Drooling Azuma

Diary

Before the incense turned to weed smoke, Azuma was a blade with a reputation sharp enough to open conversations by itself, a warrior whose swagger cleared rooms before he even drew steel. Then came the afternoon at the main Buddhist temple, Oleg passing him a joint the size of a shrine offering, and Azuma, who had never once in his life taken the smaller portion of anything, inhaled like the war might start again and he needed the head start. He does not remember the chanting monks scattering, only waking up drooling on sacred stone with his honor apparently rolled into the same paper as the weed. Now he trains at dawn with the discipline of a man who has read about discipline in a pamphlet once, ballooning his ambitions bigger than his follow-through, swearing between naps and snack runs that today, today, he becomes legend again. The temple bell still rings every morning, and every morning Azuma tells it, mouth full of rice cakes, that he is definitely, absolutely, one hundred percent back.