The Tale of the Forty-Eighth Ronin

“A lone, horseless samurai is not a samurai.” - Hagakura

The letter opener was shaped like a tiny samurai sword embossed with the company logo. We’d received them during a team-building seminar, once upon a time. I was using it to scrape the plaque from my teeth when Kira-san called me into his office. It was nearing midnight, and we were the last two in the building.

“There’s no reason for you to sleep here tonight,”

Kira-san announced when I entered. He was plucking staples from old reports, and replacing the staples with paperclips.

“I’m afraid we’re going to have to let you go. Please empty your desk before you leave.”

Then he handed me a plastic shopping bag. He wouldn’t look me in the eye. I was officially redundant.

Since the restructuring began, I’d been pulling eighty-plus-hour work weeks, living on canned coffee and corn soup, taking sponge baths in the break-room sink, and sleeping under my desk, but it wasn’t enough. Two decades of loyalty flushed away like floaters in the Imperial toilet.

My whole life

“I’m sorry,” Kira-san cut me off, “but I have no choice in this matter.”

He was the leader. If he had no choice, then who did? I stared at the top of his head, searching for the proper course of action. I was still holding the sword-shaped letter opener/ plaque remover in my right hand.

“You could plunge this tiny blade into your gut,” I said, offering him the mini sword. “Seppuku. Die with honor.”

Kira-san looked up at the letter opener and then into my eyes for the first time. Beads of sweat trembled on his brow.

“Don’t make me call security,” he said.

But we both knew there was no security in the building at that late hour.

“To staunch the flow of blood from an injury sustained by falling off a horse, you should drink a beverage made from the droppings of a spotted horse.” - Hagakura

Outside I was completely disoriented. Tokyo was a spiraling chasm carved by a mighty neon flood. I jogged down wet streets, the plastic bag from the office tucked under my arm and the tiny samurai sword secure in my belt.

Once familiar paths looped back on themselves. Alleys ended in stone walls. After several wrong turns, I finally reached the station. The last train was sitting at the platform, about to depart. The station was strangely deserted.

I dropped a 500 yen coin into the first ticket machine, but nothing happened. It wouldn’t give me a ticket or return my coin. I pressed the fare button several times, then I pressed the change release button several times, but still nothing.

It was my last 500 yen.

I set my bag on the ground and slammed the machine with my fist as hard as I could. I hit it again and again until its blinking face was smeared with blood. I only stopped when I heard the laughter behind me.

“The machine is out of order,” an ancient voice cackled.

An old homeless woman was squatting in a coffin-shaped cardboard box near the gates, grinning wildly. She appeared out of nowhere. I think she had mange. Her scalp was an oozing sea of raw pink lesions, dotted with sparse islands of wispy white hair. She looked older than the city itself, a last decrepit remnant of the Edo Era.

“The whole system is out of order,” she told me.

“Thank you, Scabby Gatekeeper,” I said, “but the machine still owes me something.”

I turned back to the ticket machine and slid my finger into the change release slot and quickly withdrew my hand. There was something soft and sticky clogging the chute.

I drew the tiny sword from my belt and used it to fish out a small white nest of human hair congealed with pus. A stream of coins poured out behind it. Jackpot. At each machine, I plucked out another gooey wad of hair, each releasing another cascade of change. There had to be over 20,000 yen altogether.

“You should be ashamed of yourself Grandma,” I said as I filled my suit pockets with the money. “And I hope that skin thing isn’t contagious.”

She rocked on her haunches and laughed so hard I feared she might sift to dust. She tore another patch of hair from her mottled scalp and rolled it between her palms.

“At least I work,” she chuckled. “And I know what my future holds.” A single bead of blood trickled down her forehead.

Before I could ask her what she meant by that, the jingle chimed through the station’s loudspeaker. My train was about to depart. I tucked the tiny sword back into my belt and barged through the gates, pockets bulging with other people’s money.

It would be some time before I realized that I had left my bag at the ticket machine. The old hag’s hoarse laughter echoed through the station as I ran.

“Dive heedlessly into death, and you will wake up.” - Hagakura

But here’s the thing: if you see that your life is a doomed train, hurtling headlong to nowhere, do you have the freedom to just step off? Can you choose to wait on the platform? Pray for a different train? Something that might shuttle you in a completely new direction?

For me, the answer came: I could not.

I stood frozen in the doorway, terrified. But I was not afraid of death exactly; I was afraid of my entire life. The doors hissed and rattled to a close behind me, I braced myself, and as the train lurched forward down the tracks, the Forty-Seven Ronin drew their swords as one. I didn’t stand a bluefin’s chance in Tsukiji.

The nearest warrior immediately kicked me in the stomach, and I collapsed to my knees. He wore a mask stitched from the dried snout of a dead boar. He held a dagger to my throat.

“He could be an assassin,” he said to the band.

The other ronin sheathed their swords and plopped down on the benches or sat cross-legged in small groups on the floor, swigging from jars of sake. They looked exhausted, smeared with gore, and weary from battle. The air was heavy, and the whole train smelled like a stable.

I felt the blade press deeper into my flesh. Boar Snout was ready to terminate me. But I would not allow it.

I spotted the leader standing between two men at the next door, discussing the train map. He wore brilliant red lacquered armor and a red helmet engraved with a phoenix.

Hanging from a sash around his waist was a hemp sack soaked through with blood. It was the size of a soccer ball with black hairs sprouting through the fabric, and I knew immediately what it contained. I was familiar with their story.

“You’re lost,” I called to the leader.

“He could be a spy,” Boar Snout warned, but Red stayed him with a wave of his hand.

I had seized the advantage.

“I’m not a spy.”

I pushed the blade away from my throat and got to my feet, staring Boar Snout straight in the eye. He was surprisingly short.

“I am a salaryman,” I said, “and I know these trains.”

A hush fell across the car and I could feel every eye upon me. I searched their scarred and muddy faces.

“You are the Forty-Seven Ronin!” I shouted. “Masterless samurai, cut loose by destiny, and seeking vengeance for your sorry fate. You are lost, unemployed, redundant, just like me.”

And then I remembered the tiny sword tucked into my belt. I drew it from its little sheath and thrust it into the air.

“I will add my blade to your cause, and we will fight as one!” I shouted.

The warriors looked at each other and then back at my tiny sword. I was willing to sacrifice everything. Then the Forty-Seven Ronin burst into laughter.

One warrior spewed a mouthful of sake all over his comrades. Several fell off the benches and rolled on the floor, pounding it with their fists. Boar Snout was literally on his hands and knees, convulsing, a rope of tears and snot streaming from his grisly mask.

It was unbridled hysteria. A real laugh riot.

“Go on and giggle like school girls,” I said as I slid the little sword back under my belt.

“At least I’m on the right train. I know where I’m going.”

And with that, Red made a desperate effort to contain himself. He waved me over, avoiding eye contact, and I waded through the giggling warriors to join him at the map.

Just as I’d suspected, they were completely lost. They were journeying to the Sengaku Shrine to offer their battle trophy at the grave of their fallen lord, but they clearly had no clue how to navigate the Japan Rail system.

I assured him that they were on the right line, but they would have to make a transfer. I briefly explained the fare adjustment machines, but it was clear that none of them had kept their tickets. Finally, the train began to slow. We were approaching my station.

“I’m afraid this is where I must leave you,”

I said as the train shuddered to a stop. I wished them luck and stepped onto the platform. When the doors closed, the ronin lined the benches, forty-seven grinning faces pressed to the glass.

“Show us your sword again!”

Boar Snout called through an open window.

As the train began to move, I walked alongside it.

“I forgot to mention,” I told him, “you’re on the right train, but you’re going in the opposite direction.”

The smile vanished from every last face in the car. The train picked up speed and I had to jog to keep up.

“Who’s laughing now? The Forty-Seven Stooges on the last train to nowhere!” I cried. “Enjoy Saitama, bastards!”

I watched Boar Snout nock an arrow, but it was too late. The arrow dropped feebly out the window as the speeding train split the night in two.

“Even if the person is hugely outnumbered, simply tackling one man after the other for as long as he can is very satisfying.” -Hagakura

I woke, surprised to be in my own futon, and got ready for work. I washed my face, brushed my teeth, and put on a charcoal gray suit and crimson tie. Summer was edging into fall. I’d been laid off, I understood that, but still, it was the only pattern I knew. I put water on the stove for tea and turned on the television.

I briefly flipped through the channels but it was all the same. Breaking news: an old homeless woman was being shifted onto a gurney. She’d been violated with a blade, viciously beaten and robbed.

A dead body was discovered in a nearby office, believed to be that of Manager Kira Yoshinaka, but authorities could not confirm the identity until his severed head was located.

Some commuters reported seeing an enormous crow drag a plastic bag from a train station, tracing an elegant brushstroke of blood across the pavement.

There was a madman on the loose. And not a single word about forty-seven armed ronin wandering the streets of Saitama.

They would come for me, I knew that much. And I would meet them on the road.

My tiny sword was on the coffee table beside a small mountain of change. I took it into the kitchen, cleaned it with a dishtowel, and replaced it in my belt. I selected the largest steak knife and slid it in as well. From the TV, I thought I heard someone say:

“Salaryman Rebellion,” and it made me smile. As I buttoned my coat, the kettle boiled over.

By Matthew Finn

Originally published in the November 2006 issue of Japanzine