Ginpachi Park

The city crumbles. The sky cracks. The park still stands.

What is time to us? We stand outside. We are here now. We are here eight years ago. An Agartha portal is threatened by the leviathan shadow of Orochi Tower. The immaculate machine is not defenceless. We initiated the alarm and call.

What is this? Do you see, sweetling? An enigmatic group of local and foreign environmentalists spearhead a project in the same year that ground is broken for the Tower. The project responds to the sterilisation of Tokyo – the pesticides and pollutants.

Do you see, sweetling? They release strange honeybees. Brought in to act as an environmental indicator species, they say. Soon after the bees arrived, the cheery blossoms produced cherries again. Birds filled the park. The people came. The rockabillies came. Those drawn in dedicated themselves to develop and defend the park.

And then, the bomb.

The Filth. The screams! So many infected by the Black Signal. The flora died. The fauna fled. Everything was corrupted. Except…

The Ginpachi Park bees rallied to a sakura tree, working tirelessly to repair a great hidden hive. They hummed the sixth secret song. They smoothed and burrowed and extended a cavity deep inside the earth, coating it with a preternaturally protective substance. The final phase of the Ginpachi Bee Project had begun.

The gears of the immaculate machine ever turn, sweetling. Some obvious. Some subtle. There is a presence in the park. She beams.

Listen to the bees, sweetling. Does it stir a faint yearning for the dance-speech and chemical-speech certainty of the hive?