Black Blade

A strange city at odds with itself, muttered a voice in my head.

I had landed in shanghai through a strange twist of fates and coincidences and between work and meetings I found myself wandering the streets.

The most capitalist place in the world, nestled in the most communist country in the world (oh, cuba communist enough, but china certainly wins hands down for size!)


Having acquired the accented speech of a canton dweller for my haggling with the shop keepers and the strange insulting me way of haggling of the locals.

I had amused myself that morning in the markets picking up what trinkets that caught my eye.


Me: "What? you call this a quality shirt? just because i come from canton doesn't mean I'm ignorant!"

Shopkeeper: " Its not like you cantonese know a quality shirt when you see one! Last batch of stock I bought from canton was rubbish!"

Me: " Its probably because they knew you were going to sell it to a foreigner instead of an honest chinese like me!"

Shopkeeper: "You got a point there cantonese, you can have it for your price"

And so on...

Thus it came to be that I stood in front of a shopkeeper of a weapon shop berating him for the rubbish he was trying to sell me (at this point an ex red army artillery man from the canton 26th artillery wing).

"Your're ex army you say? My cousin is in the army now, I really respect the work you boys do. So I'll let you in on something special if you can be quiet about it."

Then he disappears out back and appears with something wrapped in newspaper.

"I got some of these from the factory, you know how these things can fall off the back of the truck sometimes ;) ... we issue them to the police squads here, very good stuff"

I heft the obsidian blade and smiled the same smile I do whenever anyone ever asked me how I got my hands on it.

well now you all know.