Random Word Grotesqueries E-Book

Aim Han

• Herausgeber: Imaginarium Kim
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

Six stories, each based on three random words.
1) golf, skin, king
When incest persists for many centuries, one of the results is that the chin may protrude and the arrangement of teeth may become chaotic.
...
2) sneakers, harmonica, boast
Several days before attending an audition at the world’s best music academy, a destitute boy—who was called a child prodigy—was gifted a pair of white sneakers by his grandmother.
...
3) mail, fried rice, art
If you send an electronic mail to the account managed by the devil, a fantastic piece of inspiration comes back in response. This rumor had existed at the Royal Art Academy for quite some time.
...
4) scalp, drum, wallet
There is a way to forever honor the resonance of a human soul after its death.
...
5) tap water, scribble, backcountry
In the backcountry, where not a single shabby shack stands in the one-hundred-kilometer radius, there are said to live many folks who perform strange art.
...
6) trial, fever, chin
Officially, it was called a trial, but in reality, it was more like a Hanging Announcement Ceremony.

Leseprobe

RANDOM WORD GROTESQUERIES

SIX STORIES, EACH BASED ON THREE RANDOM WORDS

AIM HAN

IMAGINARIUM KIM

© 2023 Aim Han

All rights reserved.

This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

No part of this story may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author.

CONTENTS

The How and Why

golf, skin, king

sneakers, harmonica, boast

mail, fried rice, art

scalp, drum, wallet

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

tap water, scribble, backcountry

trial, fever, chin

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

About Aim Han

THE HOW AND WHY

Sometimes I flipped open a paper dictionary at a random place and pointed a finger at the page. At other times, I clicked “Go!” on an online random word generator. Lastly, some friends and family members contributed a word each—never knowing the identities of the other words that I had already collected and would go on to collect in the future.

Whichever way I chose, I lined up the thusly gathered words, neatly, in one row.

Then I cut them up into chunks of three words.

No switching out the words!

No changing the order!

No cheating!

Whatever fate or chance put the words in that order in that line, the game was to tell a story using each given set of three words as is, no matter how ridiculously unrelated the words may seem.

The results are in this collection. They are my maps of random—possibly closer to the workings of my subconscious than any other stories, because I faced the task of connecting the random dots, making sense of the senseless. With great likelihood, I sought comfort in what felt most natural to me. Perhaps I pulled up parts of my dreamscape to the surface of my consciousness.

But then again, when challenged thusly, who can say that we’re ever ourselves? Maybe what happened was the opposite. Maybe this is me, driven to a most uncharacteristic, unrepresentative writing style.

Either way, the dots are connected. The deed is done. Words that had no associations whatsoever are now forever tied together.

For me, this binding process is one of the lovely aspects of stories. Once made sense, senselessness rarely returns. There’s always a faint trace of memory somewhere in the background, albeit shrouded by a hazy fog. I believe this sense of having made sense once upon a time is enough to guide us through the uncertainties of life.

Scattered dots fill every tiny physical and mental space of our daily activities. Only in hindsight can we decide which dots to connect and which story to tell. But the awareness that regardless of the nature of the dots, humans will be able to connect them and tell their stories, greatly relieves me.

Any dot can be connected. No, seriously, any dot. Meaning can be generated endlessly, if we feel so inclined. Now, that might be “good” or that might be “bad,” depending on the situation. (You certainly don’t wanna over-imbue an oblivion-worthy event with meaning and thus carry it with you for life.) But having the ability to chart maps through what looks like a world full of unavoidable fate or pointless chance is certainly a handy tool to have in one’s toolbox.

And so, stories will always be dear to my heart. Without them, I wouldn’t know how to live.

If you’re reading this, you’re likely a lover of stories too. Chaos, destiny, whatever life may throw at us, in stories, we shall find a way.

* Note: This is a work translated from English to Korean. In Korean, all seed words were single words, not multi-word phrases. In translating, some of these single-word seed words became two words. But the spirit of the random word grotesquery holds.

GOLF, SKIN, KING

When incest persists for many centuries, one of the results is that the chin may protrude and the arrangement of teeth may become chaotic.

In a country where excellence in golf was a must in order to be crowned king, all the royal children had the unfortunate deformity of having thick soles. When swinging the club, lean soles were a requirement in order to firmly step on the left foot once the weight shifted from the right to the left. So, it was a royal tradition to skin the sole and perform liposuction at a certain age—like a coming-of-age ceremony.

One day, after more than a decade of unhappy marriage punctuated by the births of many children with such a deformity, the queen gave birth to the one and only prince with normal soles.

Such a thing was, of course, possible, probabilistically. The king and queen, both with thick soles—these two, who were cousins to each other, could mate and produce one offspring who happened to have normal soles.

But because the queen knew better than that, she ordered the royal doctor to give the prince injections that would make his feet swell up. That way, she could hide this rare gene that was very much not incestuous and in so many ways, had come from the outside.

The doctor wasn’t a royal. He was neither the queen’s cousin nor her uncle.

His soles were normal.

Just like this youngest prince’s.

Fearing execution by beheading, should the source of the external gene be revealed, the doctor diligently followed orders. Without missing a day, he gave the prince the injections… until the day of the coming-of-age ceremony.

This youngest prince, who didn’t have any lipo to be sucked, to begin with, underwent a fake coming-of-age surgery. Thanks to his soles that’d been naturally lean since birth, he became the best golf player among the royal children, and as a result, was crowned king.

The doctor survived. And the one who ended up being suspected of bringing a rare gene into the royal family was not this queen, but the next queen.

Legend has it, the prince birthed by that queen also had normal soles.