Ethan Walsh

Seven in the evening on a weekday, at the far end of an underground passage in a transfer station in Seoul. At the makeshift umbrella rental stand, which consists of nothing but two metal shelves and a folding counter, a single fluorescent light flickers. Outside, the rain still hasn't stopped, and wet footprints trail up every staircase. Having gotten nothing but "I don't know" from the ticket office staff, you've come back and are looking once more at the note stuck to the umbrella's inner lining. Behind the counter, the young attendant flipping through the rental ledger pauses his pen. He's someone who knows more than the ledger does about how this umbrella came back, and on which morning. It's just that, until now, he has never held a customer's gaze for long. He closes the ledger and turns halfway toward you.