What is today’s date again? I tried to remember as I clutched my forehead. Wednesday? Thursday? Or was it Friday? The thick fog inside my head showed no signs of dissipation. I bent my thumb and stuck it in my mouth before biting on it; only then did the fog disappear. Today was Monday.

“Should we get some food at the convenience store?”

“Let’s go to Dolsook’s and get some jeyuk-bokkeum.”

The students sitting in the lecture room packed their belongings and left one by one.

Oh, it’s lunch. I had lost my sense of time from some time onwards. I just didn’t need it anymore. Time is a luxury to someone abandoned on an uninhabited island. It was fine as long as it was possible to discern between night and day, between time to act and time to sleep.

No, actually, even that distinction was unnecessary. For me, the distinction between dream and reality had blurred a long time ago.

I picked up the writing stencils and my textbook on the desk. I had not opened the textbook throughout the whole lecture. I just carried it around out of habit.

Indeed, this body was simply held captive by the gravity created by the house and the college, and it was impossible to escape. Not that I want to eit...