The Devil in the Epilogue

It took some further prodding to get the Oni to finally set down the hors d'oeuvres and explain himself. He wasted no words spinning his tale.

"It was my job to guard the Rashomon gate in Kyoto. Real simple gig: anyone shifty lookin' shows up, jump out and scare 'em off. One day some wannabe samurai comes along, swords clanging and everything, clearly bad news, so I hop out and give my usual roar of primal hatred...the jerk cuts off my arm and bolts without saying a word. Few days later I hear he's bragging about slaying the 'big bad devil' and showing off the arm to everyone, so I go swing by his house disguised as his 'dear old aunty'" -- those words indeed rang out in the sing song voice of someone's elderly aunt as the Oni said them, his face briefly contorting impossibly to match the character. "I weaved a wonderful lie of how I had heard of his bravery and wanted greatly to see the arm of the beast he had slain. As soon as he brought it out I snatched it and ran."

"But how did you reattach it?!" I asked.

The Oni winked at me. "Trade secret." And with that, he went back to eating.

I had hoped to pry more, but almost immediately after the Oni had finished speaking, the opening ceremonies began. I would have to be satisfied with what I had, and what I had wasn't too bad: I had managed to get down the stories of everyone at the table in under a half hour and wouldn't have to awkwardly ask for anyone to stay after the meeting for an interview.

The meeting itself was incredibly eventful, but I am unfortunately sworn to secrecy about the exact details by a reporter's worst nightmare, the dreaded NDA. Suffice to say that the disagreements I've written about at my table are not the only topics of controversy among the giant community, nor are they the most heated subjects of debate (Jolly Green almost came to blows with a Jotunn over a part of the budget proposal!). To be fair to the giants, though, it's not like human meetings are any less unruly. Giving credit where credit is due, Atlas, this year's convention chair, kept the meeting pretty well on track in spite of the quarrels (one could say he carried the convention on his back). We finished up right around eleven that night, just as the schedule had indicated, and I was able to head back to my room and get a good night's sleep before the long day of interviews I had scheduled for the second half of the convention.

That's a tale for another time, though. Be sure to pick up next month's volume to get the full scoop on day two of The Annual Convention of the Vertically Gifted. I promise you, if you liked these stories, you won't be disappointed!

Story Source: Wikipedia

Author's Note: My idea with this last story was to briefly tell the tale of the Oni of Rashomon and then wrap up the book. Concerning the story retelling, the original takes place fairly similarly to the way I tell it here, albeit a bit more friendly to the samurai protagonist. Concerning the Oni himself, Oni are classic villains in Japanese folklore, massive ogres with large horns and teeth. Despite their fearsome appearance, Oni do not always act as boss-battle type villains, sometimes behaving like underhanded tricksters or simple trouble makers as is the case with the latter half of the tale of the Oni of Rashomon where the Oni steals his arm back. I decided to make the Oni in my story a bit more troublemaker than pure evil. He's a tad hedonistic and self-serving like so many Oni are (exemplified by his disinterest in pretty much everything throughout this story and those previous--he's just here for the food), but ultimately he's not that bad, more like a class clown or slack-off than anything. Because, unlike the other giants, the Oni has no real interest in rambling and gassing himself up, just wanting to tell the story and get back to his food, he provided the perfect opportunity to sneak in a bit of an epilogue with the leftover word count.