ADVENTURE JOURNEY EPISODES
by Jeremy Russell

Episode 3: Osaka, Japan, Summer 2005
This is one episode in a developing story. Links to PRECEDING EPISODES at bottom.

Watching Hyoichi gingerly stirring his natto into long sticky strands with his chopsticks, Kolya wondered how many skin grafts must have been necessary just to make it possible for the small Japanese man to operate the two rubbery claws his hands had become.

Hyoichi's bald head had been so severely burnt that it seemed his skin might yet ooze off his skull and down the neck hole of his T-shirt like thickened sour cream, or so Kolya imagined. That and the yellowish tint was enough to put him off the tamago yaki.

When their eyes met, Hyoichi did a disgusting thing -- he smiled, and the flesh swam like molten lard over his cheekbones and chin.

“Please, finish your story,” Hyoichi said in near-perfect English--although they had studied together, his skills now far outdistanced Kolya's.

Speech highly accented with Russian, Kolya said, “Okay,” but paused to drink miso soup. Beside him, Hyoichi's wife, Akiko, returned her attention from an NHK morning news report about the World’s Fair in Tokyo.

“Siberia, when David's friend got lost,” Hyoichi insisted. "Did it end badly?"

Kolya answered with a shrug. He was trying not to think of searing meat despite the gathering scent of grilling aji. “Renaldo stood on the cliff too long and lost two frostbited, uh, frostbitten toes--both the little ones, each foot--but he laugh and say, 'I have lived and now I know I will not forget.’ Maybe, is not so bad.”