Congratulations to Jeongmin Lee, a senior at Berkshire School in Massachusetts, for earning this month’s CPJ Post of the Month! Jenny's flash-fiction piece captivates readers with its haunting, elegant prose, transporting them to a dystopian South Korea ravaged by climate change. Through visceral detail, richly developed characters, and heart-wrenching dialogue, she masterfully crafts a poignant call to action within a gripping, concise narrative. Drowning In Silence stands out as one of the finest examples of climate fiction we’ve had the privilege to review.
Grandma keeps coughing on our walk back home. Her ribs rattle up and down with each breath. I worry the fragile lining holding the elder together might just shatter. Bearing scorching rays on our backs, we wade through the thick, humid air.
The doctor browsed Grandma’s test results and screenings and declared she had a few more years left. Her lungs were stained and her arteries stiffened. Grandma was barely startled by the sentence.
"I’m terribly sorry," he said. My gaze kept sliding past him to the unopened air purifier box in the corner of his office.
Grandma glances at me and smiles radiating surreal tranquility, eerie compared to her bent back, hands on her back, legs shaking as she slowly progresses step by step. Droplets of sweat trickle down her wrinkly neck, dampening her shirt.
The overpopulated capital of South Korea is always at work, with countless bodies bustling to produce the hottest trends. In the shadows of the city, beyond the grasp of blaring light and music, behind towering apartment complexes, our semi-basement room lies below debilitated buildings hidden within the intricate maze of run-down walls, narrow dirt paths, and abandoned structures. A window faces the street, where we peep out and see peoples’ shoes. Mold splatters and blooms across the wallpaper, expanding its territory day by day. I set Grandma down on a blanket spread out on the floor - our bed - and get ready for work. I left high school three years ago when Grandma could not work any longer. It was difficult to sustain us both as I was often underage and under-educated to be employed.
“I’ll be back late,” I slam the rusty door and climb up the steep flight of stairs. I ascend, out of the pit, to ground level. Irritating jumbles of honks and shouts from congested roads turn into crowds on the street once I enter the alley packed with bars and tented restaurants. I push through into the vinyl tent, and the other part-timers greet me. Work starts the moment I put on a black apron: non-stop, taking orders and delivering pork strips and bottles of alcohol. For hours, people poured in, crowding the tent like a never-ending stream of water.
When I finally took a break after hours of serving and cooking the sky was finally pitch black. The place still rattled with the commotion, a mixture of vulgar laughter, drunk shouting, and the chimes on the door that kept shaking because of the wind. Even the sizzling porkstrips I placed on the customers’ grills sounded gross. I was about to stretch out my sore arms when someone burst through the doors. Gush of hot air poured onto my face.
“Why isn’t the damn rain stopping?” he cursed into his cell phone asking, "Hey, is there a seat for two?" A few people glance at his ridiculous attire. his pants dripping water, one rolled to his knees the other sagging; his shirt almost transparent soaked in rain and sweat.
"I don’t think the rain is getting any weaker, boss, let's call it a day," someone said from a table of suited-up salarymen.
"Honey, I don’t want to ruin my new shoes," a young woman whined, pulling her fine leather handbag closer to her torso. I stood by the glass doors glancing out to the street.
"Yeonju, hey! Order at table thirteen!"
I faintly heard a co-worker call my name but I could not take my eyes off the flow of rainwater outside that had risen ankle-high.
"Where the fuck are you going?"
I ignore a coworker’s shout at my back and step into the tide. With each plunge of my feet, water clings onto the apron and creeps up my cotton sweatpants. I run with the water descending further into the lowlands of the city. Into the shadows, into the dark alleys. Along the way, the streetlights disappeared and the sidewalks became jagged.
Neighbors huddle on the road in their pajamas. I hurl myself into the half-flight of stairs already underwater. The door cracks open and more water gushes out. The rain has formed a waterfall through the window that I left open for ventilation.
Wading through the water now up to my knees, I see my grandmother sitting on the table.
"Grandma! You’re back. What are you doing? Get out of there, hurry!"
" Yeonju, I have nowhere else to go." " It doesn’t matter!"
Grandma pauses and then steps cautiously into the churning current but she loses balance choking on heavy air. Waves claw viciously at us as I yank on Grandma by her arm, pulling her up the stairs, out of the flooded complex. Us, two wet dogs, watching a rainstorm rattle our home, riptide shakes my soul. I was disgusted by our neighbor's sticky palms who scurried over and grabbed our arms; of the semi-basement - covered in mold, drowned annually in murky water – that we came back to; of this place being the only place to call home; so I drag grandma out of the crowd. I had to go as far away as I could from here.
Summers of urban Korea had become un-combatable a while ago. To hide from the burning sun they find shelter in small capsules - their vehicles; they fight back the unprecedented heat wave with the air conditioner at top speed; and protect their epithelia with layers of strong sunscreen. When fumes from sports cars that pass by occasionally and air conditioning left on in stores leak through door cracks, they melt the clouds into thick droplets that sweep through a city’s residential areas picking up all kinds of trash and gathering them to the lowlands. As I walked, pondering the bitterness, the stuffy air stuck to my airway, making me suffocate and sweat. The apron flutters around my neck. I walk forward listening to the sound of Grandma breathing painful breaths, loads of heat through a thin trachea.
Moments before daybreak, a few cars glide the asphalt glistening with puddles. I pick my head up to investigate an unclear murmur and spot a display board.
“Breaking news. Along with the hottest summer temperatures, heavy rainfall signaled the beginning of summer monsoon in South Seoul…….”
Amid the deadly silence of the submerged city, the light and noise coming from the board of tens of millions of pixels was unbearably bright.
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