Almond

It was their choice to have me, but that doesn’t mean that I have to accomplish the missions they’ve set up.

Lastly, and I know it sounds like an excuse, but neither you nor I nor anyone can ever really know whether a story is happy or tragic.

I won’t tell you whether it has a happy ending or a tragic ending.

Because, first of all, every story becomes boring once the ending is spoiled.

I have almonds inside me.

So do you.

So do those you love and those you hate.

No one can feel them.

You just know they are there.

Alexithymia, or the inability to identify and express one’s feelings, is a mental disorder first described in medical journals in the 1970s. Its known causes are lack of emotional development during a person’s early childhood, post-traumatic stress disorder, and the smaller inborn amygdalae, in which case, fear is the emotion these parts of the brain are least able to identify and express. Recently, however, new studies have suggested that the ability of the amygdalae to process fear and anxiety can be increased through training. This novel describes alexithymia based on these studies, and with the author’s imagination.

The child wanted one more ride, but she took him by the hand and led him down.

Only people like me, whose brain was damaged, or those who had already bid their farewells in their hearts. Professor Yun was the latter.

Vigorous and daring, she wrote witty articles and asked bold questions that caught her interviewees off guard. But there was always a sense of guilt in her heart, as she relied on nannies to raise her own child.

n enduring the beatings from the other kids was perhaps a rite of passage in that sense. But to me, all those things were only proof of their weakness. It was a manifestation of their vulnerability because they longed for strength.

on enduring the beatings from the other kids was perhaps a rite of passage in that sense. But to me, all those things were only proof of their weakness. It was a manifestation of their vulnerability because they longed for strength.