Flying through the air like an air force armada of limp sheets, the Gwee Shin are being moved by the forces of nature to a pre-ordained location; by the thousands.  Tumbling, black hair whipping chaotically, red lips flashing like drops of blood on clouds, heads over feet, arms waving wildly, nipples erect and pushed out as if they were the detonators of thousands of mammaryan warheads.  The wandering fleet of paranormality is on the move; cast forward on an unknowable journey towards oblivion. Arms, flailing, long red fingernails slashing at the air, trying to grasp at the nothing that fills the skies above Pusan.

     Kum Yang had rejoined the lost march before the phenomenon began, and like her many sisters, found herself suddenly lifted from the street by the powerful gusts, and carried into the dirty air above Seomyon.

    But still, the wails of the lost women persist, complementing the wind's spiraling howl and the percussive pounding of torrential rains, until it resembles a cacophonic symphony by an ensemble of natural and supernatural forces.

    Throttled by the winds, she rolls and dives without the will to control; her black eyes rolling back in her ghost skull, as are those of her sisters.   Perhaps they all see through the same eyes, or their eyes all see the same sights. Clearing the tops of buildings, a few carried on a lower gust, pass soundlessly through the steel and glass walls; and in the sister soul of these thousands of Gwee Shin, they felt the fear of a coming changes, but also the wellsprings of hope that the awakening force that was causing them to wander might soon abate and allow them to return to their dream.

     Swooping through the cascading rain in the other direction flies an Asian Kite; a strong bird, bound for KumJung Mountain.  He sees the abnormalities passing through his native skies; takes notice, but makes no sound as he plods on, beating his muscular wings, bound for his Eyre in the rock crags above the city."I must go soon to his cage for a visit and make mention of this to the monkey sire.", he thinks to himself, over and over in his narrow revolving mind.

     As they pass over the city, the Gwee Shin see the mottled texture composing it; the flashes of concrete and steel, small sets of trees have their branches and leaves wrenched asunder; then labyrinths of boxed homes and rising rectangular towers of apartment buildings that resemble giant tombstones thrust into the ground.

   Then, for the first time in weeks, the monsoon rains broke, in an instant, and disappeared without warning.  The symphony dropped down to only the atonal wind and the Gwee Shin wails as their path cleared them towards the eastern waters of the Strait of Korea, past Kwangali Beach, cutting a diagonal razor's path to the southern end of Haeundai Beach, clearing the roof of the Chosun Westin luxury hotel; and then the dragon wind loosed one more howl, and curled back to it's home over the Chinese waters.  The Gwee Shin, no longer supported by the dragon's muscular tail, drop.

     Down, upon the rocks which rise steeply up the back banks behind the hotel; the Gwee Shin paint the boulders white with their flesh, to any eye unveiled.  Limp, flaccid, de-animated, they lie by the thousands, some in the nearby shallow waters, their disheveled black hair weaving wet trails in the water. The surrounding world is sopping wet, and gleaming as the sun burns away the clouds by which it was obscured.  Reflecting off the now calm waters, the orange radiances envelopes the Gwee Shin as they lay about the craggy rocks like washed up mollusks, silencing their wails in a hum of quiet ambience.  Kum Yang is unmarked among her sisters, and lays motionless like the rest of them.

     Eyes lolling about, bobbing with the nearby tide, absence of thought; absence of motion; the cries of sea gulls come out to feed after the rains, overhead; landing atop a Gwee Shin here or there, noticing but not caring, squeezing it's beak between the close pressed thighs and shoulders of the sisters, in a hunt for a crab or a scrap of storm and rock mangled fish for dinner.

     And so it was for a few days, calmness, warm, caressed by the gentle breeze and lulled by the ever shifting waters.  Above the sisters watched another sort of woman; she may have been responsible for their merciful respite, the one which had brought them to rest here at the far shore of Haeundai beach.  She is also a woman with long hair and  exposed breasts; but she bares the tail of a sea creature.  She lives in a static blue iron state, here on the rocks ... beckoning the sailors to the craggy shore with the siren's song that reverberates off her rust weathered metal shell.  Mermaid statue; in-oh-sang; people fish statue; she sits eternally frozen in her dreamy repose; a refugee of Atlantis or some such other ancient aquatic civilization.

     But deep, deeper down than any animal eye can ever see, bubbling up from a microcosmic world, dancing freely across sub-atomic stratum, there lurks a living entity.  It is an entity that has grown and blossomed over an unfinished eternity; among other places, it is manifest in the in-oh-sang, the mermaid statue; it is Ohm-Ma Hae-Ahn ... Mother Ocean ...

     From immobile metal eyes, she looks down at the paralytic Gwee Shin strewn across the rocks in the thousands.  Her metal mouth arches up in a loving smile as she begins to speak to their spirit minds, cooing sweetly, ''Ahn-yong ... Ahn-yong ... hellooo, helloo ... stir your sleepy heads my delicate little daughters ... Ahn-yong ... Ahn-yong...''

     And the resonant, but loving sonic stroke ... the fingers of her voice reaching into their minds does that; the Gwee Shin begin to stir, and move from their places on the rocks.  She continues to purr sweetly to them for a while, until Kum Yang and her many sisters have sat up, surrounding Mother Ocean like children at story time in the nursery; sitting around her metal visage, legs folded akimbo, thin fingers resting on knees; lips resting upon each other, dark eyes gazing up to her hopefully.

     ''Ahn-yong, little daughters,'' she says, ''I must tell you some important things now ...''

     ''Ohm-Ma Hae-Ahn,'' says one nearby Gwee Shin, ''is it you who've woken us from our dream to wander this city?''

     "No, my precious,'' it was not me who sundered you from your forever dream; the dream which was your just reward for the lives of struggle you'd lived.  But I have brought you here, into my rocky arms.  And, while I can't return you to your dream ... for I cannot put to sleep she who I didn't wake ... I can offer you a short rest from the weary of your wandering, and tell you some things to help you on your way ...'

     And at that, the Gwee Shin were rapt in her presence; waiting to learn more ... continuing their search for a return to their precious dream.

     "I can help you to discover the problem's solution. While I can't give it to you, I know of a creature who can.  He's a mischievous, devious sort of fellow, who employs the eyes of many spies in trees and rooftops, on the wing and in the dirt all over this land. He will surely know the answers you seek.  But lovely Gwee Shin, I must also warn you about him.  He is often ill tempered, and sometimes dangerous.  He isn't likely to cast out charity to help you in your plight ... ooooh, he's a wiley one; you know, how many of those lesser gods of the animal kingdom always are."

     "But Mother Ocean, how can we find, and speak to this god beast?  Shall we all go to him?  Who will represent us?"

     "Ahh, little Gwee Shin, you must be patient.  As I have said, I will tell you everything I know.  For, as I summoned you here to my breast, I have left one of your kin behind.  She is still in the bowels of the city, where I now feel her presence.  At the time of the dragon wind's carrying you to me, she was not wandering the street; she's somewhere inside ... in some sort of man-made room.  And now, as we speak, I am placing a message in one of the tiny water spiders here, one that lives on top of my head.  He will ride a current through the city pipes on a course that will bring him to her.  I've also sent another resident of my head, a little bird, to speak to the God that your sister is to see.  This God probably already knows of your wandering from his many spies, but now he will be expecting your emissary. Perhaps she shall find him in a kind mood ... but uuuuughh, I am truly glad that I don't have to see him.''

     Then the speaking of minds subsided and the Gwee Shin fell silent.  Everyone remained sitting around Mother Ocean.  Her spider friend scrambled off to deliver his message, and she struck up a song to comfort her many daughters gathered around her place on the rocks.  The song had no words, and went something like this ''Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay Oooooooooooooo Weeeeeeeeeeeeee Ohhhhhhhhhhhh Waaaaaaaaaaaaay ..."

    And before long, the monsoon rains returned and covered them once again in a blanket of falling water.

(Part6 ... Creatures In Habit ... coming soon to a mind's eye near you!)

Part 1,  Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5