#as a minor like booking flights or renting an apartment. and so began her first proper alias. and she was a pickpocket until she could fund

[aardvaark]

im so glad that we never get a clear picture of sophie’s background in leverage & i hope we never do. however i also really like making up various, often conflicting backstories for her in my head. perhaps they’re all backstories for an alias of hers, ones she laid to rest back in season two.

[sonisis]

.:Finding Amy Rose:.

[Very minor spoilers/ minor sonamy] After the Infinite incident a lot of the gang hasn't felt exactly the same, all though everyone seemed to manage just fine, Amy seemed to have silently suffered the most. Also can be read at Fanfiction.net

Amy normally could handle anything Eggman threw at her, Robots chasing her? Her hammer could smash them. Being held hostage as live bait for Sonic? She’ll find a way to escape. Metal claws gripping her to death? Meh, honestly she was almost used to it, but this last Eggman attack just really wrecked her nerves. During the whole Infinite incident, as the history books were putting it, she rarely slept not only because she was worrying if Sonic was still alive or not but also the anxiety she felt at any noise made because of the fear that that noise might lead to an attack. The Infinite situation dragged her sanity to the ledge and because of that something clicked in her mind.

When she was finally able to return to her apartment in Station Square she walked into her room she saw a huge hole where her window view used to be, her freshly new designer rug imported from overseas was halfway burnt, and the morning tea she made the morning before the attack had evaporated into thin air. Amy dropped to her knees, she couldn’t do this, if Eggman was going to keep doing this over and over again she- she just can’t, this is just too much for one girl to handle alone. At that instant her mind went blank, she gathered important documents and few clothes that were undamaged and left her ruined apartment. Before leaving she left an envelope with her remaining lease total enclosed along with a note that read. “I’m sorry but I need to go. I’m sorry that I left a mess but you’re free to do whatever you like with the stuff inside”.  She ran outside after that, unsure where she was going or what she was really doing, she just...Left.

------

Tails hadn’t heard from Amy in 3 days, it made him very nervous because Amy tried to call at least once a day to ask if he had any idea where Sonic was. Tails almost lost his best friend, he didn’t want to feel that guilt and uncertainty again, so he quickly flew over to Amy’s apartment. Arriving there wasn’t easy since there was a lot of cleanup and reconstruction going on in such a huge area, he did the polite thing and just flew into the giant gaping hole that was located where Amy’s room was.

“Hey Amy are you here?” He called out but he heard no answer. It didn’t help that her room still looked like a mess, many people have already started cleaning up. Tails tried to stay optimistic and thought maybe she just went to find supplies to clean up, and just to confirm his theory he went up to the landlord to ask if he’d seen Amy.

“Sorry I don’t think she’s coming back. She left this envelope with the remaining costs to her lease along with a note. You can keep the note.”

Tails immediately took the note and began to read it over and over. He was at disbelief. He quickly flew back up to her room to search for any hints of Amy but he couldn’t find anything. She left almost everything back here. Her scrap books, picture frames, expensive clothing. One thing Tails noticed was that he couldn’t find any of her sensitive documents, to this Tails felt a slight sigh of relief that Amy might be clinging onto hope, but he didn’t want to risk anything, he called Sonic immediately.

---------------

 Sonic didn’t take the news too well, he was pretty good at keeping his emotions cool and under control but all those months of constant torture in the Death Egg have made that a bit difficult. Sonic quickly ran to all parts of the continent. Most airports haven’t returned to normal routines since they’re using the air ways to transport supplies, so Amy shouldn’t have gone too far. He checked all of Amy’s usual spots, the Mystic ruins where there was beautiful flowers overlooking the ocean, the beach where she often took relaxing evening walks, he even went asking around some of her neighbors to see if they’ve seen her the day she left, but unfortunately, there was no hint of Amy.

 This really nerved him, he wasn’t sure what to do next. He couldn’t find her, where could she have possibly gone? The panicking brought Sonic back to the horrible memories of his torture, getting beaten up to a bloody pulp by Zavok, Chaos repeatedly suffocating him with water until he passed out, Shadow and Metal poking him with painful sharp daggers by either Shadow’s Chaos spear or Metal’s cold mechanical hands. The only thing that kept him sane were thoughts of Amy, no matter what, somehow she was always able to calm him down in a strange way. Seeing her excited to see him made him know that there was peace in the world, there was nothing to worry about and that’s why she wanted to cling onto me, because she was happy. Memories of her throwing herself at him kept him hopeful that once he got out he would be embraced by Amy again and she would bring a picnic basket so that the two could share once she found him in the middle of Green hill zone.

“I’ve always silently depended on Amy, but I…. I just failed in making damm sure she could depend on me.” Sonic quietly sobbed, he really hoped Amy would jump out from the bushes and tackled him right about now.

------------

It had almost been about 4 years since Amy up and left, Sonic asked Rouge to inform him if there was any word about Amy, any. Meanwhile he was able to suppress the memory that was the Death egg and Tails had regained his nerves by writing a program to detect any news that spoke about Amy through the internet but even with everyone’s combined efforts they haven’t had much luck with clues. Since then there had been a couple attacks by Eggman, but just petty ones, he was trying to bring back his pride since the COLOSSAL failure that was the Infinite incident, but aside from that everything was relatively calm.

Across the vast land Casinopolis was getting ready to host their first Fashion show since the Infinite events and the city was as lively as ever. In a luxurious hotel room was Amy Rose who rented the room under the pen name “Juliette”. Amy was looking out the window relaxing with a cup of tea that was freshly brought up by Hotel service. Her quills had grown long past her shoulders and she was getting ready to attend the fashion show later the evening. Since her vanishment she found herself roaming the land, each time finding herself in a new boutique helping with sewing up clothes for her boss’ clients. Amy always loved fashion and style, it was something that helped her relax.  

About a year ago Amy had begun working under a famous designer known as “Pier La’foux”, she was an amazing designer who unfortunately lost 2 of her fingers on her dominant hand during the Infinite incident, and because of this it was hard for her to finish her projects with the exact and precise details she was most known for. Pier heard about “Juliet” when she was visiting a friend’s newly opened boutique where Amy was working at the time. Pier’s friend had told her that her new assistant was very good at those intricate details and recommended Pier to consider “Juliet” as her assistant. The moment Pier saw Amy’s work she was astonished at how well she embroidered beautiful golden roses on a long black evening gown, Pier immediately took Amy under her wing to assist with continuing Pier’s work. It wasn’t until after a year that Pier realized that “Juliet” wasn’t Amy’s real name and asked her why she would leave her old life? At that point Amy had enough trust with Pier that she just broke down in tears.

“I was under so much stress and anxiety that I just left. It was a flight response that hit me so suddenly that I wasn’t able to think much, I just ran and ran and ran until I found myself at the beach across the other side of the continent. I found a boat that had washed on shore and I just paddled, at that point I didn’t care if I reached land, I just wanted to escape. I think I kept running for so long that I later realized a year had passed and I found out that Sonic and Tails and everyone else was worried about me, but at that point… I just felt guilt. I felt too guilty to come back. I felt like I left a lot of my closest, my only, friends down. I made them worry so much about me that I didn’t feel like it was ok to just jump back into their lives when they had already stressed out so much, not only because of Infinite, but because of me. I didn’t-I didn’t want to face that.” Amy cried and cried, she tried to stop sobbing but all the pain, all the stress, all the anxiety, all the panic and frustration just kept pouring out of her.

Pier looked at Amy and held her tightly for support. To Pier her dear friend had been bottling up so much negative emotions over the years that finally the bottle overflowed and broke. To comfort Amy she told her that she would keep her secret for as long as she needed, but Pier also promised Amy that she would help her find the courage to let her friends know that she was ok. This soothed Amy, not only the crying, but the encouragement and support from a friend.

Amy took a sip from her tea cup and thought to herself. If only Sonic or Tails or anyone was with me on the day I went back to my apartment, maybe then they could’ve comfort me or stopped me and I wouldn’t have ran away. Amy then looked at the clock and saw that it was 1 hour before she had to meet up with Pier backstage at the fashion show to help with the models. She placed her tea cup on top of the coffee table and quickly readied herself with large sunglasses and a big beautifully decorated hat that carefully hid her quills and distracted from her face.

------

Tails was having his morning coffee as he watched the morning news as he did every other morning. There was a segment on the Fashion show that happened in Casinopolis last night after the commercial break, but he wasn’t too enthusiastic about it so he was debating on turning the tv off after he finished the last sip of his coffee. Before he could come to a decision he got a message from his communicator, it was from Rouge.

The message read “Watch the Fashion show interview with Pier La’foux and tell me if the girl to her right looks familiar. <3 Rouge”

Tails quickly turned his head back to the tv as the last commercial was playing, he began to pay attention to the faces and names on the screen, then there was a quick interview with the person Rouge named. To the right of the fashion designer was a girl in a huge white hat with huge red roses layered onto the hat. The hat was so huge it was hard to tell if there was even a head underneath it, but just then, during the whole loud activity behind the two girls came a woman who looked a bit like Rouge and “accidentally” bumped into the girl on the right causing the hat, to fall off and her sunglasses to distort itself onto her face. Tails quickly paused the screen. The whole activity was happening so fast that the screen was a bit blurry on the girl, but it was no doubt, the girl on the right look exactly like Amy. He quickly messaged Sonic to come to his house where after a long 14.34 seconds Sonic arrived to confirm that the girl on the screen was in fact Amy.

The boys quickly contacted Rouge regarding her intel. She specified she had her suspicions when she was looking at a fashion magazine while she got her hair done, one of the articles on the magazine was an interview with a famous designer along with a picture of her and her assistant, her face and hair was covered up pretty well with decorated jewelry and glasses, the fact that she was pink and was only quoted by the name of “Juliette” made Rouge suspicious. Rouge also said that currently the best way to actually confirm if it was Amy is if they left at that moment to catch one of the many flights from the Casinopolis airport and see if Amy boards one of them. Sonic quickly got everyone he could to meet at the airport last minute and wait and go through different terminals just to make sure they didn’t miss the chance.

------------------------------------

Amy made sure that all of her belongings were in her luggage case before double checking that her disguise was intact. Compared to the elegant outfit she wore the night before she in contrast wore a baggy grey hoodie with some long black yoga pants and sneakers, she also made sure to wear sunglasses of course but just an outfit wasn’t enough to go through a security check. Amy made sure her Wig was on properly so that she could keep it on through the process. With her double and  triple checking she was ready to head out to airport unknowing that Sonic and the others were waiting there to see her.

The plan was now in motion, there was 7 terminals in the Casinopolis airport and there was at least 1 member of the Sonic team at each one. Tails in 1, Knuckles in 2, Sonic in 3, Rouge in 4, Vector in 5, Espio in 6 and Rookie in 7, they were all ready and alert to find any hint of Amy.

Amy arrived in a shuttle to terminal 3, she planned to go on a separate flight from Pier. While Pier was going back to her studio Amy was going to Holoska for some special Holoskan textiles for Pier. She checked into her flight and dropped off her luggage then waited at the security check without any problems of her removing her wig, she then headed towards her gate, a she turned the corner that’s when she saw him, Sonic. Why was Sonic flying in a commercial Airline? Tails could give him a free flight at any time! Oh gosh, did they see the footage where her hat fell off? She knew she should’ve dyed her quills that day, ugg! All these “should haves” were meaningless, now it was time for action, now it was time to...run. Amy went to the womens restroom where she waited there until her plane began to board. Once Amy boarded the plane and headed to her coach seat the color from her face dropped… Sonic was sitting, right next, to her seat, sitting next to the isle, keeping her trapped, in her window seat. Amy quickly hailed a Flight attendant to ask if it was possible to change her seat but to continue her bad luck rolling, this was a book flight. Amy was stuck on a 3 hour flight, with Sonic. Normally she would be jumping with joy for just one second with Sonic, but right now she couldn’t, she felt too much shame and guilt to show her excitement.

“Hey! Are you my seat buddy? It’s not everyday you get to sit next to hero now is it?” Sonic got up to let the unknown passenger sit at their seat. “So where ya’ heade-”

Amy quickly sat down and visibly put on her earbuds and connected them to the tiny tv screen and put on the first movie that came up. Internally Amy was still screaming. It was a very long and boring 3 hours for the two hedgehogs.

--------

The exact moment the plane landed at the gate and opened it’s doors Sonic was the first one out, he just couldn’t wait another second inside that cramped airplane. Right now they were in Metropolis city, after this Amy would stay the night at a nearby hotel and then take a small plane to Holoska the next morning.

Sonic was about to head out the airport doors before he remembered to pick up his luggage, even though this was a small trip he thought about bringing a luggage case just to fill it up with jars of a special chili made only at one restaurant in the city. He impatiently kept stomping his foot as he waited by the luggage conveyor belt, honestly, how slow can a team of people be? Wasn’t there at least 4 of them? Something caught Sonic’s eye as the luggage started coming in, it was a bright pink case, it reminded him of Amy, just then he caught a quick glimpse at the name tag, “Juliette” written on the name tag.

“I got her now” Sonic thought, he stood by the side and waited to see who claimed the luggage case.

Amy was last to leave the plane, she was hoping Sonic would be long gone by now but she made sure to take, a bit, or extra precautions, she stopped by the bathroom and later looked at all the overpriced nik-naks at the airport store just to buy a sandwich from one of the many chain coffee shops located at the same terminal. She had to have taken at least an hour but maybe she didn’t waste enough time because when she arrived at the conveyor belt she saw her luggage still going around, and a blue hedgehog standing by the courtesy hotel phones. Amy hid behind a giant ad pillar away from Sonic’s sight and began to debate whether to leave the luggage behind, but she knew she couldn’t do that because she had one of Pier’s prototype’s designs neatly folded in there and she knew Pier would kill her if she lost it. She lost the feeling to her legs and she dropped to her knees.

“Why me, why today, I’m just not ready.” Amy sighed but she jumped when someone tapped her on the shoulder.

“Hey there seat buddy! You doing ok?” Sonic teased his seat buddy. “Listen I was wondering, do you have a spare bed I can use?

Amy wanted to die. Sonic was here and she still couldn’t face him with good conscience, She can’t. She wasn’t ready. But she had to. Amy tried her best to disguise her voice, only to sound like some strange dying whale. “Why don’t you use the courtesy phones over there?”

“I did but they’re all booked. Besides I was hoping to meet a friend here but I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

My gosh. Does he know? No he doesn’t...does he? Amy looked back at her luggage to see a staff member take it to the lost and found. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

“Ack! They’re going to take that? Did someone miss their flight?” Sonic sighed and drooped down and looked at the floor. He really had his hopes up that he would find Amy here, but he just traveled 3 hours for a flight that he could’ve easily outran by 5 minutes.

Amy felt bad, at that moment she really wanted to tell him but she was interrupted by her phone, it was the airport calling about her unclaimed luggage. She stepped off the the side to answer, she accidentally pressed the speaker button upon answering and her phone blasts the message.

“Hi! This is the lost and found for Metropolitan airlines, am I speaking with Juliette?”

“Umm… can I call back?” Amy said with the meekest of voiced.

“Ok just to let you know we can only keep your luggage here no longer than 24 hours, after that we will have to dispose of it. Thank you and have a great day!”

The clerk hung up. Amy slowly looked behind her. It was too late, Sonic was already right behind her.

“A-Amy?” Sonic stared deeply through Amy’s thick sunglasses “Are you really here?”

At some point Amy had to come to terms with her mistakes, but she was hoping she was ready for it and right now she was not ready. “C-can I just get my luggage right now.”

Sonic tightly embraced Amy, tears were running down both of their faces. “Where were you? Why did you leave? Why didn’t you come to me if you had any problems? I was worried sick that,that someone took you, or even worse!”

Amy broke down at that point, she was bawling her eyes out and crying loudly “I’m-I’m-I’m SO-SORRY!” the two were making a scene, but Amy was at a point of no return with her tears. Her gut was hurting so much after being found out, but her heart had felt relieved to have finally talked to Sonic again after these past couple of years.

“Here, let’s go someplace more secluded, I think the paparazzi might be headed their way.” Sonic lifted  Amy off her feet to make sure she never ran again.

“W-wait! I need my luggage case!” Amy adjusted her sunglasses to hide her puffed up eyes, Sonic let her back down and she started walking to the Help desk where they had the unclaimed luggage.

------

Amy took Sonic to her hotel room, she ordered some tea through room service along with some tiny pastries. She had asked Sonic not to ask any questions, it was hard enough on her to leave, it was even harder trying to come back, he understood this and sat down at the chair closest to the window.

“I-I couldn’t handle it anymore” Amy couldn’t handle the awkward silence anymore. “The whole thing with Infinite just broke me. I-I wasn’t thinking much when I left honestly. I just needed to get away from it all.”

“Then why didn’t you come to me or Tails or anyone else?” Sonic looked away hiding his slightly tipped off face.

“Like I said I wasn’t thinking. Seeing my home in shambles, it was like the final nail in the coffin. I know I could usually handle myself for the first time, I was just under constant stress every single day.”

Sonic looked at Amy “I guess… I can understand that. Infinite wasn’t easy, none of us really got out of it the same way.”

Amy was glad he understood her “Yeah… I think what I really needed was to talk to someone, but at that moment it was hard to think about that. I’m really sorry for not talking with anyone, I just kept trying to escape the situation that I lost track of time, I felt too ashamed to go back, I made you guys worry too much and to me I thought you guys didn’t need to see me again and relive those feelings.” Amy started to cry again, she cried to much today she didn’t think she could cry anymore.

“Well I can’t blame you for wanting to change your life up, I gotta ask though...are you planning on being a designer or whatever for the rest of your life?”

“I really enjoy fashion and design, but to be completely honest I really miss the adventures of running around and saving people. But at this point I wonder if it’s even possible to go back. I haven’t touched my hammer in years” Amy laughed to reduce the tension in the air.

Sonic stayed quiet for a moment to put his next words carefully. “I won’t lie but, I hope you can join us in adventures again, I kinda miss having you in them.”

Amy’s face grew red like her name, she was blushing madly, did she hear him correctly? She hopes she did. “I-I uhhh I miss the adventures too, maybe after this trip I’ll try to pick up my hammer again.”

Sonic’s ears perked up, but tried to hide his enthusiasm “G-great! Just any time let me know when you need help with that, I’ll help you train again if you need it!”

Amy giggled, she hadn’t felt this great in years. All of her worries and anxieties almost vanished at that instant. If she had talked to any of her friends sooner she could’ve avoided year's worth of sleepless nights.

[weekendwarriorblog]

30 Minute Experiment: Another Free-For-All #30ME

Boy, I wish I could make that damn watch smaller.... hello there and welcome to what might end up being the grumpiest 30 Minute Experiment yet. I’m just not in a great mood and didn’t really feel like coming up with a topic, although for anyone reading this far, I’m definitely looking for more subjects and topics to write about so I don’t go further down the wormhole as I’ve been in the last few days.  Trust me, it’s hard to do this even when you think you have a topic to begin with. It’s even harder when you decide to do one of these “Free For Alls” and you’re hellbent on doing the 30 minutes as usual.

Right now I’m writing this while listening to a Mogwai record since that was one of the bands I first heard through the #TimsTwitterListeningParties that I’ve already mentioned a few times now. If you follow me on Twitter, you’ll probably already realize that it’s what’s taking up my time most evenings from 4pm to 6pm Eastern. I’ve decided to take tonight off since the records being covered aren’t one I necessarily want to listen to right this moment. I also have a few other music-related things to watch/listen to today. I also probably should do some apartment-cleaning and that might be what I do right after this.

So why are you in such a bad mood, Ed, you ask? Well, I think I’ve almost reached my breaking point in this pandemic, and that’s only one month in. This is where I was at before Governor Cuomo announced earlier that we’ll be remaining in New York Pause until May 15... another month. It’s been a little over a month so far, and I’ve been damn good with all the rules... social distancing, washing hands, wearing a mask and gloves when you go out, etc etc etc. I’ve been doing this for a month whenever I go out which so far hasn’t really been for more than maybe 15 to 20 minutes on any particular day and rarely two days ago.

The problem is that I’ve never been a “walk around for the sake of walking around” type of guy. I go outside and walk around cause I have some place to go or somewhere to be or something to do. That’s it, and that’s why I get so irate at people who can just stand around bullshitting or just taking a nice leisurely stroll in the middle of rush hour in Times Square. It’s just the way I’m wired, and that’s been the case in the 30 years I’ve been in New York. It’s why I can get things done and seemingly be in two places or once or multi-tasking to the point where I can get a lot of work and writing done. It’s what makes me a valuable part of the work force, and it’s something that tends to be taken for granted because.... yeah, I can get moody at times. And this is most definitely one of those times.

I don’t know what happened but sometime before I went to sleep, I just took a look at my day-to-day and thought, “Well, my life before this pandemic wasn’t great but this, what I’m doing right now, is much MUCH worse.” Don’t get me wrong, I love what I love and I’ll continue watching and listening to and writing about as much as I possibly can before things get crazy again... and by crazy I mean, the three movie days where I’m literally going from where I live on the Lower East Side into midtown two or three times a day. I got a lot of exercise than cause I was walking a lot and going up a lot of flights of stairs (including my own).  But I always had something to do or somewhere to be. Those days are gone now and not having that sort of motivation is really starting to grind me down.

You also have to understand that I live in New York City... by myself... in a fairly small studio apartment that’s so cluttered and full of crap I can never find a place to put that it’s tough to live here in the best of circumstances. I mean, I deal with it because the alternative is to actually stop everything and go through the entire apartment throwing things away, clearing out the clutter, cleaning, etc.  Believe me, I understand the logic in why this is important. I’ve probably seen at least one episode of that Marie Kondo show on Netflix. I’ve already made the joke that if Marie Kondo saw my apartment, that ever-present smile would plummet and she’d run away screaming. Either that or she’d dedicated an entire season just to my apartment and the money I’d make from that would allow me to live in a much more comfortable place then where I’ve been the last few years.

Believe me, I’m getting the motivation and push and drive to tackle this from everyone in my family, almost all of my friends and most importantly, my landlord, who has been very patient about the constant tardiness in my rent paying. For those of you who don’t know, we had a pretty big legal battle about seven years ago (right around the time I was diagnosed with cancer) and we worked it out with the understanding that it wouldn’t get that bad again. It hasn’t gotten that bad again... but it isn’t great... and the little bit that I manage to do when I buckle down and do something, it just never seems to make that big a difference. 

While I might do something really major in terms of trying to clean a certain area, anyone (like my landlord) who walked in the door wouldn’t notice a difference at all. I mean, I notice the difference when I throw out three bags of accumulated Chinese condiments that have been sitting on my stove top and slowly growing over the past few years. Would anyone else? Probably not. You would have to live here to notice these minor differences.

But yeah, it’s gotta get done and it will. I’m stuck in here for another month and it’s not like I have a ton of other things to do. Besides this 30 minutes of writing and some work on screenplays that have been gestating for years, I either get to just sitting her watching stuff, playing the two video games I have any interest in right now (Overwatch and the 2015 Magic the Gathering game on my Xbox that I just discovered) or catch up on any of a dozen to a hundred shows I’ve been meaning to watch. 

Oh, yeah, there’s also the screener links that are always queued up so I’ll have something to write about in next week’s Weekend Warrior. If you think my apartment is cluttered, just imagine how my screener queue just keeps growing as I have no choice but to sit down and watch them.

Another thing you have to understand about my apartment, and I tell you this o may be you can make some comparison with your own domicile or living situation is that I live alone. I don’t have a typical bedroom, living room, kitchen situation as most people have. I have a futon that’s permanently in a “couch mode” where I sleep at night. When I wake up, I sit up and my laptop is on a small table by my bed surrounded by books, magazines, medicine and anything I might need. Next to this desk is my stove... it is about five feet from my head when I’m asleep. And that isn’t even the craziest and scariest part of my scenario. My gas heater, an old gas heater with a thermostat that’s never quite worked properly -- it’s wonderful on days where it’s 70 degrees outside where it kicks in mysterious as are the nights where it’s 20 degrees outside and only slightly warmer in my apartment because the thermostat has decided that the point of a heater is something other than to heat the apartment. 

So imagine that situation and every day you wake up and have to decide, “Do I look at this awful place I’m living?” or “Do I sit at my computer and communicate with the outside world, do some writing, listening, watching and just try to get through the day until it’s time to put up my feet and go to sleep again in the exact same place I’ve been sitting all day?”

Think about that and now you may have some idea why in the last 24 hours or so, my mind just couldn’t deal with it anymore. Don’t worry... I’m not at the point where anyone needs to put me on suicide watch or anything. I have enough of a support system that when I get to that point, someone in my life will know about it, whether it’s my brother or any of my hundreds of close friends. 

Oh! Speaking of friends, remember that earlier piece I wrote a few weeks ago about “friendship”? While writing about it, I began thinking of a guy who was one of my very best friends for decades, someone who I had a falling out with a few years back and had lost touch with. After writing that I thought to myself, “I probably should try to make right with this guy and see how he and his wife are doing” so I did. And we chatted briefly in Messenger agreeing to get on the phone sometime this week.  I’m not going to go into details but something happened a few days ago where I commented on his FB feed, probably the first time I had done so in YEARS, and I get a message hours later criticizing my comment. Things didn’t go particularly well after that because mind you, I’m already on edge due to other things going on in the world right now.

But it basically ended with this guy blocking me on Facebook and me thinking, “Why the hell did I bother to get back in touch with this good friend of mine? Clearly, I had a reason to not be talking to him for four years...and I try to make right and work things out and this is what happens.”

So yeah, there’s definitely a lot of frustration and futility in my life right now and all these daily rituals I’ve been trying to do (including this one) are partially because it’s the only way I can get through this.  

As I said, I have a pretty solid online support system and lots of my friends offered me advice on how to deal with my current mindset, and I certainly read every single word that was said and appreciated every bit of advice that was given... but again, I’m not sure that people out there really realize the situation that...  and I take full credit and responsibility for all of it... I’ve put myself in. 

There’s a common cliché about hindsight being 20/20 and if there’s nothing else I’ve learned from these 30 Minute Experiments, it’s that being able to recognize problems long after they’ve reached a breaking point as I have right now... it’s much easier when you recognize these problems before they happen. And believe me, I have, but for whatever reason I keep allowing these things (whether it’s the stress instigators or the clutter) keep building up to the point where it seems overwhelming to deal with them.

And with that, today’s time is up! If you have any ideas for subjects or topics you’d like me to ramble about, send them my way! (Just nothing about movies, please!) :)

[ecotone99]

Revelation (FN)

Part 1

Awoken by the dreading sound everyone fears, John’s alarm clock rang through him, forcing a loud groan followed by sighs of irritation. The young man stretched over to turn the evil siren off, but now he was awake and there was no point going back to sleep. Forcing himself to sit up he gave a lifeless glance into his television which had been left on overnight. It was a Sunday, which should mean he could sleep in and relax; however, he had a book to write and a long day ahead him. John had spent what felt like his whole life writing, always wanting to be an author, unfortunately at 26 years of age, he had nothing of worth to show for it, a few minor publications with mediocre reviews at best. However, this time it would be different, John was hungrier than ever to write and was determined to nail his next book. Rolling out of bed, he stretched his arms to the heavens. He sported a good physique, 6”2, lean, not as muscular as he wished but that didn’t bother him. His handsome face and dark brown eyes were topped off by hair so black it didn’t look natural. Hair that John always styled backwards, for the sole reason of looking more sophisticated and like a serious author. Brandished down the left-hand side of his neck, was a recognisable scar, that John loathed. He had always had the unpleasant scar and had no memory of were it came from. In fact, he had no recollection whatsoever of his early childhood years. His mind could stretch back to when he was around 7 or 8, moving into foster homes, but before that, nothing. There was one clue he had, if you could even call it that. A recurring dream that he experienced, a dream he assumed was from his forgotten past. It’s wasn’t a good dream, nor a bad one. He had always struggled to piece it together. It was like a jigsaw that he could never complete.

Darting around his somewhat clean bedroom, picking up the clothes he needed, never being one to put too much effort into his style, as he mostly just wore all black. Mainly for two reasons, it was cheaper and easier to wash. The look for today turned out to be well fitted black jeans, black socks and a slim fit black t-shirt with white writing across the front reading “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown” A quote from one of his favourite authors H.P Lovecraft. Off to the kitchen for some morning fuel, he walked through the small one bedroom apartment which by all standards was nice and fortunately for him had cheap rent, because the money he made from writing was certainly not enough to sustain a living, in fact he had been living of inheritance money from his birth parents since he turned 18, and that wasn’t going to last forever.

A high-pitched whistle erupted from the stove-top kettle, which John subsequently poured into a cracked and stained white mug which had seen better days. The strong aroma of cheap black coffee and hot steam filled John’s nostrils, and without hesitation he picked up the freshly made coffee and downed it, giving off a sour face and grunt of displeasure. John was more concerned about just readying himself for the day ahead than trivial nonsense such as a good cup of coffee.

Grabbing his black oxford shoes that gave of a sharp reflection and slipping them on, John completed his look with a fine black overcoat and a black wool scarf to cover his neck, and just before darting out the door, he picked up his lap-top bag and flipped it over his shoulder. Closing the door behind him, he turned and looked across the empty hallway at the door to his new neighbours’ apartment. The apartment had sat empty for a couple of months until just 2 weeks ago when a young woman in her early twenties had moved in. If memory served him right, her name was Bel, they had only spoke a handful of times, mostly small encounters around the building, she seemed quite shy to John, so he never wanted to bother her too much. Unexpectedly, the door slowly opened and there stood bel, she looked prettier than John had seen before, wearing makeup and a white floral dress with teal and pink flowers, her shoulder length red hair and brown eyes really stood out thanks to her pale skin, which was even paler than John’s. Bel looked up making eye contact, smiling away “good morning “she said

Still enthralled by her appearance John nodded back to her “yeah good morning to you”

As they both headed down the narrow and dark flights of stairs john looked across to her, nervously muttering “so how are you finding your new place”

“It’s absolutely wonderful, much nicer than what I’m used to and we’re also nice and close to the city”

John eagerly replied “That’s true, and don’t forgot about the rent, hard to find a place this nice for so cheap” followed by an unconfident laugh

“ehh we are?... ah yeah of course… nice and low for people like us” Forcing an awkward smile after speaking

John assumed this was her first apartment so she must not be too familiar with rent prices, but mostly all he could think about was where she was going dressed so nicely this early in the morning, the only thing that could come to mind was she was going out on a date, however that wouldn’t make much sense because it’s 9am, not to mention she had never brought up anything about a boyfriend in there previous small encounters, and he hadn’t seen anyone visiting.

John’s intrigue got the better of him and he finally let out “So where are you off to this morning then, a date perhaps?”

Letting out a quiet giggle bel replied “Oh goodness no, I’m off to Sunday Mass”

John’s pale face began to turn red, and embarrassingly replying “I’m sorry I didn’t mean too”

But before he could finish Bel cut in “No no please don’t worry about it, I always try to look my best for church, I guess it does look like I’m going on a date”

John pointed to the silver cross on the end of the shining necklace bel wore “That explains the bling”

“ahh yes I never take this off, I really do love it” she replied. “I take it you’re not the religious type then”

“Unfortunately, not, I think my real parents were, but I don’t remember them so I’m not too sure”

“well good thing God loves all, no matter their beliefs, even the sinners”

“Well I bloody hope so” John amusingly responded. As they excited the main building, they were greeted with blinding sunshine, a gust of fresh air and the sound of light morning traffic, John went to turn right and abruptly heard bel say

“Well I’m off this way” signalling the opposite direction

“Ah yes you don’t need a train to church, well I’ll see you later then Bel” putting his hands together and nodding forward to mimic a prayer “enjoy your….

With a wide smile Bel replied “oh I will thank you, enjoy your writing John! I’ll see you very soon” before elegantly strolling in the opposite direction.

“My writing?” he pondered “I guess I must have mentioned it to her before”

Now alone and on route to the train station, the shadows of derelict apartment buildings plagued the sun pathed streets that john strutted down, once a vibrant urban area in the outskirts of the city, was no longer, over the past couple of years high crime rates, a heavy spike in gang violence and even the unbearable low temperatures all played their part in chasing people away from Naperville, a once Vibrant city in the Chicago Metropolitan Area. However, none of this bothered John, because it just lowered his rent and he made sure to be safe and keep out of trouble.

Upon arrival at the local station, John was taken aback by the lack of people at the station, especially so early in the morning. It was true that over the last few years the areas numbers had dwindled, but the station was always guaranteed to provide a familiar face or two, game for a friendly conversion. Patiently biding his time he couldn’t help but notice a strange figure on the platform across the tracks, an elderly gentleman that he had never seen here before, the old man donned an immaculate white suit that looked more expensive than anything John had ever laid his hands on, with a perfectly groomed white handlebar moustache, the gentleman simply looked like he had stepped out of Victorian England. Intrigued and staring upon the old man, suddenly he turned his head and aimed his sharp eyes towards John, with the timely appearance of a train arriving on the platform to cut the line of sight between the men.

Boarding the train, John stood at the little space he could muster, holding on to the grips above him to maintain balance, and staring outside the window across the platform to try and get another glimpse of the strange old man, however he was nowhere to be seen. Turning away in slight curiosity with the speaker abruptly announcing “Next stop, Chicago Union Station”

A swift hour later John had made it into the city and was now entering, his so called “workplace”. A small but well-kept café, which was masked behind busier streets and conglomerate coffee shops, it lay down a small alley identified by a welcoming sign hanging from a cleft dark green building donning the name WORMWOOD CAFÉ. Walking inside, being met by a loud bell above the door, John looked around, there was only three other people scattered around the dimly light room, which reeked of coffee beans. Strolling past the engrossed millennials, John sat down at his usual spot, a somewhat comfortable highchair near the back of the café, next to a window, allowing him to stare into space when he wasn’t writing, which unfortunately, was a very common occurrence. Pulling out his laptop and sitting it upon the black polished wooden table, A cheerful shout from a slender figure emerged from the staff area.

“Just the usual Jonny boy?”

Immediately causing everyone to look up at this eccentric figure, “Yeah that’s fine” John hesitantly shouted back. The others in the room now gazing upon him, before mindlessly being sucked back intro their phones and tablets. With an expressionless look on his face, John stared into the harrowing nothingness on his screen. The only words sprawled across the pitiful landscape were Chapter One. He certainly had his work cut out for him. Methodically tapping away at the wooden desk trying to think of a good opening line, John was startled by a plate being planted on his table.

“There you go boss, toast and a donut for you”

John looked up at the waiter and his lifelong friend, Anthony Stiles Chamberlain, He was 5”11 with scruffy blond hair, bright blue eyes and what could only be described as a wicked smile, a frequent joker who John had grew up with and was the closest thing to a real family he had ever had. “Cheers Ant” John proclaimed

“Dude, enough of that, stick with Stiles” His friend sternly replied. He hated being called Ant and preferred being addressed by his middle name Stiles, however John had always thought it sounded ridiculous and loved winding him up, so would occasionally call him Ant.

Smiling to himself John sarcastically replied “Cheers Stiles”

“That’s better Jonny boy” Stiles then looked down and nodded at the blank page on the laptop with wide eyes “Damn, you’re making some serious headway there”

“I know right, at this rate I’ll be done in what…2 maybe 3 years”

“Easy publication, I’m calling it now”

“Fucking hope so, I don’t exactly fancy living on streets”

“Really? I think prostitution would suit you, certainly make more money than you do pretending to be an author”

“Well you’re not wrong there”

“Ha, I’ve never been wrong in my life”

John took a few seconds to think to himself “Yeah… like when you claimed to be able to tell the future and lost half your wages betting on the Cubs, or let me think… that time you claimed you knew how to speak French to pick up girls and ended up just asking them for directions”

“Okay maybe once or twice. Anyway, you still on for tonight?” Quickly changing the subject to avoid any further reminders of being wrong

“yeah, I’m still down, my place around 10?”

“Sounds good” The conversation was then interrupted by the ring of the bell at the door, as a new customer entered the café “I better go serve them” he stated before jotting off

“Off you go then…. ANT” Prompting Stiles to turn back and give John a menacing look.

Whilst working away in deep concentration, hoping to produce a masterpiece, the hours began to burn away, and the next thing John knew it was 6pm. John was pleased with the 4 pages he managed to assemble, as it was more than his usual daily workload. As he packed up his things, he noticed the entire café was now empty, which made him wonder how long he was sitting in the room alone. Picking up his bag, and walking over to the counter, he placed some cash down to pay for his food and drink throughout the day. Shouting to the back room “That’s me off Stiles! See you tonight” being met by complete silence “Idiot” John muttered to himself before exiting the café.

John arrived back home in a taxi from the station, he never walked home at this time, just to avoid any problems. Walking up to his apartment door, alarm was instantly raised as the door hovered open by a few inches. Immediately setting down his bag, he steadily opened the door, peering through to his empty hallway. Fearing the worst upon entering, he picked up the first stern object in touch, an umbrella, just in case he had to defend himself. With the umbrella propped up as a weapon, John slowly creeped his way further into the apartment. Submerged in silence, his heart began to race “What if they’re still here” “What if they’re armed” So many deadly possibilities crossed his mind. John even contemplated tucking tail and running away, but it was too late now he was in the apartment, wielding a fucking umbrella of all things. Step after step of muted movement, John focused on trying to slow down and control his breathing, inspecting the apartment for intruders or stolen goods, John was surprised to see everything the way he left it in his living room, he then examined his kitchen, and the only things missing was a clean countertop. Finishing his search by checking his bedroom, John was relieved to see everything untouched and no intruder. Leisurely, he lowered down his trusty weapon and sat the umbrella next to his bedroom door, followed by a sigh of relief as he walked over to shut his apartment door. He was contemplating whether he closed it properly in the morning or if he distracted by his conversation with the neighbour, well it didn’t matter now, it was an intruder free zone, and nothing was missing, it was just a minor scare that he would make sure not to happen again. As he shut the door and went to pull the latch across, a moment of terror crashed through his whole body like a tidal wave, “The bathroom! I never checked the bathroom” his brain so kindly reminded him. He turned to go and inspect the one room he carelessly forgot about, only to be met by small figure in front of him, before even having time to react, he couldn’t move, “what…. what’s going on” he thought to himself. He looked down to the realisation of a large silver blade sticking into his gut and being removed as smoothly as pen meeting paper, trying his hardest to get words out without success John dropped to his Knees with one hand desperately clutching at the dark figure in front of him and the other now holding his fresh wound. Helplessly looking up at the culprit, moonlight shone through apartment window, giving John a glimpse of the dark figures face. The warm brown eyes and innocent smile of his sweet little neighbour were no longer, instead a blood curdling stare and a malicious smile that would torment the devil himself. Managing to muster out through the clots of blood now filling his throat “B..B..Bel?” before dropping flat onto the ground. Fading away into unconsciousness.

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[deniscollins]

The Rise and Fall of Carlos Ghosn

In Japan, salarymen slave away at the kaisha (or company) with a sense of communal pride almost as important as the salary. In 2008, the same year that Japanese law began requiring companies to disclose directors’ pay in their annual reports, Nissan’s shareholders voted to set an annual cap of about $27 million on compensation for all board directors combined. As a result Carlos Ghosn, the Chairman or CEO of Nissan felt he was being underpaid compared to non-Japanese CEOs. If you were a Nissan board member wanting to retain Ghosen, would you help under-report his salary by creating two salary pots for Mr. Ghosn’s compensation, one pot would be paid in the current year and reported in the company’s annual report and securities filings, and another amount would be designated to be paid out after Mr. Ghosn left Nissan, and pay all or some of the costs of his $18 million in residences abroad and family vacations: (1)  Yes, (2) No? Why? What are the ethics underlying your decision?

Carlos Ghosn was tired. At 64 years old, the chairman of an auto empire that spanned several continents and included Nissan, Renault and Mitsubishi wasn’t bouncing back from jet lag the way he used to. Melatonin wasn’t working anymore, and he had bouts of insomnia, phoning his children in the middle of the night or going on long walks around his Tokyo or Paris neighborhood. He planned to retire soon, stepping back from spending his life on an airplane, albeit a luxurious one paid for by Nissan.

Last month, just before Thanksgiving weekend, Mr. Ghosn headed to Tokyo to meet his youngest daughter and her boyfriend and attend a board meeting. He was scheduled to land at Haneda Airport at 4 p.m.

The daughter, Maya Ghosn, 26, had spent most of her childhood in Japan and wanted to introduce her boyfriend, Patrick, to her favorite places. Bringing a boyfriend home is a common rite of passage, but a particularly intimidating prospect when growing up Ghosn — a child of one of the most romanticized and ruthless chief executives the global business community has ever seen.

Ms. Ghosn had made a 7:30 dinner reservation at Jiro, the Michelin-starred sushi counter hidden in a basement in the city’s Ginza district.

On the tarmac in Beirut, Lebanon, Mr. Ghosn opened WhatsApp and texted his four children on a group chain labeled “Game of Ghosns,” for his favorite TV show, “Game of Thrones,” the bloody HBO drama about dynasties under siege. “On my way to Tokyo! Love you guys!” Mr. Ghosn texted as his jet lifted off.

He never made it to dinner.

On Nov. 19, Japanese prosecutors surrounded Mr. Ghosn’s Gulfstream after its arrival and arrested him on allegations that for years he had withheld millions of dollars in income from Nissan’s financial filings.

Ms. Ghosn was staying at her father’s corporate apartment, and when he didn’t show up she checked with his longtime driver at Nissan, who assured her his flight had probably been delayed. She texted: “Hey, just heard your flight got delayed. Please let me know when you land, worried about you.”

Exhausted from jet lag, she took a nap. Patrick woke her when he saw a tweet about Mr. Ghosn’s arrest. “I was in shock,” she said in an interview.

Minutes later, the doorbell rang. Two Japanese men in black suits slipped off their shoes to enter the two-bedroom apartment and showed Ms. Ghosn a brief note in English.

“There is a case against your father,” it read, according to Ms. Ghosn’s account. “The Tokyo judge has warranted us access to search the house. We need a witness. Thank you for cooperating.”

Fifteen men, also in suits, followed. They locked the front door, told Ms. Ghosn that they were prosecutors, warned the couple not to use their phones and suggested that they might tap the apartment. They rummaged through Mr. Ghosn’s drawers, studying family photos, Maya’s 10th-grade report card, personal letters, her parents’ divorce papers.

“I wanted my dad to know that in this situation I was polite and handled it maturely, and I didn’t want to give them any reason to feel satisfied by an ounce of despair in my eyes,” Ms. Ghosn said. “But inside, I was shaking. I couldn’t stand up. I had to hold the wall.”

Six and a half hours later, at 11:30 p.m., the men left.

Worried that anything they said was being recorded, Ms. Ghosn and her boyfriend went into the bathroom, climbed into the shower fully clothed, turned on the water and whispered about what to do next. She called her siblings to figure out how to tackle Japan’s labyrinthine legal system.

Told by the authorities that she was forbidden to contact her father, Ms. Ghosn waited at the apartment for nearly two days until an American lawyer working for her family called.

“We got very clear instructions to leave as soon as possible for fear of being detained or interrogated to extort my dad,” she said. “So we got on the first flight out.”

‘A Person Who Was Above the Clouds’

Carlos Ghosn wasn’t supposed to succeed in Japan, but he wasn’t supposed to fail like this. He first made headlines in 1999 when, in a nation known for its distrust of outsiders, Mr. Ghosn, a brash Brazilian-born and Lebanese- and French-educated engineer, showed up in sunglasses and a pinstripe suit with plans to carry out an American-style restructuring of a failing Nissan. The Japanese carmaker had $35 billion in debt, provided lifetime employment to a bloated work force and produced a fleet of the kind of cars you’d dread getting at the rental counter.

Mr. Ghosn, then 45 and a vice president at Renault, had helped oversee a turnaround at the middling French automaker, which had agreed to spend $5.4 billion to buy a 36.8 percent stake in Nissan Motors.

John Casesa, then a top auto analyst at Merrill Lynch, advised Mr. Ghosn to rent a house in Tokyo rather than buy one.

“The widely held consensus was that he would fail, that Nissan wasn’t worth saving and it couldn’t be done,” Mr. Casesa said.

At the time, Bob Lutz, the loquacious vice chairman of General Motors, assessed the deal this way: Renault would be better off “taking $5 billion, putting it on a barge and sinking it in the middle of the ocean.”

But Mr. Ghosn, with his severe black eyebrows and puffed chest, was undeterred. He closed factories, slashed suppliers, laid off 14 percent of the work force and invested in design. Six years later, Nissan had surpassed Honda to become Japan’s No. 2 automaker, its market capitalization had quintupled and its operating margin had risen tenfold. Altima sedans, Titan pickup trucks and Murano S.U.V.s made Nissan a major player in the United States market — an achievement that Wall Street once deemed impossible.

By the early 2000s, Mr. Ghosn was head of the Renault-Nissan alliance and the first person to simultaneously serve as chief executive of two Fortune Global 500 companies, the type of chief executive who even if you didn’t know how to pronounce his name (rhymes with phone), you’d know his products.

The enigmatic “gaijin” (as foreigners are called in Japan) had achieved a status bestowed on only a handful of chief executives, akin, at least in Japan, to Steve Jobs, Warren E. Buffett or Elon Musk. Paparazzi swarmed. Fans asked for autographs. Japanese businessmen, eager to emulate the Nissan chief, inquired where Mr. Ghosn had bought his rectangular sunglasses and custom suits.

In 2004, Emperor Akihito awarded Mr. Ghosn a Blue Ribbon Medal for his extraordinary contributions, making him the first foreign business leader to receive the honor. A manga comic book, “The True Story of Carlos Ghosn,” heralded a shadowy hero from a faraway land. Lebanon put Mr. Ghosn’s face on a postage stamp.

But even as many in Nissan celebrated the comeback, others scoffed at Mr. Ghosn’s celebrity.

From the start, he faced distrust from the Japanese policymaking and business establishment. The very idea of an outsider’s bringing free-market capitalism to Japan’s quasi-socialist corporate culture jabbed at historical wounds.

“When MacArthur came after World War II, the Japanese just surrendered to his leadership,” a retired Nissan executive told Newsweek.

Mr. Ghosn pulled on a white jumpsuit to tour factory floors, but beyond the photo ops, there were signs that his splashy — some would say autocratic — presence was out of sync with modest Japanese culture. In 2004, Mr. Ghosn grazed a motorbike while driving a Porsche in the Roppongi area of Tokyo, a haven for moneyed foreigners. (The couple on the bike had minor injuries.) The Japanese media groused that Mr. Ghosn wasn’t driving a Nissan.

Then the man whose militant approach to cutting jobs (21,000, if you’re counting) earned him the nickname “Le Cost Killer” spent more than $200 million for Nissan to be a sponsor of the Rio Olympics in 2016, casting himself in the Olympic torch relay. He hopped between homes paid for by Nissan. In 2017, he paid a Lebanese artist and friend $888,000 to create a statue, “Wheels of Innovation,” for the entrance of Nissan’s Yokohama headquarters. (Having a lavish second wedding reception in Versailles the same year, with Marie Antoinette-themed costumes and, yes, lots of cake, did not help.)

“He was a person who was above the clouds,” said Yuichi Ishino, who worked in Nissan’s finance department from 2002 to 2005. “No one dared to say anything that would confront his opinions.”

The stickiest issue was always Mr. Ghosn’s pay.

In Japan, salarymen slave away at the kaisha (or company) with a sense of communal pride almost as important as the salary. Last year, Mr. Ghosn made $16.9 million ($8.4 million from Renault, $6.5 million from Nissan and $2 million from Mitsubishi). That’s nearly 11 times what the chairman of Toyota, the world’s largest carmaker, earns but well below the $21.96 million paid to Mary Barra, the chief executive of General Motors.

In 2008, the same year that Japanese law began requiring companies to disclose directors’ pay in their annual reports, Nissan’s shareholders voted to set an annual cap of about $27 million on compensation for all board directors combined.

After that, Mr. Ghosn made the case to the public that he was underpaid — instructing Nissan to hand out background materials reminding investors and the news media that he made significantly less than his counterparts at other global automakers.

At the company’s most recent annual meeting, in June, Mr. Ghosn stressed to shareholders that the company’s compensation policy was “designed to reward performance and to attract, promote and retain the best management talent in the auto industry.” He added that while Nissan tried to reward senior management “competitively,” the company remained “financially very disciplined.”

Asked by the Financial Times that same month if he was overpaid, Mr. Ghosn laughed. “You won’t have any C.E.O. say, ‘I’m overly compensated,’” he said.

Such brazenness rankled employees and the public in Japan.

“Even when a company is a global multinational company, it’s still stamped by its country of origin and the place where it has its headquarters,” said Sanford M. Jacoby, a professor of management at the University of California, Los Angeles, who has studied Japanese corporate culture. The Japanese, he said, put more weight “on egalitarian policies of government and pay and other things.”

In France, where the government owns a 15 percent stake in Renault, shareholders have also taken issue with Mr. Ghosn’s pay. “We believe that anyone making 240 times more than the minimum pay of his employees is out of control,” said Pierre-Henri Leroy, the head of Proxinvest, a French shareholder advisory group.

In October, a whistle-blower inside Nissan said he had evidence that Mr. Ghosn had been instructing Greg Kelly, a top aide and a board member, and a small group of confidants at Nissan to effectively create two salary pots for Mr. Ghosn’s compensation.

One pot would be paid in the current year and reported in the company’s annual report and securities filings. Another amount would be designated to be paid out after Mr. Ghosn left Nissan, according to a person familiar with Nissan’s internal investigation. The whistle-blower’s findings were sent to Hiroto Saikawa, the company’s chief executive, and an internal auditor.

Nissan went to prosecutors with allegations that Mr. Ghosn, working directly with Mr. Kelly, who was once the head of human resources at Nissan, had underreported his income from 2009 to 2017, according to a person with knowledge of the internal investigation. Nissan’s investigation found that the underreporting had occurred when some of the compensation, though committed, was deferred and not reported in securities filings.

Nissan also told prosecutors that it had evidence Mr. Ghosn and Mr. Kelly developed plans to pay Mr. Ghosn a further $124 million in cash and other financial instruments, some as compensation for a future advisory position for Mr. Ghosn.

Hari Nada, a Nissan executive and confidant of Mr. Kelly’s, sent a private jet to fly him from Nashville to Tokyo for the same board meeting that Mr. Ghosn planned to attend. The two men were arrested hours apart. Mr. Kelly’s family said Mr. Nada had assured him that he would be back in Nashville by Thanksgiving, in time for scheduled neck surgery.

Nissan would not comment about the Kelly family’s statements about Mr. Nada. Mr. Nada did not answer phone calls seeking comment.

Mr. Kelly was released on Christmas after his family cited his ill health and posted bail of 70 million yen (about $640,000). His lawyer in Nashville, Aubrey Harwell Jr., said his client denied wrongdoing. Mr. Kelly and Mr. Ghosn “had conversations regarding legal ways they could defer compensation,” Mr. Harwell said.

Mr. Ghosn, Mr. Kelly and Nissan itself all face charges they violated financial reporting laws. The company’s board removed Mr. Ghosn and Mr. Kelly as representative directors, positions with power to sign company documents.

Thirty-two days after Mr. Ghosn’s initial arrest, when his release on bail appeared likely, the Japanese authorities rearrested him on new charges that he shifted personal losses during the 2008 financial crisis temporarily onto Nissan’s books. On Monday a court extended his detention until Jan. 11.

That Mr. Ghosn may have deceived regulators while enriching himself runs afoul of cultural norms in Japan, where the public is more likely to forgive corporate cover-ups when executives appear to be protecting the company.

“Although you don’t see it written down, there is almost a social consensus that ‘OK, you did your crime, but you did it for the company,’” said Seijiro Takeshita, dean and professor at the School of Management and Information at the University of Shizuoka.

Or as Jesper Koll, who has worked in Japan for decades as an economist and is head of Japan for WisdomTree investments in Tokyo, said: “The one thing that Japan does not want and would never tolerate is personal greed.”

‘As the World Ghosns’

Mr. Ghosn’s longtime driver has been out of touch since shortly after the arrest. The driver told the Ghosn children the day after their father was detained that the Japanese authorities had found his car in Tokyo. They tore up the leather seats and found only cat food.

Mr. Ghosn’s chief of staff, Frédérique Le Greves, who arrived in Tokyo the same day as Mr. Ghosn, has not made any statement and returned to France after she learned of the arrest, a person close to the Ghosn family said.

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