The Procreate app says that the file for this illustration was created on December 26, 2020. It’s difficult to believe that it’s been that long.

The story was recently published in Korean; it was written in Korean and there will be no English version, because the story is sort-of-kind-of poetry-ish, and it is not possible to translate the nuance of some of the less common Korean sentence endings.

And I’m uploading this here on this blog, because here is where I’ve been talking about what I talk about with Nebelung. The afterlife isn’t exactly “after,” the way she sees things, but the very reason I spend so much time with Nebelung these days is because of the sense of “after.” In the realms beyond the 3D world, now is before and after, but to 3D beings, the after feels as concrete as actual concrete unless the concrete is consciously shattered.

Anyway.

Once upon a time, I thought I would do more illustrations for this book, as well as many other books… but for me, illustrating is a frustrating experience, compared to writing. Especially with surreal/unreal stories like this story, in which I somehow must visualize the divinity (higher being?) that is the afterlife spa, illustrating anything more than this one little scene was too much of a challenge. I would have to spend a couple of decades building up skills, until I can hope to freely express what’s in my mind.

So… I guess it’s not happening in this life. But I was able to visualize the tiny little black figure left alone in a vast spa environment.

I imagine the spa to be warm-moist, quiet-echo-y, and water-scent-y.