Out There, On Thin Ice
by Heain Joung
Mother didn’t tell me we were going on a train journey, until we reached the station just before mid-night. It was New Year’s Eve and very cold. I didn’t understand at all why we were not at home, maybe we were running away from father and the smell of rice wine, again. As the train pulled out the station my mother started to talk about the place where we were heading. She had lived there as a child, there was a mountain and a river, where she had played. It snows a lot there she told me, so I could go sledding on the hills and skating on the frozen river too but I should be careful not to go out too far as the ice might be thin out there. She was going to leave me with someone, but promised she would come and collect me soon, I wasn’t sure if this journey was meant to be a happy story or not, as she wept quietly while telling me this. She unzipped the bag she had packed quickly for our trip and took out a tangerine, it was bright orange like the sun I had drawn at school the day before. I watched her carefully as she peeled the skin away, the sweet smell filling the carriage, then I wasn’t on a cold night train anymore, heading to a village I had never been, I was an explorer heading out for an adventure just like in a book. I just had to remember not to go out too far, to where the ice was thin.
Originally from South Korea, Heain Joung holds an MA in Creative and Critical Writing from Sussex University. She now lives between the UK and South Korea. Her short fiction can be found in Full House Literary, Flashback Fiction, FlashFlood Journal, Tiny Molecules, Gastropoda, among others. Twitter (X) @heainhaven