For of Mujin

Late in the afternoon, the Mujin Intercity Bus Terminal was bustling yet gloomy. As soon as I got off the bus that had taken three hours to get there from Cheongju, the wind mixed with the smell of mudflats hit my face. It was the same smell as before. But something was different. The air was too clear. I had returned to Mujin after spending ten years in Cheongju. To be precise, I had no choice but to return. It was to take over the “Mujin Pharmacy” that my mother had run for over thirty years. In Cheongju, I had been managing the pharmacy and living a stable life. My wife was satisfied, and the children were adapting well to school. But after receiving my mother's call, I had to give up everything. “Kyung-do, Mom wants to rest a little now,” she said. “Son, how long are you going to let Mom run the pharmacy?” I recalled a phone call with my father last summer. My father had retired as a professor of pharmacy and knew nothing about running a pharmacy. My mother had run the pharmacy, which my grandfather had started, alone for over thirty years while raising us three siblings. “I understand, Dad. I'll wrap things up and come down.” My older brother was a busy doctor in the United States, and my older sister was a busy lawyer in Seoul. In the end, as the youngest and only pharmacist, I had no choice but to return.

The old downtown area of Mujin was bright and lively. The narrow, dim alleys of the past were gone, replaced by straight roads and modern buildings. I had heard that the city had transformed into a tourist destination after the Garden Expo, but seeing it in person was a different experience. But something felt off. Despite the city’s development and cleanliness, there was an empty feeling, as if something important had been taken away. The sky was too clear. The cloudless blue sky seemed unnatural. I took a taxi to the old downtown area where the pharmacy was located. The driver was a man in his mid-fifties from Mujin. “Where are you from?” “I'm from Cheongju. Do you know Mujin Pharmacy?” “Oh, are you Mr. Park's son? Mr. Park has been working so hard on his own.” “Yes, I'm going to take over the business.” The driver glanced at me in the rearview mirror and nodded. “That's good. These days, young people all go out and don't even look back at their hometowns.” “Mujin has changed a lot.” "Oh, don't even mention it. They filled in the tidal flats and built a new town... These days, Mujin isn't Mujin anymore. It's lost its old charm, and oh my..." He sighed and continued. “Back in the day, around this time of year, there used to be a lot of fog, but these days, there's none of that. I wonder when the real Mujin fog disappeared...” Fog.

The moment he heard that word, memories of his childhood came flooding back. Sitting with his grandmother on the floor in the evening. Watching the white fog roll in outside the window, his grandmother's voice. “Kyung-do, on days when the fog rolls in, you mustn't go outside.” “Grandma, why not?” “In the fog... the spirits walk... ordinary people shouldn't encounter them.” My grandmother paused for a moment and lowered her voice. “But you know... the fog also brought comfort to people. They say that sick people were healed.” At the time, I was seven years old and couldn't understand what my grandmother meant. I simply accepted it as something dangerous yet mysterious. Mujin Pharmacy was located in the heart of the old downtown area. It was a small pharmacy on the first floor of a two-story building. Thanks to my mother, who had been running it until a few days ago, it was neat and tidy. However, the old sign and interior, which bore the marks of thirty years, felt both warm and melancholy. On the desk in the office at the back of the pharmacy were his mother's records. Old prescriptions, books related to pharmacy, and the Mujin Pharmacy Association membership list. Among them, what caught his eye was the “Patient Special Notes Log” written by his mother. Out of professional curiosity, he flipped through a few pages. Most of them were general medication instructions, but occasionally there were strange entries. In particular, there

were many notes related to prescriptions for tranquilizers and sleeping pills. “Kim XX - Insomnia. Repeatedly talks about fog. Prescribed flurazepam by the internal medicine department. Minimal effect. Claims that ‘the fog was better than the medicine.’” "Park XX - Depression. Claims that 'the fog made him better.' Prescribed SSRI by the psychiatrist. Symptoms worsened after the fog disappeared." “Lee XX - Panic disorder. Symptoms began after the fog disappeared. Prescribed 0.25mg of alprazolam by the psychiatrist. Repeatedly said, ‘Before, all I had to do was drink the fog.’” It was nonsensical. The idea that a weather phenomenon could have a more direct impact on psychiatric symptoms than medication... But there were too many patients with similar testimonies. What was even stranger was that everyone used the expressions “drinking” or “inhaling” the fog. Fog. It was about fog again. For the people of Mujin, fog seemed to have a special meaning beyond a simple weather phenomenon. Looking out the window, the sun was setting. The horizon beyond the tidal flats looked the same as before, but a significant portion of the tidal flats had been reclaimed and turned into land. Apartment complexes and commercial buildings were densely packed there. I remembered spending time with my grandmother, looking out at those tidal flats when I was a child. At that time, my grandmother always seemed to be waiting for something while looking toward the tidal flats. “Grandma, what are you looking at?” “I'm waiting for something.” “The fog?” “Yes.

When the fog comes... everything becomes peaceful...” At the time, I couldn't understand what my grandmother meant. If the fog makes it hard to see, why would it be peaceful? On the second floor was my room, which my mother had prepared, along with some basic daily necessities. Traces of my mother, who had run the pharmacy without a day off for over thirty years, remained everywhere. After tidying up the pharmacy, I had dinner at a nearby restaurant. It was a small soup restaurant, and the owner greeted me warmly. "Oh, isn't this Mr. Kyung? I didn't recognize you because you've grown so much. I heard you were a pharmacist in Cheongju and are now taking over the pharmacy?" “Yes, we plan to reopen tomorrow.” “Oh, that's great. I can't imagine how much Mr. Park must have suffered. He worked without a day off for over thirty years. There was no pharmacy nearby, so it must have been so inconvenient. You had to go all the way to the city center.” The owner continued talking while placing the pork on the table. “But you probably don't remember when you were Translated with DeepL.com (free version)