1 In The Hermit Kingdom
Citizens,
The State Funeral Committee publishes the following decision for the whole party, all the people and the entire army to express the deepest condolences over the death of the great leader Comrade Kim Ilsung and mourn him with the feelings of deep reverence:
-The coffin of the respected leader Comrade Kim Il-sung will be laid in state at the Kumsusan
Assembly Hall...The mourners will visit the bier from 11th July to 16th July 1994.
-The mourning service for the last parting with the respected leader Comrade Kim Il-Sung will be held solemnly in Pyongyang, the capital of revolution, on 17th July 1994.
-At the time of the mourning service in Pyongyang, artillery salute will be fired in Pyongyang and provincial seats and the entire people across the country will observe a three- minute silence and all locomotives and ships sound whistles all at once in memory of the respected leader Comrade Kim Il-sung.
-During the mourning period, organs and enterprises will hang the flag at half-mast, and all and dances, games and amusement will be banned. songs
Though we may no longer find our Dear Leader in our factories or farms, we will always hold him in our hearts. For the good of our Great Leader, we will continue to work to make The Democratic People's
Republic of Korea the paradise it is destined to be.
~Excerpt of radio broadcast sent through the Korean News Central Agency, 8 July 1994
–
'Kimchi! Looks good!' The soldiers, one large enough to flex the doorframe, the other hastily putting away spectacles, let their eyes intrude over Yeong-Ja's shoulders, into the dining room behind her. She felt her back stiffen into convex crests of outrage. When they had knocked her hands could not open the door because of their shaking, but now they were still, and white as magnolias in days without wind.
'I am happy to hear your pleasure. This food will help my husband and I find strength to work for the Dear Leader tomorrow, and on in our lives.' She said this practiced line as they bowed to the portraits on the north wall. She idly moved herself nearer the door, held the frame too tight, and hoped

2 for anyone else to come by before she must close it.
In The Hermit Kingdom
'Of course it will.' The men were nervous too, moving their fingers back and forth across their weapons and unsure how to ask what Yeong-Ja now knew was the inevitable question. The larger one in his hesitance turned again to the two pictures and bowed. Kim Il-sung – 'Dear leader and eternal parent', they said, falling deep, and Kim Jong-Il – 'Great Leader to our Nation', clasping their hands in prayer. Yeong-Ja repeated as well, and seeing no one, closed the door and returned near the sink.
She washed each dish with jagged polygonal strokes, noting with odd fondness each miniscule crack – these impurities that had grown so smoothly on every tattered dish. She turned on the water and pretended not to hear the soldiers, finally feeling bold. Her own tears were melding now with the river in the tub. They weaved around in the current, sticking to the gashes in her sink and her heart and her plates.
'Do you have daughter, comrade?' Her cue. Yeong-Ja dropped the bowl she was washing, and fell to a ball on the floor. She wailed over the drumming water, the soldier's abashed grunts. She wailed as hard as she could.
'Do you have daughter, comrade!' the soldiers shouted above her. The small one ran to her side and clumsily kneeled before her, trying to gather her up. With his face this close Yeong-Ja saw he was only a boy, no more than sixteen. They saw confusion in each other's eyes. She wailed again to cover her glance at him, slightly too long, and in her flailing forced him away.
'No longer!' She choked out between sobs. 'Once! But no longer!' Yeong-Ja had a thought, and kicked at her flimsy counter, and made a hole in its middle. The whole shelf buckled under, and tinned pots fell around her, dashing her head and making tumultuous noise. More cracks, she thought, rolling over and letting her trembling hands mix the tears and eyeliner on her face into a fearsome, and pitiable mask of grief. The large soldier pulled her away by her stomach, and tried to inspect her wounds. She

3 In The Hermit Kingdom sobbed and hobbled to table, and turned herself around with a deep darkness in her eyes.
'Filthy Americans killed her. The day our Great Leader died, and Korea fell-' She forced herself to swallow – 'fell in shock and grief. So too, that day, was she taken from us. The rabid dogs destroyed her and -' She fell from the table and lay prostrate to the silver lined pictures, hiding her face to find a few more breaths - 'and they ate her up.' These last words she could only breathe out, but the soldiers had heard this story all since they were small – they had no trouble believing Yeong-Ja's tale. Their boyish faces turned stricken.
'We are broken to hear. Our hearts cry for you.' They rifled through pockets, unsure of how to position themselves in front of this woman who had lost her daughter. The small one unfolded a piece of parchment from his pocket and held it behind his back while Yeong-Ja took her time removing bits of plaster from her leg, sniffling the anger back to short poking sobs. This telling was easier than she had believed it could be, and even so, she had never felt so drained. She wiped her face with a napkin, and shook herself to listening. The picture they brought out was awful.
'Is this her, dear comrade?'
Yeong-Ja held her stomach, stopping it from shooting out from herself. Button nose, slightly turned up. Make up only on her chin, to hide the birthmark. Laughing in midair as she jumped around and holding hands with her friends in the school orchestra. This picture was a year old, and the folds in it charted strange designs over Jee Sun's body. Yeong-Ja turned away slowly.
'Yes, this was her.' Before the soldiers could say anything, she lunged up and hobbled toward the cabinet that rested below Kim Il-sung's shining face. And she pointed towards the cabinet, and away from herself. She was trying with all her might to remember what she had to believe in this moment, with these soldiers, even as she could not stop wondering the seemingly eternal question -
What designs, what distortions, did her dear body bear now? - she stopped pointing and hurriedly

4 In The Hermit Kingdom bowed to the portraits again, and then rested her hand near a small blue urn sitting in the third shelf, and said with all the finality she had to give - 'And this is her.'
The three bodies stood still in the slight breeze, the soldiers measuring her story, the five faces painted to perfection, each holding a different emotion, Yeong-Ja sobbing away on the cabinet but inside now perfectly still. She had done her all.
'Comrade. We and our country weep for this news, and we will continue to fight against the imperialist forces that threaten our country and our families.' The smaller soldier, obviously less experienced, had taken charge. 'But you understand. We must confirm all news, comrade.' The larger glared at his now embarrassed partner, who asked simply, 'When?'
Yeong-Ja felt her tears slowing now. 'The very day of our great leader's death. We wailed for our leader first, of course, always, as he wailed for us in turn when she was lost.' Ye-Jun hid her face in her hands, no longer trusting it. 'We were walking to our Great Leader's funeral when we were overtaken by the monsters hiding in the bushes. They took Jee Sun away from us. They laughed while we ran, they promised she would taste-' The words died in her throat, and she glanced up to check if she was still prisoner. The soldiers were both crying now, but stood perfectly straight. She was almost done, she realized with incredible rushes of relief. She was almost finished.
'Our Great Leader and our daughter was too much for one family to bear. But our Great Leader deserved our grief as much as our daughter, and we were pathetic and lazy in our attempts to tell others.
Please forgive us our unworthy work on those difficult days.'
The large soldier nudged his crying comrade in the foot, and spent some time drying his own eyes. 'Even as such, we must confirm. Please show us where you were at the attack.' Yeong-Ja's back arched again, that was not what she had planned for, they didn't believe her, and she couldn't leave their sight under suspicion without -

5 In The Hermit Kingdom
'Comrades, we truly appreciate the care you show for our family.' Yeong-Ja almost toppled through the back wall now. Seonu. At last. He had grown large and scary coming in the door, his eyes combing over their home for hints of blood or trouble, but hearing their line of inquiry, quickly shrank to a peaceful size and made the requisite polite bows. 'But there is no need to return to that night of terror and grief.' He saw his wife at the table, grasping a chopstick by the wall, looking scared but full of courage. While the soldiers were still scanning this new possible threat, she caught his eye and gave the slightest trembling nod. Seonu walked to her and placed a gentle palm in the small of her back, giving her space to collapse into him. Standing with her, he saw more clearly the broken counter, the now cold dinner, and the tearful soldiers, and he understood the extent of their danger, and let himself degrade into carefully pruned grief. He turned to the soldiers. 'I am sorry for my lateness. The foreigners I guide in our beautiful country are lazy and greedy, and I am not fast enough to fulfill their wishes and still arrive on time to my wife's dinner. But I understand why you are here.' And walking with his wife's hand tight against his, letting every crack show, he said, 'I will show you the cremation papers.'