By Reporter Tall Shining Tiger, on roving assignment to Mei Kuo
12 November, the year 2105, Round Eye Reservation, Beautiful Kingdom.

Here in the Round Eye Reservation of the Beautiful Kingdom (in the Barbarian Style: Nebraska, Yueh-seh), this reporter had the poignant honor to attend the funeral rites of an ancient Round Eye woman, Pearl Moon, or, as she is known to those of her tribe who still speak the ancient Round Eye tongue, Je-si-ka Jian-san.

Pearl Moon's passing, at the age of 120, marks a change in the eternal seasons for the Round Eye, for Pearl Moon was one of the last to remember their legendary time before the coming of civilization, when the Round Eye were as numberless as the bamboo on a mountain slope and traveled the earth in crude swarms of powered wagons whose wheels actually touched the ground itself. A barbaric, hasty people, no doubt, with an unfitting disregard for tradition, but nonetheless it is curiously sad to see more and more of their rude, ancient culture passing every day under the inroads of the superior philosophy of the Middle Kingdom.

It was not for a funeral that this reporter first ventured onto the Round Eye Reservation. Rather, it was because one day, working at the home offices in the City of Wind on the edge of the Mighty Lakes, a young Round Eye woman was permitted to enter. Her name was Jade Moon, and she spoke excellent Mandarin, spoke it so well that one could have been smitten if not for her grotesquely long nose, dirty yellowish hair waving like a lion's mane, strange staring eyes the color of the sky, giraffe-like long legs, and distastefully bulbous breasts that swayed as she walked.

Still, we are taught to value the spirit inside the body, so she was allowed to speak. Jade Moon informed us that her great-great-grandmother Pearl Moon was near to 120 years old, knew many secrets of the Time Before the Plagues, as the Round Eye nostalgically refer to the days when they lived as howling savages free from our tutelage, and that furthermore, this great-great-grandmother was the last living person to possess the thing known among them as the "tattoo".

This was interesting, but not enough to make any sane person want to venture into the reputedly dangerous Nebraska Round Eye Reservation. Besides, we were all looking forward to attending the team poetry competition between the Mighty Bears of the City of Wind versus the Horned Northern Warriors of the Province of 1,000 Lakes. Still, as the youngest, this reporter was given the assignment of accompanying young Jade Moon to the Reservation in order to record for posterity this archaic Barbarian curiosity, the "tattoo".

The hover-train ride across the prairies was uneventful. Only occasional reaping-machines spoiled the classic symmetry of the scene, as breezes rolled across the wheat.

Crossing the Mi-zu-ri River into the Round Eye Reservation, the hover-train conductor was somewhat shocked that this reporter wished to disembark along with Jade Moon. I believe he even showed himself to be of peasant origins by several muttered remarks about Middle Kingdom men going "native" with Round Eye maidens, but I let his coarse and low-born uttering fall away from my ears under their own imbalanced weight. Shamefully, there are those with the souls of livestock even among us of Middle Kingdom origin, and suchlike would doubtless always misinterpret my disinterested scholarly study of Jade Moon's alien anatomy as imprudent attraction. We must pity their circumscribed minds.

I had always pictured the Round Eye Reservation as teeming with that barbarian people, as the numbers that once filled a continent were placed here, for their own protection, in a province that was once only 1/50th of their realm. However, the streets were dusty and the markets boarded over, with only stray dejected Round Eyes here and there. Surely, they have fallen.

My readers may expect tales of disturbing action and swirling battle, as pictured in the entertainment centers, where painted-faced Round Eye warriors drop from the sky in ancient winged vehicles or swarm over the earth, shooting from the tops of armored self-propelled wagons spitting fire and smoke. This reporter begs permission to disappoint. The only confrontation was with an elderly man who emerged from an alley, wearing a faded cap that marked him as one of their "veteran" caste, as it was emblazoned with symbols that in their writing stand for the name of some ship long-rusted on the ocean floor. He howled abuse at us, in the ancient tongue, which Jade Moon in lady-like embarrassment feigned not to know. I, however, once learned its rudiments covering crime by the docks, and his words came to something like this:

"What is it that you want here, O damned-by-the-gods Middle Kingdom man? Is not the rest of our land enough? HA! If not for the plagues, you would not have conquered us, you who pretend to be heirs to the Han, Ming, and Sung! Ha! In my day, you were naught but a tribe of damned-by-the-gods 'commies' selling cheap 'barbidolls' to our children. What say you to that?"

Respect is to be shown to any elder, even an abusive Round Eye, so this reporter merely bowed and listened. It was obvious the man was caught in the throes of dementia, referring to such mythical things as "commies" and "barbidolls", as Round Eyes and other barbarians who do not receive proper educations in Official History are wont to do. When his rage abated, this reporter restored harmony by giving the man a silver piece to place on the honored tomb of his ancestors, which delighted him, though Jade Moon said it was possible that he would spend it on "beer" instead.

Then Jade Moon led me to the square metallic hut of her great-great-grandmother Pearl Moon. There were totemistic metal sculptures perched on blocks outside, a seemingly random arrangement to this reporter's civilized eyes, but surely carefully and cunningly arranged to line up with various stars and heavenly bodies by the elders of the Round Eyes, for such things are no doubt vastly important to them. There was nothing on the porch except for a filthy heap of rags perched in a rocking chair.

We walked past the heap of rags, which was of course only a heap of rags after all, and found great-great-grandmother Pearl Moon inside, inexplicably staring at a metal box with one side made of darkened glass. She bestirred her withered frame when hearing Jade-Moon's voice, and received me courteously until she ascertained that I was not some sort of shaman from among her people known as a "ti-vi repairman". At that point she took a tone of unseemly familiarity but was quite willing to be interviewed.

Her command of Middle Kingdom Speech was small, and marred by an insistence on ending each statement with a rising tone, causing great confusion until this reporter submitted and switched to the monotone mumbling Round Eye patois. What follows is an abridged transcript of the interview:

Tall Shining Tiger: Greetings, honored Pearl Moon, thank you for allowing—

Pearl Moon: First off, my name is Je-si-ka? I am almost 120, do you imagine you could say my real name for once? Just because the bureaucrat at the resettlement center back in 2052 felt like scribbling "Pearl Moon" on my papers doesn't mean it's, like, my name, dude?

TST: Ah, 1,000 pardons, honored Pearl— uh— je, jez— uh Noble Lady.

PM: No biggie, kiddo. Now Legsy here says you want to see a tattoo?

TST: Legsy?— ah, Jade Moon, your great-great-granddaughter, yes, a tattoo, yes. Where do you keep it, Honored Lady, in the other room?

PM: Leaping Son of Heaven on a pogo stick, boy, you ARE new, aren't you? Here's a tattoo, right here on my wrist!

This reporter leaned close to see what she was pointing at on her sun-beaten, wind-dried flesh. After a moments study, it was possible to see the pale, faded drawing of a butterfly.

TST: So lifelike, so well drawn. And to think, so soon it will wash off. Did you draw it there this week?

PM: Dude. I got it tattooed, like forever? Like a freakin tattoo? They stuck a little needle over and over in my skin with ink on it; it felt like getting something carved on me with a razor blade? Hello? Last week? I got it when I was 15, back in 2001!

As the ghastliness of the barbaric pain-filled Round Eye rite hit this reporter, still I tried to see the good in it:

TST: Ah, a TATTOO, of course. And the Butterfly is the symbol of rebirth, new life, new hope, you were doubtless marked thus by your parents to celebrate your coming into womanhood...

PM: Feces of a Bull! I got it to piss off my parents, and also because that female dog Can-di Tho-mas was gonna get one to impress Je-re-mi Bog-dan. Can-di got a dancing "te-di" bear instead. Ha. Both her and Je-re-mi been dead and rotted 60 years now, those offspring of unwed parents.

TST: The departed elders Can-di and Je-re-mi are to be respected—

PM: Like the burning mythological Lake of Fire they are! They were morons; we were all little morons, doing whatever anybody else did. Now they're both dead morons. That's all. But here, here's another tattoo, with a way cooler history...

At this point Pearl Moon extended her ankle from her dress and exhibited yet another tattoo, this time an amazingly delicate representation of a thorny vine encircling her ankle, with little delicate drops of blood so craftily done that I could feel the pricking pain in my own leg, so realistically were they depicted, on the parts of her ankle not given over to bristly hair and calluses.

This reporter hesitates to give the history of the second tattoo, as the readers are doubtless still reeling from the shocking tale of familial disrespect that gave birth to the first one. I will condense it. After leaving the place of her birth, the young Pearl Moon, now 18, journeyed to the Western Shore Province, that in her mind still bears the name "Ca-Li", and with no guidance from home fell in with a shiftless and misguided youth who would not study named Jei-sun who strangely kept a "pot" on his "head" (I beg forgiveness for the inaccuracy of my translations). In spite of no parental blessings or formal ceremonies, Pearl Moon and Jei-sun of the "pot-head" did very little for an entire summer accept couple like hares and "smoke" (fire in a kiln?) Jei-sun's pots.

When that summer was over, they parted, forever, but not before getting identical tattoos of thorny vines to symbolize that they were linked, and that both felt the pain of parting.

Upon saying these words, Pearl Moon fell silent for a moment and looked out the window towards the setting sun, seemingly gazing at another sun, long ago, farther west.

I prepared to beg my leave and allow the aged savage to give herself over to reveries of lost youth, but suddenly she regained her spirit and said, "Here is something you have to see." She made to undo her scarf, and her great-great-granddaughter Jade Moon became agitated, saying, no, no, there were no more tattoos to be seen. But with surprising agility the old woman fended her off, pulled the scarf from her neck, and leaned forward into the light.

PM: Hey now Mr. Middle Kingdom, what do you think of THIS?

Even though the wattles of her neck hung like curtains, I could still clearly see two very well done Middle Kingdom ideograms. She took up again her boastful tone:

PM: I got THIS back when your 9-year-old great-grandaddy was still popping lace-hole rivets into "nai-ki's" back on the far side of the ocean (For by such a name do the Round Eye erroneously refer to the Middle Kingdom, when, of course, it was they who were far away.) This is a, like, "ZEN" symbol, it is the symbol for Harmony and Peace, I got it when I was protesting the war in Brazil. You like it?

TST: Indeed. The calligraphy is impeccable, of the most respectable classic style. That the artist managed to reproduce with a needle the light and subtle nuances of a brush shows us the triumph of art over adversity.

It truly did. The ideograms were exquisite, and yet the poor old woman had been cruelly deceived. They did not say "harmony" or "peace". No. For most of her life she had been walking around with "kick me" stenciled on her neck.

Across the room, Jade Moon hid her face in shame.

Mistaking our stunned silence as boredom, Pearl Moon decided to play her winning stone. For there was one more tattoo to be seen. Even now, my hands tremble at the remembered thought. Pearl Moon rose from her seat and turned her back to us, and grasping her skirts, spoke back over her shoulder:

PM: This is the best one? We would all get stars and stuff tattooed in the small of our backs? But I figured, why be a conformist, I got a great ass, who needs one star when you can get a whole galaxy running across your ass and down your leg?

Young Jade Moon gasped, unable to speak. Pearl Moon lifted her skirts, and I saw the heavens, ancient beyond man's ken, deteriorating, surrendering to entropy, and I screamed.

I do not know how we made it out of the hut. The old woman did not. When I came to, the small building was burning, and I imagined the crackling of the flames to be the crazed old woman's final cackles from beyond the grave. Jade Moon explained to the local Round Eyes who gathered round us that the lamp had broken, and that it was no doing of mine. In fact, I could barely sit up, yet she supported me as I leaned back against her unattractive, large, warm, firm bosom, and she brushed the hair from my eyes as I gibbered in lingering fear.

The funeral was the next day, quite simple and sober. Watching the Round Eyes close at hand, I cannot deny that some of them may have the same fineness of sensibility as any from the Middle Kingdom.

My leave-taking of Jade Moon was modest and bittersweet. I believe she had much still to talk about, but at the same time was fighting to forget the horrors that bound us one to the other. I will draw a veil across our words, which were private.

And so, this reporter is back in the City of Wind, the story of the ancient tattoos slowly fading in his mind as he covers the routine cases of the modern world.

And still, I cannot bring myself to look again at the stars.