Curled up against a dim, quick fading auburn sunset at the base of Mt. Iwase, dragon god shokuin, Tatsu Hanamake lies dejected, suspended in his own boiling brine. He weeps ceaselessly. His psyche spirals through essential memories, lost amid the innumerable seasons of his long life. Each of his phrenic images is slivered by quick, offbeat spluttering nose-breaths that flutter in and out of his unusually large nose which hovers millimeters above the large rhythmic wave pool. Steaming hot dragon tears increase the flood. It is highly abnormal for Mt. Iwase to experience anything but affable weather. Ill prepared, most of the nearby townspeople have failed to react to the acid rain. Those who survive, half swim or half run their way to refuge. They yearn for the Borough that rests 13 km south of the mountain`s heel in hopes that the vase chasm surrounding it will quench the ceaseless flood. Meanwhile, the Borough`s people have begun to flee from the overflow, while the many monsters and spirits who live there remain delighted, eager to bathe in the steaming hot salt water, pouring straight from a dragon god’s tear ducts.

Tatsu’s eyes are pinched shut in agony. He pictures early fond memories of his Chinese man, adopted father. His bàba was a youthful smooth-talking traveling poet who lived at the base of Shaoshi Mountain. His warm smile delighted all. As a young man, Tatsu’s father would often hike up Mt. Shaoshi for the sheer joy of exploration. One calm summer evening on his 24th birthday, he found infant Tatsu lying curled up, pocket-sized in a fairy ring of cotton candy colored mushrooms. Without hesitation, he gently picked up infant Tatsu, placing the baby god dragon in his empty leather coin purse before heading out on another adventure. Both would never return to their birthplace mountain. A few years of grand adventure occurred before these two playful spirits settled down to live peacefully, facing the east shore of Japan on the peak of their beloved mountain Iwase. Their home life was comfortable and peaceful. They enjoyed the shelter of a smooth marbled, bone white cave for many years. It sat perched like a cantilevered bird’s nest, jutting out of the mountain’s highest tip and was kissed by bright, daily sun rises. Tatsu and his father often woke up smiling with warm light bouncing off their marbled rock walls, gently caressing their morning skin.

Suddenly, a thunderous CRASH bellows from the sky, accompanied by a fresh jolt of lightning. Tatsu spies glorious, glistening tides waving below and feels the warmth of his father’s hand on his soft, leather-yellow underbelly. Thick white blossoms fall from an ancient Ichiyou, many of which float into the cave’s mouth. They are enveloped by a blanket of fluffy blossoms as Tatsu rolls back to sleep. Snap-bang! Lightning strikes again, jolting Tatsu into subsequent memories.

An exhilarating memory of ascending strength and size almost wakes him. He recalls the daily hugs he and his father shared when he was being reassured of his ability to handle his ever increasing power and length. Warm acceptance floods his gargantuan heart. This heart pumps thick hot blood such great distances through his body which is now mostly submerged in the undulating hot salt water. Crack, again, more unnerving voltage strikes! The frequency of assaults continues to increase.

Tatsu sees the love in his father’s eyes, as he explains that he has known for some time that Tatsu is a dragon god whose emotional state and poise control the weather of their vast mountain range. He explains that the respectful love which they share will ensure flourishing life on Mount Iwase, supporting all who live among them.

Bang, crash! Another blast of light hits the salt water, jolting Tatsu’s eyes wide open. Still he is not lifted from his mental fog.

He recalls tasting the fluffy lavender honey cake his father would make for them on each league celebration. Year after year, Tatsu grew another ri in length. Every Additional ri was celebrated as if it were a full league, even though a ri a kilometer or so shy of a full league. For the two, each of these intimate events signified Tatsu’s birthday. Tatsu often wrapped his body around their mountain many times and beyond it. His powers developed in abundance. With bàba as his guide, Tatsu learned to artfully twist together and mix earth’s elements, always gingerly managing the balance of nature around him to promote its wellbeeing. He spent his time joyously painting seasons with vivid, fluid colors. By the time Tatsu’s father was known by the nearby townspeople as the “dragon`s elder mountain hermit”, Tatsu would spin the weather with ease and flourish, bending and pulling the atmosphere to create a ceaseless interlink of idyllic, fruitful circumstance. In his mind’s eye, Tatsu is being praised for his mountain range weather management during another annual festive celebration held in his honor. The townspeople rejoice endlessly, as they have done for decades amid bountiful harvests. He revels in their warm praise.

Crack! Yet another lightning bolt jolts Tatsu, shocking his cortex into a deeper recollection. He remembers the heat of his father’s hand going cold, when he passed peacefully by the fire in their mountain top hovel. His mind speeds through decades managing idyllic weather patterns even though he stopped growing in power and size. 1000 leagues was his full length. 900 years of loneliness fell upon him, and through that time, his vitality and willpower began to fade. Celebrations of admiration for Tatsu ceased as his heart weakened in despondency. His active body slowed and as he became sedentary, the surrounding environment reflected his lackluster view of life. The lands he managed became messy and spotty, verging on infertility. No soul came to visit him. The townspeople dismissed their previously praiseworthy mountain dragon as useless, unfit, and too feeble to manage the weather in their favour. Long gone was the unwavering assurance of the warmth and charisma with which he and his hermit had blessed them. Like his deceased father, the townspeople would no longer reassure him of his worthiness. The stories of his great power fell into obscurity and the vast majority of townspeople migrated to more fruitful lands.

BANG, more lightning strikes. The jolts have become more frequent, electrifying the stewing god. Tatsu is zapped into a stream of memory that sees him holding hands with Huli Kamika, his one great love who walked his full length, 1000 spiraling leagues up to the summit of Mt. Iwase. He recalls their smitten eyes of blissful connection as they reflected content smiles after their first kiss. The two lovers danced and played alongside rainbow roads of tulips that sprung up in droves when Huli explained to Tatsu that she herself is a Kami, a spirit hiding patiently for millennia as she admired Tatsu’s weather work from the mountain base town Iwase. Huli, an awe inspiring Kitsune fox, capable of shapeshifting, restored Tatsu’s great power. It was their reciprocal, generous love that taught Tatsu to shift the weather dramatically once again. Splendorous love led to faultless weather patterns. Hulis’ playful life with Tatsu ensured the creation of rich soil which sprouted forth the hearty and plentiful plant life once again.

Crack-crack screeches the sky. A deep, fear-inducing rumble accompanies lime green rain that hisses like a trillion snakes with infinite droplets smacking the ocean and cresting like a wave pool surrounding Mt. Iwase. Tatsu`s skin burns slowly. He now sees a baby girl’s wide turquoise blue and yellow eyes. Her new-born pupils look like two supernovas trapped in a glacier. It is infant Clarity on the day she floated to him and Huli, mid-picnic on one glorious warm June afternoon. There she lay like a starfish, kelp-wrapped on a bed of soft urchin. She looked up at Tatsu and Huli, cooing with the most angelic, lucid song.

Crack! Another bolt of lighting electrifies him. The lighting’s pace accelerates further and the rain intensifies. Tatsu catches a glimpse of young Clarity doing front rolls down plush wildflower hills, amid fluttering dragonflies. Watchful hummingbirds sip nectar gleefully. He hears her say, “Tati! I love you Tati Hani!” A giga-jolt of lightning pulsed though Tatsu’s long belly. To his horror, he now remembers his present reality within the broken pieces of yesterday. Yesterday, Huli and I were here with her family. We were to be married… “Tati Hani!, Clarity yelped at me as her wedding decorated rickshaw peeled out. They speed down the mountain to avoid my violent storm. Oh my love, where are you now? Huli, Clarity? Where have you gone to my sweet loves?

What have I caused? I lost control. Am I losing my mind? What was that smell?”

Hani said we should postpone the wedding due to foul weather just before our ceremony began. I lost my composure. What was that putrid purple, green, and yellow smoke? The pressure of having to manage the day’s weather led me to snap up a forest fire!

Lightning flashed at the wedding and I am questioning why I lost control? Erratic! Manic! My beautiful bride and her relatives have fled. She was holding our baby girl. My Clarity! They ran from my fire, my smoke, my rage. I caused excessive damage to our mountain. The families below are displaced. We are drowning. I’m drowning in my pain.

Tatsu’s mind spirals further. Acid rain batters the earth and thrashing waves of tears swell ceaselessly from the mountain god since yesterday’s nuptials were halted. Tatsu`s head submerges, his vision blurs. Lightning cracks the open sky once more. It shocks the dragon`s entire being once again. He wraiths up in wild pain before his gargantuan head thuds on what dry mountainous rock is left above water.

Thunder shakes the base of Mt. Iwase. Deep beneath it, Hadal, a devil clown demon, and Orhwurm, a pocket-sized putrid jester-like earworm, connive as they enjoy the rumble, as salt water seeps in through sulphuric stone.

“If I’m hearing you straight, Lord Brain, last week you successfully used Iwase`s deep steam vents that I so dutifully dug for you to leach out hallucinatory gasses, sabotaging a sacred Tibetan Kami spirit wedding,“ Ohrwurm stated.

“That’s right,” replied Hadal.

“Then, you intercepted a rickshaw to steal from the groom, a venerated dragon god, his fox of a wife and orphaned baby siren goddess all in order to persuade him to live in the Borough with many of my demonic friends who guard your doorstep at Izakaya Go,” continued Ohrwurm.

“This is it,” Hadal sneered, chin tucked, with a deadpan,unwavering facial expression.

“I intend for him to stay on top of the door, never moving from it.”

Ohrwurm reels in his tongue, after hissing, and then snaps his lips to say, “Fantastic.”

“Come with me this evening Ohrwurm,” Hadal growls intoning his deep chords. “We are attacking a mute, paper crane mother, to snatch her from her nest and offer her peaceful, spiritual healing powers to this dragon in exchange for his and his loved ones` refuge.”

“I don’t want to come out for this.” Ohrwurm whispers.

“I’ll wait at the Borough with the bride and baby,” coaxed Ohrwurm as a gross grin fell on his pale lips.

“You will come with me, to distract the baby crane`s mother, while I sneak up behind her,” bellowed Hadal. “For if you help me, I will grant you a much greater existence than what you have now. I’ve dug up places deeper than your putrid sulfuric hovel. My home is hot, it’s hell. It suits me and it would suit you too, you know.”

“How so?” grinned Ohrwurm with his many teeth, sharp as porcelain knives.

“I will provide you with permanent adaptation to hell’s heat and build you a lavish mansion there, stocked with your favorite foods and people who wait on you, tending to your every desire. I can give you a life of splendor that no worm could uphold. While your mansion is being constructed, I will give you a nature dragon’s gods body that possesses otherworldly powers. As a Tatsu you can have one hell of a party!” offered Hadal.

“How so?” asked Ohrwurm.

“While our dragon recovers from extensive injuries at the room and board I provide, fast asleep in the back of Izakaya Go, you will crawl in through his gargantuan ears. While you wait concealed in his mind, you will operate his dragon body and control his mind. As Tatsu, you will host nightly Karaoke and host the private booth where your friends will indulge indefinitely. You will run the show! Play your mind numbing songs on perpetual repeat at the back of Izakaya Go with your demon friends, offering libations, bar snacks and much more to stir things up. I am the landlord who supplies this perpetual party and you can beat on the dragon’s ear drums to drive him as mad as you! Be his voice and thoughts. Drive him insane as you navigate him like a lunaticked submarine!” coaxed Hadal.

“Mad as I?” Ohrwurm pumped his chest up with eager flair.

“Yes. Only madder because you’re soon to be so much greater in size, length and power. You’ll be a dragon god who is endlessly praised. Mass adoration is a highly addictive drug. You’ll love it.”

“I’ll also make you part owner of Izakaya Go, once I change the name to Izakaya Goshi Goshi. Scrub Scrub! It is indefinitely submerged. The bar is an Izakaya Onsen now since Tatu`s hot water has filled it. The bar has no owner. Samurai Hansho drowned in it this morning. The Borough has been cleaned out with salty water. It’s practically a hot spring town for dead spirits to bathe in now. All humans have either drowned or fled. Only monsters, spirits and other supernaturals remain.

As you know, I own this land beneath the mountain and that which surrounds it for 1000 leagues in radial diameter. Your sulphuric hovel is also filling up with saltwater as we speak. You’ll need to swim your way into Tatsu’s mind to weather this storm.

I’ve drafted a contract which I have here, to resolve so many of the issues with your present state of affairs. The benefits for you, are as described in our legally binding document, with the only condition being that you will never, under any circumstance reveal yourself as the leech sucking on Tatsu Hanimake`s mind. As long as you remain concealed, your stocked mansion in hell awaits you,” concluded Hadal.

“I’m all aboard, let me sign it, let me seal it now!” Ohrwurm eagerly yelps.

“I will strip the dragon’s spirit of temperance and will. I will drive his psyche mad to lose direction and feed him song after song to numb his neurons. We will be one!” cackled Ohrwurm.

With a crystal fountain pen filled with fresh blood, Ohrwurm signs the contract.

Then he straps on his lederhosen. Hadal, flings on a tattered navy jacket, clunky brown boots, tattered straw hat and speeds off on his mythic, baggy poison clown pants that possess power to summon acid rain. The two exit up the gullet of Mt. Iwase. A deep hiss seeps from the cavernes mouth of rock as it fills up to its brim with Tatu`s lonesome soup. Hadal and the vicious worm paddle a deep crimson gondola amid Mt. Iwase`s pine forest tree tops searching for a mother paper crane. They soon find her, feeding damp pulp to her children, beak to beak. Ohrwurm yells the German word, “Schreien!”

Hadal then swiftly snatches the mother bird from her nest mid-feed.

They paddle off abruptly, gain momentum then coast, so Hadal can pull out a vial to harvest the mother crane`s tears for use at a later date.

The boat begins to sink. Just as Tatsu was plagued, acid wears away its belly. With a terrified mother crane in one gangly hand, and an evil ear worm in the other, Hadal hops and balances on telephone wires to reach Tatsu’s battered body. The few houses at the top of the mountain are submerged. These metal tightropes are the only path Hadal can walk. They are all he needs.

Steam whistles, as rainbow oil bubbles rise up through the few open vent holes remaining on Mt. Iwase. A particularly large and thick bubble floats up and rests on Tatsu’s battered face, above his gargantuan nose, falling to rest upon his forehead. Tatsu now swims in a psychedelic fantasy where he’s growing fields of ripe, symmetric tart red strawberries amid perfect conditions so the villagers will praise him once again, before popping each human into his mouth, like sacrificial dragon god snacks. Then, a long pointed pinky fingernail presses through the bubble, popping both it and Tatsu from his dream. A contrived clown frown looks down upon him.

“Tati! Tati Hani!” Hadal chuckles with a shriek. “My name is Dalah!”

Hadal switches to a convincing, compassionate and plaintive tone.

“I’m here to save you and bring you to your loved ones.”

Enraged and confused, Tatsu lifts his head up into the air, wrapping himself around the deep purple mudslide of a mountain. His shape resembles a long, ovular stretched ouroboros.

Tatsu screams, eyes rolled back, “Save me? I’m dead already!”

“I’ve heard from the villagers who fled that you were to be married and that your wife and child fled the storm. They ran to the Borough and are now safe there. I live there, a mere beggar joker who plays tricks for cash. See my straw hat? See this tattered waistcoat. I am a clown with meager means, but I do have one thing, a friend with me who can heal your wounds and return to you, your princess and bride,” Hadal pleads.

With Ohrwurm, held in his left hand, hidden behind his back, out reaches Hadal`s right hand, holding the light lavender colored paper crane mother. She whimpers, shuddering in the cold, fearful that an acid raindrop will obliterate her hand-made, fragile origami skin.

“This paper crane`s purity will heal your acid wounds. Her gentle song not only heals skin and bone, it also rekindles bonds and unites Kami spirits. You will be healed of your pain and your wife will forgive you, making everything right,” orates Hadal.

Suddenly the acid rain ceased, lightning evaporated, and the large undulating waves that Tatsu had been creating flattened into still, oil-slicked water. All was silent amidst the soft steam rising from the surface. The green, bent moon shuddered as it rose.

Tatsu’s shattered emerald iris cannot see through Hadal’s disguise. This battered dragon does not detect the foul lies that attempt to ensnare him. He agrees to go with Hadal to Onsen and Izakaya Goshi Goshi to heal, replenish, and find his loved ones. With Hadal and Ohrwurm riding saddles placed on the back of Tatsu’s neck, they glide along the glassy water, snaking ever so gradually towards the Borough of Ghosts.