Wednesday

"How much longer do I have to sit here and watch you eat?"

Georgia looked up from the rather excellent bowl of pork soup and glanced at the short portly little ghost in a cheap business suit sitting beside her at the counter. She slurped up the rest of her noodles loudly, just as Mr. Y. Takahashi had advised, and then turned to face him. "Weren't you just telling me you've been haunting this place for over a year? What's your rush?"

"I'm tired. This was my favorite place in the whole world, so it was okay at first. I got to see all my friends come in. I could soak up the ambiance without worrying about getting back to the office on time. But I can't join in the conversations, I can't toast my coworker's good fortunes and worst of all I can't eat anything! Maybe if I could take a walk outside every once in a while…"

His voice trailed off as he and Georgia followed the chain protruding from his chest across the floor to where it was attached to a large eyebolt embedded in the linoleum. The chain was just long enough to allow Mr. Takahashi to reach anywhere inside the small tavern, but came up short right at the front door. Well… it wasn't really a door, more like a curtain leading out to the street.

"I can help you with that, Mr. Takahashi. All I'm asking is that in return you help me order a few more things off the menu. This…" Georgia consulted the little notepad she'd picked up in Urahara's shop that morning. "This ton-ka-tsu ramen you recommended is pretty good."

The ghost sighed and sat back on the barstool. "You should try the grilled chicken. It's delicious here."

"Grilled chicken sounds good. How do you say that in Japanese?" Discovering that asking a dead person how something was pronounced would somehow short circuit her translator had changed Georgia's whole approach to Japan. She now had a seemingly inexhaustible supply of dead language teachers to help her get through the day.

"Yakitori. But you'd probably like the skinless breast strips best. That's pronounced sasami yakitori."

Georgia scribbled in her notebook again. "Okay, now how do I get the waiter's attention?"

"Just say sumimasen, onegai shimasu."

After a bit more scribbling, Georgia raised her hand. "Sue-me-ma-sen, oh-na-guy she-moss!"

The man behind the counter turned and walked over. "Gochoumon mo douzo?"

Georgia smiled at the man while kicking Mr. Takahashi's leg under the counter.

"He's asking if you'd like to order something else."

Glancing at her notes and then holding up the menu like she could actually read the thing Georgia said, "Hi. Sa-sa-mee yaw-key-tory, coo-da-sigh."

The man narrowed his eyes and gave Georgia a puzzled look, but then he shrugged his shoulders, nodded and walked away.

"I don't understand why you can't speak Japanese better than that. It sounds perfectly normal when you talk to me."

"That's because you're dead, Mr. Takahashi. If someone would just kill all the waiters in Tokyo, I wouldn't need your help."

Suddenly Georgia's purse began buzzing. She dug out her cell phone and flipped it open. "Shit! How do I tell that guy I want the chicken to go?"

"Mochikaeri. You're not leaving me here are you?"

Georgia stood up and slung her bag over her shoulder. "Thank you, Mr. Takahashi. You've been a big help. When you get tired of walking around I'll be back." She grabbed her soul slayer, drew it and in one smooth clean motion sliced through the chain connecting the obese little ghost to the restaurant floor. After three days she was being to get the hang of this stuff.

o o o

Georgia checked her notepad and then put on her best Happy Time Temporaries smile. "Eggo-day die-joe-boo desk-ah?"

The girl behind the counter tried not to let Georgia see her laugh, but simply holding her hand to her mouth didn't quite work. "Yes, I speak English. How can I help you?"

"I'm supposed to meet someone named S. Morimoto here."

"One moment please, I will look up for you."

The girl turned and began typing into a computer while still snickering over Georgia's horrid Japanese. "Chuckle all you want, lady," she though, "One day you and me are going to understand each other just fine, but you won't be laughing."

"Morimoto-san's party on forth floor in room A. That is big room at front overlooking street. Have you been karaoke before?"

Georgia remembered a birthday party Joy forced her to attend when she was twelve years old. One of the birthday girl's presents was a karaoke machine. She'd watched several of her classmates get up and humiliate themselves trying to sing along with the thing. Then this shy girl named Becky got up and put on 'Strong Enough'. She sang it perfectly in tune with a beautiful strong voice that made it sound like Sheryl Crow was right there in the room singing it for them. Becky was never invited to another party and the last time Georgia saw her she was selling cosmetics at the mall.

"Yeah, I'm an old hand at this." She waved to the girl behind the counter and headed up the stairs. On the forth floor she walked down the corridor past room after room filled with businessmen in their shirtsleeves, some with their neckties tied around their heads, wailing off key renditions of unfamiliar pop songs.

At the end of the hall was a padded door with a small window set in it. Behind the window Georgia could see a large group of people sitting on a big curved couch in front of the windows. Just as she was trying to think of a reasonable excuse for going inside, the door burst open and a tall blond haired man staggered out.

He was easily over six feet tall and even wearing dark glasses Georgia could tell his face wasn't Asian. He stopped short when he saw her standing there and wobbled precariously while pondering her existence.

"Hello love, you're a bit late. The party's already started."

Georgia shrugged her shoulders and waved her hands about. "Sorry, I got lost."

"I know!" The man leaned over until he was right in her face. The smell of gin was strong on his breath. "Tokyo's a bitch, ain't it? You're okay though, Moji's so damn happy he doesn't even know he's here yet!"

He sounded, smelled and laughed just like Mason on one of his benders. Georgia knew enough to laugh right along as she edged her way around him.

"Tell me, love, did you happen to pass the loo on your way in?"

"Sure, down by the staircase, but you're on your own figuring out which one's which." Georgia pointed down the hall and the tall Englishman staggered off with a wave. She was pretty certain he was not the S. Morimoto she was looking for, so she turned and pulled open the door.

Inside were about a dozen people, half of which weren't Japanese. The center of attention seemed to be a young man with black hair and small round glasses who was busily thumbing through a thick catalog of songs. There was a tub of ice with bottles floating in it, so Georgia fished out the only one with an English label and twisted off the top.

She contemplated shouting out "Morimoto wah da-ray desk-ah?" but then what? With more than half an hour left before the time of death, a beer in her hand and a room full of prospective dead people, she might just as well mingle and see what happens.

Georgia took a seat next to a woman with very short hair who was talking animatedly to a man who looked like the Japanese Elvis right down to his long sideburns and sequined jacket. They were speaking to one another in some hybrid of English and Japanese. She could only understand every other word, but it was fun trying to fill in the blanks. She was so engrossed with the conversation she didn't notice another Asian woman entering the room and crossing over to sit down beside her.

"Is Moji hogging the remote control again?"

"What?" Georgia was startled more by the woman speaking good English then her sudden appearance.

"He just doesn't know how to be humble." The woman grinned as she pointed to the young man at the canter of the big couch who was still thumbing through the song catalog and laughing at something. "It's hard to believe he's actually Japanese."

Georgia took a longer look at the man. He was dressed in a punk style she'd been seeing a lot of on the streets. Spiky hair, lots of piercings, black t-shirt and leather pants held by a belt studded with large chrome spikes. She nodded to the woman and asked, "Have you known him long?"

"We went to UCLA together." When Georgia raised an eyebrow the woman laughed. "I'm American, born and raised in San Francisco. My parents are Korean though, not Japanese. I always wondered why Moji came back home after college. Then I came over for a visit three years ago and fell in love with the place. How about you?"

"Seattle. My parents are... just weird. I'm in Japan on business."

"Oh wow! You must be involved with Moji's book. I still can't believe you're publishing a book by Shinji Morimoto. Did you know he's always said his books would never be appreciated until after his death?"

"Well, the day's not over yet." Georgia looked at the young man again. He seemed like someone at the top of his game with his whole life ahead of him. She checked her watch and thought, "All five minutes of it."

Just then Moji stood up and pointed a remote control at the big TV set across the room. After navigating a few menus on the screen, he entered a number and traded the remote for a wireless microphone. As the intro to Queen's 'Bohemian Rhapsody' began to blare out of the speakers, Moji jumped up on the coffee table and struck a rock star pose.

Everyone dived to rescue their drinks from the tabletop as the noticeably tipsy, soon to be ex-author begin dancing and singing the rock classic. Then, just as he got to the line "I don't wanna die..." the floor shook, rattling the coffee table and setting the singer off balance.

Moji took a step backwards to steady himself just as the floor shook again. Someone shouted over the music that it must be an earthquake, but Georgia had been in one of those before and it felt nothing at all like this. The shocks were coming at regular intervals, as if something massive were thundering down the hallway towards them.

Georgia looked to the door just as a huge gray hand slammed into it. The little window shattered into a mosaic of tiny little pieces, which obscured her view of whatever stood on the other side.

As panic set in around the room, Georgia leapt to her feet and seized her soul slayer. She'd recognized the hand that smashed the window as that of a graveling. So the little bastards had their grubby paws in causing mayhem over here after all. And unlike the ones back home, this one didn't seem to care if everyone knew what it was up to.

The moment Georgia laid her hand on the hilt of her soul slayer the graveling behind the door went berserk. It began pounding on the walls and stamping its feet so hard that the whole building seemed to be shaking. On the coffee table Moji continued to dance backwards, trying desperately to regain his balance. Then he took one step too many and the table tipped over.

The heavy tabletop flipped up and smashed into the small man with the force of a hammer. He flew backwards and impacted the plate glass window, which held for a moment until one of the studs on Moji's belt broke the surface tension of the tempered glass and it exploded into sheet of tiny green chips.

Georgia watched in morbid fascination as the young man's physical body slowly fell backwards through a man shaped hole in the glass leaving his spirit standing in the window. A rattling noise drew her attention to the spirit's feet where a coil of bright chain was quickly playing out the window following his body.

She realized too late what was about to happen and dove forward, her soul slayer carving an arc before her. But the strike fell short and the blade swung inches away from the chain still attached to the startled spirit's chest.

Before Georgia could recover and try again, the chain snapped taught and Moji's spirit was yanked through the window and down out of sight. She leapt up to the windowsill and gazed towards the street far below. There, about halfway down, were the two aspects of Shinji Morimoto facing one another from either end of a thirty-foot long spectral chain.

Georgia looked back across the room to the door, which was still shuddering from the blows of the enraged graveling. "He's already dead you idiot! If I get hurt doing this, I'm coming back up here and carving you up like a Thanksgiving turkey!"

Not that she knew the first thing about carving a turkey. Her father had always done the carving on Thanksgiving and she couldn't remember him ever getting even one whole slice off the bird without messing it up. But then her father never had a razor sharp three-foot long curved weapon of spiritual mass destruction to work with.

Georgia glanced down at the plummeting twins one last time and then dove headfirst out the window after them.

o o o

"Sorry I couldn't reach you before you hit bottom." Georgia carefully measured out a reasonably long section of chain and then sliced through it with her sword.

"That's okay," Moji's spirit said with a polite bow. "It was an intriguing experience. I just wish I could write about it."

"Who knows, maybe you will."

"What happens now?"

Georgia sheathed her soul slayer, but held onto the scabbard so as not to pop back into existence in the middle of a police investigation. By the time she'd recovered from the shock of diving headfirst into the pavement and surviving, quite a crowd had gathered around the crumpled remains of the Volkswagen that had broken the author's fall and his neck.

"Well that's really up to you, Mr. Morimoto. I was told death is a journey over here, but if I were you I'd hang around long enough to see if that book of yours really becomes more popular now that you're dead. By the way, what's it called?"

The little man blushed and adjusted his glasses nervously. "Well… its called 'The Myth of the Death God. Why nothing really happens after you die.' I guess I was being a little presumptuous, huh?"

Georgia grinned. "Maybe just a little."

Moji looked up at the remains of the forth floor window where a police officer was busy measuring the hole he'd left falling through it. "I guess the party's over."

"Having the guest of honor die can put a damper on even the finest social gatherings. But I think I saw some of your friends heading into that bar across the street."

He smiled and bowed to her once again. "Thank you death-god-san. Will I see you again?"

"If not me, then maybe a Japanese kid with blonde hair and a lot of attitude. Hey, how do you pronounce death-god in Japanese?"

The little ghost tilted his head to one side and smiled at the blonde caucasian woman dressed the in traditional robes of a samurai. "Shinigami, but why ask me?"

"You're an author, of course." She waved and moved off down the street leaving the amused spirit to begin his journey towards the Soul Society.

Georgia hadn't gone very far when her phone went off again. She pulled it out of the folds of her robe and flipped it open. At the top of the display was the word 'Urgent!' and below that 'Y. Takahashi'.

"Boy, he sure got bored fast. I guess he couldn't find anything to eat outside the restaurant either." She chuckled but stopped when she noticed there was a time on this death notice. Follow-ups never had times attached to them and this one was only ten minutes away. She hit the GPS button and checked the distance. She could make it if she ran, but not in the heels she'd worn that morning. She decided to remain in shinigami form and took off in the direction given by the phone.

She made it to the small deserted playground with barely a minute to spare. As she stopped to catch her breath a noise caught her attention. She turned to face it just in time to see Mr. Takahashi come charging out of a thicket of trees. He was screaming at the top of his spectral lungs and running as if his life weren't already over.

"Help me! Its right behind me! Don't let it eat me!"

"Whoa there, Mr. Takahashi." Georgia grabbed the fat little ghost by the arm and dragged him to a halt. "What's gotten into you? You're dead, nothing can eat you."

"Tell that to HIM!"

With a terrified look Mr. Takahashi pointed over her shoulder. She turned to find something the size of an elephant crashing through the same stand of trees where Mr. Takahashi first appeared. With a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach Georgia recognized the gaunt gray limbs and stooped posture of a graveling, but this one was over nine feet tall.

A hideous white mask covered its face and there was a hole the size of a sewer pipe running clear through its chest. It charged straight at them, but stopped short when Georgia drew her soul slayer. Then it just stood there, glaring down at them, while it tried to figure out its next move.

"Okay, I've had just about enough from you guys for one day. Go back to whatever graveyard you hang out in before I decide to slice and dice and make mounds of Julian fries out of your ass."

Then the huge graveling did something quite remarkable. It talked, "What's this then? Smells like shinigami and a ripe one at that. I haven't feasted on the soul of a death-god in a very long time. Put down that pathetic excuse for a weapon and come to me child. I promise to make your end quick and only a little painful."

Georgia gripped the hilt of her soul slayer with sweaty palms. This was like no graveling she'd ever seen before. How did it get so huge? How come it could talk to her? And why in heaven did it want to eat her?

"Save me, shinigami-san!" Wailed Mr. Takahashi as he crouched behind her.

"Save you? The damn thing wants to eat me!"

"Oh, don't worry. I intend to eat both of you." The thing behind the gruesome mask grinned, revealing a mouth full of monstrous sharp teeth.

Georgia tried to swallow past the lump in her throat. Her knees were beginning to shake and she was about to find out if a spiritual being could wet herself.

"This is why I really hate Wednesdays!"

x x x

Author's Notes:

1) Tonkatsu ramen – one of many ramen noodle dishes favored by Japanese, this one is made with boiled pork.

2) Sasami yakitori – strips of skinless chicken breast on a bamboo skewer grilled and coated with a sweet sauce.

3) Karaoke – unlike karaoke in the west, where the object is usually to make a fool of yourself in front of a bar full of strangers, the Japanese like to do their off key singing in front of friends and collogues.

4) Loo – British term for a toilet.