Trancas Canyon

Spin & Win

It was dinner time in Tokyo but Madli's body had no idea what time it was. She had eaten a sandwich on the plane hours ago. She was slightly nauseated from the smell of cigarettes which she had become unaccustomed to because so many places in Chicago were smoke free. She wanted nothing more than to go into the mini mart inside the terminal to get some crackers and a Sprite but she was already aware that she was officially on the clock and her time was not her own anymore.

A faint grin spread across Yoshimoto's face as he stared about a hundred yards in front of them. It was the first time he had shown any emotion.

"There he is."

Yoshimoto pointed and waved at Jaan whose eyes gleamed like lasers that had been activated by recognizing Yoshimoto's familiar face. Yoshimoto smiled sardonically as Jaan strode toward them.

"He is monster."

With his shaved head and nearly seven foot frame, Jaan did in fact look like an android.

Yoshimoto came to life as he and Jaan exchanged a hearty bromance style handshake. Madli craned her head up to meet her new colleague's gaze.

"Tere."

A look of surprise spread across Jaan's face as Madli greeted him in Estonian.

"You speak Estonian?"

"Yes. My mother is Estonian."

"So your name is Mahdli he said pronouncing it correctly. She had grown up in the suburbs of Chicago being called Madly like madly in love or truly, madly, deeply.

"Väga hea."

Madli recognized his interjection to mean, "very good." She hoped that he wouldn't continue speaking in Estonian because she in truth she was far from fluent and her vocabulary was limited to what she called, "kitchen Estonian." She was relieved when Jaan continued in English.

"Fiori's flight was delayed by a storm so they are not here yet. I've been on vacation for two weeks so I flew in separately last night to meet them. 'V' called me. She said you would be a lost lamb on your own here in Tokyo socalled Taro to meet you." 

Madli gazed at her completely foreign and surprisingly quiet surroundings. Even the ATM machines with their vivid graphic displays and extra slots, looked alien to her.

"I would have been lost."

"I am going to take you to Fiori's motorcade."

"Okay."

She followed alongside Jaan, doing her best to keep pace with his long strides. With every step, the sound of screaming fans who had been cordoned off at the end of the arrival terminal escalated. The wailing reached a fever pitch when the hundreds of fans spotted Jaan. The terminal was overcome by a hysteria the likes of which Madli could never have imagined. Airport security fought to hold back the fans who lunged forward and blindly raised their cell phones to capture Jaan's movements.

As Madli, got closer she could see that many of the fans were dressed up to look like Fiori from her different incarnations going back to her early career. Some fans wore outrageous blonde wigs while others had boldly slipped into skintight, sheer jumpsuits accessorized by knock-offs of her trademark platform boots. One young male fan who had secured a position up front, boldly stood amongst the others in a dress made of meat.

The gasps and screams of the hundreds of fans gathered outside hit Madli like a sound wave as she stepped through the sliding glass doors behind Jaan. White gloved airport police officers struggled to keep the crowd under control as Jaan escorted Madli to a caravan of shiny black luxury SUVS parked at the curb. From what she could tell, the whole terminal had been shut down for Fiori's arrival.