He closed his eyes and listened to her demand. There was something pure and beautiful about it. If only more people in life said, This is what I must have.

Endure what one must during the day. But please, can I not have some peace when darkness falls?

Citizens, gather ’round your loudspeakers, for we bring important updates!

There is a talk that every father has with his son in which he brings the child to understand that there are ways we must act, things we must say, but inside, we are still us, we are family.

Christian talk, when said in a non-Christian way, scares these Southerners to death.

Sun Moon offered her Juche to him, and he gave her all he had of Songun policy.

If only more people in life said, This is what I must have.

And then he closed his eyes and imagined Sun Moon, the one that was always within him... she was a calm presence, open-armed, ready to save him at all times. She wasn’t leaving him, she wasn’t going anywhere. And here the sharp pain in his chest subsided, and Commander Ga understood that the Sun Moon inside him was the pain reserve that would allow him to survive the loss of the Sun Moon before him.

Jun Do held the book, felt its soft cover. “I could read some with you,” she said. “Do you know of Christ?” Jun Do nodded. “I’ve been briefed on him.

To me,” Jun Do said, “what everybody gets wrong about ghosts in the notion that they’re dead. In my experience, ghosts are made up only of the living, people you know are out there but are forever out of range.