Sun Screen

Remove it and there's the light. Twelve storied apartments, flickering street lamps, the charcoal fabric of the umbrella shading you into darkness, rain splattering in the pattern of the city. Debris mirrors the moon, silk melting in the sky, turning into the stars lulling us to sleep.

Remove it and it's as if you’ve lifted off the weight of memories. Memories of the years filled with sun and oceans, and that now have come too far away. Memories blotched and hedged, with the new ones, giving you the exhaustion like the sky draining out the souls. You look at the mewha tree while, through the vinyl usan, you still see you and your mother under the tree, jumping to catch the flowers twirling above your head, a flower that now no longer blooms in the tree left only with the twisting branches, the tree so slender like the pedestrians whose motto is "don't mind others' business."

Remove it and there's the river crashing onto the boat as the sun starts rolling over the horizon. On top of them the wonhyo bridge shudders by cars streaming on. And past them, the sound of your school bell ringing through the morning. As the students walk into the building like those bees, meandering into the honeycomb after hours of flight, sitting on their seats with their hands already moving. Nothing but the flowers, brightens your classroom.

Yet put it on and its brim of shadow extends until there's barely enough light to see your hands gripping the umbrella. Rain tumbles down, and the shallow splashes under your feet are all you hear. The puddles conceal the concrete floor, gleaming as a car drives past. Its headlight reveals the cars lining next to the apartments, a cat hissing at you like the lights in the street, lingering around your memories, gliding away as your shadow casts above it; now only yourself left in the empty parking lot. Your fingers numb and you stop to ease your breath, tilting the umbrella to check where you're at. In the darkness, you recognize the tree swaying, the same one you saw years ago with your mother.