The Way of the Shed Needle

At last I return to the Order.

Before Christmas, I was sent on a secret mission by Master Toro, the dojo's Finance Director. He told me only I could pull it off. I was to lie in wait outside a certain business watching for one individual - for weeks if necessary. I was given a brief description of the target and told to kill on sight. Such was the sensitivity of the mission that it would require special concealment measures.
As Master Toro had only very briefly briefed me, I asked him for more details, to which he replied: "Ninjas who would be worth more to the Order as a bucket of ingredients for traditional medicines should not ask too many questions when work comes their way."

So it was that I was dressed, with the help of some adepts, in a disguise that so encumbered me I could barely move and could not see down at all. I was then driven at speed to the location and placed in some kind of hidden bunker. I was not told where so that, if captured, I could not betray the plan. I was told to blend in, to be still, to be silent and to watch for a gaunt Arab with a black beard and a kidney dialysis machine.

I have barely blinked since mid-December, in accordance with the teachings of the Ninjitsu on the Way of the Ongoing Eye. I have the image of the shop I was watching burned into my retinas. Because I was there during the pre-Christmas rush I also have the sounds of Slade's Merry Christmas and crying children ringing in my ears. My target did not appear.

Eventually, after dark yesterday, I was relieved by a giggling Brother Niguri. He removed me from my "bunker" and helped me out of my disguise. It was then - and only then - I realised that I, a trained ninja, a feared killer, a being who has transformed himself into a living shuriken, had been hired out to the nearby shopping mall as ... Frosty the sodding Snowman for their Christmas grotto.

And, oddly, Osama bin Laden did not pop into our branch of Argos to do his shopping.

Comments

[Jesus H Christ]

Presuming that master wasabi is a young adult and that the intimate parts of his anatomy weren't put on eBay as threatened after all - is it too far-fetched to suggest perhaps that certain primal panda instincts should be starting to kick in right now - such as a nascent desire for some of the sisters of the monastery, and feeling almost compelled to let his paws go where there was no fur before?

Not to be crass or anything, but surely, he's a young man, struggling with the flesh while trying to build on his karma?

Didn't he send flowers to his sweetheart this Valentine's Day?

[J. H. Christ]

It's hardly a mystery that Osama bin Laden wouldn't be doing some festive shopping. The koran holds Christians and Jews to be "infidels". I presume that if Eid did not happen to fall around the same date, he'd be abstaining out of principle.

Bet you didn't think of that!

And tell me, how does master Wasabi access his blog? Does he pay a visit to the local wangba (that's 'net cafe, in Mandarin) or have the far-eastern monasteries got high-tech these days?