Chi Mai (Inspired By “Chi- Mai” by Ennio Morricone) Revised Ending

It was a strange sort of monument alright. Perhaps some kind of grave to an unknown soldier from some ancient, long-forgotten galactic war; a sword buried deep inside a rock and, on the blade was engraved the word, “Whoever”.

“Whoever?!”, laughed Chin, an overbearing and overweight exec for a dishonest but multi-global interstellar transport company, “Whoever heard of a grave marked ‘Whoever’. The least they could’ve done was dug up the poor bastard’s bones and run them under a DNA scanner”.

“I like it”, said Chi-Mai, a hatchet man for the company, an ex-yakuza from out of New Tokyo who normally roughed up disagreeable union members but today was just baby-sitting Chin, “It’s like my name. Chi Mai. It’s Italian, like my mother. It means “Whoever”. She said that she called me that so that I could grow up to be whoever I wanted to be. Whoever I was destined to be”.

“Ha! Ha!”, laughed Chin, slapping the Yakuza on the back, “If only the old girl could see you now, eh Chi-Mai? A sleazy, third rate hit man. I bet you she’d be so proud”.

Chi-mai said nothing . He just stood there looking at the sword, as still as the stone in which it was buried which irritated Chin who had always longed to get a rise out of the grim-faced taciturn Yakuza.

“Well. Your pretty monument will have to go along with the rest of this old shit-heap of a planet. The company owneth and the company shall taketh away. I only brought you along incase we ran into any of those ‘conservationist’ morons with their placquards and their bongo-drums but I guess it was just a wasted journey for you, eh tough guy?”, said Chin.

Chi-Mai still didn’t answer but Chin heard a strange grating sound from behind him and, turning round, he saw Chi-Mai bent over the monument, pulling the centuries old sword up out of it.

Then the yakuza held the blade up to the light, studying it intensely and pondering deeply whatever it was he could see on that sword .

“There’s more writing on it”, he said, reading out the inscription upon the blade, “Whoever pulls this sword from this stone shall be the king of this planet”.

This was more than Chin could take and he almost fell over laughing, “Well, isn’t that just your bad luck, eh your majesty, King Chi-Mai. You become king of a planet, only it’s a planet targeted for demolition”.

Chin could see that this last comment had got
to the Yakuza because he saw a flicker of
anger ignite in those usually stone cold eyes
but there was something more in those eyes
that Chin couldn't see or couldn't comprehend; there was the look of a man who had just seen himself reflected in a sword blade and seen a king with a planet; something real to care about; the kind of thing that men like him only ever dreamed about.

What happened next, Chin never would have predicted. Infact, so swift were the yakuza's reflexes that Chin didn't even see it coming although he certainly felt the blade of that ancient sword almost slice him in half and then that thing that Chi-mai had long seen as a vile, fat,obnoxious, grinning growth upon his back that represented the company and everything that had been eating away at him for years fell dead.

“This planet has a king now”, said Chi-Mai, surveying the beautiful, majestic green planet round about him full of strange flora and wildlife and suddenly starting to care about its future , “And if they want to demolish it, they’ll have to deal with me first”.

Then, suddenly, Chi Mai heard a voice speaking from behind him, no it wasn’t from behind him, it was from inside his own head, a woman’s voice “You have pulled a thorn from my side, Chi Mai. You have pulled a thorn from my side and for that I shall be forever grateful”,she said.

Then Chai Mai saw the planet around him change colour as flowers of many different radiant colours spread across its surface, opening and blooming; then the trees all around him started to change, breaking into blossom and a woman; strange, beautiful and enchanting walked towards him, over a carpet of fallen blossoms and, without speaking, she put her arm around Chi Mai’s waist.

“Uh?”, said Chi Mai, dumbfounded, “Who are you?”.

“I am this planet”, she said, and she showed him the scar in her side where the sword had been buried before he had removed it, “And I’ve been waiting so long for you Chi Mai. So long”.

Was this love he felt as he looked into her eyes, he didn’t know, but it was truly breathtaking and now he knew that he and she would be inseparable.