@HugMug
After my face hit the netting, someone began to smash my head repeatedly into the grassy ground.
Most people's reaction would be, ‘Ouch, this hurts. Please make it stop. '
Seoul is a concerete jungle and so my thought was, ‘Brilliant. The only patch of grass in the whole of Seoul and I'm fortunate enough to be having my face massaged into it. '
Consequently, when I was dragged up off the ground a smile had visited my face. If my captors had bothered to ask me why I was smiling then I would have graciously informed them. But they interpreted it as an act of arrogant defiance that would most likely have to be beaten out of me. It didn't help matters that my second infraction post-smiling was to spit on the ground. To them it looked like a double middle finger. Fuck your pathetic, lackluster attempts at face-smashing and fuck your filthy homeland.
In actuality I was attempting to spit the grass out of my mouth. That's the problem with saying 'Ow.’ The mouth has to open widely then pause to sustain the vowels. This leaves a perfect window of opportunity in which suicidal grass terrorists are able to escape.
The netting had been made invisible by nightfall. Peering up at the sky, I cursed the sun for depriving me of light as well as the black night for surrounding me. My constant series of idiotic mistakes that had been inevitably leading up to this very moment for the past year paled in comparison with the anal-retentive timekeeping of day and night. The relay baton passing sun and moon had preemptively concocted to thwart me billions of years in advance.
The kidnapper dragged me back to the car where his partner was standing with my ex-girlfriend who was leaking tears. Technically at this point I suppose she still was my girlfriend. Placing a phone call to an organisation that would send round two burly men to kidnap you off the streets could be considered as a break-up act in polite circles. It was amazing that all this kerfuffle was born from a piece of paper.
I started screaming and swearing at her, trying to kick out. The exact words escape me. They were something similar to, “Duck you. Duck you to death, you clucking punt.” Her facial expression repulsed me. It was one of abject pity. A look reserved for some poor, deranged wretch who'd given up numerous chances to live amongst civilised society and therefore needed to be put down for their own good. The only thing that separated me from an incontinent, elderly dog that there was no love left in the world for was that I didn't enjoy eating grass - although admittedly not even I could have been aware of that until 30 seconds previously.
The two men bungled me into an elevator. I feared for what was going to occur after the doors closed, leaving us away from prying eyes. They machine gun-swore at me in Korean before Grassy-Smashy slapped the back of my head. It was executed with the amount of power one would use to make most women and children cry.
I contemplated whether to act like it hurt so as to make him feel powerful and therefore less likely to beat me further. I should definitely have done that. However, two seconds had passed by leaving the opportunity lost. How should I be acting? I pictured the stereotypical action films in which the hero defiantly stands up to the kidnappers, never giving them an inch and ultimately manages to walk away with their dignity along with the stunning girl. I remembered all of this and decided to do exactly the opposite.
I begged them to not beat me. A beating is something I didn't deserve because I could speak Korean and loved kimchi. They could take my money then let me off with a warning. To hammer in my point I sat with my face buried in my hands and started to sniff as if I was holding back tears.
These pathetic displays coupled with the passage of time helped lessen the anger of Grassy-Smashy-Slappy. He began to soften towards me, asking about my personal life. Near the end he even apologised, explaining that he was just doing his job. By the time my tormentors departed, he playfully ruffled my hair in and around the same place the slap had been delivered.
With no idea where I was going or what would happen I was escorted to a windowless room with 3 new, less threatening looking people. They looked like the kind of people who would iron their ties, then later worry about whether ironing their ties was weird and have to Google it. I felt comfortable around my equals.
“Are you wearing underwear?” was the first question they asked. The sense of comfort was fleeting.