There was a woman I dated for five years.
Looking back, five years seems like a long time, but it was a short time.
After the fourth year, she started talking about marriage.
From the beginning of our relationship, I had also said that we would get married in the future.
I thought we would get married someday.
However, at the time, I had just graduated from college and was what is called a job refugee.
How could I get married if I could not see a future for myself?
She said that she would work too, but that was a man’s selfishness.
Until I am confident that I can support her and the child we will eventually have on my own, I will not marry her.
I have tried many times to convince her to understand my feelings as well, but we keep disagreeing with each other.
I want to marry him because I love him, and I want to protect him, so I want him to wait.
Ironically, this is what led to our separation.
We cursed each other dirty with our love spun in our mouths, and with the abandonment line, “I never want to see her face again,” our relationship ended.
About six months later, I received a phone call from her.
She called me in tears and told me that she wanted to start over and that she loved me unforgettably.
But, at the risk of sounding unsympathetic, my feelings had been completely awakened by our last big fight.
I told him I had no intention of getting back together with him and hung up.
Three days later, I received another call.
This time, she asked me to meet.
I guess she thinks that if she meets me and talks to me, she will get back together with me.
I was indecisive and easily swayed, so when we were dating, I let her make the decisions.
Knowing my nature, she asked me to meet with her.
Of course, I refused.
The next call came two days later.
After the third time, I was getting fed up.
I felt bad even looking at the incoming call display, so I shoved my phone under the cushion and decided to use the answering machine.
Just when I think I have it set to hang up after 20 calls, it rings again right away.
Over and over and over and over…
When I made up my mind to answer the call and looked at my cell phone screen, I saw that the number of calls had exceeded 30.
I pressed the pickup button to give her a sermon.
“Why aren’t you answering?”
It was an exclamation that I could hear even if I didn’t put it to my ear.
It was pathetic, but my anger was deflated by her voice.
I had to calm my anger, that was all I could think about.
I told her a lie that came to my mind.
I had forgotten my cell phone and had just returned home.
Then I asked her in the gentlest voice possible what was wrong.
I thought she was crying, but she wasn’t. She burst out laughing.
She laughed and said, “You saw the vending machine from your room, didn’t you?” “Can you see it now?”
There is a vending machine a few dozen meters away from my room.
I looked at her and wondered what she was talking about, and then my phone slipped out of my hand.
She was laughing through her tears in the shape of a demon.
I have never seen this face even once in the five years we were together.
No, it was a frightening face that made me think that if I had seen it even once, I would have decided to leave her immediately.
That night I could not sleep at all due to fear.
I felt the morning sun shining into the room and I felt saved.
The fresh air and bright sunlight must have made me think so.
I opened the curtains thinly and looked at the vending machine, but she was no longer there.
Relieved, I opened the curtains vigorously.
Directly across from the window, leaning against a telephone pole in a narrow alley, she was sitting, looking up at the window.
She looked at me and smiled.
I saw her mouth move to say, “Good morning.”
I closed the curtain with the same force with which I opened it.
It was a hassle. I can’t help but sigh.
I looked outside so she wouldn’t notice, and she was sitting up and looking up at me.
We have about a week’s worth of food stored in our house.
She would not be able to go without eating, drinking, or going to the bathroom.
I made plans to escape while she was not watching.
However, she doesn’t move.
Maybe she was just doing her business when I wasn’t peeking in.
Whenever I watched her from time to time, she was there.
On the fourth night.
She was gone.
My front door is integrated with a newspaper receptacle, and I noticed that the newspaper receptacle was strangely open.
But it is fortunate that the structure only opened just enough to receive the newspaper.
Had it been the type that opens 90 degrees, I would have seen her eyes there.
I could see her fingers struggling to open more.
She said, “Hey, let me in. Let’s talk. We made love like that. Let’s talk again.”
I saw in my mind’s eye, not the smile I had seen for so many years, but the horrified look on his face the other day.
I pulled the covers over my head and shivered miserably.
Still, I must have fallen asleep at some point.
Fearfully, I peeked out from under the covers and tried not to make a sound as I looked at the door.
There were red streaks hanging from the newspaper rack.
With a clank, the iron plate opened a little and something was thrown in.
One more red streak.
As soon as I understood what it was, I called the police.
It was a piece of meat.
She is going to get smaller and come into the room.
Soon there was a commotion outside the room and I heard a man yell, “Ambulance!
I heard sirens and the noise increased, and a little later I opened the door to the man’s voice saying, “Please open the door.”
I really did not want to open the door, but the man was probably the police, so I had no choice.
Both the door and the floor of my room were bright red.
There was no sign of her.
She had already been taken to the ambulance and the police were very careful not to see her.
When they found her, she had bitten off all her fingers.
I moved out of my room immediately.
I chose a new place where I could put the newspapers and mail in a mailbox at the entrance of the building.
When I first moved in, I used to sweat every time I opened the curtains.
A few months after the incident, I heard through the wind that she committed suicide.
I was relieved.
I felt bad, but I felt a strong sense of relief.
Somehow my feelings calmed down, and after a while I had a new girlfriend.
That was around that time.
I began to hear an irregular sound.
It sounds like something being put into a newspaper receptacle.
The sound was coming from the front door.
Even though we moved to another place, the sound still follows us.
I became neurotic and broke up with her.
Then the sound stopped.
After another time, when I started to think that it was just my imagination, I started dating a woman.
Then I started hearing strange, irregular noises again.
I am alone now.
I will never get married.
No…strictly speaking, I can no longer be alone for the rest of my life.
Because she is at the door, and she keeps making herself smaller.
