The Tinfoil Crown: 은박지 왕관

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이번 호부터는 지난 3-4월에 걸쳐 ‘어린이를 위한 창의적 글쓰기 사회(Creative Writing for Children Society)가 주최한 제1회 영어 창의적 글쓰기 대회의 수상작들을 소개합니다.  영어로 읽고 쓰기를 좋아하는 청소년과 창의적 글쓰기 교육에 관심이 많은 학부형들의 일독을 권합니다. 밴쿠버 소재 청소년들의 영어 실력은 물론 이들의 창의력과 상상력을 한 눈에 가늠할 수 있는 좋은 기회입니다.

제인 유의 ‘은박지 왕관’은 패잔병과 폐허에서 살아남은 한 어린아이와의 불가피한 조우를 통해 전쟁으로 인한 인간성의 상실을 호소하고 있는 작품으로 글의 기본요소인 ‘묘사’와 ‘메시지’ 그리고 ‘반전’이 균형잡힌 훌륭한 단편이다. 특히 작품 중간에, 군인이 서로의 어리석음에 대해 용서하지 못하는 관용tolerance에 대해 설명하자, 어린 아이가 ‘그게 무슨 말이야?’라고 반문하는 대목은 둘 사이의 비극적 결말을 예고함과 동시에 작가 자신의 메시지를 함축해서 전달한다.

“Tolerance,” he read, “What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other’s folly. That is the first law of nature.”

“I don’t get it.” the boy said sullenly.

인간 본질에 대한 악을 소재로 한 <파리대왕>의 배경과 주인공들을 ‘전쟁’이라는 다른 장소로 옮겨 압축해서 재창조해낸 이 작품은 고등학생의 작품이라는 ‘가정’을 뛰어넘게 된다. 

-박준형
어린이를 위한 창의적 글쓰기 사회(Creative Writing for Children Society)설립자 겸 저자/www.cwc2004.org/cwc2004_1@hotmail.com

The Tinfoil Crown:은박지 왕관

Jane Yoo
Handsworth Secondary School Gr.11 / North Vancouver

The man walked late at evening when the stars began to brazenly reveal their fires to the cold tombs of the Earth. All was quiet. The man had a slight limp and he struggled through the ruins of what used to be a city. There was nobody to guide him.

The man was a soldier. On his matted black hair sat a military cap shriveled up like a prune. The cap did not particularly indicate honourable rank, but the man prized it highly for it was one of the few belongings he had left after the war. His house was gone, his friends were dead, and his family was buried, but the worn cap remained faithfully like an old habit that refused to be broken. Strangely, the man was comforted by this and felt that he had enough energy to travel several more miles.

But his canteen didn’t. The man unbuckled his canteen from his thick waistband. There were only a few drops of water left. Staring at his dusty uniform and his weather-beaten boots, he remembered a day long time ago when they were shiny and new. He was younger then, and his waistband had been full with sacks of food, bullets and grenades. Now he had lost all weapons. Perhaps that was better, the man contemplated, anyways he still had canned food left. It had been a painful thing to do, however, he had rummaged through the dead bodies of his comrades and had replenished his supplies. The man squeezed his eyes and fought to erase the memory but found it difficult.

The man picked through tinged rocks and shattered windows. It was impossible to distinguish which building had been what: they were all reduced to sickly black lumps. Bits of debris trailed by as the man traveled through the lifeless streets. The city looked like what the man had seen in a cheap zombie flick years ago. He gave an involuntary shudder and plunged on.

The moon bloated up and emptied pale light down onto the man’s crooked body. Tired, he decided to rest near a dump, where he could easily see a mountain of objects piled up like a pyre. Cracked teapots, empty cans and plastic bags came into view, but the man was most startled by a figure perched on top of the mound. The man rubbed his eyes, but the apparition did not go away. A small boy sat on the top of the junk pile. The boy eagerly peered back at him while his legs dangled freely. He could not have been much older than twelve. The man stared back at amazement, and he pinched his cheek several times. The boy was the first person that he had seen since the explosion that had ripped the world apart.

“Hi, do you have some food?” asked the boy.

The queer little boy had a crude tinfoil crown on his head, hanging askew. Evidently he had made it himself, but the result was quite poor. He looked down at the man from his throne of ruins, magnificently wrought with the carcasses of civilization. Fashioned with cracked light bulbs and curly spaghetti straps, his throne crackled as the boy fidgeted, waiting for a response from the bewildered man.

“Yes, in fact I have lots. I’m- I mean, I was a soldier.”

The man finally mustered up an answer. The boy’s eyes widened.

“Cool! Like G..I. Joe? Wow!”

The boy enthusiastically pumped his fists and the man lapsed into silence again. He did not know what to make out of this situation, and wondered if there were others around. If there was, he could not see them. The tinfoil crown made a rustling noise as the boy bobbed his head up and down.

“D’you, D’you want to share a fire?” the boy asked hesitantly.

The man accepted without any argument, and the boy nimbly slid down the junk pile. A few seconds later, a glorious orange flame pulsated through the emptiness of the city. The man dug around his shirt for remaining provisions and he offered some chips to the boy. A gleam sprang into the boy’s eyes as he saw the man’s stack of food. They munched quietly, a gangly boy and a seasoned man of over thirty. The man managed to fill his canteen from a trickling stream nearby, although while boiling it, he could see speckles of dirt and dead insects floating around leisurely. Grimly, he bore the fact that it was his sole option.

“How come you’re alive?” asked the man.

The boy seemed taken aback at his question.

“I guess I got lucky,” he replied offhandedly.

The man realized that the boy’s answer counted for himself as well. They were extremely lucky to be alive. He did not know why he survived and the others did not. The man solemnly gazed at his limp leg, and then shifted his glance. He found the boy staring at his right hand.

“What happened?”

The boy pointed at the ugly stump protruding out of the man’s right sleeve. The man carefully covered the stump and answered shortly.

“Explosion.”

The boy gaped at the stump as if it were a revelation, and the man nearly scowled. But right then, the boy shyly took out something from his pocket.

It was a small knife. The steel edge was still sharp enough to be potent, even though the handle was stained with dirty fingerprints. The man recognized it as an army knife, and guessed that the boy had picked it up from dead soldiers. He himself had lost his knife some battles before.

“I clean it every day,” the boy proudly said as he spat onto the blade and wiped it with his clothes.

The man’s mouth twitched slightly.

“This is my treasure.”

Leaning towards the man, the boy fervently theorized about what a soldier’s prized possession might be. He saw the man take off his cap and fish around inside. A crinkly sound. The boy drew in his breath, and whooshed it out as his eyebrows sank in disappointment.

He saw a crumpled piece of paper lying on the man’s left palm. It was a single page ripped from a book. In black ink, a long quote was typewritten beautifully, and the boy observed as the man’s eyes lit up brilliantly.

“I can’t read.”

Dully, the boy pushed the paper away from him. The man closed his hands and then opened it again. The man softly caressed the paper with his stump and whispered.

“Tolerance,” he read, “What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other’s folly. That is the first law of nature.” *

“I don’t get it.” the boy said sullenly.

“Neither did a lot of people.”

The man paused and thought of his past battles. He could almost taste the smoke, the sweat, and the blood. It took only a finger to pelt the enemy with bullets and bombs. He remembered the howls suddenly stopping into silence and the hollowness that followed after an attack. And now the whole world was mute.

“If only they had been more understanding, respectful, tolerant of each other’s views, none of this,” he waved his stump towards the destruction that surrounded them, “would have happened.”

It was too late to mourn, but the man could not help lamenting. He folded the paper carefully, and stuck it back inside his worn cap.

“I’m hungry.”

The boy mumbled almost inaudibly before the two of them made an effort to find a comfortable place on the ground. The boy did not climb back to his seat at the top of the junk pile, but rather slept on the dirt, next to the man. As he readied himself to sleep, the man shivered. He clutched his cap and felt reassured at the presence of the sheet of paper, placidly resting inside. It gave strength to him, despite the cold of the night.

It was so cold that in the morning, the man could not feel the edge of a knife pressing into his throat. The boy stroke once and then twice until the man’s body went limp. After the man’s provisions were safely hidden inside the junk pile, the boy fixed up a fire. The cap was burned along with the corpse and the boy watched the paper unfurl blackly in the crimson roar of the fire. The boy sat high above it, licking his fingers as he opened a can of sausages. The tinfoil crown hung askew.

*Quote by François-Marie Arouet de Voltaire in TRAITÉ SUR LA TOLÉRANCE- Treatise on Toleration (1763)

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제인 유(Jane Yoo)

한국에서 태어난 제인 유는 유년시절 2년 가량 미국 콜로라도 덴버에서 생활했다. 이후 한국에서 초등학교 시절을 보냈으며 캐나다 노스 밴쿠버에는 2001년 가족과 함께 왔다. 제인은 아주 다양한 취미를 가지고 있다. 읽고 쓰기에서부터 그림 그리기와 음악 듣기 그리고 애니메이션 보기와 단순히 사물을 관찰하는 것 등. 그녀는 작가와 의사가 되는 것을 동시에 꿈꾸며 다양한 직업도 경험하길 원한다. 가장 좋아하는 책으로는 Earthsea series 와 파리대왕(Lord of the Flies)을 꼽는다.

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