CH 5

Occasionally, there was a low humming sound in Deep Blue. It was the sound coming from the depths of the sea, 3 kilometers below. The fish didn’t say anything, but inside the underwater base, the noise was constant. The frequent shaking and noise caused a significant amount of mental stress, even just trying to breathe felt burdensome. And the pressure of being trapped was overwhelming. It was more stressful than I had anticipated.

Moving only within the underwater base, the feeling of being surrounded by walls made of steel was like living in a spacecraft. Even if I were to go outside, there was no air to breathe, and I would die instantly. The pressure of being under 3000m of water was about 301 atmospheres. In theory, it would feel like a 300kg weight pressing down on my body. The air and pressure inside the base were artificially maintained at levels that humans could survive, but I felt like I was on a constant flight, just waiting for something to go wrong.

The underwater base was like a giant aquarium, forcibly installed in a barely flowing current, which shook ever so slightly. I felt slightly dizzy every time it happened. It was like being a fish trapped in a massive aquarium with overwhelming scales.

“What movie did you watch?” I concentrated on the patient in front of me as I heard the voice.

There were about 10 people in Deep Blue, including me, all Korean. One of them, Yu Geum, was a marine biologist. She had finished her undergraduate studies on land and now came down to the sea for her master’s and doctoral programs. She was also an unexpected patient, her tooth decay had worsened. The bread was tasty there. I checked her teeth and gums and replied, “Fast and Furious.”

“Is it good?”

“It’s always fun to watch cars break down.”

As I looked at Yu Geum, who had clenched her hands with tension, I suggested that I should quickly do the scaling and cleaning. Dental treatment in Deep Blue is completely free of charge. Therefore, anyone with dental problems can visit the dental clinic without worrying about the cost. It was one of the few benefits we could get from living in the sea, but as a doctor, it wasn’t much of a benefit to me.

“How’s your research going?”

“I don’t know how to write my paper.”

To me, Yu Geum seemed like the most adaptable person in Deep Blue. Unlike me, an introvert, she almost knew the name of everyone who came to the Fourth Underwater Base. As she was my first patient, I gave her a brief introduction, and thankfully, I could mention that I liked action movies.

Surprisingly, there was a movie theater in the central part of the Fourth Underwater Base. Moreover, with the electronic pad provided, you could watch almost any existing movie or drama. You could even watch a few movies before going to sleep. Although it was good to catch up on the movies you missed, I still found living in Deep Blue the most fascinating and exciting.

“Anything interesting happening?”

“This is a small village. There’s nothing interesting here.”

She swallowed the words “I think it’s because you’re working on a paper right now” down her throat. The Fourth Underwater Base, which housed over 400 people in the research center alone, was too vast for her to explore fully even after three days of being there, except for Baekho-dong and Jungang-dong.

“I find everything fascinating and enjoyable because I’ve only been here for a short time.”

“What do you find the most fascinating?”

“Firstly, the fact that such a massive facility has been built in the ocean, people from various countries working in 8-hour shifts, and the numerous restrictions. Even the name of the island where the artificial island is located is fascinating.”

“Isn’t the name of the artificial island Daehan-do?”

“Right, a Korean person named it.”

Yu Geum looked proud as she explained that there was a lot of debate about what to name the artificial island on top of the underwater base. It was an issue as if naming the moon or the Arctic, like a territorial dispute. There were peculiar names like Leviathan, Nautilus, Great Old One, Neverland, Atlantis, Promised Land, Greenland Shark, etc. as candidates. At that time, the people from each country who were staying in the underwater base had to vote to decide the name.

“There’s a unique person named Shin Hae-ryang, who is the team leader of the engineering team. I heard that he named it.”

“Were there many Koreans in the underwater base at that time?”

“There was only one Korean engineering team, so there were probably fewer than ten people then and now. I heard that when he heard the rumor, he swept the engineering and mining teams’ votes.”

“Oh, he must be talented.”

Yu Geum seemed happy to have met someone who could speak Korean. She said that there were the most Americans, Chinese, and Australians in the underwater base, and there were a few more Koreans on Daehan-do (artificial island) working at the hospital.

“Have you been to the artificial beach on Daehan-do?”

“There’s an artificial beach?”

“Freya Kumar told me to go there. She told me to go somewhere else too.”

“They’ve made it really beautiful. There are quite a few people going there to get some sun. I also go there often.”

“I see.”

I nodded my head. I had only been here for two days, but the outside view through the window of the underwater base was incredibly bleak. It was just pitch black like mud. Every time I looked out the window, I found myself wondering if I was at an underwater base or a space station. But when I looked out into the pitch-black darkness without any stars, I realized that we were several kilometers under the sea.

The second and third underwater bases had quite large windows, but the fourth underwater base had only a few. According to the manual, it was not easy to make windows that could withstand the water pressure. They used to install many artificial sunlight lamps, but they removed them all. If someone with claustrophobia were to live here, they would go insane within three days.

Even as an introverted person like me, I could feel the loss of sunlight more intensely in people like Yu Geum, who were more lively. Yu Geum went off to the research building, munching on a few chocolates from her pocket and listening to my nagging to floss diligently.

Being underwater can easily lead to depression. The deep sea is pitch black without a single ray of light, and fish are not good conversation partners. The emergency medical center is located on an artificial island (Daehan-do), and the psychological therapy center is installed in the deep sea for a reason. In a continuous state of depression, the only thing that can temporarily satisfy a person is food. Sweet foods like chocolate and snacks are almost free and readily available. It is better to relieve stress with a few chocolates and candies than to set fire to everything or attack a colleague, which is much more dangerous.

There is a reason why psychotherapists consistently request large quantities of carbonated drinks, chocolates, ice cream, and snacks. Sweetness makes people happy. After reducing depression with sugar, the dentist appears. No matter how well you brush your teeth, you still need to eat, so it’s better to have some than none at all. The advice to get some sunshine and exercise has already been recorded like a broken record, just like the malfunctioning tape recorder. And Elliot even showed me a kindness by asking if there was anything else I needed under the guise of psychotherapy, despite my being sure I would not lose my job.

The idea of completely banning candy and chocolate came to mind, but I have no intention of losing my job, and people tend to want things more desperately when they are forced to stop or are deprived of them. I said I needed a teddy bear that was smaller than an adult’s body.

“Does it have to be a bear?”

“It used to be a bear, but any stuffed animal will do. It just needs to be huggable.”

She brought over a shark and a whale stuffed animal from the corner of her counseling room. She impulsively bought them from a souvenir shop at an ocean museum, thinking they were cute, but they only collected dust and took up space. Both were about 60cm in size and had a good texture. The shark had a blue body with jagged teeth sticking out, and its pupils were a light shade of white. The whale was either a mutant or the result of ocean pollution, with a bright orange body.

I preferred the orange whale because it was a color that didn’t exist in reality. Elliot smiled slightly when she saw me touching the whale stuffed animal, despite the fact that I was an adult male who could embrace it. It would be funny if a grown man asked for a stuffed animal. I felt better when I saw the exhausted counselor’s smile in response to my clowning around.

“Does it have a name?”

“You can give it a name.”

“How about ‘noeul’ (Korean pronunciation)? It means ‘sunset’.”

“Not orange?”

“The color is definitely that.”

I hesitated for a moment, trying to explain that wasn’t the correct pronunciation, but I gave up.

“Is ‘nol’ okay?”

“That’s fine.” Elliot lowered her head to the pad and wrote something down. “If you ever need more sunlight, you can borrow some from me.”

I stood up from my chair because of the appointment reminder alarm and asked before leaving the room.

“Is this the end, Elliot?”

I couldn’t tell if we had a proper consultation or not because we had only chatted during my time in her room.

“You are the healthiest person in this underwater base. I will contact you separately for your mandatory regular check-up in three months.”

People who do psychological counseling always looked tired no matter when you met them. It was exhausting dealing with people. I heard Elliot’s exhausted voice, and as I pulled my head out of the door, the heavy door automatically slid shut.