A friend returned from a tour of South America with a gift: a cuckoo clock with curious features. Basic timekeeping functions were included. Nothing remarkable there, aside from the rather clickety clock hands. At the top of each hour, a small door swung open, and out sprang a red bird. As the clock had been made in South America, the bird was most likely a parrot—a squawker bent on drowning out the ticking and tocking with its shrill cry of pakou! Of all our household items—sitting on shelves, hanging from hooks, or mounted on walls—this clock seemed uniquely alive. So much so that when it chimed, the fiery bird nearly flew off the wall. 

As for the clock’s peculiarity, it resembled a house with an attached garage: nestled in the bottom corner was a clock within a clock. This smaller clockface displayed Spanish words for seven emotions, ranging from feliz (happy) to enojado (angry). The mood clock’s circular sequence ensured that opposite ends would meet. Feliz and enojado, back to back. 

Every morning, before stepping out of the house, I’d set the mood clock to feliz—a silent promise to myself. The creaky clock hand always needed a good push. But why, oh why, would it point to enojado by the time I returned? Did it shift to match my actual mood? I pulled it back to feliz and kept my eyes on the dial. It stayed stock-still. 

“Dad. Did you mess with the moods?” 

“What’s that?” 

Dad was blithely unaware of the mood clock. While I hoped for a happy day each morning, he merely appreciated the cuckoo for chiming and reminding him of the time. 

It would take only a fraction of a second for the mood hand to slip from feliz back to enojado—a shift of roughly fifty-two degrees. So I decided to fix my eyes on the clock. All it required was sitting on the edge of my bed and staring straight ahead, but with my gaze locked on nothing more than the stiff hand of a wooden novelty clock . . . my thoughts were bound to wander. Within an hour, I had collapsed into bed, my mind far gone. 

Pakou!

Jolted awake, I saw the mood clock pointing to enojado. I was determined, once and for all, to catch the clock in the act—but sleep got the better of me three times over. Each time, the hand had already tipped back to the bleakest emotion. At 12:40 a.m., I made one final attempt—like a fisher casting one last line into a reservoir before it closes for the night—and pinned my eyes on the mood clock. Streetlight spilled in through the window, casting shadows darker than dark.

At 1:00 a.m. sharp, the cuckoo emerged with another pakou! I paid no attention to the blustery red bird. Another hour was lost, and my vision blurred as I wondered how much longer I could keep this up—when, in a flash, the cuckoo flew down to the mood clock, gripped the dial in its beak, and began pushing it back from feliz to enojado.

“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?”

“¿Qué?”

“I want to be happy. And you’re messing it up.”

“¡Ay, no sé!”

Apparently lacking night vision, the bird turned the wrong way as it replied to me. I had plenty of questions, which I asked, but the bird cut me off with another “Ay” and ducked back inside the clock. I got to my feet and stood before its door. When I opened the thumbnail-sized hatch and shoved my head inside, I saw a cozy indoor space. Uh, wait a sec . . . My head—a pretty large one at that—actually whooshed through the door? Startled, I pulled back and glanced around. Lo and behold, I stood at the edge of a threshold, with the clock inside and my room outside.

Fwooh fwoooh—after a few deep breaths, I slipped my head back in for a better look. Seeing nothing but a wooden corridor, I eased myself in—arms first, then torso, then legs—and entered the clock. The corridor led to a spiral staircase. At the bottom, I found a small room to the right. A tilted pillar rose from the center of the rough wooden floor. Next to it stood a high stool. The bird perched on top while two wooden figurines labored below, rotating, at steady speed, a horizontal steering wheel fixed to the base. One rotation made the second hand go tick; sixty rotations, and the minute hand went tock.

The bird seemed intent on ignoring me. Even on its coarsely carved birchwood face, the fretful features were plain to see. As I stepped closer and blocked the figurines’ path, the bird finally flew down and squawked in Spanish—stern words from an even sterner face. Not knowing the language, I only caught a few words, but the bird clearly had much to say.

“Me llamo Boris.”

“My name is Ki-eun.”

The bird named Boris insisted on getting things off its chest, flailing its wings all the while. As for me, I demanded to know why Boris had dashed my hopes for happiness. Eventually, I learned why the mood clock kept reverting to enojado, and more than that, I came to recognize the heft of Boris’s burdens.

The rickety pillar jutting from the floor turned out to be the other end of the mood dial. The trouble began in Sucre, Bolivia, where a clockmaker, overrun with inventory, decided to upgrade the basic cuckoo clock by adding a mood indicator. The seven Spanish words were enough to entice tourists in search of reasonably priced souvenirs.

Boris launched into a tirade about the ill-conceived add-on. Eager to cash in, the clockmaker had disregarded the clock’s inner workings. The mood dial pierced through the floor at an awkward angle, obstructing the tireless motion that kept the clock ticking.

“Everyone wants to be happy, so they turn the dial to feliz, you see? Then it blocks our way! The figurines get stuck—and the clock dial too!” cried the bird, waterworks prevented only by the absence of tear ducts. “Look, just look! We only have room when the dial is at enojado!”

Boris’s beak had worn thin from pushing the creaky dial—¡pac pac pac pac! The onomatopoeia rang clear across languages, the enraged pac pac making me shrink back. The two figurines added to my guilt as they spun round and round without respite.

“Must’ve been tough—”

“Es serio. ¡Pac pac! ”

When I stepped back into my room, it was 1:40 a.m. The bird will be crying again in twenty minutes. I was now fully aware of the weight they bore—both the bird and the two figurines—but even so, I could hardly accept the daily display of enojado. My moods were grim enough without being reminded by a clock. And yet, I couldn’t bring myself to put the clock away—not to spare my own feelings at the expense of the cuckoo or Dad.

Twelve more minutes had passed: the clock pointed to 1:52 a.m. My eyes followed the second hand, and soon it was 1:54 a.m. Spurred into action, I dug my nails into the enojado label until it snapped off clean. Feliz left some dried glue behind, but it more or less came free. With some fresh glue, I swapped the two labels—voilà, my mood could stay happy. Problem solved! Except the quick fix had disrupted the orderly sequence of emotions, throwing them off balance. There were six minutes left until the hour, and since it’d taken barely a minute to swap two labels, I figured I could rearrange the rest before the next chime. Happy and angry hadn’t caused any damage, but friendly left behind a hole, contented, a deep crack, and as a final blow, tired split the entire clock apart. Two minutes before 2 a.m., time stopped. Gone was the cuckoo’s little door frame and perch for crying pakou! The figurines clutched the steering wheel that had broken loose and spun aimlessly around.

Pakou!

The cuckoo carried on, regardless. Surrounded by rubble, it chimed for 2 a.m. An immeasurable span of time passed before the three clock denizens recognized the debris for what it was: wreckage. For a moment, I was tempted to feign surprise—“What on earth happened to the clock?”—but given the gravity of their situation, I chose to stay calm and square up to the damage. My full confession left their faces clouded with tearless woe.

Sorrow refused to pass. No amount of consolation could get through. Carefully chosen words fell on deaf ears, and after what felt like hours, I pulled out my phone: 2:20 a.m. I was ready to collapse into bed. “Let’s sleep for now and sort this out in the morning. Although it’s not my problem, really.” Alas, Boris and the figurines replied that they didn’t need any sleep.

I could no longer make out their frantic words. In my sleepy haze, I decided to sweep them up like broken objects. I shoved them all away—the enraged Boris, the figurines, and the scattered bits of wood—into an empty cupboard. Then I sank into slumber. With no more hourly interruptions of pakou, I enjoyed a good night’s sleep. It restored my mood to feliz.

*

“Ki-eun, it’s half past one.”

“Hm?”

Our church offered four different Sunday service times, the last starting at 1 p.m. As part of our Sunday routine, Dad and I typically slept in until ten, lazed around in our rooms, then set out for church around 12:30. But today, the overcast skies had kept us in the dark well into midday. Dad explained that without his trusty cuckoo, he hadn’t noticed the time. I opened the cupboard to show him the shattered clock.

“Good lord. Wrecked beyond repair.”

Since we’d skipped the service without a word, the deaconess was bound to notice and come knocking at our door. No doubt, she would plop herself down in the middle of our living room, scold us for missing church, recap the sermon, sing a handful of hymns, and only then leave us in peace. I rather enjoyed attending church—belting out hymns in unison, listening to scripture about the fainthearted finding courage. But at home, it all felt out of place. With only the deaconess, Dad, and me, my voice would ring too loudly, and without accompaniment, we’d have to carry the tune ourselves. Once the sermonizing began, I never knew where to look. Was I supposed to hold eye contact, or could I let my eyes roam out the window or around the room? I had to rethink every detail.

The deaconess did indeed come knocking at the door. Dad and I ignored the repeated knocks, and once the noise died down, we stepped out for a late lunch. We headed to a rice-and-fish eatery across the street, only to run into the deaconess and her family eating braised mackerel. We’d overlooked the fact that she lived right next door. It was a close-knit neighborhood that felt like a village. We joined them at their table, and after lunch, we accepted our fate and returned home with the deaconess, ready to go over the service.

“What kept you two away today?”

“Ah, yes. About that . . .”

There was no hiding from the deaconess, not with her probing smile. Dad seemed reluctant to recount the whole story of the broken clock, but he explained anyway. “You’re adults, not babies—you shouldn’t need a clock to wake you up!” With that, the deaconess opened her Bible and read, “We glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience, and experience, hope.” *

I found it soothing to read scripture and listen to the commentary. Reflecting on words that had survived millennia, I’d join those words by stepping into that vast stretch of time, feeling like a tiny speck. It was oddly liberating. Really, a cómodo feeling. 

* Romans 5:3–4 (King James Version).

Whether praying at home or at church, Dad always took longer than others, going beyond the tacit allotment of time. Eyes would blink open and drift toward the pulpit—but not his. He’d still be praying, hands clasped, head bowed. The deaconess and I stayed still too, waiting for him to look up. After that, our little worship was nearly over, except for the trickiest part: applying the sermon to our own lives by reflecting on the past week and setting resolutions for the next. Maybe Dad lingered in prayer to delay what he dreaded.

“I had a tough week,” I began. “It was a week of tribulations. Was I patient? Honestly, I can’t say I was. I need to embrace patience like a purifying fire and let it strengthen me against trials. That’s my goal for the week a—”

Pakou!

The birdcall pierced through our quiet voices. Living in a lakeside town, where winter brought flocks of migratory birds, we were accustomed to the constant chorus of their cries. But real birdcalls—hooh hooh, hwiii, or caaaw—scattered wide and echoed into the distance. This one didn’t, and I knew exactly why: the sharply aimed pakou came from the cupboard. As I glanced up to finish my sentence, I saw that Dad and the deaconess were lost in thought.

Dad had a habit of pausing at the sound of birds. “Hmm, a night heron,” he’d say. “Is it the second day of December, today? They’re right on time. There’s a goose, a watercock, a mallard, and a turtle dove too.” He usually rattled off names, but this latest birdcall seemed to throw him into quiet confusion.

As for the deaconess, why did she fall silent? She usually filled every second with chatter, but now she stayed still, even as my sentence broke off and the shrill pakou was followed by real birdcalls. Reassured by the chirps he recognized, Dad cleared his throat and refocused. Meanwhile, the deaconess jumped to her feet, blurting, “I just remembered—.” With that, she scooped up her things and left.

She left so abruptly that the crescent-shaped rice cakes we’d set out as refreshments were mostly untouched. As we finished them ourselves, Dad remarked, “Ten years next door, and I’ve never seen her so distracted.” Who knew what got into her, but I was more relieved than puzzled. Thank God she left early . . . a half-day of weekend, salvaged. The rice cakes tasted deliciously sweet.

Chirrup, chirrup—a bird called from outside. “That’s a varied tit,” Dad told me. Only then did my mind turn to the wooden clock pieces that had chimed. I opened the cupboard and found the woebegone cuckoo perched on the top shelf. On the bottom, the two figurines were spinning as they used to inside the clock, but in a noticeably smaller circle. When the next pakou! sounded, I checked the time. 4:38 p.m.

“Still going, even without batteries.”

“They’re from the clock?”

“Mm-hmm. That’s the cuckoo.”

“Why is it ahead of time?”

The cuckoo’s pakou now came on its own version of the hour. The original clock had been built to chime every sixty minutes, but crammed into the cupboard without gears, the figurines spun in a tighter circle, speeding up the cycle. The cuckoo now chimed before the hour—or on its own hour that no longer matched ours. I wanted to tell the bird it was out of sync, but with only rudimentary Spanish, that wasn’t an option. Another pakou—4:52 p.m. “Now it’s chiming whenever,” said Dad. He and I chuckled and headed off to our rooms. With family worship cut short, we’d earned an extra moment of rest. Time to lie down.

Stretched out in bed, I mused: the deaconess had sprung to her feet at the sound of pakou! She had never left family worship unfinished before. Funny how we’d each reacted differently to the wooden cuckoo somehow crying without batteries. The deaconess rushed off as if time were up, Dad stayed unbothered, and I watched as an observer. I wondered how others might respond to the cuckoo’s cry. If pakou! could silence people like the deaconess and send them home, it was a power I wanted to wield as if it were my own.

I tucked the cuckoo and figurines into my pocket. They grew restless, making the fabric bulge and bounce as they squirmed. I needed a crowded place where I could sit and observe. A coffee shop crossed my mind, but it didn’t seem quite right. I grabbed a takeout coffee and headed to a bench by the lake.

*

Even cold weather couldn’t keep people away from the lakeside park, especially on a weekend afternoon. Locals were out walking, waiting for birds with cameras in hand, sitting, or just standing around. There were plenty of birds I couldn’t name, ones that Dad would’ve recognized. My pocket began to rise and fall in a steady rhythm as the cuckoo and figurines settled into a new circle. Where should I set them down? I tried the bench, but the pakou was barely audible. I had to lean in so close I was practically lying down, drawing too much attention for an observer. On the ground, their circle turned too wide. I thought about holding them in my palm, but that meant staying still for ages. I ran through the options while sipping my coffee. Then it occurred to me: the cup had an ideal circumference. The figurines could spin at the bottom while the cuckoo perched on the rim. This could work. But with half the coffee still steaming inside, I first had to drink it all down.

Despite the chilly wind, the coffee refused to cool. My experiment was delayed. The brief limbo left my thoughts unmoored—no longer guided, they lost their way and wandered, inevitably lurching toward sadness. The mood clock had a label for sadness too: triste, just before enojado. Seeing those labels every day made me register emotions in seven categories. I settled into sadness and examined its shapes, only to find trivial snippets—nothing worth sharing. Best sorted alone. Why were others so eager to lay theirs bare? The world’s countless trivial sorrows felt eerily alike, each one prompting a déjà vu: Wait, haven’t I heard this story before?

And Dad’s sorrow? He carried his as if the world rested on his shoulders. Like me, he chose not to speak of it, though not because it was small. His sorrow had planetary proportions, and since he had yet to face it, he kept it to himself. Anyone who met him could sense he was circling his sorrow. Mere words—Dad, are you okay?—could barely dislodge a stray pebble from that orbit, so I held back from asking. Dad’s triste stayed quiet, and without an outlet, it had no way of erupting into enojado.

I drank to the bottom of my cup. Wiping it dry with my sleeve, I freed the cuckoo and figurines from my pocket and placed them inside. The figurines resumed their work below while the bird perched on the rim. Exactly as planned. The relief—cómodo! I waited to see how often the coffee-cup clock would strike and what events might be set off by pakou!

The cuckoo cried every fourteen minutes. I watched to see if anyone took it as their cue to leave, but did this tenuous thread of events count as anything like causality?

Pakou! Some people stayed on benches, others kept walking, a few leapt up to take photos, still others turned around or stopped in their tracks. Likewise with the birds: some kept foraging, others drifted on the water, one or two took off or dove to the ground.

I observed six cuckoo cries at fourteen-minute intervals, which meant I’d been sitting by the lake for at least eighty-four minutes. The sun dipped lower, and the cold bit harder. As I stood and reached for my cup to call it a day, a bird photographer in a camo vest gave me a thumbs-up. What’s that for? Is he onto the pakou? He turned to his camera, slipping back into his world of avian moments. I watched him a little longer although not long enough to hear another pakou. Then out of nowhere, a kid sprang up from the railing and slammed into my shoulder. It sent him sprawling. My legs gave out, dropping me back onto the bench. The cuckoo and figurines were the ones knocked over and scattered.

Kids performed soaring leaps all around the neighborhood. They darted from structure to structure, navigating obstacles in the most creative, challenging ways. It turned out their movements had a name: parkour.

“They forge their own path, away from common roads. For them, it’s an actual physical path, not a metaphor.”

Dad had made me aware of parkour as a practice. Just as he knew every bird that swooped down to the lake, he seemed to understand what made the parkourists tick. “It’s a method of moving,” he told me. Along the lake were benches, brick walls, and other useful structures; the surrounding residential area was a maze of alleyways and old concrete walls. A perfect playground for parkour. It even attracted young enthusiasts from out of town. “Huh. A method of moving.” I’d pointed out the kids to complain, but once Dad explained their whys and wherefores, I could only say, “So that’s what it is.”

 “Oh, shit.”

That’s what the boy muttered instead of saying sorry. Honestly, I felt the same. But I rarely say so, kiddo. And since you bumped into me, should you really be the one swearing? My mood was dipping toward tired when the kid brushed off his knees and spoke again.

“Is that a parkour?”

“A cuckoo. It cries pakou from a clock.”

“Oh, shit. It is a parkour.”

He called over the other kids, shouting about the “effing real parkour.” I silently hoped the bird and figurines would stay still, but even on the boy’s palm, they scrambled to set up a circle. Round and round—they went about their clockwork. Rotating on a surface even smaller than the cup, they completed a cycle in no time, and out came the cry: pakou! The kids whooped, “Whoa, did you hear that? It cried ‘parkour!’” They launched into a parkour frenzy—leaping from one bench to the next, to the garden fence, to the brick wall, to the lakeside guardrails, down to the path, up to the residential fence, from fence to fence again, and finally to the weathered gray wall of a house.

The kids considered it fate—that they finally encountered their so-called parkour, my wooden bird crying pakou. To me, parkour was what the kids practiced, but to them, it was the name for my cuckoo. The word slipped between us, causing momentary confusion. One of them asked where I’d gotten it, and when I said it was a friend’s gift from South America, their faces lit up. Looking for an explanation, I turned to the quietest one among them who stood staring at the spinning figurines. He simply confirmed it was a real parkour, a thing of urban legend. So here’s a parkour kid doing parkour, holding a parkour, calling it parkour. The bird was the real deal, the kid insisted, while their leaping (frenzy) was an extension of meaning. Once they calmed down, the kids huddled around the parkour, whispering plans for their next move. I stood just out of reach, waiting to retrieve the clock pieces. But then the kids scattered. The one holding the parkour shot me a glance before bolting toward the houses. Parkour-trained or not, the kid’s legs were far too short compared to mine, and I soon caught the hood of his jacket.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“Uh, just borrowing this for a sec.”

Judging by his face, not quite.

“No way.”

“I mean it. Really. Just a sec,” he pleaded. I flatly refused, “No way. No way. I said, no way.” As I stood my ground, he eventually gave in. He asked me to wait at the bench with the parkour. Why? He said parkouring when the parkour cried parkour could transport you to a better world. It was a rare moment, he explained, a chance to perform parkour in the truest sense, which meant I had to wait.

“A better world?”

“Yeah. You parkour when the parkour cries parkour. Then you land in the world you want.”

“Could I do it too?”

“You only need one move—a jump.”

I held my breath.

“So yeah, probably.”

I figured I’d wait. Once the kids left, a hush fell over the dusky lake. The cuckoo kept up its regular cry of pakou, or as the kids would have it, parkour! To my ears it sounded, at best, like parkou(r).

Two more cries of parkou(r), and the kids started showing up lugging backpacks as big as themselves. Their numbers had doubled. They’d clearly planned for a day like this: where to go, with whom, and what to bring. Poised to leave, they exuded a mix of light-heartedness and nerves. Someone was missing—or maybe two? Amid the flurry of voices, a call rang out. “He’s not coming. Says he’ll go next time.” “Next time? There is no next time.” Laughing, they each chose their spots to leap.

Parkou(r)!

“Wait!” someone shouted, just as the cuckoo cried from its perch on the cup. It was a girl in a red jacket, holding the hand of a younger boy. She apologized for stopping them—she wasn’t sure her little brother could leap just yet, but they’d be ready by the next cry. Her brother, his ruddy hand pale from clutching hers, pouted that he could leap just fine. Leading up to the next cry, the kids practiced leaping together. Being used to parkour, they nailed their synchronized jump on three. They didn’t mind the passersby, the bird-watchers, or anyone else glancing their way. The kids were bound for the worlds they wished for, so why bother with the stares? I was an onlooker too, but then I grew curious, and strangely got involved . . .

Parkou(r)!

The kids jumped all at once and vanished—except for the girl in red and her little brother. She’d held him back again, her hands pressed firmly on his shoulders. Although she had stayed by choice, I wanted to offer some kind of comfort. She looked conflicted, but knowing nothing about her, I didn’t have the right words. And so.

“Why?” I asked.

“There’s nowhere I want to go.”

Then I noticed the camo-vest photographer pointing his camera our way. He’s looking! Did he catch the moment they vanished? I panicked. I left the girl behind and bolted. Had I been caught on camera? If the parents reported their kids missing, would I be blamed? But I’d only watched, and even if the man had proof, I had nothing to hide. I picked up my pace, tossing the cup away and shoving the bird and figurines back into my pocket. If any witnesses came after me, I could disappear like the kids. I’d go to a better world. It didn’t have to be because of that camo guy. I could vanish for my own good, anytime, anywhere. The portal was right in my pocket.

Dad was preparing dinner. I came home and opened the door to the salty smell of kimchi stew. Left over from yesterday, the stew was already low in the pot, and Dad had made it worse by leaving the burner on full blast. With not enough broth to stay soaked, bits of kimchi had crisped around the edges. It was fine. We had other banchan sides: dried fish strips, braised black beans, and spicy stir-fried anchovies. Dad was busy scooping out two bowls of rice, as if he’d known I’d be walking in just then.

Once we were nearly done eating, I reached into my pocket for the bird and figurines and set them on the table. They fumbled for a moment, then settled into their clockwork motion on the tabletop.

“Dad.”

“Mm?”

“If you could leave, right here right now, for someplace better, would you go?”

“Well . . . to a better place, I would.”

“Where, exactly?”

“We shouldn’t dwell on it. Not if we go to church.”

Dad refused to talk about that better place. Even when I told him everything I’d seen by the lake, he gave me that look—You’re supposed to be a good churchgoer, Ki-eun. But how did it actually work? Would I have to imagine a place the moment I jumped? I wasn’t sure, but any place full of joy and feliz was more than enough. It couldn’t be that complicated if even the parkour kids pulled it off. Maybe our family could too. We had nothing to lose.

I told Dad he had to jump when the bird cried. “You have to. Please, no questions. Just jump anywhere—onto the couch, onto the carpet. Where you jump is up to you.” His eyes saddened, but I shut out the guilt and urged him to try. If nothing happened, we’d carry on like yesterday and simply wash up and sleep.

Pakou!

Dad didn’t jump. I launched myself from the chair onto the table, thinking, Of course, he wouldn’t. And yet, I had. Soy-glazed black beans spilled across the table. Dad gasped a silent uh-oh and reached to catch the bowl. My last glimpse of him. I felt bad for leaving, but I also brimmed with hope. Where . . . Where will I be?

I blinked—and Dad was already wiping the table. For a second, I stood still on the tabletop, lifting one foot so he could keep wiping. Then I climbed down—from the table to the chair, then to the floor—and helped him clean up. We covered the leftover banchan dishes and stacked the empty ones in the sink.

By then, the wall clock pointed to 8:20 p.m. Dad and I would each retreat to our rooms, pass the last hours of Sunday, and drift off. I stood and watched as Dad said good night and disappeared behind his door. It had been a long day. I’ll leave the ruminations for tomorrow. Tonight, I’ll just fall asleep. I opened my own door. Wait, 8:20 p.m.? How was the clock back on the wall? It was the cuckoo clock, as good as new. In the bottom corner, the mood dial pointed to feliz. I stared at it for at least twenty minutes, but the dial never budged. At 9:00 p.m. sharp, the cuckoo emerged from its door and cried: parkou(r)!