Pocket Full of Posies

Dua Lipa plays dully in the background of the Tokyo office building one floor beneath ground level. A dim light casts a yellow glow from the ceiling, washing over the white walls, marbled tiles, and series of art canvas stands, tables, and a stack of scrap artwork. The famous singer’s voice fills Maita Tetsu’s ears while he taps his foot lightly to the beat and stares through his square-framed glasses at a blank scrap of paper. His mind is cursing at itself and scorning him for being so behind schedule. But dammit, art is hard. You cannot rush perfection. Especially when so many fans of the manga are depending on the most splendid final arc of The Martial Artist. The hero, Yuji Sawao, has seen ten years’ worth of battle with demons, monsters, rogue angels, and usurping kings. It is time to end it once and for all.

And yet, while bathing under the yellow lights, Maita does not want to say goodbye to his precious Yuji Sawao. Ten years ago, the character took off in Japan, and two years later, it reached the Americas and all the other countries with high sales. Yuji is as much a part of Maita as his own self.

“Must you go, Yuji?” he asks, resting his chin on his bent knee with his foot propped on the edge of his seat. “What will I write next?” Whispering to himself, attempting to conjure the best possible ending, he adverts his eyes to see the college intern, busy drawing to her heart’s content.

The woman is twenty-two, a sophomore in college, and claimed that she has been a fan of Maita’s for years. During the interview, she proudly pulled a picture up on her phone that displayed a stack of The Martial Artist, books one to fifty, wedged neatly in her bookshelf. She is a pretty woman with some talent in drawing and storytelling. Maita hopes to teach her the ways of manga writing and the ways of becoming a bestseller. But first, he must master that skill, too. He cannot yet call himself a master until he puts his first series to rest.

“Yuji Sawao. What is happening to you in this final installment?” He taps the eraser of his pencil against his lower lip. “Where do you go? Do you die?”

Maita leans back in his chair, cracks his back against the backrest of the chair, and looks around the room. Posters of Yuji decorate the walls. Blood stains the character’s hands and face. One of the posters shows him drinking milk with the famous American slogan, “Got Milk?” scrawled beneath him.

“Stressed?” asks a friendly voice from the right.

“Indeed,” Maita responds. “Any ideas?”

“No,” says Kana, rather defeated in tone. “None.”

Maita interlaces his fingers and cracks his knuckles. “How about you, Sato?” Turning in his chair, he comes to face his oldest friend, Sato Kosami. Twelve years ago, they created the idea of Yuji together and began working on the first book. Eventually, after a long testament to their willpower, they got published.

Sato is thirty-three, two years younger than Maita. The friend is fat now with a receding hairline. Fraying hairs extend from his chubby chin, and his eyes are constantly swollen from the strain of staring at his sketch pads.

Mr. Kosami gently slams a colored pencil down against his table and smiles, turning to greet his friend. “Nothing!” he chants. “Yuji is truly a powerful foe. Even the writers cannot vanquish him.”

Kana giggles. “Like the manga world always asks: can he beat Goku, though?”

The room laughs. Yet, Maita cannot help but sweat through the stress.

The fourth member of the writing group finally talks after hours of working a long night. He is the most physically fit of the four of them. His hair is long and black, touching his shoulders gently and perfectly. Han Chun swings his chair around, stomps on the floor, and springs upright to his feet. He claps a couple of times, gathering their attention.

“I say we play a game!” shouts Han, a wide-spread smile creeping up his cheeks. “We are clearly too clouded.”

“A game?” laughs Kana, scribbling in a drawing for some shading. “We are adults, Han.” She pouts her lower lip and shakes her head one time with force. “Working adults!” she shouts.

“Come on!” the newest member of the group says. “Have some fun, or we’ll never get this final story done!”

Maita, staring deeply into the eyes of Yuji on the wall, nods and exhales slowly. “Fine. What game do you have in mind, Han?” He twists his neck and, for a short-lived moment, swears Han’s eyes have turned from brown to red. He writes it off as a trick of the mind.

“Ring Around the Rosie.”

“What?” nervously chuckles Sato. “The American playground song?”

“And game!” manically roars Han. “Song and dance mix together to form a mind-opening power play! Sing that song, and we will be transported to a whole new world!” Meeting Maita’s eyes, Han softly pleads, “Please, Mr. Tetsu. What would Yuji do? Would he sit and be angry that he was not as strong as the opponent? Or would he think outside of the box?”

Again, his eyes seem to flicker red.

Swallowing a lump in his throat, Maita stands and spreads his arms. “Fine. Everyone, grab hold. Worst scenario possible, it builds some teamwork or something. Come, come.”

In between unsettled chuckles and nervous glances at the childishness of the game, everyone joins hands. Maita cannot understand why Han is so excited. The man’s teeth are glowing from his mouth through a massive grin.

“Like this game, Mr. Chun?” Sato asks with a deep chortle. “A child at heart. The perfect writer.”

Without hesitance, Han begins quietly and slowly: “Ring around the rosy, a pocket full of posies. Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.” He begins to march to his left, ordering everyone else to follow suit. “Come on. Let’s play!”

Maita’s heart quickens in his chest. He is scared to sing. For some unknown reason, an invisible force is telling his throat not to sing. It makes his stomach rumble and causes his forehead to sweat profusely. Why?

A little faster this time, Han sings, “Ring around the rosy, a pocket full of posies. Ashes, Ashes, we all fall down!”

And again, nobody sings.

“Come on!” he yells a little aggressively this time around. “It won’t work if we don’t sing!”

He raises and lowers his arms a few times as if to set the rhythm. Maita is standing across from him, staring into his reddening eyes. To the author’s left is Kana, and to his right is Sato.

“Everybody!” Han shouts, smiling almost too wide for his narrow and pointed face to hold. Maita worries that if the man smiles any wider, his face will split at the corners of his mouth and expose his skull.

But when Han nods and slowly opens his mouth, everyone, including Maita, obeys the cadence. In imperfect unison, the group sings: “Ring around the rosy, a pocket full of posies. Ashes, Ashes, we all fall down!” They do it again, then a third and a fourth time.

Suddenly, Han stops the group. “Okay,” he says, almost too excited to breathe regularly, licking his lips and using his interlocked arms to wipe sweat from his brow, “This time, we actually fall, okay? We fall, and we can be done.”

Kana laughs, but her face shows discomfort. “And we can be done?”

“Yes!” jumps Han. “Yes!”

He counts aloud. And they sing at an eerie pace.

“Ring around the rosy,” their voices seem to echo. “A pocket full of posies,” the lights start to flicker inside the room, and a cool chill rushes through the lines in the bricks. “Ashes, ashes,” suddenly, something tells Maita this will not end well. “We all fall down!”

In unison, their hands fall apart at their fingers, and their backs crash for the floor.

It hurts a little.

Maita blinks through the pain. When he opens his eyes, he is staring at the sun and feeling its full heat forcefully tearing through his pores.

“Where am I?” he thinks, sitting upright to find himself in an exposed area surrounded by small buildings and dusty roads. “Where am I?” he shouts.

His hands gather dirt through his fearful clenching. The sun is bright and hot.

Why is it so hot?

“Maita!” shouts Kana, scrambling toward him on her hands and knees. “What happened? Where are we?” She is beginning to cry.

And Sato, from somewhere behind them, talks in a fast panic. “Drugs! We somehow got drugged! Han is a party man; maybe he slipped LSD into our drinks!”

Before Maita or anyone else can say a word, Han’s voice comes from above, sounding like a scratched record. “Ring around the rosy, a pocket full of posies. Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.”

“Han!” Maita shouts. “What is this?”

Like a lightbulb reaching the end of its life, the sun is snuffed out, plunging them into darkness. It is a still darkness that feels like time has frozen. Above them, a single flame flickers high in the sky.

Han is speaking from somewhere in the clouds. “You all know the meaning of that game, don’t you?” His words are void of emotion. He sounds like a robot reading from a script.

“Yes,” Sato stutters.

“Good,” Han replies. “Millions of people died from the Black Death. It killed Asia and Europe. Rats and fleas had the ability to kill a man with a single bite. And we spread it to each other. Life is full of twists and turns, don’t you think?”

That one red flame spreads into a massive eye that fills the darkness above. Then, a second eye forms next to it. To Maita, it is almost like God has become angry and is staring down at his greedy creations. But those eyes do not spell out God; they spell out Lucifer.

“People died,” explains Han. “I died after watching my family suffer. Through the hate of life and death, I found eternal life in one thing: feeding. And unfortunately for you three, I am hungry.”

The eyes blink.

Han sings an eerie song. When he strikes the final lyric, he gently says, “Run.”

And, through their wobbly knees and denial, the three manga artists sprint through the darkness. Not knowing where they are going or what they’ll run into, they run. Blindly through the blackness, Maita and his friends sprint, they dash, and they try to survive the nightmare.

The eyes follow them from above, and a sinister chuckle vibrates through the air, rattling Maita’s bones and chattering his teeth. His bladder feels full, and his hands turn clammy.

“What is going on, Mr. Tetsu?” asks Kana in a panic.

Glancing frantically around the dark room, scared because he sees nothing, Maita shivers and runs. Behind him, Sato is slowing. They’ve been running for at least five minutes now, and Sato is out of shape. His footsteps are heavy, and his breathing is loud, like a laboring pig.

“Sato!” Maita shouts. “Fight!”

“I can’t,” Sato says, stopping and bending over to place his hands on his knees. “I’m tired, Maita.”

Abruptly stopping and turning on his heels, Maita steps to return to his friend but an earthquake rumbles the imaginary world. Between them, stopping Maita from reaching his friend, a massive hand protrudes from the black ground. Long black talons protrude from the slender, bony fingers. The fingers slash through Sato, blood flies, and strands of life wine drip from the talons. Pooling and standing out on the black ground, the blood reaches and kisses Maita’s feet.

“Maita Tetsu,” declares Han from beneath the ground now. “Tell me. Does Yuji die in the final book?”

Before an answer is given, light returns to the world.

He and Kana stand in an ancient city that is not Japan. People are lying on the ground beneath blankets. A massive fire rages beside the bodies. The smell of burning flesh fills the air from a smoke column about thirty yards away.

A man walks among the bodies dressed like a gothic bird wrapped in a cloak. Large, tinted lenses hide his eyes behind the mask. He is shaking burning herbs over the corpses. He walks down the bodies, row to row until he reaches the final corpse. After a soft chant and some jingling of the herbs, the birdman turns and looks directly at Maita and Kana.

The birdman points a steady, leather-bound finger their way. His voice is the sound that a fork on a plate makes. “Leave! Death comes for us all!”

And again, the light flickers out.

Kana screams and grabs hold of Maita’s arm. “We are going to die, Maita. We are going to die!”

When people face pure fear, their minds do odd things. Maita read that through his research for all his stories. Some people hallucinate, others cry, and some scratch their arms until they bleed. What does he do? He thinks of Yuji and the ending. Will the character die?

Maita doesn’t know.

Han emerges from the dark ground. His skin is red. His eyes are bulbous and maroon. Blood cakes his mouth, and Sato is all but confirmed dead.

“Mr. Tetsu,” Han chuckles, creeping closer without a sound except for his words. “Does Yuji die?”

“What is going on!” he shouts, pulling Kana behind him as if to protect her from this omnipotent being. “Tell me!” He uses a finger to push his glasses against his face. But the sweat on his skin makes them slide down immediately after.

“I am hungry. I must feed to survive. Death got me once, Maita.” The world shakes around them, and Han closes the gap between them. “I will not perish again!”

In a flash, the demonic man has his hand on Maita’s throat. Those black talons are sinking into his skin, and he struggles to breathe. His vision turns hazy and blurry. Every breath is a struggle to take into his lungs. It’s even harder to get it out.

In the face of fear, people often find themselves thinking of odd things. In Maita’s case, he thinks of Yuji.

Does he die in the end? Maita thinks he will.

But as he opens his eyes, lying on the floor with the faces of his friends staring down at him, he dashes for his book and shades the image of a demon’s hand on Yuji’s throat; Maita grins.

That is a story for another time.