And yet macabre as it was, he wanted to know the reason for his sister's death through his creations. He still wanted to know what had brought her to that park, if it had been her boss who had done this to her or a serial killer, and the motivation. One could read profiles of serial killers on the Internet. He had done so; but even if a serial killer had done this not all of them were the same. He did not want a generalization full of inaccuracies. He wanted to know the real person and what had caused him to act as he did. He wanted to know of deep repentance, and deep psychological travail on the part of the man- whoever this man was. Earlier he had been so certain that the accused had perpetrated the act but then a jury had acquitted this person or quasi-person and as time went on he did not know anything. He went back to the making of kimchee maundoo. The flour had already been made into dough that he had cut into pieces. Now he inserted the cooked pork and the kimchee and pinched the dough of these cabbage dumplings into shape. He boiled a little bit of hot water in his rice cooker and set them in there to steam. He felt so restless. He wanted to be raptured from lonely nights that followed hard work in this convenience store or for Seong Seob to call. Every time he now called his friend's cellular telephone number there was no answer. Seong Seob had a program that would instantaneously change letters into sound every time the computer dialed into a server but every time he e- mailed him there was no response. "So little did one know a person," he thought. Three days had gone by and he did not know of any altercation that could have caused this absconding. His mind was vertiginous. There was nothing worse than an inexplicable rupture of a friendship, he thought to himself; and yet he knew that this was not so. North Korean children were starving to death in a faltering totalitarian regime and here he was playing in his personal life, and in so doing, getting hurt. There were a lot worse things but a lot of good too. There was good everywhere. It was in the atoms themselves: in the steam rising above the rice cooker or the feel of the hot pipes under the floor, which warmed his bare feet in the cold room. Man might miss the mark of kindness but sometimes man tried for kindness since kindness was in the atoms although self-preservation was in the selfish genes. This good was readily visible in simple pleasures when one was sagacious enough to appreciate them like a child. But Seong Seob would not leave his mind. What could have happened? Was this friend hit by a car? After all, he was blind. Sung Huin did not know any of his friends or relatives, so there was no one to call. Did this friend become busy? Did Seong Seob decide that the relationship was not for him? Had he, Sung Huin, personally said anything at all to cause this? He reexamined their last conversations. The only thing he could remember was that he mentioned to Seong