Edmundo

Diary

Edmundo came to this country as an outsider and stayed because the dojo's crooked discipline felt more honest than any oath he'd sworn back home, and for years he kept watch at the gate like it was the last wall between order and ruin. Then came the high moon evening with Raiku, a jar passed between them under a sky too bright for sense, and somewhere between the third pull and the fourth insult Edmundo's famous patience finally rugged itself, fists flying where words should have landed instead. He remembers the moon, he remembers Raiku laughing through a split lip, and he remembers almost nothing else, which is its own kind of shame for a man who prided himself on watching everything. Now he stands on the street corner selling himself in increments, dry jokes for coin, guard duty for anyone who'll have him, telling passersby in his foreigner's cadence that he's simply diversifying his portfolio of dignity. He still tells himself tomorrow he'll find the old stillness again, same as every tomorrow before it, and he still hasn't.