The Executioner General
In terms of the legal system, volunteering would be a viable alternative to life in prison. Volunteers would never return to Earth once they left, so the British government acquiesced to let him sign up.
Flower Arranging at the End of the Japanese Empire
At home I told my mom, “My flower sensei said I lack a Japanese soul. Said I was hopeless and a danger. Said I was harboring peonies about to explode into full-blown rebellion, like the terrorists down south. He treated me as if I was a Shin-Kalifonia sympathizer.”
The Ghost Teas of Sakurajima
“If I don’t kill this tea-master, this Kahoru . . . Hidemitsu will take it as a betrayal, won’t he? And he will call for my death, in turn.”
Upshot
My ears ring like the bell in the old village church before the soldiers burned it and its inhabitants to the ground. I do not recognize the symptoms of this malady.
The Kiss of the Water
Lima needed clean water, which brought life and no more stomach worms, like ones swimming in the unhealthy pit in the mining settlement. Although they boiled the water, it was always contaminated with metal scraps. Lima got up with the empty wineskin in her hand and started on her way back home.
No Folly of the Beast
“Would you not kill him? If you could?” / Shrike watches the horizon as well. “If I met him,” she says, “in the City, on the street, I would put a knife in his eye.”
