Photographer Yisak Choi

REQUIEM

​

On the stage called the world

A gigantic tragedy is being played

Some try not to watch

Some watch but soon forget

Humans all live in the illusion of eternity

So time flows and only some realize.

 

I am a doctor.

When I was an intern, I had many chances to see patients facing death at the ICU.

Most of them were uneasy, afraid and in pain due to the despair.

 

As I spent a lot of time in the hospital with them,

I felt puzzled by the people of the world, who almost never think about death.

Ultimately, they were no different from the patients with death at hand.

Other than the difference of when, we are all the same as our days are numbered.

 

And the terrifying truth, which we really don't want to think about

is that it could end tomorrow without any warning.

 

 

Before Mozart died,

he is said to have left these words to a friend

while listening to his last piece he had been working on, the Requiem.

 

“No one can predict his death

and everything goes according to God's Providence.

Now it seems to be my time.

Who would have known that the music I hear now

would be used for the first time at my own funeral!"