Torment

By Yang Liu

Torment concerns the struggles of a man and moving on from anhedonia.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Yang Liu
• Release date: Nov 18, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215392607

Yang Liu

No gods. No masters.

Book preview

Torment

Yang Liu

Torment

By Yang Liu

Copyright 2023 Yang Liu

Smashwords Edition

Claire

Two Koreans were standing next each other in rain gear on a dark, rainy night in Pyongyang, Korea. They were watching this white woman who stuck out of the crowd like a sore white thumb amongst a sea of yellow. From a far, one could see her curly brown hair and soft, white supple skin. It wasn’t like this was the first time, these two North Koreans saw potential to make a sale nor will it be their last. They watched with these high-tech glasses on which were just rectangular lenses that enlarged the picture of this supple white woman.

After inhaling almost a quarter of a cigarette in one breath, he exhaled and spoke to his accomplice. So, what did this Kenneth Wong do that united the East and the West?

I don’t know and I don’t care to remember. The only thing I know is that all he did was use social media to look at some of the people he believed to be exemplary to base his reproduction theory off of.

Like who?

Kept on blabbing about this woman he went to high school with called Montanna Mjaaland. Something about how if more people were like her, he could sit in the park all day and become George Clooney in Burn After Reading.

So, this Kenneth Wong guy essentially gave this Montanna woman a recommendation by mentioning her through his works?

Yep, through the cult-following he has. He had good relations with her mom while he volunteered with at the school she taught at.

What happened to this Montanna Mjaaland?

She found a job at some law firm called Whitelaw-Twinnings.

And she lived happily ever after?

Yep.

I don’t know, bro. I mean like the white woman we are after now. She is white, I don’t think our boss would approve if we kidnapped her. The guy inhaled another puff of cigarette almost as if he was getting this heavenly pleasure from nicotine. With another puff, the cigarette was now half gone.

Now why is that?

Well, white people all grow up to be boring adults. Why do you think their celebrities are so revered.

In what way do they become boring?

Oh, stuff like committing underage drinking, doing drugs, or shoplifting when they are young.

And then what?

And then in the blink of an eye, they say stuff like ‘Do you want some kale?’, ‘Nobody is perfect.’, ‘Everyone is special.’, and ‘Let’s fix that booboo.’ Stuff that you and I would generally dread to hear coming from our strong, cut throat woman.

Yeah, as if there is any woman in the world would want our sorry asses.

Nobody wants the two of us. No real woman would date us, let alone consider us.

Let’s keep watching this white woman. See where she is going.

The two men in black rubber rain coats stood there with a slightly hunched posture. It was as if the two of them knew their work wasn’t the work of God, that they were doing a disservice by trying to abduct people in the new found Korea. The two men stood their still and silent as if unphased by the downpour of rain. They were acting on their own volition. Little did they know what on Earth was their motivation was. They lived a hand to mouth existence thinking very little about tomorrow. Living in the moment is something those who think long-term need to do while thinking about tomorrow is something people who live in the moment needs to do.

"Do you think Woo Soo will give us a big paycheque if we capture this woman?

The question is not how much we are getting paid to capture her. The question is how are we going to capture her.

Neural parasites my friend.

Oh yeah, that’s right. Pretty much makes the person sleep walk to our predetermined destination.

Yeah, that will make our job easier.

Let’s keep on watching to see what happens.

The two waited for a long time to see what this white woman was doing in North Korea. From observation, it looked like she was some kind of humanitarian worker. Her large eyes and soft white supple skin were almost aphrodisiac like for the onlooker. The two men were getting horny from just looking at her much like how chocolate after lemon tastes much sweeter than just chocolate after chocolate.

Do you think she is trans?

Why does that matter? Even if she is trans, she is still considered a woman with today’s science and technology.

Okay, I mean back in the day there was this humongous debate among the West whether a trans woman is a trans woman.

Yeah, the argument from the counter trans was that dyeing a potato orange does not make it a carrot.

Yes, and what does that mean?

It means you can’t define a woman purely based on her hormones. It shows how little society appreciates the hard work and dedication the Western woman puts into the family unit or society in general.

Oh, I see. That’s like saying a woman is upset because of her period that the hormones determine sex.

Yep, that is how I would put it.

So, how does this gene therapy work for becoming a transgender woman?

You replace the sex chromosome.

Enlighten me even further.

Okay, so you run some genetic algorithms through a quantum computer to determine which sex chromosome is optimized to the rest of the genome. Then you construct the sex chromosome. Then you use CRISPR to alter all the cells in the body.

What happens after the injection?

You know how woman usually like man who are taller and bigger than they are?

Yeah. That’s the business we are in.

Okay, so given the same mitochondria set or power source to construct the system, a female will be usually smaller than her male partner.

So, the transsexual starts shrinking in size and height?

Essentially, yes. The sex organs develop first. As the sex organs develop and release more and more hormones. The person starts exhibiting more and more pronounced sexual dimorphism.

So trans women are woman or not woman.

There is so much more to a woman then her hormones and vagina. You ever read the Odyssey by Homer. Stuff like you know, influence of woman and what not.

Why are you in this business if you understand stuff like that?

Because I committed war crimes under the Kim dynasty that the South Koreans would never forgive me for.

I mean, I hear all they do is give you an injection and make you serve a prison sentence.

Yeah, I know that. There is nothing wrong with me in terms of who I am as a human being. The brain scan would show that there is nothing wrong with neither my frontal lobe or amygdala.

I mean, you were forced by Kim Jong Un to do his bidding. You can be forgiven for that. I mean, I was closely linked to Kim Jong Un so I can’t really do anything about the fact the South Koreans would capture and interrogate the living daylight out of me. Here I am, selling human beings as a commodity or kidnapping them.

Live in the present. If today is good than don’t worry about the future. You and I are living on borrowed time.

There is nothing like the present. In one puff, the cigarette being smoked was completely finished. A puff of smoke ascended from the bottom of the lungs up into the air.

Well, she went inside her apartment complex. Inside all the crummy grey concrete building that was essentially a rectangular block with windows lining up symmetrically on the side. Now what?

Now we wait to make our move. We watch to see what she is doing with the lights going on and off in her apartment.

How do we know which apartment belongs to her?

That will be easy. She is much bigger than your average Korean. She will stand out from the apartment boxes with her figure that is disproportionately bigger than your typical Korean furniture.

The two men waited, not knowing what to do. And then finally, a patch of white appeared from an apartment on the top floor.

Hey, that’s her.

Does she know we are watching her?

No, from a far the two of us just look like two black dots enjoying the view of the river on a rainy day.

Standing outside to enjoy the weather is a pretty odd thing to do on a rainy day in Pyongyang.

No, but at least we blend in with everyone. We seem just as poor as everyone else.

Oh look, she is cooking dinner.

She looks healthy, she will probably go for a walk after cooking dinner.

No signs of any pets. It looks like this will be easy. Especially since there is no dog.

Let’s watch then. See what’s going on.

The two men watched as this white woman cooked dinner. What she was cooking, the two did not know. It looked tteokbokki or Korean rice cakes. From afar, her lifestyle looked like she was minimizing her consumption of food by expanding her caloric intake via increased activity.

After sometime of watching a question came to mind in one of the men who planned to abduct this woman. Okay, say we abduct her and get our bonuses from our boss… why are we not abducting someone from the bottom of society?

Okay, that type of thinking is what lead to parallel societies developing in the West when the immigrants came over.

I don’t get it.

The foot is on the bottom of the human being… do you want to lose a foot?

Well, no then I couldn’t walk around to the places I wanted to go.

Okay, do you see now that the people who are the foundation of our society… the essential workers get us to places?

I still don’t see why we then don’t just pluck someone from the bottom. They won’t be missed when they are gone.

No, because poaching someone from the bottom is not sustainable. It like fishing. You harvest the adults not the juveniles not the ones still growing.

I still don’t get it.

Okay, you don’t want to lose a foot but you would be perfectly fine with plucking one of your hairs from that dome of yours?

Oh, okay. I see. Plucking someone from the top is negligible. Just look at her, she is all by herself. Her services are not essential to a society. Only when people reach their pinnacle do they need her services.

What is it that she does?

She some kind of lawyer. I have no idea what she does. However, she can use language to boil down vastly complicated cases to just a single idea. Distill stuff, you know.

Is it then a good idea to abduct her? I mean the two of us are doomed to be exiled. This lawyer, she is good for the Korean people with Kim Jong Un out of the way and what not.

I am not sure about that. She is considered culturally beautiful by Eastern standards. Big eyes, white and supple skins, not too much of a chin.

Beauty fades with age. Happiness is a subjective experience or a chemical reaction that is triggered by unique cues specific to only you.

So, you are saying our endeavour is absolutely pointless. We will need to find the perfect match for our customer to achieve the biggest and juiciest orgasm.

Well… they don’t need to know that. Optimal sexual reproduction took hold in Vancouver a place where the whole world converged into one focal point. When this idea reached China, the government was afraid of revolutions but no such things ever happened since the Chinese people simply did not understand this who shebang of a life lived without hope will never allow love to become a reality thing.

And you know this why?

Because Kim Jong Un forced me to study this stuff the Followers came up with. I spent days and nights whenever this Kenneth Wong guy released a book.

The Followers were an isolationist society. They mainly kept to themselves.

But when three-parent baby reached their door steps they literally went to war and flat out rejected the scientist who proposed the idea. Didn’t spare the guy.

Kenneth Wong didn’t say anything?

Kenneth Wong believed in freedom. He believed he didn’t have a say in what people did.

I mean the guy who came up with this three-parent baby stuff was a scientist and a scientist job is to verify if what is in the mind aligns with reality. You need an engineer to turn an idea into something physical. Stuff like knowing what to ignore and not ignore. Approximations essentially.

The Followers mainly kept to themselves. Didn’t think too much about others. I mean, what Kenneth Wong said was essentially choose hope so you can find love. There is absolutely nothing he could do about the middle-aged Durka Durka who rapes ten year old little girls.

I mean like for Kenneth Wong. He invented this optimal sexual reproduction theory because he couldn’t decide which woman to pick from. In the end, his theory didn’t work because he never found true love.

Good thing our customers don’t know what true love feels like or else they wouldn’t express any interests towards buying our goods.

Are you sure you want to kidnap this white woman. Like you said, interesting when young, super boring when of age.

I got a good feeling about this woman. Things are valuable because they are scarce.

She is just white. Does one variable make that big of a difference? How do you know she doesn’t know what a healthy relationship looks like?

Well, I hope she doesn’t. I mean look at us, we are hoping somebody hasn’t reached their full potential. Curse this Kim Jong Un. We should of rose up and got rid of him before he ruined our lives and my future.

From the grave, bro.

This white woman. She looks like she is independent and self-sufficient to live all by herself in an unstable country where the leadership has just been toppled.

That’s the new dating standard in the West these days. There are of course people who rely on incubators. However, for those who want to date, the benchmark is not making a bunch of money but whether if you can generate the biggest bang for the buck or in other words, get buy with the minimum amounts of resources: minimum accumulation to sustain maximum rates.

Money isn’t all that useful when living costs are high. I mean time is of the essence, you must wait for the most opportune moment.

Yeah, you don’t want someone making a lot of money but working eighty hours a week and you probably don’t want someone making minimum wage getting by on his genetic lottery.

Everyone has their own preference. Some people are perfectly fine with being a stay at home significant other while some people are perfectly fine making minimum wage and save half of their paycheque each month.

Yeah, I wouldn’t trust the guy making minimum wage who save half of their paycheque each month. You need to have to developed some profound skill sets to solve difficult problems and not be bored by some monotonous job. Probably solving some problem in the back of his head while sweeping the floors.

Those type of people are rare and few and far in-between.

Oh, she is done eating. She is washing the dishes and putting on her shoes and rain jacket. She must be going for a walk. Now is our chance. She just exited the main entrance of the building.

"How are we going to do this?

Okay, she is outside now. We will use this. The man pulled out a straw and all he did was blow on it. With the thrust of a rocket, some kind of gel the size of a BB pellet shot out and flew to land on this woman’s neck. Like a splash of water, the gel dissipated on contact flattening itself to fly in all directions.

This woman thought a big raindrop just hit her on the neck as she had yet to put her hood on. She did not think much about what had just transpired. How this drop of gel flew all the way across the river to land on the woman’s neck with profound accuracy was unknown. Some kind of North Korean robust, low-tech combined with South Korean scientific breakthroughs. If only this technology was used for something good.

This woman dissociated herself from her consciousness. She walked blindly as if sleep walking without knowing what would happen. It was as if her self control, her inhibition was lowered to the very minimum. She could see though the image from her eyes were not interpreted and passed through as nothingness. She walked across the river to the bridge and there, across the river, she found a van with only windows in the front. She opened the back doors of the van without thinking twice about anything and climbed in. She closed the door and there – in the back of the truck – she saw a mattress and she laid down without thinking. The two man waited for her to climb in and drove off, heading towards the harbour.

The two men arrived with their cargo at the docks shortly after. There wasn’t much light so the two men carried the mattress the woman was on all the way into a boat large enough to pass as a commercial fishing vessel. They put her in the cargo hold and without much thought they sailed off into the dark night sky. Only a bright white light bulb was visible from a shore that eventually disappeared into the darkness.

The ship which looked like a 3-D printed toy ship sailed for some time. The ship ran on some kind of fat-based fuel cell or electric eels genetically modified to generate electricity. The two men were eager to cheque in on their human cargo. Little did they know what was in store for the two.

The two sailed through the night with a great sense of hope. That hope was at least very temporary. Little did they know how much of a blunder they had just committed. But to no avail did any of the two notice.

Woo Soo Kim had some grand plan for the democratic republic people of Korea. He planned to make everyone the same. What he planned to do was much like how chimps or lions are all the same shape and size, Woo Soo was going to force everyone to converge to the same mitochondria. Everyone will only be skilled at one thing and everyone will be the same even looking the same.

To achieve such goals, Woo Soo was going to export the more unique mitochondria sets out of the country. He was going to preserve the mass and homogenize them via the bioweapons he acquired from the Chinese. Though the Chinese never fully supported the Kim dynasty, they still wanted to prevent the North Koreans from seeping over into Chinese territory.

In China, there was always one person that didn’t quite agree with how society should be run; having ideas and opinions of their own. It always like that in China. In the West, people have troubling adolescent periods. They usually turn out to be okay adults. In China, people are fairly well-behaved from childhood to adulthood, though they turn out to be questionable adults who steal from society and do other things such as poisoning others to gain power. It is one of the struggles of the Chinese people.

Whether it was too much pressure from the education system that compressing everything to a perfect sphere when one is young, leads to imperfect outcomes later on in life is a question few have asked. It often better to let things grow naturally to let the individual become their own very best later on in life. Whenever that happens