(Written on the back of a postcard of the Golden Gate Bridge, partially obscured by a tea stain)

  Say to Bitu, Gatekeeper of the Netherworld, thus says Imin-kam, Seventh Gallu Demon:

  Greetings from California! We have captured the dead man’s soul and, after some adventures, are returning to the Netherworld.

  We were poling our raft down the street, with the dead man gibbering at our feet in his manacles and neck-stock, when Esh-kam stopped us. "Hey, look!" he said, pointing at a café sign that read "Meet Fresh," plus some characters in Chinese calligraphy. (You know my third brother – always a slave to his gullet.)

  "What about it?" asked Desh-kam, impatient to get back to the Netherworld. (You also know my eldest brother – always so serious about, well, everything.)

  "That soul we seized last time was at a Meet Fresh, remember? She choked to death on a bowl of douhua."

  The six of us nodded. It was hard not to remember someone who managed to choke to death on soft tofu pudding. (Although, to be fair, it hadn't been the pudding that got her but a stray sweet-potato ball.)

  "What about it?" I asked.

  "Well, we could try it. He—" a jerk of the head towards the dead man — "isn't going anywhere."

  My fourth brother, Limmu-kam, read the disapproving set of Desh-kam's beak and shook his head. "You know better than to dally on Earth after we seize a soul, brother. We need to get him back to the Netherworld so the scribes can process him."

  Before Desh-kam could issue his verdict, the café door opened, and out sauntered a woman with a cup of boba milk tea. Even as we watched, she slurped up several springy black pearls and chewed contentedly.

  Next to me, my fifth and sixth brothers, Ia-kam and Ash-kam, swallowed hard. We turned pleading eyes on Min-kam. If anyone could talk Desh-kam into a short stop, it would be Min-kam, second born of the gallus.

  Unexpectedly, the dead man spoke up. "The douhua at Meet Fresh is very good. You should try it."

  Desh-kam raised his eyebrows. "So you can make a run for it as soon as we leave the raft?"

  The dead man shrugged as well as you’d expect from someone who was wearing a neck-stock and had his hands manacled behind his back. "Where would I go if I ran?"

  That was true enough. He couldn't return to his body – it was much too mangled. He could exist as a ghost fugitive on Earth, but I didn't think he knew that.

  "I don't see that it's a big risk," Min-kam told Desh-kam.

  "Pleeeeeease?" I begged.

  Desh-kam considered for a moment while we held our metaphorical breaths. "Very well then. Make sure he is secured."

  While the dead man protested that he wasn't going anywhere, we looped a rope through the grid of poles that formed our raft and bound his manacles tightly. Then we moored the raft among the rushes and stepped onto solid ground, back into the human world.

  Since Desh-kam refused to let us eat in the café, we got douhua and boba milk tea to go, and we trotted back chattering about how we were going to sit on the edge of the raft and dangle our feet in the water.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Except, when we passed out of the human world into the rushes and returned to the river, the dead man was gone.

  Also, the raft was halfway through sinking.

  Dropping the containers and cups, we leaped into the water to rescue it. When we hauled it on land and turned it over, we discovered that the dead man had gashed holes in each of the animal skins that kept it afloat.

  "I'm going to use his hide as a replacement!" Min-kam roared.

  Tight-lipped, Desh-kam didn't say, “I told you so." He began issuing commands. "Min-kam, take Esh-kam, Limmu-kam, and Ia-kam, and go re-arrest the dead man. Ash-kam and Imin-kam, we’re going to fix the raft."

  While Min-kam and the others set off in pursuit of the dead man, the three of us examined the damage to the raft. It was worse than we'd realized. Not only had the dead man punctured all the animal skins, but he'd also sawed at and nearly cut through the ropes that held the raft together.

  When our inspection was complete, Desh-kam heaved a heavy sigh. Ash-kam and I traded glances and didn't dare utter a single word.

  At last, Desh-kam stood. "Let's get supplies to fix this."

  "A hardware store...?" I ventured.

  "Indeed."

  He led us back onto the street, where a passerby gave us directions to the closest hardware store. The route led us past a park, where battle cries caught our attention. On a grassy field, two great armies clashed, thrusting and stabbing and parrying with swords forged from...foam?!

  Even as we watched, one soldier smote another with a mighty blow that – utterly failed to crack open his skull.

  "What is this?!" I didn’t realize I'd spoken out loud until a woman who was walking her dog answered, "Oh, that's the local roleplaying society. They LARP here every other Saturday."

  "LARP?"

  "Yeah. You haven't heard of it? It stands for 'live action roleplaying.' Kind of like a game of make-believe for adults."

  "Uh…."

  She smiled sympathetically, called her dog, and went on her way.

  "Make-believe...for adults...," I repeated.

  Ash-kam shook his head. "What will humans come up with next?"

  We both looked to Desh-kam to set a seal of approval on our disapproval, but he was appraising the false soldiers. "Yes. Yes…. I do believe that will work...."

  We waited. When he didn't elaborate for several moments, I prompted, "What will work?"

  "We're going to collect their foam swords. Get as many as you can."

  With that, he was off, whirling across the battlefield like a great storm, sweeping up foam swords as he went. After a stunned second, Ash-kam and I dove into the fray. A foam sword thumped me on the shoulder, and I growled and snatched it. Then I tripped another false soldier and grabbed his foam sword too.

  Complaints rose from all sides. "Watch it! You nearly knocked me over!" "Hey! Where'd my sword go?"

  Arms wrapped around neon pink, green, blue, and purple foam swords, Ash-kam and I met up with Desh-kam. In the background, the false soldiers hunted in vain for their vanished weapons.

  "What are we doing with these?" Ash-kam asked.

  "You’ll see," Desh-kam replied.

  Trading puzzled shrugs, we followed him back to the river. Min-kam and the others hadn't returned with the dead man yet, but I heard wailing in the distance.

  Desh-kam plucked a long rush and used it to lash two foam swords together. "We're going to use these to make ourselves a new raft."

  "Oh!" I cried. “Brother! You’re a genius!”

  He didn’t acknowledge the obvious. "Get to work. I want this done before they return."

  Working together, we had a neon pink, green, blue, and purple raft in no time. Once Desh-kam tested it and deemed it river-worthy, he even allowed us to retrieve the douhua and boba milk tea that we’d dropped. We sat in companionable silence on the foam swords, dangling our feet in the water and feeling the douhua dissolve on our tongues.

  At last, Min-kam and the others stumbled through the rushes, panting and carrying the dead man on their shoulders. This time, they had taken no chances: He was rolled up in so many nets and lassos that he resembled a spider's dinner. Sadly, the ropes didn't stop him from wailing nonstop.

  Min-kam's jaw dropped when he spotted us. "You've been having dessert while we were chasing down this—" He thumped the dead man on the head. The dead man yowled.

  Desh-kam chucked an empty douhua container into the river. "Ah, good, you're back. Get him onboard so we can cast off."

  "But—" protested Esh-kam. He scanned the rushes, clearly searching for the rest of the containers.

  "Have no fear. None of it went to waste," Desh-kam assured him serenely. "We ate it all."

  Esh-kam’s howl rivaled the dead man’s in anguish.

  "Come," Desh-kam ordered again.

  Shoulders slumping, my brothers carried the dead man aboard. The raft tipped dangerously but stayed afloat, and as we bobbed down the river towards the netherworld, Desh-kam slurped contentedly on the last cup of boba milk tea.

  I was fairly certain it was the one Esh-kam had ordered.