Written by Jeong Ji-a Translated by Jude Vandervort Excerpt from 'Bead by Bead' I have been with you since the moment I drew my first breath. Yet for the longest time, you never noticed. Did it make me sad to both be there and not be there? Sometimes, yes; sometimes, no. More often than not, I pitied you, as you gradually succumbed to me, completely unaware. At this very moment, I totally control you. You and I have already become one. Last night, you fell asleep before the nine o'clock news. You may think you simply drifted off into an endless sleep, but your dreamless slumber is nothing more than the final leg of the journey that leads to me. It has been a long time since you dreamed. Do you remember the last? It was on a spring day ten years ago, when you were ninety years old. Along the banks of the Seomjin River, the cherry trees had been shedding their blossoms all day long, scattering them like drowsy fragments of a dream. Even at your window, a mere hundred meters from the tree-lined path, petals floated and fluttered in the breeze. You struggled to remember something, but it cou