Silver Stallion by Junghyo Ahn Page B

mother on the littered floor. Mansik had come out of the house at sunrise and did not want to return. The morning fog was thick; it would be very hot this afternoon. The sun loomed whitish yellow like a disc floating in the milky density. On General’s Hill, golden and red tints of autumn leaves and violet splotches of wild camomile had already encroached upon a large part of the dark green ridges.
    Mansik got up to go down to the stream to wash his face. He stopped by the chestnut tree. He dared not venture out to the footpath. He felt the world beyond had been suddenly forbidden him by some unknown force and he was confined to his house by invisible walls. He was afraid to be outside, to meet anybody.
    The morning dragged on and on, interminably. The fog was gone now and white cotton patches of cloud sailed across the blue sky. The acacias by the stream and the tall ginkgo tree at the entrance of Hyonam village were a dazzling yellow. The rice plants in the paddies basked in the sunshine. Dragonflies flitted around the brilliantly colored cosmos blossoms and sparrows swarmed over the field.
    Mansik paced on and on around his yard. He fed the rabbits with clover. He glanced at the small mound of dirt by the chimney where he had buried Fluffy. He did not want to go out and meet someone who might ask him embarrassing questions about last night, as Young Hwang had done.
    Nanhi whimpered. She was hungry; it was long past breakfast time. Mansik quickly hid himself behind the twig fence when he spotted three women coming down the road from Castle village. The three women, hastening to the ferry carrying reed baskets on their heads, cast curious glances at the Chestnut House. They looked away promptly when they found Mansik peeking out through the twigs in the fence.
    Nanhi whimpered again. The boy wondered for a moment if he should cook some rice for his little sister and mother. But he did not want to cook. He did not want to do anything. He did not want to exist.
    He went over to the chestnut tree and lay down on the straw mattress spread in its shade. He looked up at the distant top branches of the tree. A hot breeze gently stirred the leaves. Even the leaves seemed to have changed overnight. The boy felt the world was missing something very important to him. Everything was different now. So different. In a single moment his world had been lost.
    There was only silence and emptiness around him. And in his heart.
    Listening to the monotonous clang — clang —of a sledge hammer beating an anvil at the distant Hyonam smithy, Old Hwang had been sitting for over an hour on the plank bench under the paulownia tree, thinking. He could not make any decision because his thoughts kept repeating themselves, circling in the same rut. He shook his head to clear it.
    The old man gazed at the four village boys hunting grasshoppers on the rice paddy dike across the stream, their heads and shoulders floating on the golden sea of ripening crops. Five Kumsan boys used to go around together all the time. There were only four of them today. The old man looked over his shoulder at the Chestnut House. Mansik was still there, squatting on the straw mattress under the chestnut tree, watching the four boys on their grasshopper hunt. Old Hwang sighed.
    The old man was not sure what he was supposed to do now. This was a situation that his community had never faced before. He did not know what was proper. If somebody had died or fallen sick, the villagers in this community, who had lived for generations like one single huge family, would have rushed to the house of grief to offer solace and consolation. But they were totally at a loss as to what they should do about the woman of the Chestnut House.
    No woman had ever been raped in this county. If Ollye had committed adultery like the flirtatious daughter of Widow Yu and the trinket packman who had been caught naked by two young male villagers one night on the sandy shore of Cucumber Island in