Do Read the Fine Print Etched Upon Your California Roll

Yes, Akihiru, the valiant one they call The Whispering Ghost is dead, his body left for the gods upon the mighty Rock of the Tenth Son---and you are the Last Samurai. Yes, it is true; as you had long believed you might be, you are the final soldier in a great and proud line, and thus you must fight on, carrying the burden of all those samurai who have fallen before you. If you are ready for the immense responsibility of being the Last Samurai, draw your sword gently across my left palm, and your destiny will be sealed.

You make me proud, Akihiru! All right then. As the Last Samurai, your main responsibility will be to write the story of your people for future generations to learn from. Deep in the cold woods of the Kabato Mountains will you spend day and night listening to the spirits and transcribing their individual histories, going without food or drink for long periods out of respect for their sacrifices, writing until your hands bleed and break. We’re looking to have this project done by next summer, next autumn by the latest, and then your words will ring out through the coming centuries, and all that the samurai have struggled for will not be in vain. Best to start outlining and taking some basic notes right now so you don’t forget everything. We’re going to need about a hundred leather-bound copies. No, two hundred.

Also as the Last Samurai, it falls upon you to compile a spreadsheet of all your dead comrades, listing their achievements, their glories, and yes, even their failures. Like the story of your people, this too is for the future generations. The spreadsheet will be long and its compilation most difficult; again there will be no food and water for long periods, but I know that you have the inner strength to prevail. It goes without saying that the headers of each column should be in bold blue type, does it not, Akihiru?

I’m thinking it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to keep hosting the samurai web site, so as the Last Samurai can you give Yahoo a call and have that taken down? Also, the samurai bulletin board in the sacred chamber beside the Nobu River seems to be sort of pointless, so that should go, just be careful not to damage the wall when you unscrew it. What else...oh, you should probably send out a message to the email list and let them know it’s just you now. Put a thing in there about how downloading the samurai social networking app we were working on will probably be a waste of time and money.

Um, someone has to clean out the Ivory Temple of Kenta...and since there are no other samurai left...well, you get the picture. There’s a lot of trash in there, soda bottles and such, so you’ll probably have to stop at CVS and get a bunch of bags. After you clean it, make sure all the lights are off, kill the AC, lock up, and make sure the great warrior Haatu gets both copies of the key. I’ll write to him on blessed parchment and tell him that you’re the Last Samurai and he won’t give you any hassles. Cancel the mail there, too, now that I think of it.

When you’re done all that, just take a look around the area, you know, give it a once-over, make sure we didn’t forget anything, and after that I guess you can just go keep upholding the noble ideals of the samurai, fighting whoever needs to be fought and such. You might want to be, you know, extra careful, since after you, there’s really no backup plan. We really don’t have the budget to just keep cranking out samurai.

Shoot, you know what? We had that charity thing all set up where those lonely women were going to bid on dates with samurai. We can’t cancel that, we already paid for the ad, so as the Last Samurai...do us a solid?