THE girl in the manner of THE DRAGON. Above the low, glossy black lacquer table, the painful whiteness of the airline ticket stood out adjacent to a serving bottle of sake and an ochoko[1]. The rain sounded, pretending to drown out the voice of Lie To Me[2], and percussed in the meninges of both as if it were a concern of the nippy Roland TR-808 and TR-909 rhythm boxes, critical in electronic music. And there, there they were, outlook to face, without smoke, without others to fill a non-existent track or MDMA to cloud their reasoning or neon lights to illuminate them. -Is that all? -Monique finally blurted out, in cold Japanese, past the water dancing just about the torii of Itsukushima Shrine. Her question was not answered in the manner of words flowing from Stas lips, but afterward his feat of upsetting his feet on the tatami to withdraw. For a few seconds, brief, intense and bitter, comparable to the taste of the dregs of her last cup of tea, she remained motionless, in