치킨 철학자 뉴욕에 가다

존재의 끝은 치킨이 아니라 뉴욕이다

I was sixty-three.

The chicken shop had failed, my daughter had not yet become independent, and my wife had already left me behind. The refrigerator was empty of cold, and so was my heart.

Then I remembered a book I had read long ago — The Hundred-Year-Old Man WhoClimbed Out the Window and Disappeared.

Like that old man, I too needed to break outof something. But unlike him, my window was clean, while the world outside wasclouded with dust.

So I decided to escape not through a window, but through a search bar.

I opened my laptop and asked the AI: “Where should I go if I want to find the reason for myexistence? ”

The AI spun its loading icon and replied: “Based on your recent conversations, the mostsuitable city is… New York.”

I laughed. “So my life is decided by big data now?” The AI calmly added: “Your most frequently used words lately are ‘freedom,’ ‘bucketlist,’ ‘English,’ and… ‘chicken.’”

I nodded. “So in short, you’re telling me to fry chicken in New York?”

But then I remembered something I had written at twenty: the first line of my bucket list— to live in New York for a year, learn English, and write a book.

Back then it had seemed absurd. Now that very absurdity might be the thing to save me. The AI’s data and my youthful notes took each other’s hands.

If The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared were born today, it would havesmashed the Wi-Fi, not the window. I decided to flee not out the window but beyond the search bar.

I—terrible at English—chose to throw myself into the very heart of brutal pragmatism. Like who has never seen the sea leaping into the middle of the Atlantic atmidnight. It was terrifying, but that fear somehow felt like proof of being alive.

I summarized the whole process in two languages.

In the language of life: Chicken → Philosophy → New York.

Endure the chicken shop,cling to philosophy, and finally head for the strange stage called New York.

In the language of thought: Existence → Uselessness → Pragmatism.

Struggling underthe weight of making a living, protecting the useless, and ultimately hurling oneself intothe heart of practicality.

That’s when I decided: the end of existence is not chicken, but New York.

I began to pack. The first thing I placed in the suitcase was my old chicken-shop apron —a reminder of survival.

Then a book of poems by Kim Chun-su.

Inside it, I found acrayon drawing my daughter had made years ago: a yellow sketch of my face with the words “Daddy is the best.”

“Dad, are you really going to New York?” she asked quietly.

“Yes,” I said. “I need to find a way.”

“A way?”

“Yes. I keep losing it here. New York may not have the way either… but maybe it has another one.”

She tilted her head.

“Are you going to fry chicken there too?”

I smiled.

“No. This time… I’ll try living differently."