An In-class Writing on "Spring" by Kim Ki Duk

This story of a baby monk who ended up killing two animals by tying a rock around their body reminded me of a one episode of mine that happened when I was ten years old.

The elementary school I went to as a 3rd grader was located in a center of the Seoul city. And just like any other schools, it had the main building, a sports field, and a parking lot.

And in the rightside corner of the sandy parking lot was an ant hole. Every now and then around the earth consisted of numerous holes leading towards the heart of the ant community, I was able to see the six-legged black creatures crawling around, scavenging for food.

It all started with me "observing" the ants' daily routine. I simply sat there after having lunch and looked at how the ant community worked. After a while, I started throwing some food in front of the anthole, curious of their reactions. The foods were always covered with the black bodies of ants when I visited the site an hour later.

This behavior of mine lasted for about a week. And as time went by, I started to feel a tinge of superiority over the small powerless black animals growing as I realized that I was the main source of food to them,that I was the guy who fed the whole community.

Then I decided to kill some ants. At first, I gently squeezed my Nike sneakers onto the flat bodies of the creatures. Unable to look upwards and see the deathly blue surface of the shoe approaching down to them, the ants helplessly died. 

I don't exactly remember how I felt that day. But one thing sure was that I was enjoying the situation.That little bit of cruelty innate in my mind has finally revealed itself.

So the massacre started. Every lunch time, I ran towards the ant hole and started ruthlessly stepping on the six legged creatures. And all they could do was to make an alert to the ant community and make some sentinel ants to come out looking for the attackers which appeared from nowhere. It didn't take me more than ten minutes to cover the whole place with dead ant bodies.

And there was this day when I felt the cruelty in my mind just surging. The ruthlessness has now taken full control of my mind. That day, I didn't even had lunch. I had to satisfy the cruelty inside my mind. And for the next 50 minutes of my entire lunch time, I was there on the right corner of the parking lot, slaughtering the whole population of the ant community.

The result was deteriorating. There were just innumerable dead bodies of the ants lying on the earth, and my breathing was uneven after all that killing. There were no longer any sentinel ants coming out. The whole ant community seemed to be dead. Somehow satisfied, I left the site.

That night, I had this terrible nightmare. On the dream, I was on this black silent place, waiting for something to happen. And then I saw a flash of light coming out. As I ran towards the light, I saw the ants that I have killed that day running on the same direction as me. And when I was just about to reach the source of light, I saw the killed ants all clotting and forming a huge black body of something that I wasn't able to recognize.

The black creature (I am not able to remember the exact appearance of it) started to roaring. Though I was not able to pick up the whole sentence I could recognize some fragments of the sentence that said "revenge" and death.

I was horrified to death and tried to run away, but then noticed that my leg was just there sticking.

Then I woke up. I was all covered in sweat. I had never had such vivid dreams in my life, and I was just gulped in fear that I burst out to a cry. 

My mom, who was sleeping in the room next to me, ran to me with surprised eyes, thinking that something terrible happened, and then was relieved as she saw me safe.

I wasn't able to sleep a moment that night. I thought that the monster would come back to me if I go back to sleep.

The next day, as soon as I arrived at the school, I ran towards the place towards the corner of the sandy parking lot.

There, I saw the ant community that once thrived to be dead. The ant carcasses were still there and there no longer were any ants coming out from the holes anymore. It was as if the time around the site had came into a halt.

I started to cover the ants' bodies by throwing sand over them. Soon, the squeezed bodies of the insects were nowhere to be seen.

Then I made a mound of sand and made something that resembled the look of a tomb. The graveyard of the ants was finished by putting a little piece of rock in front of the sand mound, and I gave a pat on the mountain full of dead ant bodies.

Suddenly, I felt something in my mind coming up to my throat. I started to cry again, but this time silently. The tears rolled down from my face and fell on the dusty sand pile.


The superego in my mind started to take control, its voice resonating inside my mind.
What have I done? What have I done to the ant community just for the satisfaction of the horrible cruelty inside  my mind?


(The in class writing time ended here)