Prologue: The Fall
Part 1: Back to the Basics
Part 2: The Drawer of the Soul
Part 3: The Rag Project
Part 4 Handshake
Epilogue: What kind of life

Author's Note

“Will my failed life ever have a chance to rise again?”
A man's life-changing project to change his destiny.

Here is a man who, after failing in business several times, was deeply in debt and estranged from his family, and finally decided to commit suicide.
Andrea Kim Seong-gon, a middle-aged man who has fallen into the abyss of life.
He is “a very ordinary person, a common sight among men of the age when life is just beginning to end.”
After he fails to commit suicide, he stops and looks back on his life.
He was captivated by the message of 'change' that he happened to hear, and decided to change a small habit, and surprisingly, his life began to change.
He meets Jinseok, a part-time worker at the pizza place he once ran, again and they share his officetel space and support each other.
Seong-gon, who lives each day with a strong desire to change, begins to closely observe a man who works as a driver at a driving school. He wants to be like him because he seems to have deep inner strength, so he starts talking to him and learns a secret about life.
After that, Kim Seong-gon's life reform project begins.

『Tube』 has several interesting connections to my debut work 『Almond』.
If "Almond" is the story of a boy who was unable to feel emotions and grows up while communicating with those around him, this work contains the process of change of a middle-aged man who has lost his sense of life and emotions and lived a numb life, trying to recover them.
Kim Seong-gon decided to change his posture first, thinking, “Rather than vague things like mindset or resolution, I think I need to change something real, something in my body first.”
“Back up.
Shoulders down.
The back is in between.
I try to maintain good posture by reciting the mantra “Back to the Basics” as a daily prayer.
Next is the expression.
Having lost his natural smile, he looks back on his past life, where he had only one expression, whether happy or sad, and realizes the important fact that “expressions can only be expressed properly when there is genuine emotion.”
And in the end, you realize how indifferent you were to the most precious family in the world.


Kim Seong-gon, who wanted to share this message of change with more people, opened a YouTube channel called 'Jipuragi Project.'
This is a project where people who submit stories and are selected are called 'Jipuragi', and people who watch over the challenge and cheer each other on are called 'Tubes', and they support each other.
The 'Jipuri Project' for those who want to change is about extending warmth to one another until the rags become tubes and float to the surface, in other words, until they can regain their senses and re-establish new values ​​in life.
“The opposite of success is failure, but the opposite of change is doing nothing.”
The project, which started with the promotional slogan “Let’s rise by grabbing the rags we made ourselves!”, leads him into an unexpected phase of life.


Son Won-pyeong's delightful comfort and profound encouragement.

As novelist Cheon Myeong-gwan writes in his recommendation, “This delicious novel is a perfect blend of sweet, salty, sour, and spicy flavors,” the narrative unfolds realistically and quickly, like a drama, and is gently embraced by fresh humor.
Even though the author depicts a life that has fallen into the abyss, he does not lose the pleasant comfort within it.
The vivid language displayed by Seong-gon's daughter A-young and Seong-gon's strong supporter Jin-seok allows us to once again fully experience the charm of Son Won-pyeong's novels that can embrace all generations.
Meanwhile, Park Sil-young, the driver whom Seong-gon follows like a mentor, delivers a message that could be a turning point in the lives of many readers.


Do only one thing at a time.
When eating, just eat; when walking, just walk; when working, just work.
By being faithful to each moment like that, you can also reduce unnecessary emotional exhaustion.
(…) One last thing.
Turn off your thinking switch and look at the world as it is. (Pages 144-45)

Change begins when you think all is lost.
This story, “about something that everyone thinks about, something that everyone desperately needs, but something that everyone easily gives up on,” will be the one book for you who needs a change.
Just like the 'Jipuragi Project', which shares and connects with the experience of falling into the abyss, the experiment of the 'Tube' project, which will help everyone float up to the surface of life, has just begun.
『Tube』, which supports every small step you take, is sure to bring a different life to everyone involved.

Author's Note

The beginning of this story was a little different from other works.
To be precise, this story is the first of my works that I wrote in response to someone's request or order.

At the time I was conceiving the work, I was in a situation where, as always, I wanted to write something and had to write it.
I was tinkering with a lot of things at the same time, but none of them seemed worth mentioning to me.

Then one evening, while searching for a keyword (I can't even remember what it was now), I came across a short message that someone had left in the portal's Q&A section a long time ago, completely unexpectedly.
It's not the exact original text because I only saw it once and couldn't find it again, but the content of the article was simple.
It was a post asking for recommendations for stories of people who failed and then succeeded again, as he desperately needed such stories right now.
For some reason, I felt a strong desire.
But unfortunately, there were no comments below it.
Long ago, I decided to write a story for that person who had never responded.
It's a story about a person who has failed and rises again through his own strength.
Then, quite naturally, Kim Seong-gon revealed his body below the horizon.
(…)

Of course, even after you achieve what you want, you can still sink again.
There is no such thing as a comfortable life of floating effortlessly on warm sea water forever, and if there were something like it, I guarantee it would be called not happiness but boredom and listlessness.
Because we live in a storm, not an indoor swimming pool.
Someday, we will have to face the wind and rain again, and then we will have to overcome it again.
With your own skills and insight.

A close friend who read this story first said:
Kim Seong-gon's superpower lies in his ability to keep trying without giving up.
That's right.
But I believe we all have such hidden superpowers.
Anyway, we have to stand up on our own.
In that sense, if you stand on the premise that it does not harm others, your efforts are always beautiful and valuable.

I wanted to applaud, even from afar, the souls who did not settle and put forth their best effort.
So, for the first time, I am speaking to the readers through the author's words.
I support you deeply.


July 2022
Son Won-pyeong