Yakuza Noir

This city never sleeps. It pulses with the eternal rhythm of ambition, greed, and indecency. In this city, the age of innocence is short, with every alley offering temptations – street food and karaoke stalls – and I realized that to survive with my sanity intact, I would have to tread lightly. 

It was early evening in Kurume, Japan, the air was heavy with the promise of rain, and I, enjoying the last touch of sunlight, lay on park grass studying my map, intending to get from this sinful city to the even more sinful capital, quickly and cheaply. 

I had met a fatal woman, a true femme fatale, who suggested in no uncertain terms that my way of doing things left much room for improvement. If I knew anything about fatal women, it was that they were insincere, indiscreet, and incorrigible, and this inconceivably fatal woman, in all her instability, was a bona fide femme folle.

Throughout my lifelessness, I have been searching for something. I am not quite sure what, but I have a feeling my upbringing has something to do with it. Like so many searching for themselves, I have found myself in dimly-lit piano bars, nocturnal shipyards, and uninhabited wildernesses with a shovel, rubber gloves, and trash bags, atoning for the sins of our fathers and the sacrifices of our mothers.

I have done things I am not proud of. In the names of others, I have written excruciatingly boring books, manufactured debt and threat letters, made up horoscopes for women's magazines, and drafted budget proposals for the government. It was only a matter of time before I would be brought to justice for my crimes.

As I noticed a group of gangsters, tattooed from head to toe, closing in on me, I wasn't one bit surprised. Perhaps I had been waiting for them throughout my lifelessness. On the surface, they looked restrained, even calm, but I knew the dragon awakened within them was roaring; as the target of the coming heat, I did not find their inner glow particularly warming.

I lit a cigar and considered my chances of surviving this unfortunate situation. Running was not one of my strengths, nor was fist-fighting. My gun was at the pawnshop, and asking strangers for help went against my Finnish character. My best bet now, and in lifelessness in general, would be to solve problems by talking. But suddenly, a universal piece of advice I had read years ago in Reader’s Digest  popped into my mind: never snitch and always keep your mouth shut. So, I remained silent in two national and several foreign languages.

Like cherry blossom petals falling from the trees, they threw themselves upon me one by one. As the sinful city modestly turned its all-seeing gaze away, and after a brief scuffle, I ended up in the trunk of an electric car – for Lord knows how many times on this trip. 

I wondered what they would do to me. I wondered how much I could take before I started singing like a songbird. I wondered what I should even sing about that might even remotely interest them. Volare? Amazing Grace? Or perhaps In the Mood for Love? The possibilities were endless, but which would make the most striking impression on my interrogators?

This is what lifelessness was like. Regardless of where I was going, Lady Luck shoved her leg out to trip me. I tried to deduce from the car's movements which way I was being spirited away. I cursed the fatal woman who had become my fate, but then I realized the ride was free and, with any luck, would take me closer to my destination. I made myself comfortable and stubbed out my cigar against the wall of the trunk.

In this city, nobody cares about anything but themselves. But can you blame them? They’re just trying to survive. An innocent author is ghostnapped by a criminal gang in the middle of a bustling cherry park, and for most people, it’s just another Tuesday. They are as hard as this city. This sinful, ungrateful city.


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