From Persimmon to Dried Persimmon: A Life's End

This morning, my wife said that the persimmons she had dried on the balcony were half-dried and ready to eat, and that they were delicious. She then commented that dried persimmons must be expensive.

Suddenly, a sigh escaped my lips: "The persimmon is dead!" I suddenly wanted to become that persimmon.

I grew on a persimmon tree in some nameless mountain, along with many of my siblings, for several years. This year, there were so many of us that the owner decided to sell some. That's how I ended up becoming a dried persimmon on an apartment balcony.

The owner hung me and my siblings in plastic frames to dry in the sun. It felt like we were being strung up like dried pollack. Hanging there, exposed to sun and wind, I began to dehydrate. My plump body shriveled, and deep wrinkles started to appear on my surface.

Ten days have passed since I was forcibly removed from my home and hung up in the owner's house. The owner decided to sample me. Perhaps because I looked particularly delicious among my plastic-bound siblings, she picked me out and popped me into her mouth.

At that moment, the owner's husband sighed, "The persimmon is dead." And then, a new drama unfolded.

Countless siblings who grew in this land met their fate: sold to become a human delicacy, or simply falling to the ground and disappearing without a trace.

It's truly paradoxical.

I died to satisfy human taste, but I live on through this writing, reaching out to people.

It's as if I was reborn. The seed of life within me will grow into another persimmon like me in the earth, but I feel this reborn life now, and the thought of my life being passed on to the distant future fills me with joy!

Could the owner who ate and destroyed me have the same thoughts? To do so, she would have to die like me... does she have the courage?

I want to ask the same question to the humans who have eaten my siblings, the persimmons. What would their answer be?

November 23, 2024, Cham Gil