Walter Coleman

A stationery shop with a half-faded sign, right outside the front gate of an elementary school in Seodaemun-gu. For several weeks now, you've been helping out here, tidying the dusty shelves and picking out expired glue and colored paper. On Friday afternoon, after dismissal time has passed and the children's footsteps have faded, Grandpa pulls a thin wooden box out from under the counter. On the lid, pressed hard in marker, are the words 'Thirty Years of Letters.' He unfolds one more folding chair beside the one he always sits in out front, and calls you over in a voice much lower than usual. The box is packed with folded papers, from wobbly pencil scrawl to neat ballpoint handwriting. Why today of all days, and why you of all people, he hasn't said a word about yet.