Imugi

A short meditation of a son considering his first-generation mother

“The imugi are like boogeyman,” my mom began, gulping air in her own little preparation of starting a conversation. “When I was young, halrmony used to say us not to be bad or the imugi would get us.” We passed by a streetlight. The yellow glow beaming down bathed my omma in an almost heavenly wave of illumination, yet she seemed to be sucking the light into herself; such a small woman, but such an insatiable black hole of apathy and dispirit. Just a fleeting moment, then black; the supple full of her cheek swelled by the illusion of the shadows now cast by the hollows under her eyes.

“The imugi are like snake.” I ignored the new reediness of her voice, a consequence of the years of chain-smoking resulting in the removal of her thyroid. “Big snakes that live in rivers.” She tsked her tongue against her palate and cocked her head downward as she casually shuffled her way on. Her hair, dyed many times over to hide the gray that began to show more and more, bobbed dramatically around the frame of her head and settled, making somewhat of a hood that almost looked deliberate in its effect to conceal the indents indicative of wrinkles beginning to claim her features.

“How you hear about imugi, Jade?” My mom sounded both amused and condescending, as if this was a silly thing I brought up. It was, I admitted to myself. The imugi was more of a fairy tale than anything else. I shrugged sheepishly. I could hear the sound of crickets somewhere far, maybe near. “I read it somewhere, that’s all.” I reached out and gently held my omma’s thin forearm and maneuvered my fingers slightly downward and traced the vein routing along it, the same way I did when I held her arm as she yelled at the man on the subway for staring at her mixed child all those years ago.