November/December 2023

A girl learns strategies for life by playing a traditional Korean game with her grandfather. In traditional Korea, there is a game that requires both sharp wit and quick, nimble fingers. Called alkkagi and translated literally as “shooting eggs,” it is a game that is generally played by the older generation and enjoyed by the elderly, along with a glass of beer to wash the euphoria down. The gist of it is: A checkerboard Black and white “eggs” Sharp, strong fingers A voice to holler with The goal of this game is to knock the other players’ eggs out by flicking your eggs into the other players’, forcing them to skid off the checkerboard and become “eliminated.” The most slight miscalculations or awry positions can end a game; in the same way, a minuscule change of style can win it. To explain it broadly, it’s “a game of simultaneously keeping away and drawing to each other,” as my grandfather put it. “You can’t win by running away.” His eyes smiled gently at me, glasses nestled on a hawkish nose. “But you can’t win by running forward, either.” I straightened, my stubby legs curving with childish fat as I tucked them beneath me, the cushion shoved under my knees rubbing scratchily as I did so. “So, how do you win?” I demanded, glittering eyes fixed on the checkerboard. “How?” His lips were pale, and his teeth shaded beneath them. His face looked sketched-in and wavering. “You wait,” he said, his nose curving as he smiled, “and endure, and you take your chances as you get them.” He scooped the eggs from the board and separated them into a black pile and a white pile. “Because the goal is not to win as fast as you can,” he explained in his quivering, confused English. “It is just to have at least one chance left.” “Dad!” my mother complained, the left corner of her mouth curling up as she entered the dim, wooden room, “not now! Don’t lecture her, she’s just a little kid. She doesn’t need to hear all your lessons.” I kept to the fringes and hoped that my defense could be my attack as well She piled the papers into a stack and pushed them against the desk, slipping pens and pencils into a wooden drawer. Her eyes laughed brightly, devoid of unhappiness except for a lingering trace on her left palm, the tiny little crescent mark of fingernails biting angrily into her skin. “When else will she hear this? When she has already forsaken it?” he asked, plucking one black egg from the white pile and moving it to the black pile. “She will never listen to this except for when her ears are still open. Imagine if they are closed! My words will pound against them and only close them further. Now is the only time when my words can enter unattacked.” My mother shook her head with her mouth pressed and ironed into a smile, her arms curling around to grab for my hand and reaching for my hair, stroking the bouncy curl that stuck up on my head. Her hand engulfed mine as she herded me away, her voice whisking back to my grandfather, “Be ready for dinner at seven!” I reluctantly left, whipping my head back, my pigtails bouncing and battering the air, to see my grandfather’s humbling smile. He had some secret that allowed him sure victory; I had no idea what it was, but I never won, and he never lost. And so I grew up under the gentle governance of wisdom from my grandfather, the bright and colorful play of my grandmother, the complete and total, overwhelming love pouring from my mother, and the insistent kindness of my father. I grew without complaint and did so well; I was never reprimanded, and in turn, I refused to be. I loved the game of alkkagi even when it became obsolete; I stayed in the dining room and watched, fascinated, as my parents shrieked and hollered delightedly, roaring with fury and jumping up with glee. I’d join in too, feeling the human desire to be involved, included, and do whatever it took not to be outside the circle. I’d scream with delight, mock my father as he groaned, insist on having a few more eggs, and take all my opportunities. Then I grew to secondary school, and I changed my tactics—from that of a bumbling primary schooler who resorted to flicking eggs this way and that and only killing oneself—to keeping away. Running away, as my grandfather put it. I kept to the fringes and hoped that my defense could be my attack as well, and I rejected my chances as they laid themselves out on the board. I suppose I hoped that someone would be reckless, taking chances not meant to be taken, and fall on their own swords, flicking their eggs the wrong way and losing while attempting to win. And that was well and all, but when I met with someone strategic and talented and someone who could hit me out, I stood no chance. I stood at the edges, hoping they’d knock themselves out along the way, only to be disappointed. So neither way was the path to success. So then, what was it? Practice, perhaps. And the right opportunities. Seizing the moment, as my father would say. And so I practiced—at what, I don’t particularly know. I tried making the right decisions, choosing which battles to fight and which to accept. I sharpened my mind and sat down every week for a match of alkkagi with my parents. My grandfather would say I practiced at life. And then came a day when I didn’t feel ready at all, when my bones were tired and my muscles felt stiff and my eyes were dry and aching; my eyelids were sandpaper. My mouth tasted parched, like sand and desert lingering in the air, that awful feeling of having woken up