< Episode 11 >

The commonality between a coin laundry and a coin karaoke room is that with just one coin, one can enjoy a solitary moment.

I killed time, staring blankly at the Neo Armstrong Cyclone Jet Laundry swirling violently inside the drum washer.

It is delightful just to think about the act of forcibly sending those who are inevitably destined for hell to heaven due to someone's selfish design of the world.

Because it's about returning the debt accumulated over the past to those contradictory and selfish beings who want to enjoy rights but not obligations and responsibilities. Naturally, it's enjoyable.

How many people and souls are suffering in silence, unredeemed, in this city, this country, this continent, this world, even at this very moment?

They are all shadows forsaken by the One God, sticky gum stuck to the ground, a mountain of trash and filth that no one bothers to clean up or even care about.

All created by a single person, and broken by being treated as they please. The landfill that receives them, the great one called it 'Hell', and named the place where only the pure and chaste beings pleasing to his heart are gathered and displayed like a showcase 'Heaven'.

"Today's Bible reading for gratitude is done. Should I increase it to two next time?"

 Clink.

As I was reading a thick Bible while waiting for the laundry to finish, I suddenly heard the sound of someone entering the empty coin laundry at dawn.

It looked like someone who had been so worn down by exhaustion that they had been exploited as a mere part of the vast machinery of society, only barely managing to break free.

A loosely draped tracksuit, slippers dragging along, hair tied up in a messy bun with a hairband, too lazy even to cut or style it. And a face where makeup is almost non-existent.

Just before a woman puts on the disguise called makeup, wandering outside in her raw, unadorned state would be difficult without a certain amount of courage.

Thinking that, I checked my washing machine just as the spin cycle began.

The coat and clothes, stained and dusty, like a sinner who had just finished repenting, truly regained their purity, freshness, and cleanliness.

Although not pure, innocent, or pristine, what does it matter? After all, it's just clothes for a single man in his late twenties, sweaty as he is. As long as it doesn't look as shabby as the tracksuit that woman is wearing, it's fine.

 Hey, you.

"......?"

As I was debating whether to close the Bible, throw it away, or keep it, a rather husky voice for a woman pierced my eardrums.

She turned back with a puzzled look, but the woman who had called me didn't even glance this way, instead shoving her laundry into the drum washing machine.

And he continued speaking without looking this way.

"If you want to die, do it quietly on your own. What kind of act is this in a public place where everyone uses?"

"What's the problem with doing laundry at a coin laundry?"

 "Ha!"

My calm response didn't seem to sit well with her, as she sneered with a look of disdain, pressing the washing machine's setting buttons firmly.

I don't care where you rolled in from, or why you're so desperate to die. But at least don't cause trouble for the people around here. Do you want to ruin the local businesses or something?

"Whoever hears me would think I'm running around the neighborhood like a madman, howling day and night."

It's even worse than that. How can a thriving business district survive when a living human, especially a seemingly normal man, is roaming around spreading yin energy? Where there are people, there is yang energy, and thus, more yang energy (people) gather and development occurs. The symbiosis of human society is based on this premise.

I rolled my eyes and calmly thought about what that crazy woman was saying.

Those who usually mention the concepts of yang and yin are almost always either shamanists or Buddhists.

Judging by her appearance, attire, and manner of speech, she certainly wasn't a Buddhist nun, and she didn't seem to have even the slightest connection to Christianity, so it would be accurate to assume she was a shaman.

 "What else do I say?"

There is no lack of guesswork.

In fact, even before I chose this path, exorcists who had noticed my ideals had approached me.

If a shaman, who is said to be more inspired than the exorcists, reacted to me in some way, it was not at all strange. It was a perfectly natural phenomenon.

But that doesn't mean it's okay to put a crime that others don't have on them.

I don't know what you saw in me or what you felt, but let's not force anything. What I did was honorable and something I'm proud of for anyone. I don't want to be criticized by people who prey on the weak, trembling in fear of the future, while they extort money.

Not only foolish, but also arrogant. Do you even know your own state now?

 "As you know."

I felt the story might get too long, so I closed the Bible with a thud and cut my words short.

How about starting with the clichéd childhood stories that can induce yawns in others just by mentioning them? Or the twisted tales of social life? Or the climax of the story where I was ultimately denied existence? If you have any questions, don't ask your petty god you serve; ask me directly. I'll tell you everything. Let's see if you can predict me after that.

"I know that you lost your parents at the age of eight and went through a painful childhood, moving from place to place. The one I serve looks at you and clicks their tongue, saying how pitiful you are."

You don't seem to be a shaman who worships the spirits of the dead. So, isn't it unnecessary for us to bother with each other? You keep taking the offerings from those ignorant people and keep doing your fortune-telling. I'll do what I need to do.

"Are you talking about the great sin of defying reason and crossing fate?"

I don't believe that crap.

 Dingdillylillydongdingdong~!

As soon as the cheerful alarm rang, she took out the laundry that had been perfectly washed and dried and transferred it to the coin-operated dryer.

If a coin laundry also has a coin dryer, shouldn't it change its name to a coin laundry-dryer?

"If things like fate, destiny, or inevitability really exist, then aren't we all just programs moving according to a predetermined script? Ah, of course, humans have free will. A half-baked privilege to move freely only within the confines of a predetermined program. That's why I recently realized that contradiction and am in the process of requesting an A/S. I'm the one doing what you can't or won't do, taking care of it for you."

If we're talking about the spirits of that motel, they were scheduled to be pacified soon. The ones who died in agony would surely refuse to be pacified unless their grievances were fully appeased, so they were just left alone for a while.

"Nonsense. It's not even worth the money, it's troublesome, and it's hard work, so I guess I just kept putting it off until the landlord's request came in. Thanks to that, there were quite a few people who fell for the same trick before me."

"He too was led by fate. He was destined to die there, the beggar."

"Yeah, that's exactly the problem with fate. You can't escape it, you can't change it, and it's not something you chose for yourself. Because of this fate, some people suffer their entire lives, while others live a life so happy that it's almost enviable. Maybe the Jade Emperor, whom you consider the supreme deity, tosses people's fates around like scattering food to the fish in a pond?"

"...The karma is deep indeed. How can a human harbor such a cruel heart?"

The woman muttered to herself for a moment, then took a bell out from her embrace and shook it jinglingly.

"First, I must correct your misconception. I am not the fortune-teller you imagine."

The moment she changed her address for me from 'you' to 'you', I felt the change in her voice and atmosphere hit me like a wave.

Poor and pitiful child. Foolish child who thinks you alone bear all the misfortunes of this world. How could you, merely a human, understand the will of the divine, and with your narrow vision, fathom the principles of all creation and the truths of the world?

Is the logic that your own misfortune is a blessing compared to the lives of others who are even more unfortunate? I'm sorry, but I'm not so free as to engage in such endless debates. As you can see, I'm quite busy. Just knowing that I've been given a shitty life, lived a shitty life, and am now facing a shitty end is enough to make me feel utterly miserable. And no, I don't think this misery will turn into a blessing. If such salvation existed, I would have been saved by now too.

"You are even worse than a tantrum-throwing child. Surely, there is an appropriate time for the end of all things, and just results are given according to the deeds and virtues they accumulated in life. Even if one accumulates virtue to receive great rewards after death, it would still be insufficient, yet you have piled up unforgivable sins in a short time. Do you not see that your crimes are so great that the heavens are rent asunder and the earth trembles?"

I don't know. I couldn't know. No one taught me and no one cared for me. Realize it on your own and understand it on your own? I've been annoyed by such rudeness for a long time. From the beginning, those who don't need to realize or understand anything on their own, who are given everything from the start, even if they die and come back to life, they wouldn't understand this feeling. Well, the saying that "all you see is what's in front of you" is only true in times like these. The happy see only happiness, and the unfortunate see only misfortune.

At least if there had been even a tiny bit of happiness in my life.

If it had become a slender hope in my otherwise shattered life.

If it had been that way, I wouldn't have had to exist here like this now.

An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. What's so wrong with giving back to the victim, me, what I suffered? Isn't that right?

 "What are you talking about, facing a god?"

"There's nothing wrong with that. Everyone likes stories of retribution and justice, don't they?"

The victim is me, the good, and someone else, the perpetrator, is evil.

 Indeed, it was a simple and clear answer.

"Then, even if I have to bear the burden of taking life, I must tear you apart here, limb by limb."

"I'm sorry for breaking the mood, but let's do that next time."

 Eeeeeeeh!

The momentum of her storm-like vigor instantly waned as several police cars converged in front of the coin laundry.

As the momentum faded, she once again looked like the typical early-thirties unemployed woman, or a plain woman preparing for the civil service exam, that one could encounter anywhere.

In the meantime, the police seemed to be briefly surveying the area around the coin laundry, and soon approached me as the rapid drying finished, asking me as I was packing the laundry into a plastic bag.

"We received a text report of a large-scale knife fight in front of the coin laundry, but is there a reporter or witness among you?"

"Huh? I'm not sure. We've been busy doing laundry here......"

When I showed the police the clothes, still warm and stiffly dried, packed in a plastic bag, they picked up the radio with a look of embarrassment.

"It seems like a false report. I'll have to trace the caller's number and summon them to the station for obstruction of justice."

-Fuck, being called out on a weekday night is already shitty enough, but are you seriously prank calling me at this ungodly hour? If that little shit gets caught, I'll really tear him apart......!

"Stop!"

The policeman quickly turned off the radio, glanced around the coin laundry, gave a slight nod, and walked out.

I too followed the police, carrying my clothes. Although I could feel the shaman, still busy with the laundry, glaring at me out of the corner of her eye, I didn't care.

It was tiresome to even talk about repentance to a woman who had lived a mechanical life, with her ticket to heaven already secured due to her innocence. She knew her own fate, so she would naturally find her way to heaven on her own.

I faintly smiled as I let the shattered pieces of my smartphone and the USIM chip slip through my fingers and into the sewer below.