[복제] 단어 | hyunmo-yang-artist

A word staggered and fled. Though it didn’t know where it was going, it ran as if chased. Lines drawn in pencil marked the path ahead. The pencil lines faded briefly, then returned, joined by a circle. The word paused beside the circle, catching its breath. The circle was soft, and its repeating shape gave the word comfort. Perhaps it was because it resembled the letter “O”. Eventually, the word reached the end of the paper, where the line no longer continued.

“Please catch me. I’ll never return if you don’t.”

It clung desperately to the edge of the paper, but no one answered. Leaving the paper was its destiny.

From that point on, everything the word said felt like a lie. Not that it truly was—but to the word, it seemed false. Gripped by guilt, the first person the word encountered after stepping outside was a nun. When she opened her bag to pull out a scarf and hat, fragments of guilt poured out. Guilt clung in bits: on the scarf, the hat, the zipper of a pencil case, the wallet. Like an investigator gathering evidence, the nun placed each item on a small altar.

“I carry these with me, too,” she said.

The word couldn’t believe her. It tried to gather the fragments of guilt, but the more it tried, the more impossible it seemed.

The crumbs turned into sand. The sand became a desert, and under the blazing sun, two women stood with their heads bowed. They raised their hands to shield their eyes. The word felt dizzy at their synchronized movement. They said they were searching for the phoenix’s eyes. A breeze shook the leaves—three-lobed leaves. But due to climate anomalies on the other side of the globe, the leaves could no longer maintain that form. Still, they could not be called four-lobed either. Sand blew into the word’s every crevice. It curled in on itself to survive. Protecting itself was more important than anything.

The word trembled, questioning its own usefulness. It didn’t carry the scent of soil, but rather the faint smell of dry powder. It released that scent willingly. In doing so, it felt a little lighter—perhaps even a little freer. Though it had clearly been treated with care and respect in many places, the word still felt scorned. Perhaps it was because the language around it was not its own.

This short story is connected to my recent body of work titled “Layers of Misreading(2024-2025)”

Word (2025)