Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

Washing up after preparing Lord Matsumura’s fugu dinner was a simple matter, as the daimyo kept a very well-ordered and spotless kitchen. In fact, the other cooks had been dismissed and sent home to allow Takenaka Chihiro to work in silence—a fact he detested, as conversation and jokes were essential to a good kitchen in his view. He was counting out some money to send to the chefs—waged for the day they missed, when he straightened suddenly.

“Would you like me to make you something to eat?” he said. “I’m all out of fugu, but I’m happy to whip up something else.”

The shadow that had silently entered through the window behind him did not reply.

“If you have a pufferfish to bring me, and it’s good quality, I’ll happily prepare it for you as well.”

Takenaka heard the blade being withdrawn from its sheath, and by the time the air was whistling with a furious blow aimed at his neck, he had taken up his knife. The Unmei no Fuguhiki, made for Takenaka by the hand of Sengo Muramasa himself after a particularly fine meal, caught and deflected the blow easily.

With an agility that belied his rotund frame, Takenaka spun around to view his attacker. They wore the mon of the Tamaribuchi clan, and were girded for assassination. The man’s eyes were wide at the chef’s maneuver, and his katana had been buried in a wooden table.

“I am very sorry, my friend,” Takenaka said. “They say the best chefs put something of themselves into every dish, but if anyone is to carve up Takenaka Chihiro to taste, it will be Takenaka Chihiro.”

“My name is Tamaribuchi Yoshimi, and I bear a message from my lord,” the man said.

“Speak it then,” said Takenaka. “Otherwise, I have not yet eaten for myself tonight.”

The assassin visibly strained to remove his sword from the wood. “I will deliver it once my blade is free.”

“Surely you have other blades,” said Takenaka.

“My lord was quite specific that it was to be this blade,” said Yoshimi.

“Well, while you work to free it perhaps you would care to tell me why?” Takenaka said. “If the recipe is death, I am at least curious to see its ingredients.”

“You have been asking questions about Ishikawa Akira—too many questions. My lord will not tolerate interference in his affairs.”

“And what if I told you that Ishikawa Akira was born Takenaka Akira, and that he is my own lost and very much beloved brother? What recipe to those ingredients make?”

“Death, still,” Yoshimi said. “But for different reasons.”

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With a final, deft, twist of his knife, Takenaka Chihiro completed the carving of daimyo Matsumura’s fugu. The delicious but deadly pufferfish lay artfully presented, with its most poisonous innards scooped out and discarded—all but the liver, which Lord Matsumura had specifically requested.

Takenaka handed the dish off to a Matsumura retainer. “Here is the daimyo’s dish,” he said. “Tell him to stop eating the liver if he begins to feel a tingling sensation, unless he has an urgent question for the gods, in which case he should eat faster.”

The retainer did not share Takenaka’s full belly laugh at the joke. “I do not think my lord’s death, and my dishonor at failing to prevent it, are matters for comedy,” he said.

“If you wish, I can set you aside a choice cut to taste ahead of time,” Takenaka said with a smile. “If you live, he will. I won’t tell a soul, and the fugu won’t either. After all, he is no longer full of hot air eh?”

Takenaka scooped a piece of sashimi onto a cloth and offered it to the retainer. The man’s lips visibly trembled at the sight of such an expensive delicacy, one he would never be able to afford himself. A moment later, he popped it into his mouth without another sound, and his eyelids fluttered in pleasure at the magnificent taste.

“Lord Matsumura is lucky to have such faithful and diligent men in his employ,” Takenaka said. “Tell your men that I will be happy to prepare them fugu as well, once the lord has had his repast, provided that they bring me a good fish!”

“We cannot afford to pay for such an offer.”

“Well, that’s why I wouldn’t charge you!” Takenaka said.

The retainer cocked his head. “Yet you charge the daimyo,” he said.

“He can afford it!” Takenaka smiled. “Besides, I only ask for what I need to continue my journey.”

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“You’re missing the point,” Ethel said to Topsy.

“Oh, am I?” Topsy squawked. “Well, perhaps you’d care to enlighten me.” Beyond the bird’s usual squawky register, Ethel definitely detected a note of anger and sarcasm.

“If we steal the jewels from Agnes Oxtoby, we’re doing her a favor, and Colonel Oxtoby as well,” said Ethel. “We owe it to them–to ourselves–to try.”

Topsy cocked his head. “That’s the worst excuse for petty larceny I’ve ever heard. We owe it to them to steal from them? And I suppose we owed it to Lord Chatham to clean out his account, as well?”

“No, he deserved that. But think about it. That jewel is insured, so Agnes Oxtoby won’t be put out by it. And maybe, just maybe, she’ll stop wearing it out for her little trysts. Or the Colonel will catch her. Either way it will strengthen their marriage.”

“Or ruin it,” drawled Topsy.

“Like I said, we owe it to them,” said Ethel. “Now, are you going to help me steal and fence this jewel, or am I going to sell you to the circus for an equivalent amount?”

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To the mouse the maiden did say “I fear you not, but please go away.”
To the maiden the mouse did say “Why do you fear me not on this fine day?”
To the rodent’s query she made reply “No silly fear-ridden girl am I.”
“Where other girls will jump and squeal, I’ll smash you flat beneath my heel.”
With such a threat upon the air, the mouse reared up and then it stared.
“I will depart a moment hence, if you’ll allow me recompense.”
“If I can guess what scares you so, then I may stay and you will go.”
To the mouse’s plan the girl agreed, although she did not see the need.
“Your quest is vain, you silly rat, for I fear no man nor fowl nor asp.”
To this the loquacious rodent replied “It terrifies you that we all must die.”
“My life is short upon this earth, and though longer you have scarce more worth.”
“In a hundred years, to give or take, t’will be forgotten what you make.”
“Whether a book you wrote or a child you bore, it is as nothing on eternity’s shore.”
“Look on me here, upon your floor, and see your death yet at your door.”
“For though you’re not afraid of me, you’re terrified of what you see.”
At this remark the girl did call, and clamber upon her table tall.
“Oh help, oh help, a mouse is here! I’d squash it flat, if not for fear!”

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Through the downpour we run
Silver drops against silver skies
Invisible but for the soaking
Fabrics sodden by skywater
It slips in sideways, unrelenting
No matter how rich you are
How powerful you’ve become
Who your family is or was
What you had to do to get here
A gentle but fierce rain reminds
You can and will get soaked
Just as much as the man
Huddled under and overpass
Who has owned more dogs
Than umbrellas

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We’ve all seen it: men-at-arms, trained in the art of war, charging under-armed peasants. All seems well until your best man is incapacitated by a blow from a cast-iron frying pan, that humblest of tools, wielded by a formidable commoner. They usually escape with their life, too!

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“You must choose: the maiden or the moth. For the silken cocoon will stop for no man, yet it is absolutely essential for the next phase. You may try to keep her a gorged and oblivious worm, but it will be a hollow life made all the worse by the knowledge of what she could have been. That is the great mystery of the silk threads, the great gamble of the swaddled chrysalis: one never knows what will emerge therefrom. But to choose the maiden over the moth is to cling to the past over the present, over the future, and to be looking ever backward. It is to let fear of what may be poison what is. You must make the choice, and you must make it now. But choose wisely.”

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If you must know why I feel so sad, you must know I feel I’m going mad.
“Ridiculous,” said the picture hung. “You’re as sane as anyone.”
When to his speech I raised protest, I was cut off at my mirror’s behest.
“I see things as they are, not as they should be, and sane you are, as sane as me.”
A mirror, I said, should never talk, nor should my portrait take a walk.
That I had seen both happen that day, seemed proof that madness indeed held sway.
My end table croaked, upon this remark, “You must be sunny though things seem dark.”
“Madness in the beholder’s eye doth live, to yourself some latitude give.”
The chair beneath me agreed with a laugh “If you be mad, so am I by half!”
Surrounded thus by such happy things, I felt my heard begin to sing.
That mad am I there can be no doubt, but the company’s good while I ride it out.

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I shook his great paw with gusto, and he returned the gesture to me. I asked him what he was doing there, and he returned the question to me. I told the bear I was traveling, a wanderer finding his way. He told me that he was similar, his arrangements changing by the day. With a bit of bashfulness I followed it up with a question abut what he ate; the bear reassured me quite sweetly that I wouldn’t end up on his plate. Humans, it seems, are not tasty, when one can have honey and wine; a bear is not likely to eat us but they fear that we covet what they dine. I told my new friend with assurance that he could expect better from me; the bear seemed to believe it, but said that we’d have to see. I could tell he was a bit frightened, and badly wanted to run; when I asked him what was the matter, he asked if I owned a gun. When I told him I didn’t, I could see he was relieved, but the bear reminded me warily that his worry was scarcely eased. For a lifetime in the forests had taught him one thing well: close by any unarmed human was a gun-toting one as well.

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“Extry! Extry! Read all about it!” Harry knew that ‘extra’ wasn’t said that way, but he found he sold more papers if he did. People just seemed to prefer it.

A woman stopped by—very high-society from the look of her fur hat and her furred dog, who yapped excitedly from the end of a silk lead. “What’s the headline for today, boy?” she said.

Harry held up a paper for her to see. The Weekly World News for January 18, 1920 had, as its banner headline, MARTIAN OVERLORD ENDORSES HARDING FOR PRESIDENT.

“That’s ridiculous,” the woman scoffed. “Everyone knows the Martians favor Mr. Cox.”

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