THE woman past THE DRAGON. Above the low, glossy black lacquer table, the throbbing 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 situation of the nippy Roland TR-808 and TR-909 rhythm boxes, essential in electronic music. And there, there they were, position to face, without smoke, without others to occupy a non-existent track or MDMA to cloud their reasoning or neon lights to illuminate them. -Is that all? -Monique finally blurted out, in frosty Japanese, once the water dancing not far off from the torii of Itsukushima Shrine. Her question was not answered with words flowing from Stas lips, but in the manner of his suit of disturbing 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 motionless,