HEART LIES

EOMMA

Seoul, 12 years ago

"Eomma, Eomma," the boy cried. He gripped his mother's hand as the nurses pulled her bed into the operating block. The boy let go in front of the doors. He walked a few meters to where the seats were.

The boy hated hospitals, yet they were like a second home, for this was where his mother dwelt most of the time.

Like rolling stones, they would move from a hospital to another from facilities to other facilities. From a surgery block to another. An endless vinyl rotation but never playing the same tune.

And today another emergency, same worry, and fears, Ji-Seong detested it.

Sometimes he hated his mother more than the disease devouring her.

Why did she let it invade her?

Why was she so weak?

"Ji-Seong-ah, don't worry, I'll be fine," his mother would say, gripping the photo of him as a toddler. The woman clutched the snapshot, which accompanied her in the surgery block like a rabbit's foot.

Everyone has their lucky charm for Mun Nari; her son's photo was like having a life-jacket and anchor which held on to life.

"Qwenchana," Na Ri would repeat.

Na Ri was never fine; she hung like a puppet on one string, which saw its fibers wear and tear. Ji-Seong wondered when it would snap, and she would fall when he saw how she suffered. All he wished was for the macabre cycle to end.

Here they were for another operation with another Doctor.

From where Ji-Seong stood, the doctor seemed young, too young. The boy did not know if it was the short boyish haircut or her overall excitement as she jumped on the spot as if she was entering a boxing ring. She placed her hands in front of her, closed her eyes, and moved them on the space before her.

Did she have enough experience to proceed to this? Ji-Seong did not wish his mother to be some rookie's guinea pig.

"Don't worry," a nurse standing next to him said, "the doctor doesn't look like it, but she's talented. Some even call her the hand of God. Dr. Lee loses no one."

As the nurse finished her sentence, Dr. Lee entered the block.

In another wing chief, Choi Byun Hyun was alerted.

"Mwo, the defense minister's wife is being operated by who?"

"Dr. Lee."

The man bolted out of his seat, "fetch me, Dr. Ahn and Dr. Jang tell them to head there and stop her."

Mun Na Ri was not just an ordinary patient; she was a VVIP, the wife of a minister, and there was no way the chief would let the impetuous little Dr. Lee shine a bit more.

The woman was a persistent migraine and never-ending since dr. Lee came back from her course in Paris Institut Pastor; she walked around as if she was the queen of the jungle, which was their hospital, pulling the rug on expert diagnostics.

The chief could not stand her, for he knew Dr. Lee Sa rang's ambition. The woman planned to change the game, and it was working as she ridiculized her elders with every successful operation, without any error. And there was her almost flawless rate of 99.5%. How can someone succeed at every time?

Dr. Lee did not cheat; she saved lives every day without fail.

Dr. Lee was about to start opening the thorax.

"Scalpel."

In the hall outside, Ji-Seong got up as he saw the army of doctors arrive and flood into his mother's block.