Flame, Glass and Ink are Poems, essays, and reading notes by Stefania Joori Suh

Author: Stephanie Suh

  • Laboratory Conditions (2017) – short film

    Some believe in ghosts, a few see spirits, and many deny souls. How odd that this digital age is when it is, in fact, a kind of spectral age in which Alexa with no face exists without being seen!

    Laboratory Conditions is an engaging cinematic short story about a doctor who puts heart before reason. She also has a brilliant mind, but it’s not corrupted but cherished in her faith in the human spirit. It is an odd combination of sentiment and reason seen in someone like her, or so she may seem. Or is she so? Humans are dualistic and ambivalent anyway, so I can’t say she’s all good, but at least she is sensible and sympathetic.

    Her opposite is the head of medical searchers of the hospital by which she is employed, and she is the only Reason with a face despaired of humanity. She measures human worth by status and thinks those found on the low rungs of the social ladders are unworthy of decent treatment. A modern-day eugenist is on a par with a god deciding who will live or not. She is amoral and negates the existence of human souls, or is she deluded to believe so? Anyway, she doesn’t care about it, an iota. Or has she sold her soul to the devil?

    The film is about 17 minutes long and can be watched on YouTube. It also stars a surprisingly famous cast, such as Marissa Tomei and Minnie Driver, who are excellently cast to play the fitting roles. I have read the comments, an electric mix of kudos to the doctor’s humanity and criticism of her cruelty. But they are all missing the real evil wrapped in a human’s guise among the faces.

  • Bye Summertime, Hello Wintertime

    They should abolish this stupid summertime system. You know whom I am talking about.

    It’s asinine, addles-headed, useless, and pointless. I mean—seriously—what need is there to keep this anachronistic system in this digital age when most developed countries do not live by this supposedly smart time system?

    Suppose this is for any entrepreneurial purposes that satisfy business people who make a living by getting an hour less of sleep. In that case, they should adapt their business’s open mode to the present online business shopping module because nowadays, people shop more online than offline.

    It has been said that the Senate will vote to abolish the summertime system, but that is only the father of the idea. I don’t think the system will be abolished anytime soon.

    Anyway, it was nice of me to sleep one hour extra after getting ready for the 7:00 a.m. mass at 4:00 p.m. today. Thank Mom for letting me know.

  • entry from this universe – #1

     To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
    Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
    To the last syllable of recorded time;
    And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
    The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
    Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
    That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
    And then is heard no more. It is a tale
    Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
    Signifying nothing.
    — Macbeth (Act 5, Scene 5, lines 17–28)

    It’s been a long time since I last wrote in this online journal. To my surprise, I found out that all my past entries are gone! I have tried fruitlessly locating them, but Penzu has no such easy function to retrieve the past entries UNLESS you have to upgrade to a present version! So, that’s how they make a profit from their business. But as I think of it as some kind of sign to refresh my life, I will not attempt to retrieve the bygone times.

    It’s nice to write anything now using my cute iPad. Don’t get me wrong. I love writing, even though I am not perfect at English grammar. I love the English language and the way of western cilivization, even if the people who were born into the culture do not seem to take a liking to me. I consider the English language to be the most efficient global lingua franca. It’s convenient and catholic. So, what the hell! I am not scared of writing in English because I love the language and the act of writing in it.

    So, job-wise, I think I am doing okay because I am still working at the same place as a case manager assistant. I believe I work the most diligently and efficiently in my team, which is mainly composed of younger people. Yeah, the glorious MZ Generation. But they will not stay young any longer, and mind you and them; they will one day lament the bygone days of their youth. Well, I guess you have already noticed my not-so-kind opinion about them, which might have come from my experience working with them. Hell, yeah!

    Oh well. Enough for pouring this hateful rant about the deplorable generation. I want to focus on the rest of my life and take control of it. I am considering setting up and running my own small online business selling cat toys and cat-themed fancy stationery items via Etsy. Or maybe Amazon. I am seriously considering such a business prospect as a plan B for my economic act, always having backup financial resources in force in significant situations. I do not want to repeat, though helplessly, depressive times when I do not have a job.

  • Cat who thinks himself

    Toro thinks

    My cat thinks

    Not that he is a cat.

    But hey! Who knows?

    He is a human who never

    got to see the sun of life

    but returned from the other

    Not drinking from the Lethe

    wearing a cat-skin in tabby 

    to live with his family, poor

    but rich with love and care.

    The cat knows the secrets

    of life and the life beyond, 

    and this universe he lives

    he knows it’s one of many

    he has seen in his cat’s eyes

    he has traveled in paws. 

    No wonder he is so beautiful. 

  • Prompt 213 on my beneficiaries

    If you had a million dollars to give away, who would you give it to?

    Sister Teresa of Calcutta said charity begins at home, and I agree with her wholeheartedly. If you do not care for those close to you, then you can’t care for others, even if you would deny it. But of course, that doesn’t mean my neighbors!

    That said, if I should be so lucky – oh, so lucky! – to have a fortune to give away, I would first help my brother so that he could clear away his financial burdens and help him start his new family. Then, I will look for our relatives who may be struggling financially. Thereafter, I will donate funds to my church and ask the priest to help parishioners who are having difficulty with healthcare, housing, and educational costs.

    I would love to say I would donate a million dollars to well-known charity organizations with noble causes, but these are my wishes to help people with my lucky fortune.

  • prompt 212 – fish out of water

    Tell us about a time when you felt out of place.

    Hopeful when alone

    When I read the story of the stranded Beluga whale who died in France’s Seine River in 2022, I felt like my spirit was in communion with hers because I could feel what she might have felt—what was once hopeful turned into disappointment and loneliness.

    No one knew what caused her to separate from her pod and end up in the river, but I think she wanted to see the world herself, with the images of kind humans she had once seen on the ocean in her memory. So she came to our world full of expectations for welcoming faces and smiles, but instead, she found herself in a murky gray urban river that made her loneliness more conspicuous, more incongruent.

    Likewise, that’s how I feel when I find myself surrounded by crowds that make my presence awkwardly conspicuous, shielded by an invisible wall of willing ignorance.