God Is Dead
By the time I got home, my eyes were already fluttering shut, heavy with the pull of sleep.
I could not surrender to this drowsiness. Absolutely not.
I pulled a lunchbox from the fridge and shoved it into the microwave for a minute and thirty seconds.
“Siyeon… you’ve gotta wake up….”
While the microwave hummed and its turntable spun, I set to work on waking Siyeon.
She resisted with a short groan and a futile roll, but once her consciousness had already stirred, there was no escaping this method.
The perfect flank between her waist and armpit—tickle-jutsu.
My little fingers hunted for the soft, inviting gaps and dove straight in, sole purpose: get her up.
“Wake up!”
“Ghk—yaaah! Uugh….”
Siyeon twisted and writhed under the assault, rubbing her eyes as she finally sat up. Right about then—
Beeeep—the microwave announced the first lunchbox was ready.
I pulled out the steaming first one, loaded the second, and set the same time again.
Get her washed, get her fed, get her dressed, get her walking properly to school, and then….
I’m so fucking sleepy.
I slumped over my desk the moment we arrived and shut my eyes first thing.
I’d have to wake up once first period started, of course.
And of course my seat was dead center front row, right in front of the teacher’s desk—impossible to sneak any sleep.
Still, today I clung to a thin thread of hope.
Because today was the day.
“All right, everyone stand up and come to the front—”
Escape from the supremely unfair alphabetical seating that had damned Kim’s kid to the front. One of the rare chances to draw lots and flee to the back rows.
Dear God, Buddha, Allah….
I prayed for a big number, dragging in every deity I’d never believed existed.
I stuck my hand into the lottery box and rummaged around with completely meaningless flailing.
First slip—felt wrong.
Second slip—this one’s no good either.
Third slip—this one feels like a low teens number.
Fourth slip—this is the one.
It was noticeably bigger and heavier than the others. That weight said everything.
This had to be it.
Please, please, pleeease—!
I pinched the paper between thumb and forefinger and carefully unfolded the tiny scrap with trembling hands.
Inside, the radiant black letters that would bring me salvation were….
[3]
Shit.
Not peaceful rest—just pure misery in numerical form.
Barely one seat. I’d only moved one single desk to the left.
The seat that had been stuck to the right side of the teacher’s desk was now on the left. That was it.
I should’ve just grabbed the first one I touched.
Regret was useless. Too late.
Once the whole class had drawn, everyone lifted their entire desks and shuffled to new spots. The classroom filled with clattering and scraping that gradually died down.
“Ah.”
As if things weren’t bad enough, the guy who drew number 4 was the same boy who’d recently dunked dirty mop water on my head.
Looks like I wouldn’t be talking to my seatmate until the next reshuffle.
“Anyone who needs to sit up front because of bad eyesight?”
The last possible chance to switch.
I could only hope someone would raise a hand.
My legs trembled under the desk, vibrating between a thread of desperate hope and the dread that this was already over.
Please—someone take the very back… or at least the seat behind some big-bodied kid.
Somebody, save this chronically sleep-deprived magical girl.
You gods who just abandoned me—hear my prayer one more time.
“No one? All right then.”
The teacher’s words crushed every prayer flat. Seats locked in.
God is dead.
I unclasped the hands I’d been pressing together so hard.
Despair at prayers that had all been completely useless, no matter which divinity I’d offered them to.
I repeated the bitter emptiness inside my head.
God is dead.
That phrase probably wasn’t coined for this exact situation, but it was the perfect two-word summary of my life right now.
If any gods existed, one thing was certain: they were completely indifferent to me.
How can the world be like this?
Or wait…?
I flipped the thought I’d just had, twisting it the other way.
Maybe they weren’t indifferent. Maybe they actively hated me and had me marked.
Did praying to all of them at once piss them off?
So now they were coming down to personally wreck me?
…Sleep deprivation really does make every insane thought crawl out of the woodwork.
So this is how people go crazy.
I shoved the nonsense aside and simply waited for fifth period to end.
Even on the walk home I kept my eyes half-shut, nodding off as I trudged toward the apartment.
When I reached the entrance, the cat bowls and cardboard box that had been on the first floor were gone.
Today had been a bone-dry, miserable desert of a day.
I was grateful that the seeds I’d scattered last night had bloomed into a single sip of rain.
Thank you thank you thank you.
The gods weren’t that cruel after all, I chanted inwardly, wanting to raise a toast to the vanished cat sanctuary.
When I walked over to the spot where the food and water bowls had been, a different piece of paper was taped up.
Look here, you fucking bitch dumping that fucking cat food.
Whoa.
Not some bland computer printout—this was a handwritten warning in bold, elegant strokes. The second my eyes hit it, they snapped wide open.
The opening line alone was thrilling, packed with pure dramatic energy.
Beneath the unprintable string of curses, a thin thread of remaining reason peeked through.
If you feel that sorry for the strays, take them home and raise them yourself. And if I ever catch another food bowl sitting around, I won’t let it slide.
You could feel the writer’s empathetic rage radiating straight off the paper.
Whoever put this up had clearly swept away every bowl and dish themselves.
If the apartment had someone this extreme living in it, the cat problem would be solved soon enough.
I even felt a weird sense of relief at that intensity as I headed back to our unit.
The only remaining issue now was the noise from upstairs.
“They’re at it again….”
Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud—the upstairs racket still thundered down.
Short, rapid little steps. Pitter-patter-pitter-patter.
Thinking about who lived up there, it was obviously a toddler who’d just learned to walk and was now sprinting everywhere.
We couldn’t keep living like this, so I decided I would be the one to speak up first.
According to the big data I’d harvested from online communities, it probably wouldn’t do a damn bit of good.
Still, I found myself standing in front of someone else’s apartment door—a place I’d never imagined I’d visit in my entire life.
“Huuu….”
I planted myself there and let out a long sigh no little kid should ever produce.
The person I was about to talk to might just be a beast wearing human skin.
Act your age as much as possible. Act like a screw’s come loose somewhere.
I am a lower-grade elementary schooler.
I am a lower-grade elementary school girl.
Time to temporarily shut down complex words and every curse in my vocabulary.
With the pure innocence of a child who doesn’t know how to lie.
Behave so that any real human being would feel guilt.
“Haa… huuu….”
One more long, deep breath.
At the end of that breath, I steeled myself and stretched out my arm to knock.
Two heavy knocks rang against the metal door. A voice answered from the other side.
“Who is it—”
The voice was muffled as it passed through the steel, but it wasn’t the venomous woman’s tone I’d expected. It was a man’s.
The door swung open without even checking who stood outside.
A man in a grayish short-sleeved shirt and loose long pants appeared.
“Hello!”
I chirped the greeting brightly before he could say a word.
I’d forced my voice higher so it came out with that age-appropriate childish tone.
The man looked briefly flustered and glanced around.
“Uh, yeah. Who are you?”
“I live downstairs. The footsteps are really loud.”
“Oh. Ah… yeah?”
Getting called out directly by a kid must have caught him off guard. Embarrassment flooded his face.
Through the gap I could see inside—same floor plan as ours, obviously. And right on cue, a kid who barely looked old enough for kindergarten was tearing around.
Meanwhile some ajumma was staring at the TV, not even glancing at the kid, no matter how much he ran.
“Mm, sorry about that. I’ve been thinking we should put down some mats soon….”
“It’s okay.”
That was all the conversation needed.
I gave a light bow and headed back down to our floor, feeling oddly proud that it had been resolved so easily.
The guy who seemed to be the dad was at least a decent human being.
“Honey, what are you doing?”
“Nothing, the kid from downstairs just came up for a second.”
As I walked down the stairs, the ajumma’s unpleasant voice scraped against my ears.
I thought the noise problem was solved that day.
A few days later….
Thud-thud. Thud-thud-thud-thud.
The community’s big data hadn’t been wrong.
I was the one who’d been wrong. They were right.
It hasn’t improved at all.
Siyeon and I still put in earplugs every night just to sleep.
If anything, the kid’s energetic stomping had only grown more frequent.
It backed up the theory that human nature is fundamentally rotten.
And it made me regret the brief foolishness of trusting people even a little.
“Hey, Teddy.”
In the end, with a major decision made, I called out to the teddy bear lying on the floor cushion.
“Yes?”
“We’re buying a computer and some speakers.”
If I had to choose between staying a victim or becoming a perpetrator, I’d rather live as the one causing the damage.
That firm resolve settled deep in my bones.