MATTHEW MCAYEAL - LIVING IN THE DARK

Matthew McAyeal is a writer from Portland, Oregon. His short stories have been published by "Bards and Sages Quarterly," "Fantasia Divinity Magazine," "cc&d," "The Fear of Monkeys," "Danse Macabre," "The Metaworker," "Scarlet Leaf Magazine," "Bewildering Stories," "The Magazine of History & Fiction," and "Tall Tale TV." In 2008, two screenplays he wrote were semi-finalists in the Screenplay Festival.

Living in the Dark
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​            Comrade Song Jin-Kyong awoke with a start. Her eyes were open, but there was nothing to see. It was pitch black.
            Jin-Kyong lay wide awake on her floor mat, not feeling tired at all. But there was no point in getting up now. There was nothing to see or do in the darkness which surrounded her. And even if she did, she’d need a candle, for all the electricity was shut off at nine o’clock. Of course, her stomach felt empty, as it had always. All her life, there had never been enough food. But their remaining corn rice — that was, corn ground into rice-sized grains — needed to be saved for breakfast. At least things were not as bad now as she was told they had been in the years before her birth, a time known as the Arduous March.
            Of course, she knew why there were food shortages. It was because of the Miguk-nom, who had divided her country and enslaved the people of the South. But the Miguk-nom could never win. Her people had Juche, self-reliance, and their unwavering faith in the Outstanding Leader of the Party. The Miguk-nom could make them suffer, but still they would survive and fight back. They would never surrender. And eventually, someday, their motherland would be unified again under the glorious leadership of their Outstanding Leader.
            Tomorrow would be Jin-Kyong’s first day in the People’s Army. She was looking forward to it. There would probably be more food in the army, she supposed. And she would be a part of her people as they struck back against the Miguk-nom. That would show them for what they had done to her country! The Miguk-nom thought they were so powerful, but they did not know the strength of her people and of their unshaking faith in Juche!
            But hadn’t the war been over for more than sixty years now? That was sixty years in which the Miguk-nom had known the strength of her people, and yet they had not given up. Unless another war started, all they could do was maintain the status quo and that was no proper way to get revenge. That status quo hadn’t dissuaded the Miguk-nom for sixty years, so why would it start now? She reminded herself that the Outstanding Leader was all-knowing and all-wise. He knew the best way to take revenge. She just had to maintain her faith that he knew what he was doing. Maybe victory wouldn’t come tomorrow or even in ten years, but it would come someday through his glorious leadership.
            She wondered if she’d even get to see a Miguk-nom. She supposed the best chance she had would be sitting across a table from one at the Joint Security Area. It was hard to imagine a Miguk-nom sitting at a table, all calm and civilized. After all, she’d grown up seeing posters which depicted them as vicious, deformed barbarians. She supposed they must be at least somewhat civilized to have built all their helicopters and tanks and so forth. It seemed strange that a race of such bloodthirsty savages was capable of acting civilized. Not that that would fool her, of course, since her people knew their true colors well.
            Jin-Kyong’s eyes bore into the darkness, but still saw nothing. In such complete darkness, doubt and uncertainty began to descend over. She suddenly found herself questioning everything she knew. The Party used to say that life was better in the North than in the South. After everyone learned it was the other way around, the Party admitted that point, but said their brothers and sisters in the South still longed to be free of the Miguk-nom, still wished to be cared for by their beloved Outstanding Leader. If the Miguk-nom were so evil, why would they make life good for the people under their rule? If the Outstanding Leader was so great, why was there so much hunger and corruption?
            No, she couldn’t think such things! It was a crime to doubt her Outstanding Leader for even a moment! Jin-Kyong’s heart quickened. Even inside her head and in a pitch black room, was it safe to think such a thing? Why, if she said such out loud where the police could hear, her whole family would be disappeared, probably killed, and rightfully so. Wasn’t that the way the world was supposed to work? Wasn’t that what she had been taught all her life?
            Though she couldn’t see it in the dark, the wall had side-by-side portraits of the Outstanding Leader’s father and grandfather. The Great Leader, the founder of their country, had been dead for over twenty years and the image of him on the wall was an inanimate object, but she still felt ashamed to be doubting his grandson while under his benevolent gaze. Surely he would be disgusted with her for that. How could she be so ungrateful for everything he had given her and her people? What was wrong with her? Was she insane to have thoughts like this? Or...
            Or did everyone have those thoughts? Maybe no one actually believed what the Party said, but simply repeated it out of fear. There was no way to know. She was scared to even think that, let alone ask someone out loud. For that matter, was anything the Party said true? Maybe the Miguk-nom didn’t actually exist. Every sacrifice they had made was for the impending war, but the war wasn’t happening. Would there ever be a war? Was it all just an excuse? Did a world outside of her country even exist? How could a society like that come into existence in the first place? Why would millions of people agree to let a small number of liars control their every thought and feeling?
            No, she must be insane. She lay there in the still darkness, unable to know anything for certain. She would have to hide her insanity from everyone, she thought as her heart pounded uncontrollably. She would have to make all the normal, healthy people think she was one of them, that she still had true and complete faith in their Outstanding Leader. Maybe if she tried really hard to make herself believe it, she would redeem herself and then she would no longer be crazy.
 
            This fictional story does not depict an Orwellian dystopia of the future or a totalitarian regime of the past. It depicts North Korea, a country which today is shrouded in darkness both literally and metaphorically.