By Samii Setori, Kyoto Shimbun News 

November 11, 2012: Kyoto, Japan – In a parallel universe, on exactly the spot where Koshien Stadium lies in our world, there is an ole sawmill.  On the morning of November 9^th, 2012, an unusual event occurred.  The sawmill was peaceful in the forest as the golden fingers of the morning sun reached through the forest to greet the workers.  Unknown to them, another force was approaching…

The door to the mill burst open.  “What is going on here?  Oh wait, let me correct myself,” the voiced boomed sarcastically.  “What isn’t going on here?!  Who turned off that buzzsaw?”

Shifting nervously under the lumberjack cap perched jauntily atop his head, Hirohisa Miyamoto meekly responded, “Gosh, Mr. Hildreth, I have no idea.”  He turned to Morihiro Nakamura, who was standing nearby chopping wood.  “Did you turn the off the buzzsaw?”

Morihiro paused, raised his axe and swung, missing the wood on the block by a foot.  “No, I think it was Bigalow, but to be honest, I haven’t seen him since the job started”

(Isn’t it odd that these guys have the same name as the stars of Edo Battousai?  Strange world indeed…)

Hildreth’s face screwed up as he watched Morihiro line up another piece of wood, swing and completely miss it again.  In fact, he noticed that Morihiro was standing surrounded completely by a pristine pile of wood.  Only a single log had been cleanly cut.  On the other side of the pile, Sakutaro Otsuka happily cleaved another log.  He was busily reducing the far side of the pile to kindling.  None of the others seemed to notice.

Now they say that Krakatoa was a big explosion.  I don’t know; I wasn’t there.  Trust me, this was bigger.  Hildreth bellowed like a gored bull, “I asked you guys to get this very important job done!  We only had seven days!  What are you doing!?  Kenko!”

From the foreman’s shack, Kenko Nakamara came hustling out with a deeply concerned look upon his face.  He cast his catcher’s mask aside, tripped over a large saw and stumbled over his words as he replied, “Mr. Hildreth, about that seven days… I have some bad news.  The contract was cancelled last night and awarded to our competitors, the Akira!”

Thoroughly puzzled and beyond reason, Hildreth murmured, “Akira?  Akira-what?  A Kira whale?  I don’t understand… why was the buzzsaw turned off?  I had it all set, we were going to be done in seven days.  Where is Bigalow?”

“In the outhouse, sir,” replied Kenko crisply as he put his signed to his face a drinking motion.

His eyes narrowed.  “Drinking again?”  Kenko nodded.

Angry like a old man returning soup to a deli, his feet beating the floor like Ali on Liston, he stormed to the outhouse in a thundering march.  “B-I-G-A-L-O-W!!!”

Children of the world, I plead with you; stop reading this article now.  Go snipe hunting, anything, anything, before I must reveal this next horror.  Flee, children, flee!

Flinging the door open revealed the worst of humanity.  Slumped over the crude hole in the plywood was Ben Bigalow.  A dirt-caked glaze covered his face and ran down his flannel shirt.  Next to him, a stack of sticky, jumbled glass containers.  Maple syrup containers.  All of them drained.  Bigalow, in a stupor, slowly raised up and slurred, “Hiya, Hil-man, is the job done yet?”  Then he fell face-first onto the opening.  The sun mercifully hid behind a cloud and ceased casting the half moon pattern of the door on the Canadian speedster.  Hildreth walked off into the forest mumbling, “No, wait, I can fix this…”

I’ve said too much already, loyal readers.  I can bear to tell you no more.