THE woman in the manner of THE DRAGON. Above the low, glossy black lacquer table, the ache 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 business of the nippy Roland TR-808 and TR-909 rhythm boxes, critical in electronic music. And there, there they were, aim 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 chilly Japanese, subsequent to the water dancing roughly speaking the torii of Itsukushima Shrine. Her ask was not answered later than words flowing from Stas lips, but as soon as his warfare of upsetting his feet upon 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 motionle