I’m pretty sure my home is haunted. I mean, hey. I watched my grandma take her last breath in our living room, so… it happens. I actually like the word “haunted.” People are superstitious and fearful of what happens after death, but I’m not. You live a good life and all you can hope when it’s time for you to go is that it’s not bad and you’re not scared and you’ve left behind a legacy that will make the world a better place.
I think my home is haunted by a spirit who left the world alone and confused and all I can do is let the light in and tell them to respect the fuck out of my earthly existence past midnight because ain’t nobody trying to be all cold and spooped out in the dark. But they also do silly things like bringing out cat toys and hiding my juul and keys and I’m just like… okay haha good one, but I need to go somewhere and I’m addicted to nicotine so let me live. This is how I addressed the spirits at my previous workplace, which used to be a mortuary for fuck’s sake, when they kept opening bags of plastic cups in the storage room and after the third day straight of me spilling out and picking up those cups I said out loud, “Okay, you got me once, you got me twice, but don’t you think it’s time you found a new prank?”
Things were different after that.
I grew up watching scary movies like The Grudge and eventually got to the point where my tiny adolescent brain stopped being fearful and started finding them interesting. I watch B-horror movies with friends to laugh and play betting games like, “Who do you think is going to die last?” But Insidious is one of my favorite contemporary horror films. The Shining is great, The Wailing is a masterpiece, and so on.
Tonight, I’m thinking of Kim Jonghyun, who passed away a year ago. Kim Jonghyun was a K-pop star. He was in the group SHINee, a five-member boyband under the Korean media conglomerate SM Entertainment. He died at the age of 27, in a space he was unfamiliar with because he rented it out for the sole purpose of killing himself. I wonder where he chose to fall asleep. On the sofa? At the dining table, his head buried in his arms like a student sitting by the window, feeling that warm sun on his face and deciding a nap would be okay?
I don’t know, but these are the things I’m wondering about as I listen to his voice on this cold December day. I woke up last night a little before 4 a.m. Waking up in the middle of the night is unusual for me because I tend to be up pretty late anyways and a few days ago I’d woken up to my blanket on the floor, something I’ve never had happen in my life because when a bitch goes to sleep, she sleep.
Paranoia is okay for humans. Paranoia says, something doesn’t feel right and I’m scared. But when you’re spiritual, you shake off that paranoia because you know you’re strong and you buck up and say, “I don’t know what’s going on because I don’t understand it in any logical, rational sense, but what time is it somewhere else in the world?”
Kim Jonghyun wasn’t just a K-pop star. He was an artist in every sense of the word. There are K-pop stars manufactured for public consumption and there are K-pop stars like Kim Jonghyun, who started as a K-pop star, but who shined so brightly in his artistic abilities there’s no possible way the public could ever have completely consumed – or understood – him. But they did.
It’s why when the public tells me Kanye West sucks, I tell them to give it ten years before they start to judge a living, creative genius.
Listen to Kim Jonghyun today. Read his writing today. He published a novel I never got around to reading, but I found a set of translations, incomplete at the moment, so that’s what I’ll be starting with. The loneliest people tend to be the warmest. If you think any of this is morbid, you should probably exit through the gift shop and never come back. See ya.
A STOR¥ BY ? 