The narrators are a member of a doomsday cult who releases poison gas
in a subway
in Tokyo, and details his retreat to Okinawa and a
small nearby island, Kume - jima; a jazz aficionado who works as a sales
clerk in a Tokyo music store; a lawyer
in a financial institution
in Hong Kong who has been moving large sums of money from a certain account; a woman who owns a Tea Shack on China's Holy Mountain and speaks to a tree; a non-corporeal sentient entity which is searching for who or what it is; a
gallery attendant
in Petersburg who is involved
in an art theft scam; a ghostwriter / drummer living
in London who saves a woman from being run over by a taxi; an Irish nuclear physicist who quits her job when she finds her research is being used for military purposes; and a late night radio talkback DJ who finds himself fielding calls from an intriguing caller referring to himself as the zookeeper.