Fatty Bobsticks

Diary

Fatty Bobsticks arrived at the Darkness Festival swearing he'd out-shine Fat Bob's old legend, because everyone knows the sequel is always bigger, badder, better, right, right? Wrong. Turns out beetle fighting under torchlight is ninety percent waiting and ten percent existential dread, and Fatty's nerves, once forged in real dojo discipline, cracked somewhere between the second bracket and his third bag of edibles. He sat there watching two beetles shove each other in slow motion like it was the main event of his life, and thought, old man Bob never had to sit through this, Bob got to swing a real blade, Bob had drama. By the final round Fatty was less samurai heir and more sweaty man muttering about ROI on a bug, promising himself tomorrow he'd meditate, train, get disciplined again, the way Bob would have, before immediately buying another round of sake to cope with how uninspiring the whole cursed festival turned out to be. Still, he told the shadow looming over him, at least he showed up, which is more than folklore ever asked of him.”