by River Austin
He met her at some American diner that reeked of burger grease and dying nostalgia. The kind of place where the past was being sold for a profit. He hated everything from the Art Deco designs. To the colorized photos of dead celebrities
and vintage cars. Though, she didn’t mind the retro aesthetic as much.
Set on the table between them were two large shoe boxes.
For the last ten minutes, they were in the middle of a conversation. A conversation he was having a hard time focusing on. His withdrawnness was thanks to the smooth and shiny ceramic tiling everywhere. The contrasting black and white squares compounded with the ring-ding from a revolving door. Continuously distracting for his epilepsy. Like something out of a sci-fi dystopia where men carried concealed rayguns and drove flying ’55 thunderbirds…
“Hey Austin!” She raised her voice, but not with aggression, to snap his attention back to her. “Are you ready?”
He didn’t respond right away. What had caught his drifting mind now was a ding
from the revolving door …and the person that followed that ding; A pregnant lady in a white maternity dress. Most people would hardly notice she was carrying if it were not for her hands placed over the baby bump that looked like a tiny white elephant.
He jerked his head back to look at her. “Ready for what?”
“Ready to swap the shoeboxes? I figure we do it now before the food arrives.” Realization dawned, she took a deep breath and a gulp from her mug. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”
They swapped the shoeboxes and lifted the lids.
With the lid lifted his eyes fell upon the daintiest looking hanbok he’d ever seen.
She, of course, would be looking at miniature regalia and moccasins.
He picked up a striking yellow garment. It came with a dark blue skirt decorated with red flower petal images. When he moved the hanbok the skirt followed, flowing with graceful curves. At the bottom of the now empty shoebox was an old photograph of Yoon in the hanbok.
“My adopted mother got the hanbok from my birth mother. The Women who fostered me as a baby in Seoul taught my adoptive mother how to tie an ot-ogreum. I remember how frustrated she was with me that I kept untying the coat strings that formed the bow. I thought it was a fun game.”
“The skirt is gorgeous. I like the pattern.”
“The patterns and colors separate the nobility from the lower classes. Brighters
colors for nobility and duller for the poor.”
“Dang, I didn’t know any of that. What does hanbok mean?” She laughed at that. “You’re asking the wrong person. Korean clothing, I think? I could be wrong. And the shoes I wore are Gomusin.”
“Do you know what the shoes in my box are?”
“Yes? They’re little baby moccasins. And the picture is of a little baby you in the little baby moccasins. I adore it.”
“A moccasin-type varies between the many diverse Indigenous tribes. People grossly generalize it as sewn Indian footwear with any tribal design. The word comes from the Powhatan language. And stuck because white colonizers had contact with them first. The subtle difference in the soles and seams identify tribes from one another.”
“Your baby moccasins look hand-sewed.”
“My mom made them for me. his being an intensive and sacred process. Regalia is often commissioned by those close to the wearer. She used deer hide and learned from library books on how to get the u-shape above the toe. Then she added the beadwork, quillwork, painted designs, and fringes to the moccasins.”
“Did you dance in the regalia?”
“Yeah, my mother has it on an old VHS somewhere. I did it for several elders.”
“My anthropology professor actually brought up Klamath and Modoc Natives recently.”
“What do they have to say?”
She stopped analyzing the moccasins in her hands. Setting them back in the box to answer. “They brought up the sandals found at Fort Rock Cave dating to about 10,000 years of old. That would make the sandals of your ancestors the oldest dated footwear in the world. Ethnographers documented all the three tribes you’re connected to using them. Klamath, Modoc, and Paiute.”
“I’ve seen those at a museum once with my grandmother. I also learned what made a Paiute shoe a Paiute shoe. Tule reeds, sage bark, and sometimes they stuffed dry grass in them. This was to keep them insulated from the icy marshlands where they walked. And —”
“I love you!” She interrupted.
“And I love you.” He repeated while reaching over the table to hold her hand.
Her brown eyes looked into his, they’d done countless times before. “Can you picture a child from us in a hanbok and moccasins?”
“I can after this.”
“So can I. It’s almost bringing me to tears”
“Remember that I’m with you no matter what.”
“Thank you. I know that.”
“Have you made your decision?” He gripped her hand tighter. Embracing the answer that would decide the future of their relationship. Sweat dripped from his palms onto hers like nervous raindrops.
“I have. I’m going forward with terminating the pregnancy. It’s just not the right time and with my history of endometriosis—”
“Say no more.” He brought her hand forward to her and kissed the top. Then let go.
“Let’s do this together. One step at a time.” He closed the lid on her hanbok box. She then closed the lid on his moccasins. They set them underneath the table.
River Austin is a weird-fiction writer from Southern Oregon, US. He’s been published in a number of literary presses and anthologies since he began writing. He is a Wyandotte and Klamath/Modoc American Indian. Spends his days working on a legal cannabis farm as security. Follow him on Twitter @Catch22Fiction.
