Angry Ikari

Diary

The sun was bleeding orange over the rooftop when Ikari made his fatal error, hissing threats at his own friend for a payout that never landed, and somewhere between the third demand and the fourth excuse his phone buzzed with the words you're terminated, effective immediately. The vein in his temple has not fully receded since. He tells people now that he walks the path of the Buddha, that he has renounced anger the way a snake sheds a skin it never liked, but his prayer beads snap under his grip at least twice a week and the monks at the temple have started locking the good cushions away when he visits. Ikari can recite Nichiren, can quote every sutra about letting go, and then in the same breath scream that letting go is for cowards who never had anything worth choking someone over. He meditates every morning for exactly four minutes before hurling the singing bowl across the room, furious that inner peace, like everything else in his life, refuses to just pay him what it owes.