Wayne : 웨인

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지지난 호부터는 지난 3-4월에 걸쳐 ‘어린이를 위한 창의적 글쓰기 사회(Creative Writing for Children Society)가 주최한 제1회 영어 창의적 글쓰기 대회의 수상작들을 소개하고 있습니다.  영어로 읽고 쓰기를 좋아하는 청소년과 창의적 글쓰기 교육에 관심이 많은 학부형들의 일독을 권합니다. 밴쿠버 거주 한국 청소년들의 영어 실력은 물론 이들의 창의력과 상상력을 한 눈에 가늠할 수 있는 좋은 기회입니다.

어린이들의 세계는 주로 세상에 대한 묘사가 주류를 이룬다. 그래서 배경이 글의 아주 중요한 요소가 된다. 많은 판타지 소설들을 보라! 그 배경 자체가 압도적이지 않은가? 지구와 다른 세상이 벽장과 연결되고 외계인들과 마법사가 등장하기도 하고 자연과 사람이 하나가 되기도 한다. 반면 나이가 들면서부터는 외부 세계나 환경의 묘사보다는 자신과 등장인물들의 심리묘사에 더 치중하게 된다. 세상에 대한 묘사에서 자신의 내면세계로 방향전환이 이루어지는 것이다. 이런 문학적 전이 과정에는 ‘나이’ 즉 ‘경험’을 무시할 수 없다. 이런 이유로 훌륭한 작가가, 여느 10대의 혹은 그 이전의 스포츠 천재처럼, 어린 시절에 두각을 드러낼 수 없는 이유가 된다. 미쉘 문희 리의 ‘웨인’이라는 작품의 등장인물은 1인칭의 주인공 소녀와 5살 난 꼬마 웨인 그리고 그의 single mom 클라우디아 총 3명이다. 이 삼각관계를 내면적으로, 작가 나름대로의 사춘기적 감수성과 동양인으로서의 문화적 정서를 최대한 가미해서, 묘사하고 전개해 나가는 이 단편은 이전의 엘리멘터리 학생들의 천진난만한 글의 경계를 넘어 한층 성숙한 이미지를 독자들에게 선사한다.
『It must have looked odd, a black-haired, brown-black eyed, gawky girl with an eccentric name, walking the beautiful brown wavy-haired boy, Wayne. –내용 중에서』

-박준형
어린이를 위한 창의적 글쓰기 사회(Creative Writing for Children Society)설립자 겸 저자/홈페이지:www.cwc2004.org/이메일:cwc2004_1@hotmail.com/전화:778-233-2310

Wayne: 웨인

Michelle Mun Hee Lee
Princes of Wales Secondary School Gr.8 / Vancouver

I walked the small brown-haired boy to the rugged sidewalks of Cheremoya Elementary. The boy had the largest blue eyes and a smile that filled his entire face, and whenever I looked at that beautiful smile I half-expected wings to unfurl and an angel to appear and the clouds to open up the heavens, and open their light, like a hymn sung in Easter church.
I had been assigned to walk the brown-haired five-year-old boy to his school, ordered by his faded mother, although I couldn’t call it ordered. She had had a resigned expression with wide eyes and I noticed she had a tendency to tilt her head and watch my face when I awaited her responses. It had been odd; when I had met her a month ago I couldn’t find any of his features having any similarity to his mother’s- or the other way around, none of her wispy features had any similarity to his large eyes and wavy hair. I had expected for Wayne’s mother to be hearty, wearing an apron, and spending her time baking endless amounts of cookies and pies- but I was very far off in my calculations. When I came to their faded yellow house, Wayne was playing with his Oreos, wearing his brown teddy-bear pyjamas, while his mother watched the window with an inscrutable, enigmatic gaze. Was it nostalgia, sadness or just fatigue? The nosy neighbours with their gossip had said before that Wayne's mother, Claudia, had had a husband who disappeared three months before she moved to the faded yellow house. Claudia wasn’t impractical, yet she wasn’t particularly brisk; she did things half-heartedly, as if she had no better choice, but with goodness and grace. She never showed how she was feeling, but today she slipped a little, as if the strings she held together were about to snap. I had opened the door and Claudia hadn’t moved, just stared out the window, stroking the threadbare yellow curtains.
“Claudia?” I called.
She didn’t move.
I knew that she was slipping into her dreary watchful grace. As much as I was concerned for Claudia, and I prayed that I wouldn’t have to witness a breakdown or a weeping fit, which she had kept at bay for over three months. I didn’t want to see her sad any more than I needed to. It sounds selfish, but how can a person devote to dreary young mothers with tired lined skin and thin makeup, lamenting about their disappeared husbands?
(I assumed that her disappeared husband was why she was so withdrawn. I was affected by Mrs. Next Door’s assumed accusations, although I believe very much that her husband had to do something with her solitary state.)
I walked into the little house. My footsteps rang against the smooth wooden floors, and the hallway from the door to her chair, beside the yellow curtains, seemed to get farther away. Wayne looked up from his cereal, holding a bag of sugar, tilting his head as if this was an interesting movie. Beside him was a bowl of flour and icing and a book opened to a picture of a tired blue cake.
In nervousness I quickly walked over to Claudia. I knelt beside her. I could see the thin makeup on her faded, beautiful face. She wore a simple brown skirt and a yellow cardigan. Her shoes were brown and clean. As old as they looked, they seem to fit Claudia.
“Claudia?” I asked. I knelt closer. She kept watching the window with her weathered fingers clutching the curtain edges. She seemed to be content with the small view of the window not hidden by the yellow curtains.
Suddenly I had a sudden anger with Claudia drooping on her chair, staring out the window, not having a care in the world, with her little boy starting his first day of school. I felt afraid for her, too. What was she doing? She looked so pale and skinny I was afraid she would snap right into two. It looked as if she was anorexic. Her thin fingers quietly stroked the dusty curtains.
Getting to her feet, she suddenly got up and glided over the wooden floors, leaving me kneeling on the floor next to the chair as she floated over to Wayne. She slowly turned her head towards me and gave me her beautiful smile, her eyes wide. It sent goose bumps over my arm, although it was warm in the little house.
“Mommy, are you going to finish the cake?” he asked in his small voice.
She tilted her head as she gazed into his round blue eyes.
“Of course I will, sweetie pie,” she answered. She said it soft and sweet, like a kindergarten teacher teaching little children a song, pronouncing the sweetie pie a little more as the name hung in the dusty air.
“Can I help you finish the cake?” He said it clumsily; his blue eyes peered under his brown bangs. He sat tucked in the yellow chair, looking small and squirmy.
She kept smiling, her eyes entirely focused on Wayne, hands clasped together.
“I love you Mommy,” he said in a small voice.
The corners of her mouth curved and bent as her weathered fingers stroked his hair, placed a key on the table, and she glided to the doorway of her room though the wooden hallway with her worn brown shoes, went inside and shut the door.
I slowly turned to Wayne. His eyes were huge, a clear blue like the ocean on a beach. I didn’t know where he got his eyes. Claudia’s eyes were hazel.
Right now, his clear blue eyes were fixed on Claudia’s door. I didn’t want to break his uneasy worried watch.
I helped Wayne tie his shoes and find his backpack. When he was ready he took his small brown teddy bear patiently sitting on a shelf. We walked out of the yellow house and into the brilliant sunshine, the trees shading most of the house, with their red leaves falling gently.
Before we left, I noticed that Claudia hadn’t started to finish the cake.

Leaves flew gently from tree to tree, brandishing their festive colours. Wayne from time to time caught a leaf and examined it carefully, stroking it with his round and smooth fingers, looking untouched.
My head was empty and I had no words. I felt extremely awkward. I was used to noisy, demanding little kids with pie-making mothers who stayed home, not a saddened divorced Claudia with folded hands and disappointed eyes hidden away in the shadows.
I never had a sibling, nor had I ever baby-sat, nor did I especially enjoy the company of small noisy children. I didn’t hold Wayne’s hand or call him ‘honey’- I had had my share of irritation from those situations.
But he grabbed my hand as soon as we left the yellow house.
It must have looked odd, a black-haired, brown-black eyed, gawky girl with an eccentric name, walking the beautiful brown wavy-haired boy, Wayne.
I decided to start with questions. Little kids usually ramble after many questions, but Wayne was no ordinary five-year old. He was almost the same version of Claudia, except the mass of care and worry weighted in her eyes while he simply acted how Claudia did- the tilting of her head, the studying of people’s eyes, his hushed voice. The quiet made me extremely nervous and uneasy.
“Why is your mother making a cake?” I asked.
He stopped watching his leaves and clasped his hands together and focused on me. Right away I felt so out of place and so awkward.
“It’s Daddy’s birthday,” he said in his small voice, with a shy smile tugging at the corners and a brightening in his blue eyes.
I opened my mouth to speak but to my better judgement I closed it shut.
The leaves were spectacular. They seemed to fly from tree to tree, the wind blowing gently, the rugged sidewalks buried in misshaped red leaves. Wayne caught a leaf and examined it. It was a brilliant green, but on the corner it had a red blush, like a rash. The most common colours were red and green, although they weren’t perfect, they were all a chaotic colourful mess.
He ran ahead and jumped with such blissfulness and deliberate carelessness as he caught every leaf that came his way. His short wavy hair breezed in the wind gently. The leaves still came raining down, straying in the air.
Suddenly he stopped and loosed his grip on the deformed leaves. Some freed themselves and waffled through the air.
Now what? I stayed where I was, watching Wayne’s wavy hair breezing in the wind. Feeling my eyes, he turned and he lit up into a smile. He had a truly beautiful smile.

The blue eyes darted around with panic. He seemed to get smaller, his brown wavy hair unusually flat. I knelt down and stretched my arms, and he impulsively ran into a hug as the kindergarten teacher tapped her foot in high heels. He stepped into the murmuring room full of small kids, clutching his bear. The teacher, with her red spectacles that etched into the sides of her nose, shut the door.
I slowly walked outside. I was late for school, but that could wait. I wandered in the playground and sat on the metal gate, right beside the kindergarten classroom. Wayne was sitting near the sides, clutching his small bear. I noticed that many of the kids were holding bears- the girls were holding enormous white porcelain dolls- and they looked frightened, but some of the kids had none of the comforting bears or dolls. Some kids even had glasses- glasses at age five! A few kids were nearly my height. The swarming heads with different hair colours looked like a chaotic mess. I watched a group of girls, comparing their dolls. I chuckled. I missed playing with dolls.
The bell rang. School had begun- the first day of school had begun. For me, it was just another day. For them, it was something quite different.
It just occurred to me- this was the place they were to be in for the next twelve years.
I could hardly remember the day I started school. Had anyone watched me start class, as I was watching Wayne now? I could faintly remember someone walking me to school. In five or six years Wayne would probably forget. It felt strange that he would likely forget when I would likely remember.
Why wasn’t Claudia here? Why had she ‘ordered’ me to walk her son when she was hardly busy? Remembering her nostalgic, saddened face, I thought it was better for me to walk Wayne. She seemed prone to a breakdown.
I hated seeing Claudia seeing so depressed and hopeless in one moment and covering her face with wide-eyed smiles in the next.
How had Claudia been as a child? Or when she started her first day of school? I knew nothing about her life before the faded yellow house. Would she have been an excited, eager child? Or shy and introverted? Or solitary as she was now?
It didn’t seem right for small children to be actually sad. It didn’t seem proper.
I thought of Wayne. What if he simply took Claudia’s space when he got older- disappointed and on the verge of breaking down everyday?
It seemed like a crime.
They were small children who would be nearly unrecognizable twelve years later. I hated to think of them growing to become anything. It didn’t seem right for them to grow up. They should stay children and be taken care of forever. I felt my guiltiness like a betrayal.
The bell rang, but I couldn’t leave yet. I didn’t have a choice. Leaving Wayne there was the same thing as dumping him into a pool and expecting him to float. I couldn’t just leave him there. Here was a five-year old with a too-young and too depressed mother, having complete happiness just from catching leaves. What was I doing? I was purposely leading him into the trap. I didn’t even want to look at his small, eager, unprepared face. I didn’t want to see how in a few years there would be no hint of the content boy finding joy in leaves.
What was I doing? Nobody had such trouble just letting go of a kid to his first day of school. He wasn’t related in any way. But Wayne seemed alone in the world. I wanted to be his personal tutor, mother, sister, best friend, everything, and have him for myself, in case he would be hurt. I didn’t want to think of the possibilities for him. I wanted him to remain how he was- small and guileless and happy.
I felt so old; felt a hundred years old watching the first day of kindergarten class.
I tiptoed closer to the window. Wayne spotted me and waved, low, so the teacher with the red spectacles wouldn’t see. His wavy brown hair and blue eyes swept in the background of the eager faces of his classmates.
I waved back, smiling, and almost split into two: Claudia and myself. Waving a little harder, I backed away. Wayne turned to a black-haired Asian boy beside him, looking just as nervous. More boys joined their table.
I trudged away while watching him and his classmates. Soon the window, his focused blue eyes, the sticky smell when I hugged his small body, his patience and love and worry for Claudia, his happiness for catching leaves, all the other children, each and every memory dissolved into a tiny square as I trudged to a bigger building. My mind protested while I moved my feet.
If I left him there, he was good as gone.
What other choice did I have? Dumping him into a pool and expecting him to float was the only way he could survive. Or he would never learn to swim, and would bring other people to flail. The only solution was to hurl them into the water. By doing nothing I was merely helping.
I barely knew the meaning of sadness and I had barely started with my own life. Yet I never felt so much despair, and even worse, to see the continuous line of small children following these footsteps, unaware of what they were about to see.
Before I went inside, holding the paint-chipped metal door, I hesitated and gazed at the tiny square housing the thousands of possibilities. I wanted to scramble to the room and snatch Wayne away, away from the dangers. But what did I know, when over a million people had watched their own children being tossed? What did I really know?

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미셀 문희 리(Michelle Mun Hee Lee)

1992년 서울에서 태어난 미쉘 문희 리는 네 살 때 이곳 밴쿠버로 왔다. 초등학교 시절 5,000권 이상의 책을 읽을 만큼 독서광으로, 책 읽는데 ‘장르’를 가리지 않았다. 이번 수상에 대해 지금까지 읽은 책들과 그 저자들에게 우선 감사의 마음을 전한다는 그녀는 글쓰기를 두려워하는 다른 친구들에게 ‘우선 겁나게 읽으라’고 조언한다. 그녀의 가장 좋아하는 책은 Margaret Atwood의 <The Blind Assassin>과 Jostein Gaarder의 <Sophie’s World>이다.

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