Miracle Creek

Pak hates the way he speaks English, and feels that it makes him look stupid and uneducated: “In Korean, he was an authoritative man, educated and worthy of respect. In English, he was a deaf, mute idiot, unsure, nervous, and inept” (161). However, Pak has practiced his answers does well on the stand.

Abe asks him to rebut the testimony from the previous day. Abe is able, for example, to explain why it took Pak so long to open the chamber. He had to “turn off the oxygen at the emergency valves in case the controls were damaged, then extra-slow depressurization to make sure the pressure changes wouldn’t cause another detonation, resulting in the delay of the hatch opening by more than a minute” (167). However, Pak also lies on the stand about many things, especially “the familiar image that too often wormed its way out of the recesses of his mind to invade his dreams: a cigarette between gloved fingers, shaking slightly, moving toward a matchbook beneath the oxygen tube” (169).

Shannon brings all of Pak’s testimony into question. For example, Pak had testified that he quit smoking before moving to Miracle Creek, and when Shannon asks about buying