Daimon Kiyota

I roll in the wake of black cats. I see the tilt in the game, and I keep rolling. Though this be madness, yet there is method in it. Brevity is the soul of a smart ass.

The bomb changed everything. Chaos. Opportunity. This town's hotter than a hop head's Zippo. Scary, yeah! But it blew away the city's arthritis. The ladder is shattered and I've got designs to strut up the coils of the dragon. I'm going to take Tokyo. Because it's the most unlikely thing. I am going to take my crew to the next level. And while I'm at it, I just might throat-punch the apocalypse. I'd fold and weep under all the pressure...if I didn't enjoy it so much! The Pachinko machine chimed in on the coming mayhem. It said to let the Purple People Eaters into the harbor with that nasty box... My skull is a graveyard of guilts and shallow graves. But it's all...part of the plan.

Each of us is a losing hand in Oicho-Kabu. Eight. Nine. Three. We're Yakuza in the shade. Skip us back a few centuries, and we started out as bakuto. We ran the gambling. The numbers. The bleeding, screaming chance! Luck be a lady who shivs you in the shower. In the 1920s, my great grandfather learned some new tricks in New York and brought them back to Tokyo. We rattled the bones. We sold giggle water and coffin varnish to ossified sailors. Everyone was on the trolley. Those were the swinging nights! The lights. The shadows. The contrast. We out Gatsbied Gatsby. I remember those nights like... Huh? What-what?

Imagine the Oni. Demons. Born in one of the thousand hells. They bob for babies in boiling oil. They'll slide your intestines between their toes just for the sensation. Now imagine what kind of a demon you'd have to be to get kicked out of hell. Still? They're handy droppers when you need a problem fixed and sent to the sod busters.

The clan of canceled stamps and bluenoses. They like looking down at us. We like looking up their skirts. Sanctimony is the only vice I don't peddle.

The swingingest whangdoodle blow this side of the big sleep. It's the kitten's ankles! That's why I brought the Korinto-Kai to the party. I'm a walk-in leading a crew of crashers, but we're making friends. The occult is our new fix. We're toking up. Chasing the dragon.

That Kirsten Geary is a bearcat! They're all billboards. I like the drugs, the parties, and the moxie. Past that, they're as deep as a plate. My fork goes, "Scritch!" Love the spread, Little Boy Blue, but I need a more substantial meal.

Bushwa! Applesauce! How is it possible? How can they be even more of a Mrs. Grundy than the Jingu? Look at them! They're trying to wear chastity belts as war helmets.

*** MISSING ***

The world has had other acts. The curtain rises and falls and rises. Way I hear it, we're in the third act? Or was it the fourth? The game board gets wiped. Do over! Sometimes the tech and the toys slip on through to the next game. The Pachinko Machine was not always a pachinko machine. But it always was.

It's not feng shui. It's not old men eating fortune cookies and shitting diarrhea wisdom. It's not white folk miming spiritual depth in the New Age book isle. It's ripping your face off, leaping through a plate glass window because it turns the opposition's gills green. It's knowing exactly how many teeth, fingers, and toes you have to lose to get exactly what you want, and then anteing up. It's elemental audacity. The end of days is here. That's it for the race...unless we win. But we're not going to just barely pull through... We are going to massacre them! We are going to decimate the dark spots. Why? Because it's the least likely outcome. Because it's impossible. Because we have no business doing it. You go too far, and reality snaps like a rubber band. Then we're flying! Our laughter will shred the dark days! That's the only sensible way to face oblivion, Jack. If the world dusts out, my gapped grin is the last thing they'll see. It's the Fool's prerogative. It's why we taint our honor with irreverence. In the mad days, respect is going to get the world dead. Doing the impossible is a rudeness to reality. So I practice the sacred obscenities.