Remember Tokyo: How Do You Measure A Year?

(Thanks to Sion for the photo)

A few hours later
Our birds are home and sulking
And I get called in.

"Can you explain this?"
Asks the PM, who I kept
Far out of the loop.

I take a long, deep breath.
"This about nicking POTUS?
Our role's off the books."

"Jakarta ran it,
Jakarta lost him to Seoul.
But we're in the clear."

"Sounds thrilling," he says.
"You must tell me more sometime.
"But what I meant was..."

He turns on the news.
"LIVE: Japan assassinates
US president."



Mouth open, no sound.
Should I scream? I can't think straight.
Blue screen of brain-death.

"It's just a mistake!"
Comes out at last. "Crossed wires!"
We took him alive!"

"Taking him alive
Is not keeping him alive.
He came back sans face."

"Do you understand?
His head is a cubbyhole.
A place to keep keys."

Ambassadors unite!
Ev'ry Yank dignitary
Shows up just to yell.

And to threaten, too.
Mainly with more nukes, really.
'Cos fourth time's the charm.

Still, my sarcasm
Isn't the best missile shield.
Time for a mole hunt.

But who'll be Bauer?
24 is fetid shit
But Jack got results!

"Interrogators?"
PM says. "Good plan, one flaw.
They're all zombies now."

Guess that's the problem
With thrice decimating
Your own people

Sooner or later
You find yourself outsourcing
Contracts to graveyards.

(Far too late we learn
Japan has been seeded with
Global terrorists.

They murdered POTUS.
Gave us the zombie bug too.
So Yanks? Get in line.)

Manpower zero?
The US wants to end us?
One coast glows and clicks?

I figure I'm like
Aliens in the UN:
High time I fucked off.

So I board a plane
To beg the States for mercy
And maybe defect.

That's where my tale ends
My time in government ends
Before my flight does.

Seems voters watched us
Shoot thirty percent of them
And thought: "That's not good."

And so I retire
In disgrace, yes, but at least
With no taste for brains.

I'm sorry, Japan
I tried to bring you vengeance
When you needed peace.

I beg forgiveness
That what I couldn't give you
I strive for myself

I find a cottage
Small and pretty, by the sea
There I live my life.