasses of Bacardi she swallowed, they continued to clog her airway until she drunkenly stumbled off the stool and through the doors of the bar where she sat on the edge of the curb.
She tried to breathe, hoping the salty air would disintegrate the bulging grip. Her hand fiddled with the tassel hanging around her neck, fingers stroking the beads in an attempt to find some anchor.
Her eyes wandered. Atop a streetlamp was a mother macaque, her baby latched to her side. A drunken smile crept across Rhea's face when the baby gave a gentle glance her way, a hum of safety along its features as it gripped its mother's fur. Eyes on the monkeys and mala tangled between her fingers, the knots in her throat began to shrink. Rhea could feel air pass through her again. She got to her feet, trying to tie the laces of her boots, but found the task too frustrating to complete.
Somewhere in her brain sparked what seemed like a good idea to go for a walk. She felt her numb but still broken feet pull her under the Hara-Kiri, where her eyes glazed over the Myanmar painted on the stone:
အရာများသေဆုံး ဒါပေမဲ့သူတို့ကအမြဲတမ်းသေနေမှာမဟုတ်ဘူး
Beneath was fading paint:
Everything dies. But not everything stays dead
Rhea wandered down glowing streets, sounds a fog in the background where muggings and stabbings were taking place and the drunk girl wandered by unnoticed. She followed the jumping animals and the damp call pulling her towards the desolate edge of the city.
One of many beings who possessed a lick of fame within Samadoya was the Pria Pohon: a sniper drenched from head to toe in shrubbery-type camouflage with a Remington 700 he could nail any target up to 1500 yards. He sometimes wandered vacant streets looking for something worth shooting if he didn't have prey to catch.
The sniper had buried himself atop a worn awning along a street of dead shops. The lampposts stood broken and leaning and the twirling vines kept the man soaped into the abandoned background. His rifle rested aside his head, eye through the scope where the wasted girl with auburn hair walked alone. A smile grew across his face and the trigger finger tightened. When the aim was clear the shot was interrupted by the tear of the awning holding the sniper. A large rip created a hole and the man dropped through to a dense pile of green shrubbery and wild moon orchids. The girl jumped in shock at the loud sound and her feet carried her back towards the glow of the city.
Rhea somehow found her way to the red-light district, where she saw Mirek standing against brick on a street corner with a cigarette between his fingers and an irritate glint in his eye. A sign reading The Cheetah Bar shone above him and his companion—a young man with long green hair—bounced nervously on his heels. Rhea saw the clouding in his lenses with a turn of his head.
"The fuck you doing here?" Mirek spat at her.
Rhea shrugged. He snorted and spewed smoke out his mouth in a frustrated manner. Rhea looked at the stranger. "Who are you?" she asked the green-haired man.
"I'm Kenny."
"Hi Kenny, I'm Rhea. What are you so nervous about?"
"Has word not gotten around yet? There was an attack on the cartel. A runner and message were killed here in route to their complex," said Kenny.
"The message was killed?" Rhea swayed slightly in the breeze.
"She was carrying a package that was destroyed."
"You work with the cartel?"
"I manage some of their clubs."
Rhea gave a slow wave in front of his face, and his eyes suddenly fixed on the movement. "You look a little young for cataracts," she said.
"I have aniridia to thank for that. It's been slowly deteriorating my sight since I was a child."
"Sad." Rhea looked to Mirek. "So, how are you involved?"
"Mendez wants me to track down the killer," he muttered. "A pain in the ass to pinpoint which idiotic group tried to mess with the Casto family."
"Oh, Mirek, you're just grumpy because you lost to Kamon tonight playing backgammon," Kenny smiled, his face not bothering to find eye contact.
"Shut it, Kenny," Mirek snarled as he tossed his cigarette into a puddle. "They better hurry the fuck up in there."
"Bernard should be just about finished with the autopsy," said Kenny. "It was nice of him to come down here himself instead of having the corpse sent up to the hospice. I suppose this involves him too since it was he who sent the package to the cartel."
"What was the package?" Rhea tried not to fall over as she felt the earth rotating.
"There was a sample of new opioids he produced the cartel was going to sell in their territory to push the triad out of some of their zones. The other thing—what Mendez is really pissed about—is the 83 million rupiahs. It was the sum from the collectors after they made their runs to those under cartel protection," explained Kenny. "The cartel has select runners that deliver the collections from outer districts to help avoid confrontation and reduce the amount of time the money spends on the streets. Someone knew who the runners are and brought one of them down here at the Cheetah Bar as they were collecting the last of the money."
"One stab to the back and two to the abdomen. I don't need Bernard to tell me she was cut with a butcher knife. I could tell when I saw it."
"He's checking for DNA samples," said Kenny.
"How did the attacker figure out who the cartel runners are?" Rhea asked.
"We don't know. That's part of Mirek's job."
"How are you going to—"
"Will you quit asking questions and get outta here!?" Mirek cut her off.
Rhea waved her arm at him in drunken dismissal, but she could sense Mirek's discontent rising and wandered elsewhere.
Downtown was a bustle of pernicious energy; neon lights illuminating dire features, sporadic violence reddening concrete, roaring engines. She continued to follow the Hara-Kiri bridge, thinking if she followed it enough, she would arrive back at Sockeye. She did not realize she was walking in the opposite direction. But the walk helped clear the tension in her chest and the rotating feeling in her skull.
She came to a stacked building was nestled beneath the bridge, broken windows gently illuminated from within, whispers from the building skipping through the air, and a blue glow from a heavily chlorinated and trash-littered pool beside it. A pro stock motorcycle was chained to the pole holding the MOTEL sign and beneath it two men danced with blades in their hands.
Movements were swift and Rhea paused to watch. One man was armed with a balisong while the other wielded a bolo. Arms passed between one another as blocks were made and quick slashes cut close to skin. She watched as the man with the bolo made a rapid swipe to the other man's head and the balisong opponent flashed out of the way before she could comprehend the movement. In that singular moment the man had an opening to the thigh and ripped the blade through the femoral artery. The man dropped his bolo at the gush of blood and fell to his knees and the opponent finished the fight with a slide of the blade into the carotid artery of the man's neck. Dark liquid pooled from the body and Rhea realized she was not moving.
The victor caught her eye and looked more surprised than her.
"That was pretty impressive," said Rhea when the man continued to stare. He wore the layers of a homeless with black whiskers atop dehydrated lips and hair matted with blood and sweat.
"I still have the energy if you're looking to prove yourself," he said in an accented voice.
Rhea gave a soulful laugh and the man lowered his blade. "Nah, I don't have that talent. But I will admit I like the dance of a knife fight. More fun to follow than the invisible rip of bullets."
The man smiled.
"That your bike?" she nodded to the motorcycle.
"Yes. And I've fought off bigger thieves than you."
"I was just admiring it. It's very nice. You a drag racer?"
"No. I just like to steal things."
"Well, it's a lovely steal."
"And what brings a wanderer to the Samadoya slums? No one walks here. Less you looking to catch a few more knife fights."
"I'm just out for a walk," she shrugged. "I'm looking for something to occupy my mind with."
"So many distractions here, you're sure to find one. I think everything here is just a distraction. I can tell you're not from here. Noticed that right away. This has been my home for almost ten years and I've seen people of all kinds, but those that are rooted here? You can pick them apart in an instant. I suppose I don't read you as a threat. I could distract you," said the man with a shrug. There was something approachable about the woman in the blade-weilder's eye. "Would you like to come in for some tea? I just put a pot on. I stole myself a nice hotplate the other day. My name's Hyun."
"Sure, I could go for some tea. My name's Rhea," she said with a nod that the man ignored as he walked into the deteriorating building housing drifters and vagabonds.
Hundreds of candles lined the floors and stairs where the aggressive humidity had begun to rot the wood and the brick walls were filled with holes where select pieces had been removed (a brick was a common weapon for those with nothing). Many of the rooms' doors were broken down, revealing the spaces' vacuity heavily looted of valuable supplies. Televisions, beds, dressers, clocks; the bathroom utilities were the only appliances that could not easily be ripped from their spots. They passed a few rooms taking up occupation, more candles providing light for a group kneeling on prayer rugs, voices harmonizing in an eloquent chant with the thump of drums and the ringing of a brass bell:
mun jong-song
bon-ne dan
ji-hye jang
bo-ri saeng
ni-ji ok
chul sam-gye
won song-bul
do jung-saeng
pa ji-ok jin-on
om ga-ra ji-ya sa-ba-ha
om ga-ra ji-ya sa-ba-ha
om ga-ra ji-ya sa-ba-ha[1]
Rhea's host occupied a single room; a mattress in one corner, a low standing table with cushions, and one wall with a sink and counter. There was a small bathroom with no door or shower and she could smell the absence of working plumbing that left it disgusting.
She took a seat at the table, and Hyun grabbed a pot for the hotplate. Rhea looked out the view of a broken window: an ugly angle on the Hara-Kiri where a noose dangled.
"You say you were admiring my bike. You know about machines?" asked Hyun.
"I fix them."
"Interesting," said Hyun as he turned on the plate. "Are you a prosthetic mechanic?"
"Oh, no, cars are more my field. However, I'd love to take a glance at one of those limbs up close. Saw a man with a silver arm once but didn't have the courage to get close enough. My place is among engines."
"Quite a marvel, mechanics," Hyun said as he poured a jug of water into the pot. "In my youth, I was quite the artisan. It was after my plummet into this city that I became more enchanted by organic functions," he pointed to his head. "Quite an impressive engine we have up here."
"When you do this—" Rhea imitated the pointing to the head "—are you referring to the brain or the mind?"
"The mind, I suppose. Though the brain is the physical mechanism, mental capacitates such as memory, perception, imagery, and language arise from brain functions. The mind's theory is necessary to understand that others have beliefs, desires, intentions, and perspectives that are different from our own. These are the composites that make us who we are, and therefore what drives our actions."
"I've always viewed psychology as a shifty concept. It's the study of something that isn't real."
Water began to boil, and Hyun grabbed two tea bags from a cardboard box and placed them in chipped ceramic bowls and added the steaming water. Hyun gave her a bowl, and she accepted it with a 'thank you' that the man found strange.
"But you can't deny the existence of the mind," Hyun continued. "From dreams to our perception of the world, you know there's more there than what brain scanners can show. I find the concept of the mind fascinating, especially in a setting such as this city where humans are put under such strenuous situations."
"What kinds of things do you find fascinating?" Rhea lowered her head and blew on the tea.
"Well, I've found many interesting books on the mind that I've finally found the time to read. The concept of the mind in old psychological literature, for example, says there are two approaches to the theory of the mind: theory-theory and simulation theory."
"What are those?"
"Theory-theory relates to the development of understanding the outside world. It asserts that individuals hold a naïve theory in interfering with the mental states of others. They use their understanding of other beliefs, desires, or emotions to understand the intentions behind another person's actions or predict behavior. Theory-theory proposes that humans learn through a process closely resembling the process in which scientists propose theories."
"Experiment and observation."
Hyun nodded. "Children are a good example. They observe the world and gather data about its true structure, revising theories as they acquire more data. And from there, children can use these theories to make predictions. 'Child Scientist' theory, as it is referred to: proposing that a series of personal scientific revolutions are required for the development of theories about the outside world."
"So we develop a hypothesis and then test it to predict behaviors of the natural world. But these are theories we come up with ourselves based on the intel gathered from our surroundings. It would make sense that the more you vary your surroundings, exposed to new things, the more theories you could develop. New environments can teach us about new human behavior."
The man smiled. "The more human differences we are exposed to, the more we can learn about humans as a whole. On the other hand, simulation theory says that humans anticipate and make sense of others' behavior by activating mental processes that would produce similar behavior if carried into action. Intentional behavior as well as emotional expression. This theory proposes children use their own emotions to predict what others will do. We, therefore, project our own mental states onto others. It's about how people understand others by way of a kind of empathetic response.
"In a way, then, I find the mind more complex than the brain. Neurons firing and chemical induction is only the surface. The mind is not physical, but it makes up more of us than our brains do."
"Then the mind is one composed much from external stimuli. The world around us, the people we are exposed to, is what develops cognitive functions. It brings a lot of power to the upbringing of a person."
"Of course it does!" Hyun exclaimed. "Do you know anyone who is not affected by childhood experiences?"
"And what would you say, then, about disorders of the mind?"
"Funny you should mention mental disorders. My anxiety led me to curiosity about the mind. I learned, for example, that anxiety disorders can develop from many roots, and some people may be more vulnerable depending on various psychological variables. I have found many of my issues stem from a lack of perceived control, as anxiety is greatly determined by a person's perceived ability to control a potentially stressful event. Childhood experiences can have a heavy influence on the sense of control. If a child repeatedly experiences a lack of control over the events in their lives, they may come to view the world as unpredictable and dangerous. I lost my father at a young age and was then left in my mother's care, a woman with her own psychological torments. I don't think my anxiety was hereditary but was from my youth being enveloped in loss and abuse. I didn't know how to understand death and accept that my father was gone and why I had suddenly been given to my mother, a woman I had barely known all my life, who then took to regularly beating me with a cast-iron frying pan. I developed a hefty sense of helplessness and tended to expect adverse outcomes in life no matter how hopeful they appeared. Parents make a considerable contribution to a person's perception of control. An overly protective parenting style can communicate that the world is a dangerous place.
"Furthermore, this parenting style limits a child's opportunity to develop coping skills. Its opposite: an under-protective, low-care style, results in an unstructured, chaotic world filled with stress. This is not to say that our psychological trajectory is fixed in childhood, and nothing can be done to change it. It means that early experiences can contribute to a psychological vulnerability. It explains, in part, why some people are more prone to experience anxiety than others are.
"Something like a major depressive episode is characterized by social impairment, presenting deficits in mind coding: where people use the information available in the immediate environment—facial expressions, tone of voice, body posture—to label the mental states of others. This impairment can be because of a faulty upbringing, in which case it comes from the mind, or in a physical-chemical imbalance that comes from the brain and can be treated with medication. Sometimes, it's both. It shows the entwining of the brain and the mind when looking at disorders."
"It sure downplays the complexity of machines," said Rhea. "There is a brain but no mind. They can carry out actions, but their physical components restrict them. They exist only to serve the function they were created to do. To me, though, there is some life in engines. Their cycle of intake, compression, combustion, and exhaust always felt to me like a method of artificial respiration. Inhale, intake of energy, and exhale. Like our bodies need oxygen to move, an engine needs fuel. And like a human body, a machine, like a car, needs all its parts to function correctly to work."
"And what drove you to work with machines?"
"I've been working with them for as long as I can remember."
"A smart girl like you to end up here? Something must have gone wrong in your life."
Rhea set her tea down. The drink kept leaving an unpleasant taste in her mouth. "Well, no life is perfect. Sometimes things fall out of your control. I have gone through some experiences at a young age, much of it invoking isolation. I have continued to grow more and more alone.
"And can I assume life took a wrong turn with you, given your current predicament?" she asked in an attempt to diverge from a personal path.
"So much has gone astray," Hyun said with a sigh. "I was someone once. A master thief. A way to channel my nerves and take advantage of the anxiety that caused my brain to move at a vigorous rate. I found it gave me magnificent observational skills. I'd count things, like the tiles on a floor or the number of leaves on a tree.
"When I stole for the first time, that catapulted me into the life if a thief. That rush; the mapping of others' movements and vision; working in quick action. It started small, shoplifting, and practicing as a cat burglar. Nothing high stakes. I liked to keep hidden and did most my work in the dark. I was good at it, and soon I was practically running a business. Larceny, embezzlement, fraud, identity theft, anything that could give my sporadic brain a purpose. And then I became obsessed with art. Obsessed with color and images that could move me like nothing else. It first began in New York City when I decided to educate myself a little to fit into my surroundings. And I found Christina's World."
"Which one is that?"
"A devoid beauty! Delicate dance of the rolling fields of coastal Maine." Rhea could see the poignant images in the man's eyes as he revisited the memories. "A young woman in a pink dress, strangely alert, her silhouette almost frozen as though fixed to the ground. The vast campestral land rushed into my heart, as though standing there at the end of nowhere with this poised woman stretching to the only thing she's ever known as home. I felt invigorated.
"Oh, what I wouldn't have done to get those pieces! The weeks of planning, memorizations of layouts, practicing of leaving a traceless trail. But the moment I looked upon a canvas, the real piece of art I could never create on my own, it was worth it."
"How did you end up in Samadoya?"
"Arrogance, I suppose. I was a greedy man, thinking I had the power to take anything I want. But I flew too close to the sun. I received word of some valuable works of art stored in a bank here in the city—a building called Pinchers—that I knew were originals. Before I had arrived here, I was scoping the Art Institute of Chicago after a couple of weeks admiring the canvases, my eyes set on Nighthawks, by Edward Hopper."
"That one I know of."
"I had seen the piece many times, visited it as though an old friend. But when I began my surveillance, I found things off about the painting. I could not decide if it was the coloring of the light, the cast of shadows, the woman's red dress; but they were not as my eyes had previously perceived it. After the extensive hours I spent staring at the piece, memorizing every paint stroke, how the lines and colors had made me feel, I knew I was looking at a fake—a good one; a perfect one. And then came whispers that Nighthawks—the real one—was sitting in this Pinchers bank. The vault holding the prize yielded to the Pisac Triad. I don't know how much you know of the guilds that run this city, but the triad, not one to be crossed. Highly sophisticated operations and extensive criminal associates networks, they infiltrated my partners and found me within forty-eight hours of my heist. In exchange for my life, they cast me down into this filth and took everything I had. Everything…except my greatest treasure." A ghoulish smile began to twist Hyun's face. "It's still here. Through all my years…"
"You're talking about an art piece?"
"The most extraordinary of all. One first stolen in 2010 and since then has not been seen by the surface world. It spent its time drifting between dealers and crime lords that wanted to boast their success and wealth. I was in Chongqing targeting a crime boss whose rival wanted possession of his four Tibetan mastiff's. When I snuck into his penthouse I came across his collection of stolen art and found my heart beginning to fill with the flow of color when my eyes landed on the poppy flowers Van Gogh created 3 years before his suicide. I could not leave it there with that behemoth."
Hyun raised from his seat and ventured into the disgusting bathroom. There, he pulled up the floorboards and emerged with the 65x54 centimeter canvas where bright yellow flowers swirled atop a dark vase behind a dark background. Rhea hesitated, then slowly reached out a hand and gently brushed her fingers across the surface, feeling the paint dried where one of the most legendary artists had once stroked his brush. And here it sat, the gentle vase worth $50 million, now imprisoned beneath the shit-stained floorboards of a rotting motel. She could feel the age of the canvas and oil, the fragility erupting goosebumps along her skin.
"Beautiful, isn't it," Hyun said, his eyes on it with more love than Rhea had seen in any face.
"It's incredible you've kept it all these years."
"I broke the first law of a thief: never keep what you steal. But I could not help it! I could not send it off to some greedy bidder that would hang the piece and not look at it once. I kept it with me always, and when I first arrived here, I stashed it here in this very motel where I knew it would stay unseen. I hope I can count on your discreetness, Rhea. I do not show my love to just anyone, but I am a good judge of character, and you do not seem like a violator of the arts. Know that I care for it better than any other man can."
He gave a brushing kiss on the flowers and returned it to the ugly hiding place.
"I've made mistakes too," Rhea frowned as Hyun returned from the bathroom. "All I know how to do is run from things. When you speak of your anxiety, it sounds past tense."
"Since being here, in this haunted world secluded on an ancient island, it's opened me to new things; shown me how to access my psyche and evaluate parts of myself I didn't know were there. I've enjoyed venturing into the various concepts that stretch my psyche. Have you ever tried mediation?"
"Not really. Does it do anything? My father used to do it sometimes, repeating a prayer over and over again that he said he found him peace."
"That's transcendental meditation: repeating a mantra until you transcend thought entirely. What I practice is called satipatthana, or mindfulness. The goal is to focus on your breath, pay attention and bring awareness to what your mind is doing. Acknowledge your thoughts and feelings; make friends with your emotions. When people first practice mindfulness, it can be difficult to distract yourself with your default mode network pulsing thoughts. But that's part of the practice. You're not emptying your mind, but controlling and working with it, enhancing your focus and attentiveness. It can affect the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex of the brain and decrease the activity of the amygdala. It can help you control your pain."
"I saw that photo from 1963 of that Mahayana Buddhist monk who lit himself on fire in protest of the South Vietnamese government. People said he didn't even scream. I don't understand how someone can have that much control over their mind."
"Pain can become a neutral element in meditation. It is still felt, but the practice can help lower the anticipation that comes with the infliction, and once it is experienced, it is accepted and then diminishes. I have noticed that with my emotions as well when practicing mindfulness. Accepting and acknowledging those unpleasant emotions, and letting yourself feel those things, and then it dissipates."
"It can still be hard to accept."
"The mind is not easy to control, but if I've developed one thing from mindfulness practices, it's been my growth of kindness and empathy towards others. I have room for other people's emotions and experiences. I notice things I never have before. I seed new value in people. Increase your focus and attention, and you can find a lot. Especially here, where there are many hidden details."
"This is a strange city."
"More strange than people expect. This is an archaic island, older than any of us. Some things were her before us; otherworldly. Have you been to the westward end? Quite a sight, the Tara district as they call it. Full of ravenous beasts and suffocating vegetation. But it's not just the Tara district that is haunted. Throughout the city, you can see some mind-bending things. Some think they're gods, but most believe they're demons."
"Demons?" Rhea raised an eyebrow.
"You don't believe me? Oh, you just wait, mechanic. I'm sure you'll see one of them at some point. Most do, but very few will admit it. But the tricky thing is distinguishing the otherworldly from the insane."
"And what do these demons look like? Have you seen any?"
"Once. It was quite horrifying," said Hyun, hand reaching for a cigarette pack tucked within his coat. "First thing I remember is a powerful fragrance that made me think of the plumeria. Then I came upon a scene that looked like something from a horror movie; an empty street where a man was lying dead on his back. Above him, a pale woman with long black hair and five-inch fingernails dug into his stomach, ripping out his insides and gorging them into her mouth. Her white dress was smeared with red across her stomach, and with her head curled over the man's body, I could see a hole at the nape of her neck. I would have been able to sneak away if I hadn't been drunk. I fumbled over my feet, and red eyes landed on me. Suddenly, she began to change. Her teeth grew into fangs that stuck out between her lips, her beautiful face beginning to scrunch and wrinkle into a hideous beast. I don't know how I survived, but I remember her massive beast nails ripping into my shoulder and the grip of street litter that I plunged into one of her blood-colored eyes. The only proof I have of the night is this…" Hyun lowered his jacket and shirt to show Rhea the massive chunk that had been ripped from his shoulder.
Rhea stared at the deformity and the face of Hyun. She no longer felt tipsy or uneven. She knew what she was looking at and processed what the man was saying. Her cognitive functions were working again, contemplation on whether this man's mind was all together there. But he had some compelling evidence. His shoulder certainly looked as though someone had ripped the chunk out of him.
"Sounds a little like madness, but I try not to judge," she said.
"But isn't it a marvel what the brain can conjure when we lose touch with reality?" Hyun smiled. "But try not to lose hope, even here, where so much despair resides. I've found more peace than I ever experienced before. No more greed, no more loathing, no more loneliness; I've let it all go."
"I don't think I'll ever find peace here, but I applaud you for finding some in such a dark place. Even if you're a little crazy."
Hyun let out a laugh that echoed out the door. A homeless across the hall shouted: "Shut the hell up already! I'll cut off another of your toes, Hyun!"
"You lost a toe?" Rhea looked to the man, who was still laughing gently.
"I've lost two. One was cut off when the Pisac triad came after me. The other was removed when my mother broke my foot when I was thirteen."
The person across the hall—a girl of 15—continued to shout at Hyun with vivid threats, her feminine voice booming with her overgrown larynx that developed into an Adam's apple. The shouting hurled more angry voices into the hall, and soon the floor was alive with the sounds of angry jeering.
To keep from being sucked into the derangement erupting from the floorboards, Rhea snuck out from the motel while Hyun moved into the hall and began to taunt the deep-voiced teen. A young man down the hall hurled a brick at the two just as Rhea was making her way down the fire-illuminated stairs.
She followed the Hara-Kiri in the direction she had come. Downtown lights were pulsing, and streets were still stained in heavy twilight traffic. She had no idea how to access peace of mind in such a setting.
She reached a street of vague familiarly, the Cheetah Bar in view. Now, there was no Mirek or half-blind Kenny and no cartel to set her on edge. She gazed atop the buildings, wondering if she could spot a hidden sniper, but there was no movement from above. She tasked herself with climbing the bridge and followed the pristine tracks until the glowing salmon of Sockeye was in view.
[1] Evening Bell Chant: Marks the beginning of the evening practice in Buddhist temples in Korea.