“What Pegman saw” is a weekly challenge based on Google Streetview. Using the 360 degree view of the location provided, you must write a piece of flash fiction of no more than 150 words. You can read the rules here. You can find today’s location on this page, from where you can also get the Inlinkz code.
Hyo worried about her only son, twelve-year-old Chin-Mae. He didn’t fit in; and in North Korea that could lead to…well, she didn’t like to think about it. She fretted as she queued for food. She fretted as she mended the family’s clothes.
Chin-Mae was in trouble again.
“I don’t understand,” he said in his class. “Aren’t Americans human like us?”
“No! They are mad dogs who want to destroy us.”
Chin-Mae was flogged.
Hyo wept over his bruises, her poor child. But how could she help him not to shame the family?
“Some things you must never say,” she told him.
Later, his school visited Samjiyon, and he saw the Great Leader rallying the patriotic troops of the republic.
At home again, “I do not believe it is right to go to war,” he whispered to Hyo.
“Oh, my son, my son!” she sobbed. “How can you be a coward?”
Autumn Leaves 