I think I am stupid
I think I could be a doctor
What makes you so special?
Seems to be nothing
You are just piggy
Greedy celebrity
Don’t make me angry anymore
I can eat your soul
Capitalism
Socialism
Marxism
Anarchism
Fuck you
My mother says ‘you are poor, so don’t play with him’
My father says ‘you are rich, so close to your family’
I can blame someone
But couldn’t be to blame
I don’t care of your situation
Because I’m not you
It wasn’t a new kind of glare—if anything, it was the same old dull brightness.
Gloomy, maybe. Dingy, maybe.
Everything in this landscape was either already decaying or scheduled to rot soon. The color of rot was tediously uniform. If I were to name a single mercy, it would be that this dryness kept the stench from spreading too aggressively. In any other capsule, I might have suffocated long ago. The ventilation had been running well, and the heater, the melter, and the septic unit had all continued to function without trouble. Thanks to that, I had survived.
The view outside the window never changed, even as the sun rose and fell, over and over. Endless gray. And through the blinds, the light pierced through in a single sharp line of ashen white.
Following that sliver of light, I looked outside.
The sea was still right against the walls.
Only I—the one on duty—had barely survived. No one had knocked on this door since. I wasn’t sure whether surviving was a blessing or a curse. After I’d grown used to this life, I occasionally thought it might lean slightly toward “blessing,” since there was no spectacle here and only I could witness what had happened. Or more accurately—what hadn’t happened. All I could say for certain was that I was witnessing nothingness. But how long has it been since then?
Now, being left behind doesn’t feel like a good thing at all.
A few days ago, a stale metallic smell began seeping into the air—like rust oxidizing, heavy and old. I thought I would simply dry out and mummify in this sealed environment, but instead it felt as if decomposing food waste had become airborne, infiltrating the air in microscopic particles. Among the emergency rations were options for different religions and cultural backgrounds—Halal, Kosher, and even fully vegan meals. The packaging was perfectly vacuum-sealed, and for a brief moment after opening, everything inside retained a bit of moisture.
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Right after the disaster, anyone would’ve eaten anything. But the story changes once you’ve survived alone for this long. Now, every time I put food in my mouth, I need to frame it with a condition. “For vegan food,” “For Halal food.”Without that caveat, I can’t force this tasteless trash down my throat.
The longer I stay trapped here, the more I feel myself falling endlessly into numbness—and yet, paradoxically, becoming hypersensitive and irritable. Like a submarine crewman exhausted from a long silent dive, I too grew absurdly picky with my rations. Eating the same thing for so long, I was reaching my limit. But I had to eat, so I brought it reluctantly to my mouth.
“Ugh…”
Even remembering it made me gag.
It wasn’t that it lacked flavor—it was that the flavor was outright bad.
And that moisture, which made it barely edible at first, eventually became the source of the rot filling the air.
On the packaging:
What use is 0.05% of rib meat you can’t even chew?
Still, I never dared step outside to throw leftovers away.
I hadn’t opened the window a single time.
So I pushed my tongue deep into the can, licking every last trace clean. At the edge of where I might cut myself, there was always a tiny, pointless tang of acidity. After scavenging through the can like I was excavating it, I crushed it flat and added it to the “grave.”
Even after all that, I couldn’t get rid of the smell. Maybe it was the vacuum seal preserving every bit of moisture. After complete isolation, that first contact through my tongue felt jarring and disgusting. Or perhaps the leftover sauce mixed with my own undried saliva was the culprit. Either way, the stench had passed the threshold of adaptation, and with the ventilation now dead, breathing was becoming difficult.
No matter what flavors or cultural rituals had shaped them, all the food here came in identical MRE packs.
A survival kit, basically.
They even included items you’d never need—like the unnecessary napkins and plastic forks you get from chain restaurants. There were kits for washing up, brushing teeth, relieving yourself outdoors. With the matches—always included without fail—I built a tiny structure modeled after “Wilson.” I painted it using the powdered coffee that only made me thirstier whenever I drank it. The matchbox house fit well with the soot-covered Wilson outside.
At first I built a little house from ten matchboxes and powdered coffee—just slightly bigger than the food wrappers. But since I stayed with Wilson for so long, the matches kept accumulating. It was annoying to build multiple houses, so I tore them down and rebuilt them bigger, again and again. Eventually, in the corner of the room, there stood a structure unmistakably reminiscent of Wilson’s child. I threw saliva-soaked cans and other trash into it and called it the “grave.” Or the “little Wilson.”
The belly of Wilson swelled with the trash piling inside the grave. The larger the little Wilson grew, the more the odor deepened—layered, dense, unbearable.
“If someone detects this smell and finds us?
What if your child can’t endure the stench and decides to purge all the oxygen?
What if it chooses self-incineration—and I suffocate?
Is this really how you’re going to leave things, Wilson?
Answer me.”
Wilson was silent.
Not the first time.
But suddenly the anger was overwhelming.
Wilson had insulted me again.
Whip—
I hurled my already corroded fork at the wall with all my strength.
“Cla-aaang… thunk.”
The sharp end bit into the wall, clinging tightly, while the blunt end braced itself, absorbing the impact. Even the joints of the handle held firm.
Then pain shot through my shoulder—pain I hadn’t felt before.
Every time Wilson ignored me, I threw the fork. Normally it stayed embedded in the wall until the next meal, which made it easy to find in this trash heap. I always kept the fork in its place. I simply pulled it out and reused it.
But this time, the fork couldn’t withstand the rebound.
It tore free from the wall and crashed to the floor.
“Fuck…”
I was losing strength.