“We Will Not All Be Saved” in Union Station No. 5

by Myeongbeom Kim

I’m happy to have “We Will Not All Be Saved,” an excerpt from my memoir-in-progress, included in the current issue of Union Station Magazine.

I cannot see them from the window of my hotel room, but wildfires are flaring out of control at the edge of Austin. Walking away from what I cannot see and slipping back into bed, I pull the newspaper off of the nightstand. “The Bastrop Wildfire has claimed 800 homes.” Attempting to match what is being reported to what I am seeing, I turn back to the window.

The only cloud in the sky looks like Monet himself put it there. An airplane draws a thin white line as it flies from one corner of the window to the other. Some of the plane’s passengers are likely looking at the fires right now. A few days ago, while flying into Austin myself, I looked out of my window to see walls of white smoke rising up from the edges of burning fields. Places where the fires had already been snuffed out were marked by acre-wide patches of charred grass. Staring at the scorched terrain, I thought wounds and what it takes for wounds to become scars.

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