2024 — Part VII
Richard has just arrived in Pyongyang 4 weeks ago. This was the first humanitarian aid effort that was allowed into the country since 2020. It had failed back then after 4 workers were kidnapped and never found. The other 16 people were then sent back to their respective countries. After the 4 workers were found and released after 6 months, discussions for another effort were made but bureaucracy made the efforts take longer than expected.
So now, four years after the incident, things were going to start again. Richard was from Liverpool and after taking a semester in Humanitarian Studies had decided he has to do more than just study humanity, but go out and help humanity. A friend of his had described the position to him and he applied and was accepted immediately to help out the North Koreans in farming, architecture, learning English and mastering technologies such as computers and smartphones.
Richard, enamored with Korean culture, had learnt Korean since he was 16, so this challenge was made easier thanks to that. He was assigned with teaching North Koreans English, aged 10–30. The North Koreans he worked with in the aid camp were very obedient and it Richard often felt uneasy teaching them. After a while, they opened up to him and both parties became more relaxed. It took Richard only 1 week to memorize the names of all students. Most of the students progressed well and the children he taught were mostly middle-class children, with a few young adults joining in night courses as well, who were mostly young male soldiers. All of the students were boys. Women were told that English would not benefit them, as they would not need to use it. This is how most of the students justified it. One boy said that his father would not allow his mother to study English, nor his daughter, so he sent his son. The boy was not interested at all, and barely paid attention, but always aced the tests so Richard did not see reason to bother himself with that pupil.
Richard lived on the outskirts of the city itself, in a village on a small hill to the East of the city of Pyongyang. He could see the city from afar and at night would sometimes see some lights in the city, but more astonishing was the nighttime sky. It was lit up as far as the eye could see with stars. Richard had never seen anything like it when he was in England, but here he could see the Milky Way in its entire splendor and he often lay on the grass in awe at his minuscule size and the vastness of space.
He woke up early today to prepare for the classes, as he usually would, at 06:00. He had the noodles from the day before for breakfast. His girlfriend, Maria, had already left for work an hour before he even woke up. She did it silently and swiftly, so as not to wake Richard. He was thankful for it, but missed having breakfast with her. They compensated that with breakfast sex on the weekends, so he did not mind.
She was studying at the University of Pyeongyang and they had met there. He had helped her find a book in the library and she offered him a coffee for his help. She ended up also joining one of his English classes and it went on smoothly from there.
He washed the noodles down with some goat milk and put his clothes on. The bicycle he took to work every day was waiting outside but just as he got on the bicycle, the chain broke. Cursing he got down to fix it, but it had simply split apart. It figures that it would fall apart when he was already late.
He put the bicycle back down when he saw, out of the corner of his eye, a flashing light. He turned towards the city ahead of him and noticed a plume of smoke arising from “the pyramid” that was supposed to be a hotel. The sound from the explosion followed soon thereafter, it was a dull sound and had lost most of its force on the way towards Richard. Perplexed, he continued to look towards “the pyramid” as it collapsed. Seconds later the Earth underneath the pyramid gave way and large amounts of dirt and debris were thrown into the sky.
As far as Richard looked up, dirt was being catapulted into the sky and the ground shook underneath him. The windows shattered and the sound of the explosion deafened Richard. He collapsed to the ground, holding his ears as the ground underneath him shook violently. He sat on his knees, head in his hands, looking towards the city as buildings collapsed and dirt rained all around the city and upon him. Lightly, like little pebbles, the dirt fell upon the ground and around him, bathing everything in a light brown or black dirt. He could see larger boulders and rocks falling on buildings near the epicenter of the explosion. What that had been, he wondered. A smoke cloud, kind of, like a mushroom, but elongated and dirty, formed from the explosion and smoke rose all throughout the city. Fires began to burn and Richard was sure there was plenty of chaos on the streets.
His first thought was of Maria, his girlfriend. She had given herself the name, to be more Western. He ran towards the city, leaving his bicycle behind, and he ran and ran as fast as he could to get to Maria. He was not even sure where she was working today. He hoped she was on administrative duty, because he was running for the police station first things first. It was about 7 km away, so after the first burst of adrenaline had stopped he jogged onward. He kept the pace and tears ran slowly down his face, muttering in a chant her name:
“Maria… Maria…” He huffed as he ran towards the city, the smoke, the debris.
Very late on this one. I am busy writing a novel for NaNoWriMo! It is going well. If you are participating, tell me what you are writing about! I am writing a novel about a 13th century Merchant Republic — entirely fictional. Take care!
