The Third Tower

[강치범]

The Third Tower

Therese, 17years and 8 months, travelled to the city in order to check up her mental status in the hospital. Her dream for looking around the city was shattered although it was the first time in her life to visit any city. Moreover, she could hardly see the sky while staying in the hospital. She was diagnosed as having hyperassociative disorder which was incapable of word-stabilization. If she thought of a vocabulary it would be exploding, banging and clashing in the air and she saw the picture.

During the verbal testing, the doctor said "Tree", she answered "Piano". "Tree>Wood>Piano" would be beyond the scope of normality. If someone answered leaves, branches or trunk, he would be normal. She claimed repeatedly she had seen the pictures but those were not hallucination. After performing X sort of test, Y sort of test, and Z sort of test, finally, the drug started for cure. After a month, the doctor was gratified with her progress. He recalled it had been helpless when she had answered "Piano". Now, she began to answer "Tree" when the doctor said "Tree".

With our suspicious minds, we could not get rid of doubts if she could be really cured, otherwise, considering any alternative way. "There is, a strain of current thinking in the field that categorizes those rare individuals subject to pronounced hyperassociative disorders as in some way viable." He treated the other's article as bit of foolishness. (The fellow won some sort of prize for that bit of foolishness, the doctor recalled.)

Sincerely, we had no intention to criticize his treatment plan for restoring her health. What we were concerned here was that the rural teenage girl had to suffer from his decisions one way or another. Honestly, we felt gloomy while we witnessed the verbal testing and wearing the metal helmet which had made her brain get confused and bewildered temporarily. "A very large, very old woman, maybe fifty or so, once, she gets up and totters around like a big crazy giant, shrieking until she's subdued.“

Although the doctor was proud of his successful treatment, her inner character of complexity had never changed at all. "All around her behind the wall of lock words, hums the vast, intractable, concealed conversation." In our perspective, the treatment seemed to make her turn to be silly or stupid. If she was born that way like mental retardation or LGBT, the cure more likely harmed her rather than helping her.

In fact, we acknowledged experiencing the hazard of a dogmatic person or a dogmatic belief in our society. It's a kind of human dilemma to take on one side without reasonable doubts: Good or Bad, Right or Wrong, Normal or Abnormal. Perhaps, so did god. The Roman Catholic had an idea to believe there would be the third place for our souls to stay temporarily. Purgatory in the heaven was nuanced with the image of "The Third Tower" on the earth.

WRITTEN BY DEBORAH EISENBERG: July 14 2020 CHI B KANG.                

[nicos]

예전에는 선생님은 이 작품을 또 어떻게 해석했을까 하는 호기심으로 선생님의 독후감을 읽었는데 언제부터인지
선생님 독후감을 읽고서 작품 이해를 마무리 하는....그런 식으로 됩니다. 많이 안 읽으니까 아무래도 선생님의 독후감에 의존하게 됩니다.ㅎㅎㅎ