Chapters (56)
- PROLOGUE
- PART 1
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- PART 2
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- PART 3
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- PART 4
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- PART 5
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- FORTY-THREE
- FORTY-FOUR
- FORTY-FIVE
- FORTY-SIX
- FORTY-SEVEN
- FORTY-EIGHT
- FORTY-NINE
- EPILOGUE
“Sure. Ebisu bestows all these fantastic gifts on the fishermen in return for their hospitality, but he forgets his fishing rod, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So, uh, he comes back to get it and just as he’s about to knock he hears the fishermen running down his personal hygiene. His hands smell of fish, he doesn’t clean his teeth, his clothes are shabby. All that stuff you’re supposed to teach kids, right?”
“Right.”
“Yeah, I remember telling this stuff to Suki and Markus, back when they were small.” Murakami gaze grew distant, hazed out on the horizon and the gathering clouds there. “Got to be nearly half a century ago now. You believe that?”
“Finish the story, Tod.”
“Right. Well, uh, let’s see. Ebisu’s pissed off so he stalks in, grabs his rod and as he storms out again, all the gifts he’s given turn to rotting belaweed and dead fish in his wake. He plunges into the sea and the fishermen have crap catches for months afterwards. Moral of the tale—look after your personal hygiene, but even more important, kids, don’t talk about people behind their backs.”
He looked back at me.
“How’d I do?”
“Pretty good for fifty years on. But down here, they tell it a little different. See, Ebisu’s hideously ugly, tentacled and beaked and fanged, he’s a terrifying sight, and the fishermen have a hard time not just running away screaming. But they master their fear and offer him hospitality anyway, which you’re not supposed to do for a demon. So Ebisu gives them all sorts of gifts stolen from ships he’s sunk in the past, and then he leaves. The fishermen heave a massive sigh of relief and start talking it up, how monstrous he was, how terrifying, how smart they all were to get all these gifts out of him, and in the midst of it all back he comes for his trident.”
“Not a rod, then?”
“No, not scary enough I guess. It’s a massive, barbed trident in this version.”
“You’d think they’d have noticed when he left it behind, wouldn’t you?”
“Shut up. Ebisu overhears them bad-mouthing him, and slips away in a black fury, only to come back in the form of a huge storm that obliterates the whole village. Those not drowned get dragged down by his tentacles to an eternity of agony in a watery hell.”
“Lovely.”