There were fifty people in Gong.
To be precise, there were forty-eight. But Lee Jae-in said, “Let’s say fifty. It’s better than a number that doesn’t add up exactly.”
Hoon was about to ask why that mattered, but he held back. Lee Jae-in was an architect.
He was the kind of person who believed that design begins with precise numbers.
On the evening the group reached fifty, Lee Jae-in said,
“Let’s make a dining table.”
Hoon looked at him.
“A dining table?”
“Yeah. One we can all sit around.”
Hoon thought for a moment.
"But nobody eats."
Lee Jae-in said.
"That’s why we’re making it."
It took Hoon a whole day to understand what that meant.
* * *
The dining table was finished in three days.
It was placed on the widest flat area inside the basin. It was a low table. It was made of wood. The wood had been sourced from near Kayapa. Lee Jae-in designed it, and Loro selected the wood.
Three young men from the Armando community helped for two days. They were not Awakened. But they knew this village was building something different.
It was fifteen meters long. It could seat fifty people. There were no chairs. People sat on the floor. A cloth was spread out.
People gathered in the evening.
At first, it felt awkward. The act of sitting at a dining table had become second nature to them.
The idea that sitting down meant you had to eat. But there was nothing on the table. No dishes. No food. Just a glass of water for each person.
Hoon sat at one end. Lee Jae-in sat at the opposite end. Forty-six people sat between them.
No one spoke.
For a moment, the silence felt strange. Then it didn’t feel strange anymore.
In that moment, I realized that silence at the dining table is natural—something humanity had forgotten for thousands of years.
* * *
Amara spoke first.
In English. Slowly.
"In my village, the dining table was a place for conversation. Talking came before eating."
People listened. They were from different countries. Their languages were different. English was the common language, but not everyone was fluent. Yet her words were understood.
Rania spoke.
She was from Jordan. Thirty-six years old. A former UNHCR field worker.
She had arrived in Gong a month ago. Hoon hadn’t recruited her directly. She had heard about it through Amara’s network. She came looking for them. She had spent the past 72 hours in silence.
She was usually a woman of few words, but here, in this moment, she spoke.
“I worked in refugee camps for ten years. There, I saw what a dining table really meant. When there was food, people gathered. When there was no food, they scattered. It wasn’t the table that created the community—it was the food that created the table.”
A moment of silence.
“This table is different. Even without food, we are here.”
It felt as though those words were laid out on the table.
Hoon looked at Lee Jae-in. Lee Jae-in nodded slightly. So this was the reason he had suggested making it.
* * *
Carlos was sitting across from him.
From Mexico. Fifty-two. A former cartel-government negotiator.
He grew up in the slums of Guadalajara. He lost his daughter. While wandering, he heard rumors about Gong. The old-fashioned way. Through people.
Hoon went to meet him in person. It was at some cheap inn in Guadalajara. That was ten days ago.
That story would have to wait.
Now Carlos sat at the table, saying nothing. He had his arms crossed. He listened to what people were saying. His face was expressionless. Hoon glanced at Carlos from time to time.
This man must not feel comfortable here. The emotional stories being shared around the table weren’t Carlos’s style.
But then Carlos spoke.
“I’ve been sitting at tables negotiating for twenty years.”
Everyone looked. Carlos spoke while staring at the empty space on the table.
“There was always something on that table. Money, food, or weapons. There had to be something for the negotiation to happen. Because we had to take something from each other.”
He paused for a moment.
“There’s nothing on this table.”
He paused again.
“So I don’t know yet what we can take.”
It was an honest statement. It wasn’t moving or philosophical. It was simply what this person was feeling right now.
Rania looked at Carlos. Then she said,
"What if we don’t have to take anything?"
Carlos looked at Rania.
"Is that possible?"
Rania said.
"I’m learning here, too."
Carlos thought about that for a moment. Then he uncrossed his arms.
That was Carlos’s way. Responding with his body, not with words.
* * *
Two hours passed at the table.
People took turns speaking. It wasn’t forced. If you wanted to talk, you could; if you wanted to stay silent, that was fine too.
Where they were from, how they got here, what they expected. Since they spoke different languages, they spoke in English—some spoke slowly, others stumbled over their words. It didn’t feel awkward.
Priya spoke up. She was from Kerala, India. Thirty-one years old. A yoga and pranayama practitioner. She had come on her own. She was a woman of few words. But she said one thing.
“Before I came here, my teacher asked me, ‘Where are you going?’ I told him it was a place where people don’t eat. My teacher laughed. I think I understand what that laugh meant now.”
James spoke. From Lagos, Nigeria. Forty-four years old. An engineer. He was laid off due to AI automation. He came through Amara’s introduction. This man had a habit of calculating something before he spoke.
“I calculated how many solar panels this village would need to be energy self-sufficient. Based on fifty people. If there’s no food shortage, energy consumption is less than a third of that in a typical community. This is a huge advantage in terms of design.”
People laughed. At the fact that someone was talking about energy calculations in this setting. James looked at them with a puzzled expression. He didn’t seem to understand why they were laughing.
Lee Jae-in said,
“Send me those calculations later.”
James nodded.
“I’ll give you the figures.”
“Give me the numerical data.”
* * *
It was late at night.
People began to get up from their seats one by one. Heading to their respective lodgings. The buildings were still unfinished. But they had roofs. They kept out the wind. That was enough.
Hoon remained seated at the table until the very end. Lee Jae-in came over and sat down beside him.
The two looked at the empty table.
Lee Jae-in spoke.
“What did you feel?”
Hoon thought.
“That people know there’s a reason to sit at the table even when they aren’t eating.”
Lee Jae-in pondered those words for a moment.
“Maybe that was the original purpose of the dining table. Something we’d forgotten.”
Hoon looked at Lee Jae-in.
“So that’s why you suggested we make one.”
Lee Jae-in nodded. Then he stood up.
“We have to move on to the next phase of the foundation work tomorrow. Get some rest.”
That was all. It was typical of Lee Jae-in.
Hoon was left alone at the table.
It was night in the Caraballo Mountains. The sky was full of stars. The ridges encircling the basin lay in darkness. The sound of water could be heard from somewhere. It was a tributary of the Magat River.
Hoon now realized that the sound of that water had become a part of the basin’s daily routine. At first, he had noticed it, but now it was just a sound that was always there.
The table was empty.
That beam seemed to be the most important thing to Hoon at that very moment.
A table where no one eats. A table from which no one needs to take anything. People who can sit there even though there is nothing to take.
This was what Gong was trying to create.
Today, for the first time, Hoon saw it with his own eyes.
Not by writing it in a notebook. But through people’s faces.