A Gloomy Birthday Celebration: a short story.

Earl Strickland was a damn good car salesman. From the early spring of 1991 to the late summer of 1992, he boasted the title of "salesman of the month" at the Ford dealership on East Jefferson Avenue in Detroit, Michigan.

This was all before he ate some soup, rice, steak, and vegetables prepared by an ex-tae kwon do instructor at a Hibachi restaurant in Columbus, Ohio in 2009. He was on vacation to be with his grandchildren, whom he spent most of his time ignoring so as to stay asleep as often as possible, and whoever else would suddenly be deemed part of his daughter's family. Earl was never fond of any man that she had ever been with, and probably never intended to be fond of any man that would ever be with her. It may be that he didn't like his daughter very much.

But it probably wasn't the sodium massacre of a meal that triggered Earl's demise in the japanese steakhouse.

Ramikera Zarigani is the man to blame. He was born in Kyoto, Japan. He fought in World War 2, became a prisoner of war, but decided to stay in America when he was released. During the war, he was the most faithless kamikaze pilot in the entire fleet. He didn't really want to die. And when he landed his plane on Luau Boulevard instead of crashing into a building, or a hospital, or someone's home, he had done the most noble deed that he would ever do, and felt amazed by his ability to show mercy. The least noble deed that he has ever done in his life was on November 27th, 2009 in Columbus, Ohio, and he has no idea that he did it.

Mr. Zarigani was 74 years old. He was in the Hibachi Japanese Steakhouse working as nothing other than a bumbling jester, expected to sing "Happy Birthday" to anyone who came in and announced that it was their birthday to the staff. The Gibson family arrived at about 6:30pm, 15 minutes before Earl Strickland and his unappreciated company sat down two tables next to them. The Gibson family had two birthday - celebrators with them (youngest daughter Amy Gibson and the family's friend, Tyler Joseph), which had Mr. Zarigani especially exhilarated.

He began the ceremonial "Happy Birthday" song, which he sang in English with a purposefully derogatory accent, by violently slapping a small round leather drum with a wooden stick. The first strike that Zarigani made with the wooden stick caused the heart attack that ended Earl's life like a mute button on a stereo system.