11. Wonderland (1)
11. Wonderland (1)
In Korea, there were almost no private welfare facilities that weren't connected to a church.
Generally, churches preferred nursing homes.
The elderly had high voter turnout, which made them ideal for selling votes to local politicians. During election season, you could herd them into a dining hall, hand out a bowl of rice, and walk away with dozens of votes in one sitting.
What's more, most of the elderly in nursing homes were so physically diminished they could barely manage a walk to the neighborhood park.
That made them easy for management to control, and the local community rarely raised much of a fuss.
Conversely, the facilities churches were most reluctant to run were orphanages.
For starters, children couldn't vote, so there was little political leverage to be had. On top of that, the older they grew, the harder they became to control, and they frequently caused problems with the local residents.
Most of all, congregants who already had children resented seeing their church pour money into an orphanage.
Given these circumstances, a dark joke circulated among social workers: "There's no nursing home run by a poor pastor and his wife, and no orphanage run by a megachurch." Meaning, in ironic contrast, corporate-style churches seeking community influence snapped up nursing homes, while orphanages fell to the truly devout who'd renounced worldly ambition.
In that sense, the Church of Omnipotence stood as a peculiar religious organization.
Within just a few years of emerging, they had swelled their ranks nationwide.
Their officially reported congregation alone exceeded five hundred thousand.
At the center of that explosive growth sat the Cult Leader of the Church of Omnipotence.
Calling himself a proxy of the divine, he put on a ceaseless display of miracles.
What whipped his followers into the greatest frenzy were his healing hands.
The mere touch of his hands could restore clear breath to a man spitting up blood from tuberculosis, or make terminal cancer vanish completely.
He prioritized treatment for those congregants who donated large sums.
Up to this point, they were no different from the countless pseudo-religious groups that had come before.
But they did one thing no one expected.
They ran an orphanage.
Across the nation, they established facilities called the Institute of Omnipotence and took in children without reservation.
There was, of course, a catch.
They only accepted children with profound disabilities.
If their goal had been to collect labor and subsidies, they would have taken in children with milder conditions. If their goal had been to swell their congregation's numbers, they'd have taken in disabled children who still had parents.
But, strange to say, they accepted a great many disabled orphans.
Most were children whose limbs were severely non-functional or entirely absent.
Because of this, even the investigative agencies tasked with monitoring religious groups hesitated to touch the Church of Omnipotence.
The orphanage on the outskirts of Yegok Town was one such facility under the church's umbrella.
Most of the children there were orphans, but some were the offspring of church members placed into care.
Number 41 was one of the latter.
His parents had given him a name, but he was mostly called by his number.
Everyone in this place was.
"Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!"
5:00 a.m.
The dormitory lights snapped on earlier than usual.
The children, drilled as they always were, opened their eyes within the space of three wake-up calls.
A young man who held a social worker's license but whom the children generally addressed as "Instructor" strode through the rows of stirring bodies.
Some of them had hands or feet stepped on, but no one let out a scream.
They knew that would invite a kick instead.
Of course, some of the children couldn't produce a voice at all.
The Instructor jabbed a stick into the ones who couldn't get up on their own.
"Number 41's on wash duty today. Who's got him?"
At his shout, a boy with a hunched back in the rear raised his hand.
The Instructor kicked Number 41 across the floor toward him.
With no arms or legs, the boy could do nothing but roll helplessly with the impact.
"Scrub him clean. He's standing in front of people today."
The hunchbacked boy scooped up his limbless friend and headed for the washroom.
Cradled in his friend's arms, Number 41 mumbled in a dazed voice, still not quite awake.
"Had a weird dream."
"What about? You were walking?"
"...Yeah."
"Useless dream."
The boy laid his friend down in the middle of the shower area.
Children from the other rooms who had arrived first were already washing up.
Number 41 rolled himself between them as best he could, wetting his body.
Soon, his friend, having finished with himself, came over and began washing his hair.
"I had arms, too."
"Still on about the dream?"
His friend grumbled.
Today of all days, and he was this out of it.
"So what'd you do after you grew arms and legs?"
"I went up on stage and performed."
"That's not a useless dream. That's exactly what we're doing today."
The hunchbacked boy tried to roll Number 41 onto his stomach.
It wasn't easy.
He'd just lathered him up, and his hands kept slipping.
Just then, a hulking boy appeared behind him and lent a hand.
"What's gotten into you, helping out?"
At the hunchbacked boy's pleased jab, the big boy answered in a sullen tone.
"If you two are late, we all catch it together."
Today was the Dream Larvae Festival.
It was a festival no one who took part in it actually enjoyed.
The Dream Larvae Festival was a local-government event held every spring and autumn, a talent show where they gathered up special-needs children and put them on display. Everyone on stage was a special-needs child, and everyone filling the audience was one of the adults responsible for them.
Each facility sent children as representatives to dance, sing, and perform skits.
They'd toil through the whole day, and then the councilors in charge of the local welfare committee would sweep in, take their photographs, and leave. After that, guests with political interests tied to those councilors would show up to lend their support.
The disabled children were props, just there to fill the background of the occasion.
The welfare facilities found the event a nuisance too, but they couldn't refuse.
Participating in these events faithfully was the only way to be selected as a "Model Institution."
That meant better subsidies and a network of politicians and officials who would smooth administrative hurdles for a facility linked to their own interests.
The Institute of Omnipotence in Yegok Town was sending five children as its representatives.
Three boys climbed into the van first; two girls followed soon after.
With the five of them aboard, the van set off toward the event hall:
the auditorium of a provincial private university in the prefectural seat.
Number 41 gazed out the window at the banner hung over the auditorium entrance.
<Caterpillars Dreaming of Becoming Butterflies Someday>
That was the event's formal name.
Abbreviated, in Korean, to "Dreampillar."
The play they were performing had the help of the university's drama club students.
The male student playing the Magician today strained to give the children a kind smile.
"Ah, hello?"
All five of them could see it was forced.
"Alright. Let's run the script. I'm the Magician and... well, first, the protagonist?"
The youngest girl shyly raised her hand. Looking at her face, the drama club students let out a sigh of relief. Out of all five, she was the least difficult to look at. Truthfully, her appearance alone was indistinguishable from an ordinary person.
"Cowardly Lion?"
The hulking boy raised his hand. He was bald, with flaky white scales erupting over his entire skin. One of his eyes had been contaminated by the scales, its blood vessels all burst, warping it into a distorted mess.
The Magician swallowed hard and laughed awkwardly.
"Tin Woodman?"
The hunchbacked boy raised his hand, his expression sour as he averted his gaze.
"And the Witch?"
No hand went up, but the university students' eyes all turned toward one direction.
Objectively speaking, one could argue they'd looked at the remaining girl because the role was "Witch," which meant the other girl.
Still, the students couldn't deny that even if she'd been called on first, the reaction would have been the same.
Most of her face was buried under a cluster of green growths.
Only one small part was clear: around her chin and mouth.
"Are... can you see out of your eyes?"
The Magician clapped his mouth shut right after the question, as if he'd realized he'd been rude.
Tin Woodman was about to click his tongue, but the Witch stopped him.
She smiled brightly.
"Of course. I can see everything from here."
She pointed to the gaps between the lumpy growths.
The Magician nodded stiffly.
With a somewhat weary expression, he called the last role.
"Scarecrow?"
Number 41 lifted his head.
At least the Magician didn't commit the rudeness of asking, "Aren't you going to raise a hand?"
The meeting had started in an awkward chill, but the practice itself proceeded in a far more enjoyable atmosphere than anyone expected.
Part of it was the students buying them expensive ice cream, which thawed the kids' hearts. But more than that, the children all threw themselves into the play so seriously that the students recognized them as fellow actors.
By the afternoon, they'd grown comfortable enough to chat and laugh together freely.
The play they had rehearsed this way went off without a hitch on the actual stage.
Even the teachers and social workers who had been watching the children's modest talent show with blank indifference found their eyes glued to the stage once the play began.
Their fitting appearances certainly played a part.
The protagonist girl was so endearing she coaxed out involuntary smiles. The Lion looked genuinely menacing. The Tin Woodman's joints truly dipped and wobbled as if he were creaking. The Witch's features were every bit as fearsome as her role demanded. And the Scarecrow, suspended from a pole with his arms and legs dangling, looked exactly as if someone had dragged out a real straw man.
Their acting was so immersive that even the politicians, who had been absorbed in talking amongst themselves, occasionally glanced toward the performance.
The children were thrilled.
For the first time in their lives, the looks the audience directed at them held wonder, not pity or contempt.
Number 41, especially, lost himself completely in his role.
He felt, truly, as if he were journeying and moving alongside his friends.
He forgot that the ornaments attached to his arms and legs were fake, and imagined them to be his real limbs.
What moved him were mechanisms the university students were supposed to operate.
But in his excitement, he threw his own body forward of his own accord.
The pole pitched forward.
By the time the students realized what was happening and tried to yank it back, it was too late.
With a clattering crash, the Scarecrow tumbled off the pole and sprawled across the floor.
Screams and shouts erupted.
The play was halted immediately.
Fortunately, the kids who had been doing taekwondo earlier hadn't cleared away all the mats, so he wasn't badly hurt.
But a play that had been stopped once was never restarted.
Instead, a cascade of downward fury rolled through the entire chain of command.
The provincial councilor demanded a report from the event director on whether the children had been pushed too hard. The director dressed down his subordinate official, asking how such a facility had ever been called a Model Institution. That official, in turn, promised an unannounced inspection to the orphanage director. The director summoned the social worker who had supervised the children that day and unleashed a solid hour of verbal abuse.
And that great chain of love reached its lowest link: Number 41, who had made the mistake.
"No food for the whole day! Anyone I catch bringing this little bastard so much as a drop of water gets the same beating!"
After a thrashing from the Instructor, Number 41 was tossed into a solitary cell labeled the "Reflection Room."
Dinnerless, he lay on the floor, groaning in pain.
Bruises and aches riddled his body.
Hunger and thirst doubled the misery.
It must have been sometime in the deep hours of early morning.
The cell door opened.
Number 41 raised his head.
There in the doorway, the 'Witch' was waving at him.
"Hey, Scarecrow."
The five of them had grown unusually close through this experience and had taken to calling each other by their play roles instead of their numbers.
But the Scarecrow couldn't bring himself to welcome her without reservation.
He was the reason today's play had been totally ruined.
Instead, he asked hesitantly,
"The Instructor?"
"He's asleep."
She shrugged once and showed him what she was holding.
A water bottle.
"Here. Open up."
The Scarecrow wanted to refuse.
Having ruined everything, he felt too ashamed to just gobble up her kindness.
But his mouth responded involuntarily to the sound of water.
Before he was even aware of it, he was gulping down what she held out to him, swallow after swallow.
"Food'll have to wait a bit. If they catch any smell on your breath or a single speck, you'll get it way worse."
The Witch used her sleeve to wipe the water from the corner of his mouth.
Her hand grazed his lips.
Her fingers were pale and slender.
They even smelled nice.
The Scarecrow was grateful it was night.
That meant his face turning red wouldn't give him away.
But the ordeal didn't end there.
She kneaded every part of his body.
She was massaging him, trying to prevent bedsores from forming where the hard floor had pressed down on him for so long.
At some point, the Scarecrow had to clench his jaw and will a certain part of himself not to stir whenever it was stimulated.
When she was finished, she got to her feet.
Strangely, the parts that had ached felt light now, as if he could float away.
The Scarecrow felt a pang of something he couldn't quite identify.
"Well, hang in there. In case the Instructor's petty enough to keep you on no dinner tomorrow, I'll sneak around and stash some extra food for you."
As she was about to leave, the Scarecrow spoke up.
"Hey, I'm sorry."
"Hm? For what?"
"Today... I ruined it."
At that, the Witch laughed.
"Haha, I thought it was a blast, actually. Everyone's worried about you. None of us blames you at all."
The Scarecrow's eyebrows shot up.
He could believe a stranger might not complain, but he found it hard to believe that his closest friend, in particular, hadn't muttered a word of blame.
"Tin Can?"
That was the nickname of the hunchbacked boy who played the Tin Woodman.
The role name was too long, so they'd shortened it.
The Witch poked her tongue out briefly and gave a sheepish smile.
"Ah, well, he did grumble a little."
For a moment, the Scarecrow thought his breath had stopped.
Her smile, caught in the moonlight.
It was more beautiful than anything he'd seen in his entire life.
"See you tomorrow, then."
The Witch brushed the hair back from his forehead and stood.
The Scarecrow stared vacantly at the space where she had been.
The fragrance she left behind tickled his nose.
He fell asleep thinking that today's luck hadn't been so bad after all.
Sixteen years later.
Far, impossibly far from his hometown, the man once called Scarecrow, now called Wonderstein, opened his eyes.