Memories of Summer

Act 9: Sound of Summer

Let's lighten things up a bit shall we Mr.…

Shim.

Right. Mr. Shim, let's go back to the senses. We are doing this to make sure we clean all the peripheral senses from memories. We are done with the sight, smell, taste… now hearing. What sounds remind you of Summer? A specific song perhaps?

If I would have to enumerate all the songs that remind me of her, you would probably have to erase all the love songs that I have ever heard in my lifetime.

It is like that when you are heart broken. All the sad songs seem to tell your story; all the sweet ones remind you of how it used to be. God, that sounded sappy especially in pretentious second person, but it’s true.

You hit the forward button in your music player ten times to shut Adele up about how'we could have had it all', only to hear her lamenting in the next song that'sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead'.

You realize then that you can play any of her songs at random and it would make a good background song for a suicide if not a horrific act of murder. Still wondering how she defies physics by setting fire to the rain, you break the seven dollar record into two and decide that you’d rather listen to bubblegum pop songs marketed to girls aged nine to fourteen, than hear this British bitch whine about her failed relationship three years ago when there is a Korean bastard right here, right now, whose proverbial heartbreak is still as fresh as ripe tomatoes in your mom’s garden―supposing your mom has a green thumb, unlike mine who has a talent for accumulating weeds in her little orchard.

In hopes that local radio would be kinder, you search for a station that plays heavily synthesized songs, but instead what you hear is a member of Beast rapping while ALi tells you not to lose your cool after a breakup.

Even if your heart breaks, don’t cry

Even if you want to die, don’t die

If she wants to go, then let her go

Even if you want to hold, don’t

It was actually a sound advice, you know? But you can’t really expect a brokenhearted man to take any unsolicited advice no matter how sound it is. Why? Because fuck advice! That’s why. Advice and support groups are good just like binge eating. They comfort and help women forget sorrows. But for men, you do know―I suppose since you are a man yourself― that it’s the total opposite. Sometimes we just need peace and quiet, to be just left the hell alone, while we sort our shit out.

So you pull the damn plug of your old transistor and go as far as purge your hard drive of three thousand music files―which you will badly regret later―before turning the television on. Since you can’t concentrate on anything, you switch to a random channel just to block all the thoughts away with the cacophony. But alas! It happens to be a rerun of a romantic series that hammers you with Baek Jiyoung’s voice every five minutes that automatically drags forty-nine surgical knives at the lining of your innards without mercy.

What’s really annoying is that because the song is practically the national anthem, you have no choice but to sing along and actually feel and live every word of it. It doesn’t help either when they play Hyun Bin’s version that drives the point like a ten inch nail straight to your poor twelve ounce heart with the line “That man is crying” as you mentally sob ‘I am that man’. Tissue. Tissue. Sob. Tissue.

I’m just glad that I don’t live with my dad anymore, because he will certainly ask where he has gone wrong in raising me when he sees his twenty-three year old son crying while watching reruns of a show about a stunt woman who has switched bodies with a rich douchebag.

How about nonmusical sounds? Are there any particular noises, or perhaps her voice? How did she sound like?

Aside from the ambulance siren that I always hear when I call 911 every time she causes a scene by losing consciousness randomly, I remember the sound of her voice. Her voice… her voice was musical. Her voice was music in itself. In the Shakespearian romantic sense that is, of course. She was more of a dancer than a singer as far as I remember. She could carry a tune but most of the time I’m the one who serenades… reluctantly if I may add so.

Her speaking voice however was really distinct. She didn’t sound like others who try to act and sound cute little girls. She always sounded so confident and sure of what she is saying, even if she just contradicted what she said a while ago.

I can still hear the certainty of her words as if they were carved in stone. “I don’t want you to regret it later. It’s better to hurt you now. Let’s not see each other anymore.” Those were her exact words. Oh, how they crackle in my ear. I just couldn’t believe it.

Just the day before that, she said yes to being my girlfriend. Less than twenty-four hours later, she tells me with the same cocksureness that it’s the end. I wonder where the camera is. It should be some lame prank right? But no. She was dead serious on getting rid of me because she was dating this certain guy named Cho Kyuhyun. I could hear shattering glasses, wolves howling, blood curdling, volcanoes and nuclear bombs exploding just with the mention of that name. I can’t wait to unlearn that name too.

Cho Kyuhyun. A name for a certain nemesis that I never knew existed until then. The name of this unknown person who just marched in and stole what cost me blood, tears and sanity without as much as showing his face. Not that it would help really. I would have punched him into next year if I saw him… even if I never punched anyone in my life.

But you know what? Good for him. Good for her. Good for me.

Good riddance. Adios. Sayonara. Bye bye.

At least now, I don’t have to be the one to suffer her stupid sadistic games. At least I don’t have to be the one to die from the physical and mental torture of having her in my life.

I don’t have to hear her color wheel chart and fashion lecture on a weekly basis. I don’t have to fetch her cat from the stupid spa. I don’t have to accompany her to church on Sundays when we both know that I am a Buddhist and I will always be. I don’t have to worry every time she passes out when we are together―and altogether stop worrying about her when we are not.

*the lines included are lyric translations of 촌스럽게 굴지마 by ALi and JunHyung of Beast.