Kishibojin

Suki slipped out from between the sheets and padded across the grass mat covered floor to the bathroom. The tiles were cool under her bare feet and the toilet seat stung from chilling overnight.

She stared off into nothing as she pissed, entranced by the basic black and white pattern of the tiled floor. So retro, almost 60’s beat yet lavish compared to the poverty they had seen on some parts of the island.

The rich brown of the skin of her feet clashed with the stark white of the floor lit up by the bare bulb overhead. She wiggled her toes, she had had the nails painted a deep green colour that was apparently considered lucky on the islands and represented the emeralds in some crown jewels that were held in some museum on the mainland.

Suki was sat there for a good long while watching her toes before she realised he had stopped pissing a while back.

There was a thing she did with toilet paper; a ritual almost of stacking three separately torn away squares on each knee and using three sheets unfolded to mop up the main bulk of the urine and then folding the other three into a triangle to tidy up.

The flush was low pressure and the water was an off clear as it swirled in the bowl. They had been told to only drink bottled and steer clear of salads as it was washed in tap water. Having an Indian family and visiting Kerala on several family trips she was more than aware of what can happen to you from drinking the tap water; she didn’t fancy spending all week sat in this retro bathroom.

Suki finished up and made her way back to the bed as quietly as she could. The bed itself was surrounded by a floor to ceiling mosquito net where Suki’s boyfriend jack lay sound asleep.

From the bedside cabinet Suki quietly removed the claw hammer she had stashed away earlier when Jack was in the shower and she turned to her lover and with three swift blows caved the right hand temple area of his skull in.

Jack was very much dead.

It took her a good long while to wrap him in the grass rug from the floor, thread the meet hook through his ankles and hoist his lifeless body up in the rafters. She placed a big plastic tub under him to catch the blood; she wanted the meat to be aged a little for what she had in mind.

The next morning she hooked the ‘do not disturb’ sign over the door handle of the chalet and spoke to the guy in the office and explained that they would be okay to do their own tidying for a couple of days. She fed him a line about it being their honey moon and really wanted some alone time.

The guy on the desk was some seedy local guy and was more than okay with the idea and smiled a toothy knowing smile and winked at her as she left for the market.

It was the start of the rainy season and the threat of a storm hung in the air but the subtropical humidity was still high and sweat soaked her loose dress as she made her way through the town to the shore side open market.

Every part of the market was bustling with life, movement, colour, sound, smells, Suki hadn’t been so anyway more vibrant and alive in her life and her heart swelled with the thought of starting a new life here on the islands.

She pondered over vegetables and buckets of live crab; she picked through plies of raw chilli paste and the jars of various pickled ginger and cassava root. Her string bag filling up steadily with the freshest produce all the while Jack’s body drained over the tub back in the chalet.

She bought a camping stove and a small rice boiler and a selection of sharp knives. Then a large bag of sushi rice along with a flat, round china bowl for the Chirashizushi that she was to make as an offering to the long forgotten Shinto gods. She would dine in the halls of the old ones and sup from the cup of immortality and Jack’s flesh and blood would be her gateway.

The heavens started to open with the first spots of rain from the oncoming storm and with her string bag full she headed back to the chalet; she had a lot of things to prepare before the ceremony.

She snacked on a bag of curry puffs as she hurried back as the rain grew heavy and the sky turned to an ask black; the first rumbles of thunder way out at sea reverberated through the air.

The decking around the chalet was devoid of life, the polar opposite of the market she had been in less than an hour ago. Every guest was tucked away in the safety of their domiciles, hiding from the shift in weather. Faces peered through the smudged glass of the chalets towards the sky, eager to catch a glimpse at the free light show that was no doubt on its way. But Suki had work to do; she would be able to enjoy the storm after the ceremony when she would step out and feel the static in the air and the smell of ozone would fill her nostrils as she walked in the realm of the mortals a god.

The plastic tub under Jack was as good as full, his life forced had emptied from the hole in the side of his head and it had started to separate in the humidity of the storm just as she had researched. Suki skimmed it with a wooden spoon and took the fat to where the rice was already steaming over the camping stove and she stirred it in turning the fluffy white of the rice into a pale pink.

She began to peel away slithers of skin from the thighs of the meat hanging from the rafters using a small sushi knife. Suki then started to sliced wafer thing slices of leg meat from the corpse and rolled it up into a small ball then with a slice of carrot and pickled ginger wrapped it in a strip of the skin. With a twist and a few inched of string she tied it all together in a macabre little dumpling.

She repeated the process three more times and placed the parcels of Jack into another part of the steamer.

She then shredded some vegetables and sliced more meat from various parts of Jacks anatomy and organs. The leg, the upper arm, a sliver of kidney, an inch of brain, a thin slab of belly fat, and a sliver of eye all laid out in perfect symmetry on a plate ready to place into the flat bowl.

Suki scooped out a ladle full of rice into the bowl and uncovered the dumplings, the stem from them setting the saliva flowing in her mouth as the scent of cooked meat and ginger hit home. She sat two dumplings in the centre of the rice then arranged the rest of the gruesome sushi around them in a floral arrangement.

The dish was colourful and vibrant in reds, pinks and greens and the aroma was out of this world as she sat cross legged in the centre of the room, the curtains wide open. A cup of Jack’s blood sat beside her and the bowl in front of her.

Suki looked out into the storm at was raging over the shore side market town in brilliant flashed of electrical discharge and enormous thunder claps. High over the mountain that loomed above the town and the chalets three eyes opened in the sky to look down at the beginning of the ceremony and a thousand voices of long forgotten spirits screeched through the tropical jungle that ringed the foot of the mammoth black rock.

Suki took the delicate meat parcel up to her face with long red chopsticks holding the bowl under her chin and braced herself for the taste of her ex-lover and the start of three days of ritual. She tingled all over with excitement and gasped with pure pleasure as the soft skin of the dumpling touched her bottom lip.

End.