Park was the head officer on the border crossing between North and South Korea. He had a problem.

Two weeks ago a woman, let's call her lin, pitched up at the crossing gate with a jute bag of soil attached to the front panniers of her well maintained Honda 50 motorcycle.

The inevitable menagerie of sniffer dogs, hard bitten counter intelligence staff and regular army, checked her story.

Her papers checked out, she had permission to cross.

The soil was.. well.. just that.. soil. No contraband.. no diamonds.. nada.. zip.

Odd? Yes. But illegal? No.


Lin altered her days, but usually twice a week, she made the same journey:

Same bike
Same colour
Same bag of soil
Same papers
Same checkpoint
Same result.

It pissed the men off. Lin was beautiful and smart, and it seemed she had someone on high who was protecting her. The word from Park's superiors was simple:

"Unless you find something illegal, let her pass"

I guess it was tough (the first year) for Park. He was a proud man. A nagging doubt festered in his subconscious..

"What is she up to?"


Then, somewhere north of year three it stopped. No more Lin. No more bags of Earth.

No more reports by Park about the square root of nothing.

Park retired. Life moved on. Except.. not quite.

He tracked her down.
He confronted her.
He explained his retirement.
He wouldn't prosecute.
He just wanted to know.

"What was in the Bag!"

"Soil" said Lin.

"But.. what were you smuggling?" said Park.

Lin took a long look at the frazzled military man... and spoke a single word..

"motorcycles".