Episode 2: The Frozen Intersection

11:45 p.m. The intersection of Gangnam Station on Subway Line 2 was still crowded with crowds of people and vehicles. The weary steps of office workers after working overtime, the laughter of lovers holding umbrellas, and the sound of car tires skidding in the rain were weighing down the damp night air. Seo Jin-woo pulled up the collar of his trench coat and stood in front of the crosswalk traffic light. The rain had subsided, but in every puddle on the asphalt floor, flashing neon signs were spreading like red and blue oil paint. The palm of his right hand, which was carrying the bag, was still pulsating softly with a slight heat.

I washed my hands with soap several times in the company bathroom, but the lingering scent of that blue powder could not be erased. Rather, it was giving a strange liveliness that seemed to seep deep into the skin and spread through the blood vessels and throughout the body. 'Was the butterfly I saw really me?

The shining wings that embroider the sky. Floating endlessly between reality and dreams,

I'm asking again who I am...' A low humming melody. The lyrics of the song, unknown to anyone who wrote it, flowed from Jinwoo's lips to the sound of falling raindrops. The pedestrian traffic light turned green. Crowds holding umbrellas began to cross the crosswalk all at once. Jinwoo also took heavy steps and walked into the middle of the crosswalk. When I reached the middle of the intersection,

A strange tinnitus rang in my ears. A clear and pure glass resonance sound. And for a moment, all movement in the world stopped. Time had stopped. The water droplets bouncing off the wheels of the bus waiting at the signal stopped like jewels in the air. The fluttering coat of a passerby passing by Jinwoo and the transparent raindrops falling from the air were frozen in place as if trapped in transparent epoxy resin. All the noise in the city was sucked into a vacuum of complete silence in just one second. “What is this…”

Jinwoo looked down at his feet in astonishment. Only he could move. Looking around, hundreds of people and dozens of vehicles were frozen in silence, like an exhibit of elaborately crafted wax figures. It was a surreal space where the laws of physics had completely collapsed. And breaking the silence of the suspended time and space, ripples of blue light rippled across the darkness. Parr—

The soft sound of wings cutting through the air. It was the same mysterious blue butterfly I encountered outside the office window. The butterfly glided between raindrops, passed over the heads of the still crowd, and flew straight toward Jinwoo. Jinwoo stood there holding his breath. I didn't feel scared. Rather, a cozy and sacred peace that seemed to touch the deepest part of my soul enveloped my entire body. The butterfly slowly circled around Jinwoo three times,

He lightly landed on the palm of his right hand held out in front of his chest. It felt surprisingly warm against my palm. Not the cold body temperature of an insect, but the soft and gentle warmth like the cheek of a living, breathing baby. The gold and turquoise phosphorescence that rose from the butterfly's wings spread through Jinwoo's fingers. The butterfly slowly flapped its folded wings and lightly bumped its head against Jinwoo's finger. It was a gesture filled with deep trust and joy, as if meeting an old friend again. At that moment, the butterfly's transparent compound eyes and Jinwoo's eyes met directly. A clear and transparent woman's voice echoed in Jinwoo's mind like an auditory hallucination. ‘Seo Jin-woo... I remember. Who you were. 'The wide sky you flew before you were trapped in this gray prison.' "Who are you...? Why am I here..."

Jinwoo asked with a trembling voice, but his voice did not disperse into the air and only echoed in his chest. Instead of answering, the butterfly spread its wings wide, kicked Jinwoo's palm, and flew up. As soon as the butterfly took flight, hundreds or thousands of small blue butterflies began to rise out of the air, following its trajectory. A fantastic blue river began to flow over the building walls and roads of the still gray city. A swarm of butterflies swirled and soared into the night sky, and the gray city peeled off where they passed, turning it into dazzling watercolor colors. And in a split second,

Just—! With the sound of a finger snapping, time that had stopped came pouring down again like a waterfall. Waaagh—! Car horns and people murmured all at once. Water droplets floating in the air fell to the floor and made a splashing sound. People were busy crossing the crosswalk and going their separate ways as if nothing had happened. Only Seo Jin-woo was standing in the middle of the crosswalk,

He was staring in fascination at his own shining palm and the blue afterimage disappearing into the night sky high above. What is time really? Is it a physical flow in which the second hand of a clock ticks regularly, or is it a subjective illusion that human consciousness weaves through memory and perception? Einstein said that time and space are not absolute, but relative fabrics that bend according to the gravity and speed of the observer. However, what Jinwoo experienced that night in the middle of the crosswalk at the Gangnam Station intersection was a suspension of the soul that far transcended simple physical relativity.

Each raindrop that stopped in the air was like a small galaxy in the universe. On the round surface of the water drop, the surrounding neon lights and the silhouette of a stopped car were reflected upside down and brilliantly refracted. Jinwoo held his breath and walked between the water droplets, carefully dividing them with his fingers. The water droplets that touched my fingertips were not as hard as ice. I bounced my fingers with elasticity, like soft jelly or a tight soap bubble. The blue butterfly that landed on Jinwoo's palm in the vacuum of silence. A butterfly's two tiny wings are not just a chitinous membrane.

It was made up of hundreds of millions of tiny optical nanostructures (Photonic Crystals), and was a living, breathing prism that changed colors on its own whenever it received light. When the butterfly's body temperature spreads through the blood vessels of the palm and throughout the body,

Jinwoo realized with a thrill that he was not an alienated individual in this huge city, but was connected like an umbilical cord to the huge web of life in the entire universe. It was a restoration of the original sacredness that modern urbanites had lost. What does it feel like to have time stop? In physics, time is said to be an arrow pointing in the direction of increase in entropy. From past to future, from order to disorder. However, the moment Jinwoo stopped crossing the rainy road, the laws of physics that he believed to be absolute collapsed in an instant.

A huge crosswalk at the Gangnam Station intersection. When the green traffic light started blinking, hundreds of people holding umbrellas poured out to cross the rainy road. A black umbrella, a transparent umbrella, the roar of a delivery motorcycle wearing a raincoat, and the harsh sound of brakes from a bus stopped at a signal line. Daily life in the city has always been oversaturated with excessive stimulation. Jinwoo was lightly holding an umbrella as he stepped forward, swept away by the wave of crowds. Tick—

The world was engulfed in silence. It was as if someone had turned the audio volume of the entire universe to zero. At the same time, all movement froze. Jinwoo stood tall in his place. An unbelievable scene was unfolding before his eyes. Hundreds of millions of raindrops falling from the sky stopped in the air. Water droplets distorted into an elongated oval were stuck in the air like countless crystal chandeliers hanging in the air. Three water droplets that fell from the tip of the umbrella of an office worker in a suit passing by solidified to form the vertices of an equilateral triangle, and the muddy water particles that bounced off the back of the tire of a car crossing the crosswalk were fixed in the air like a sculpture made of glass.

Everything stopped, from the people's expressions, the fluttering coats, to the traffic light reflected in the rainwater on the crosswalk. Only Jinwoo himself was breathing. The white breath that spewed out every time his chest rose and fell was the only moving creature in this frozen canvas of time.

“How did this… happen?”

Jinwoo carefully stretched out his hand. I placed my fingertips on the raindrops suspended in the air. Surprisingly, the raindrops did not explode. When it reached body temperature, it wrapped around my finger like cold jelly with a very fine viscosity, and slowly absorbed body heat and returned to the form of small, round water droplets. At that time, there was something flying above the heads of the frozen people. It was the same blue butterfly I had seen beyond the window of the office on the 34th floor the night before. The butterfly flew gracefully and freely among the still raindrops in the air, as if mocking the halt of time.

Every time the butterfly's wings brushed against a raindrop, the still water droplets took on a blue fluorescence and vibrated slightly, and ripples like the clear sound of wind chimes spread into the air. The butterfly flew to Jinwoo's chest level and circled around his chest three times. Jinwoo lowered the hand holding the umbrella as if he were possessed, and slowly extended his empty right hand forward. When he opened his palm toward the sky, the butterfly landed on the tips of his index and middle fingers without hesitation. It was light. I barely felt any material weight. But the heartbeat transmitted through my fingertips was so clear.

The pulse felt like a small heart the size of a kidney was beating fast, and the scent coming from the silver scale powder on the wings. It was the smell of an old rain-soaked forest, the smell of paper from centuries-old books, and the cold ether of the distant Milky Way.

“Who are you… or am I going crazy now?”

As if answering Jinwoo's question, the butterfly slowly folded and opened its wings. At that moment, unfamiliar images poured into Jinwoo's mind like a waterfall. An endless field of purple reeds, two moons filling the sky, a huge white stone colonnade towering at the end of a steep cliff, and the back of a woman walking between the pillars and looking back at herself. The woman had her black hair neatly tied up and was wearing a silver butterfly hairpin. The woman's lips slowly opened and a voiceless voice rang in Jinwoo's ears. ‘Wake up, Seo Jin-woo. 'Where you stand is the shallowest dream.' The stoppage of time meant the complete disappearance of all noise. Jinwoo stood in the middle of a stopped intersection and listened to his own breathing. Seup—huu—

Every time I inhaled and exhaled, the sound of the alveoli in my chest expanding and contracting rang through my ears as clearly as the sound of waves in a huge cave. A sea of ​​absolute silence where the tinnitus that was buzzing in my ears, the sound of car horns ringing in the forest of buildings in the city, and the sound of notifications on smartphones had completely evaporated. Jinwoo slowly moved his feet and looked at the frozen faces of people crossing the crosswalk. A woman in her late 20s who was passing by was frozen in the same position as she was trying to brush away her wet bangs. In her eyes, the exhaustion of being broken by her boss today and the slight fatigue of having to go home, wash, and lie down were like water droplets.

Beyond him, a middle-aged man in his 40s was holding a briefcase in one hand and unable to straighten his frowning brow. His face reflected the heavy silence of someone who had to pay the monthly mortgage and take care of his family's livelihood. They were all different faces of Jinwoo himself. Modern-day prisoners who are trapped in the treadmill of time and unable to fully enjoy their own lives that exist ‘here and now’ because they are chasing the invisible lure of the future. Jinwoo raised his head as he felt a part of his chest go numb. The raindrops floating in the air were like a miniature version of the infinite universe.

The green light of traffic lights, the purple of neon signs, and the flash of gray asphalt reflected on the surface of raindrops. The blue butterfly flying through the maze of frozen water droplets was like a messenger of time descending to untie the knot of frozen space and time. The subtle warmth felt when the butterfly touched the tip of Jinwoo's finger. Rather than body temperature, it was the vibration of the pure energy of life itself. As the butterfly's small antenna gently swept over the fingerprint at the tip of Jinwoo's index finger, Jinwoo closed his eyes.

When I closed my eyes, I could see things more clearly. The concrete walls blocking my view were transparent, and the context of the huge organism called Seoul came into view at a glance. The flow of water that originates from Bukhansan Mountain and flows into the Han River, the underground water veins and geothermal heat writhing deep in the ground, and the warm body heat of humans living like ants on the land.

'Why did you lock yourself in that little box?'

The light powder rising from the butterfly's wings seemed to whisper as it passed Jinwoo's retina. ‘Aren’t you an architect? Isn’t this the one who listened to the language of soil, stones, and trees, opened a path for the wind, and created a sanctuary for the souls of people? 'Why did you become a slave to capital and clip your own wings?'

Jinwoo couldn't find the words to answer. A tear escaped from the corner of his eye and ran down his cold cheek. In the alley of frozen time, Jinwoo moved very slowly. It was like walking through a wax figure exhibit at a museum, but it evoked much more vivid and sad emotions than the wax figures. Each of the raindrops that stopped in the air was like a brilliant mirror. In some raindrops, the blue sign of the convenience store across the street was reflected upside down, and in other raindrops, the playful eyes of a child crossing the crosswalk were captured. The mother, who was holding the child's hand, had faint wrinkles on her face as she worried about the weight of the shopping cart and what to prepare for dinner. “Where were these people going now?”

Jinwoo stared at the faces of the people who stopped one by one. They would all have been busy moving towards their own destinations. Some go to meet their loved ones, some go to a child waiting for them to come home late, and some go into the cycle of endless overtime work. But the moment time stopped, all the urgency and busyness they cherished like their lives suddenly became meaningless taxidermy. Jinwoo looked down at the blue butterfly sitting on his palm. Every time the butterfly's antennae trembled slightly, ripples of blue light spread in concentric circles in the air. Wherever the ripples touched, the stopped raindrops made a soft bell sound and vibrated slightly. Do-re-mi-fa-solassido… …

Raindrops contained different musical scales depending on their size and density. In the majestic and silent symphony played by hundreds of millions of raindrops, Jinwoo realized that time is not a clock hand that flows in a straight line. Time was not a flowing river, but a sea of ​​infinitely overlapping spaces. The past, present, and future all coexisted simultaneously in this vast ocean of ether. It's just that humans' insensitive senses have cut off only a momentary section and mistaken it as the 'present'. When the butterfly flapped its wings widely and flew up from Jinwoo's fingertips, the still world slowly began to breathe.

Raindrops fell to the ground again under the influence of gravity, people's stopped steps hit the ground again, and the sound of car horns hit the eardrums as if they were being torn apart. But Jinwoo was no longer the same Jinwoo he used to be. Behind his retina, a frozen canvas of time that would never be erased was engraved like a blue brand. When time stopped in the middle of the intersection, Jinwoo faced the ‘bare face of space’ for the first time in his life. The usual Gangnam Station was filled with an excess of visual and auditory senses, making it nearly impossible to recognize the structure of the space itself.

Videos from billboards pouring in, hot wind blowing from subway vents, and the murmur of thousands of pedestrians. But now that the noise has been temporarily muted, the street has become a huge silent sculpture park. I looked inside the window of a stopped bus. The driver was frozen with his mouth half-open, trying to yawn, while holding the steering wheel, and the passengers were all stuffed with their eyes focused on the virtual world on the smartphone screen in their hands. Some people froze as they looked at the blue falling line on the stock chart, while others froze with a mixture of envy and jealousy as they looked at pictures of fancy parties on social media.

“Where are these people living now?”

Jinwoo asked himself. Their bodies were lying on the cold rainy road of Gangnam, Seoul, but their minds were floating in a digital illusion inside a rectangular glass screen the size of the palm of their hand. A complete gap between body and soul. That was the deepest disease the modern city suffered from. Jinwoo touched a raindrop suspended in the air with his finger. The raindrops did not fall, but rippled around Jinwoo's fingertips, drawing blue ripples. Amidst the ripples, a sound like a soft piano melody suddenly rose. Do-re-mi… …

The sound of small, transparent water droplets each resonating. At that time, the temperature of the air suddenly warmed with the sound of wings fluttering behind Jinwoo's back. When I looked back, the blue butterfly was flying lightly over the heads of the people who were standing still. As the butterfly passed by, raindrops suspended in the air flashed silver and gold, lighting up one after another like lights on a Christmas tree. The butterfly flew right in front of Jinwoo and slowly folded its wings. It was like the glance of an old friend saying 'I've waited a long time'.

Jinwoo stretched out his hand. The moment the butterfly's leg touched the fingerprint of his fingertip, thousands of blue circuits flashed like lightning on Jinwoo's retina. It was not a city electrical wiring diagram. It was the flow of ancient water veins buried beneath the earth, the pulse of the alluvium where dinosaurs frolicked hundreds of millions of years ago, and the gigantic breath of the moment when this star first came together in the interstellar dust of space. Goosebumps appeared all over Jinwoo’s body. He was captivated by the ecstatic feeling of breaking out of the shell of a small human being and being connected to a point in the vast web of life in the entire universe.

It was the first time in Jinwoo's life that he had looked so closely at a human face in frozen time. Normally, just staring at another person's face for more than three seconds would have been considered rude and aggressive. We are all afraid of the gaze of others, and have become accustomed to desperately looking into the air or on our smartphones in the subway or elevator. But now, Jinwoo was able to quietly stare at the wet eyelashes of a woman in her 30s who stopped in the middle of the street. At the tips of her eyelashes, fine mascara residue and raindrops were tangled together to form small black beads.

Her lips were slightly parted, as if she had stopped to say something, and the pure white teeth and pink gums visible through the gap clearly revealed her pure and fragile life. “You must have been enduring each day fiercely.”

Jinwoo whispered quietly. Maybe she had a minor argument with her mother on her way to work this morning and left home. Perhaps the project plan she had prepared with great care might have been sent straight to the trash can at one word from her boss. And now, on this crosswalk on her way home in the rain, she may have suddenly been fighting a deep sense of emptiness, wondering, ‘Why do I have to live like this?’ Jinwoo reached out his hand and carefully brushed off a few raindrops that had settled on her shoulder. When his fingertips touched, the still raindrops turned into silver powder and fell gently.

It was like a ritual that relieved some of the heavy weight of the day that was weighing on her tired shoulders. A butterfly hovered above her head, scattering silver scale powder like snowflakes. The moment the scale powder touched her forehead, her frowning eyebrows straightened to a surprisingly peaceful look. Although the body was still, it was clear that the waves of the soul were completely absorbing the comfort that the butterfly was conveying.

“Time does not pass, it is the sum of the moments we have loved.”

The sentence that appeared in Jinwoo's heart was the magic key that instantly stopped the hands of the clock he had been chasing his whole life. When the world starts moving again, the woman will cross the crosswalk with a lighter step, not knowing why she suddenly feels so warm. And that was enough.