If she were to choose between the blazing sirens from emergency response teams and the collective wailing of people awaiting their death, Son Eon Jin would definitely prefer the latter.
After so many years, she thought she would probably get used to that annoyingly long and loud noise that stretched from low to screeching high and back. Yet, she was still covering her ears every single time the said vehicles arrived on site.
“You should wrap this up now,” Eon Jin told the grim reaper standing beside her, obviously irritated by the sound coming from the ambulance that just passed through. “There’s no sense to cause this much of a scene just for two souls.”
The grim reaper checked her silver pocket watch.
“It’s not yet time,” she said. “They still have two minutes left.”
Eon Jin subtly rolled her eyes at the concept of fetching souls down to the exact second. She thought to herself, What difference would it make? People are still going to end up dead. It’s the god’s will, after all.
“Patience,” the grim reaper reminded her, which she dismissed by nodding with the least enthusiasm.
It was almost noon and they were standing at the site of a construction accident. Several posts collapsed at dawn (Rumor has it that the procured materials were actually substandard due to cost-cutting.) and the already-erected framework of the building crumbled down like it was made of cards. Rescue operations started five hours ago and were still in progress, so the incident already attracted a crowd size more than the police could handle.
Eon Jin never liked these kinds of scenarios. She preferred the isolated accidents, those that happened in the middle of the night or at a place far from the bustling city.
Alas, it was a bright, cloudless autumn day. Eon Jin actually needed to adjust the brim of her large burgundy fedora hat — a striking contrast to her black and white ensemble — to cover her eyes from the blinding sunlight.
“I’ll leave this to you then,” she offered.
“Certainly, mistress. Matters will be taken care of,” the grim reaper said.
Then, she smiled at Eon Jin and gave a slight bow before she walked towards the disintegrated building.
Eon Jin wrinkled her nose at the word mistress . She hated what they called her. It was a constant reminder of the strange situation she got herself into.
At 11:43 a.m., Eon Jin took one last look at the disastrous rubble, then conjured a single purple hyacinth and placed it on the ground. After which, she turned away from the scene and started walking past the crowd towards her car parked by the corner of the next street.
People were subtly making way for her although she cannot be seen by mortals at the time. It was instinct, they said, for humans to veer away from danger.
As she turned the corner, Eon Jin magically switched from being the inconspicuous demigod to her usual disguise as a mortal in a blink of an eye. Wearing a white cotton shirt under an oversized navy blue blazer, a pair of stonewashed skinny jeans, and beige ankle boots, she was ready to resume her day as a proprietor of a small flower shop in the city.
Life was like this for Eon Jin in the past three hundred and seventeen years. Her past prior to her transformation to this mythical form, which was about four or five lifetimes ago, was a huge void. It was as if her memories were the retribution for an infinite span of existence she never wanted.
What remained was a vague memory of that night when this punishment was imposed on her after she offended a deity.
From then on, she became the servant of the god of Fate, frequently acting as her physical manifestation and burdened with the task of ensuring that all things would happen exactly according to Fate’s elaborate design — no matter how tragic or gruesome.
That was why all the other-worldly beings — the gods included — called her the “Mistress of Catastrophe”.
Surprisingly, the god of Fate never meddled with the affairs and judgment of the other deities. She tolerated a bizarre arrangement that whenever Eon Jin carried out her task successfully, the god of Death gifted her with a small piece of gold which she always graciously accepted.
At the end of the day, Eon Jin was not entirely made immortal. She still needed to eat, sleep, and drink like any other human. But with the grace — or curse — of the god, she was simply not destined to die. All the same, it definitely took more than a few millions to make sure that she was able to seamlessly transfer from one town to the next, not leaving any trace of her existence, before rumors started about how she never aged.
There was one rule though that Eon Jin must not break.
“You should never deliberately interfere to make people act according to the plan,” Fate told her before parting that evening when Eon Jin stopped being a mortal. “Allow them to decide according to their freewill. If their actions change the course of events, then so be it.”
Yet, in all her years of service, people moved with conformity to Fate’s plans. Well, with a bit of spurring from Eon Jin if she was being honest. From time to time, there were factors that threatened to alter what was planned — like people who tended to be selfless and deliberated over saving others in times of danger, or those who almost changed their minds at the last minute before committing a crime. Regardless, all it took was for her to whisper words such as or play images of a child, spouse, or a superficial future in the person’s mind and the events were led back on track.
✽✽✽
An hour after she left the construction site, Eon Jin reached the building where her store was located.
“Good morning, madam,” the woman standing by the nearest counter in the flower shop greeted her with a bow the moment the wind chimes tinkled, announcing someone’s arrival. Being a mythical entity with a not-so kindhearted soul, she used to be bothered by the uncanny clinking of the metal rods. But like anything else, she somehow learned how to tolerate its effect on her.
She lifted her hand, which was her best attempt at acknowledging the polite greeting, and went straight to her office to rest after completing her morning assignment. She dropped her keys on the table and reached behind her head to tie her long, brown hair into a messy bun before crashing on the manager’s chair. She reclined a bit to stretch her aching back.
Then, she fished out her phone from the pocket of her jacket and tinkered with it until Debussy’s Reverie softly played within the confines of the room. She closed her eyes and massaged her temples as she allowed the dreamy melody from the cello take her to a peaceful refuge.
She was roused from her long, afternoon slumber when one of her staff — a middle-aged woman who was supervising the shop’s daily operations — knocked softly on her door. The woman bowed in apology for the intrusion.
“We’ll be closing the shop in five minutes, madam,” the woman said in her calm voice. “By the way, the staff planned to have a simple get-together at the nearby barbecue place since everyone would be going home for Chuseok festivities. Would you like to join us?”
Eon Jin sat up but was still half-asleep, struggling to keep her eyes open as she checked the time. It was almost 7:00 p.m. according to the digital clock on her desk.
“I’m afraid I have prior commitments. Please go ahead,” she replied, her voice a bit sluggish. “Anyway, I can manage to lock up. Just please make sure you secure the front door.”
The woman agreed, then told her with utmost concern in her voice, “I noticed that you seem tired today. Please rest well and grab some dinner before going home.”
A lifetime of more than three hundred years would make anyone tired , she thought to herself.
Be that as it may, she nodded softly to acknowledge the woman’s concern.
Eon Jin stayed in her office for another hour or two, listening to other pieces of classical music, before she decided to go home, which was at the building’s luxurious rooftop apartment.
She grabbed a small bunch of pastel-colored asters on her way out, flipped the sign from ‘Open’ to ‘Closed’, and locked the front door. Then, she proceeded to enter the lobby and walked towards the elevator area.
Even so, instead of going up, Eon Jin pressed the button going down to the basement after she sensed a forewarning. And almost immediately, her second task for the day flashed before her eyes.
A high school student — probably a girl of thirteen to fifteen years of age — was hit by a speeding motorcycle in a dark, closed off road in a nearby suburban town.
Photo by Kristine Tumanyan on Unsplash
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