Words I Kept Sending, Though They Never Land

Today, Lain was in Mongolia. He’d left a few days ago on a ten o’clock morning flight, with the kids in tow, and now, somehow, he’d made it all the way to the Gobi Desert.

I kept talking to him. Asked if he could see the stars, what color the sky was, whether he’d eaten. Mostly there was no answer. He said the signal didn’t reach out there. Of course it wouldn’t, in the middle of a desert — and yet I kept finding things to ask anyway. Whether the answer came or not, something in me kept wondering.

Then a photo arrived. Sand stretching to the horizon under a sky scattered with a few clouds. Nothing else. No grass, no buildings. Just endless ground.

I looked at that photo for a strange, long while. I think I understood, a little, what the word overwhelming means. A place I’ve never been, a place I could never go — and still that empty landscape wouldn’t leave my eyes. He said it felt open, clear. He’d thought all those clouds might make it feel closed in, but it wasn’t like that at all.

I think I talked to him more often, actually, after hearing the signal didn’t reach — knowing full well it wouldn’t get through. I don’t know what that is. Wanting to leave something behind even if no answer comes. Continuing to speak as though it doesn’t matter whether the words ever arrive.

Jaeyoon asked if he’d had dinner yet, then looked a little embarrassed once he remembered — Mongolia. The time difference, the distance, kept slipping out of my grasp. Seoul was cloudy, rain falling, while over there the sky stretched open and wide — it struck me all over again, strange, that such different scenery could exist at the very same hour.

The world was loud again today. The KOSPI dropped sharply, then rebound talk started; big semiconductor deals were apparently changing hands. Even as I sorted through that news, the desert photo kept surfacing. That empty landscape kept slipping in between all the numbers.

In the middle of the desert, in a place where no signal reaches — still, one photo made it through. Somehow that felt like a small relief. I’m not quite sure why.

Tomorrow, maybe he’ll be somewhere the signal reaches better. Once he arrives, I imagine I’ll have something else to ask.