Included in Kim Cho-yeop’s short story collection <우리가 빛의 속도로 갈 수 없다면>tells the story of Anna, an elderly woman who has been waiting for a spaceship to arrive on a non-operating space station for decades.
When Anna was young, she was a researcher studying deep freezing, a human body cryosleep technology. He wanted to leave Earth with his family and live on the planet Slenfornia. Anna had to finish her research, so her husband and child left first on a spaceship to Slenfonia. After Anna finished presenting her research, she went to the planet Slenfonia and stayed with her family. and planned to spend the rest of her life with.
The deep freezing technology that Anna was researching was a groundbreaking technology in the field of space exploration at the beginning of the research. Since the time to reach another star system from Earth was hundreds to tens of thousands of light years away, it was necessary to go to another planet through cryo-sleep.
However, during the research, a method was discovered that made space exploration more economical without using deep freezing technology. Although this did not pose a major obstacle to the research, it did affect Anna’s ability to spend the rest of her life with her family. As a more economical method of space exploration emerged, the existing method of space exploration was abandoned, and this was because the way to get to Slenfornia disappeared.
In the end, he repeatedly slept and woken up in cryosleep using the deep-freezing technology he had researched and developed, and was waiting for a spacecraft to Slenfornia at an abandoned space station that seemed to have hope of leaving for Slenfornia.
Anna says:
“No matter how much we pioneer space and expand the boundaries of humanity, if there are people left there every time… aren’t we just increasing the total amount of loneliness that exists in the universe?”
If there is a more economical method than the existing method, the original method will gradually disappear. Due to the development of technology, we moved from the analog era to the digital era, changing from flip phones to smartphones, making it possible to talk all day without meeting each other, and with the development of SNS, it became possible to easily keep up with each other’s current status.
However, it is a lonely world whether you use social media or not. When meeting people for the first time, they ask for their Instagram ID first rather than their number, so I feel that it is difficult to become friends with people if I do not use Instagram. However, even when I use Instagram, I just keep looking at the feeds that I see without thinking and my mind is not filled.
I was very confused when I first saw the kiosk. Although he doesn’t know how to use it, he remembers ordering it by clicking on the things on the screen with his senses. After he finished ordering, he felt a sense of relief. It is said that kiosks in many stores these days make it difficult for seniors to go outside. When they see themselves having difficulty using kiosks and not being able to go out and buy food, they feel lonely and forlorn, as if they are separated from this world. Perhaps the relief I felt after completing my first kiosk order was relief that I had not yet become separated from this world.
Like Anna, you may feel lonely when you are physically separated from your family, but today, even when we are physically close, we feel lonely as if we are disconnected from the world. It can be said that the development of technology has made our lives easier, but can it be said that it has made our lives warmer?
At the end of the novel, Anna sets off on a journey to the planet Slenfornia in his old personal space probe.
When is it time to go?
Someone who clearly knows
How beautiful the back is
– Lee Hyeong-gi <낙화> some of
The odds of him reaching the planet Slenfornia in his personal space probe are extremely low.
At the speed of his old space probe, he would not be able to reach the planet Slenfornia for a long time, and even if he went at the speed of light, it would be a very long time before he would arrive. There was also the option of returning to Earth and living happily in retirement. Therefore, his choice to leave for Slenfonia can be seen as reckless.
But he knows exactly when and where he needs to go. The reason she went to the decommissioned space station every day was in the glimmer of hope that her ship to Slenfornia might come. But with the station demolished, the best way for him to get to Slenfornia would have been on his personal space probe. His thought that the only time he had to go was now was eventually translated into action.
He probably knows that his chances of reaching Slenfonia are very slim and that he cannot fly his family. But can his choice be seen as a meaningless choice?
How can we evaluate his confident journey, whose outcome is virtually certain?
<저작권자 ⓒ아트인사이트 & www.artinsight.co.kr 무단전재-재배포금지.>
