Fatty Bobsticks

Diary

Everyone at the Dojo swears Fatty Bobsticks is just Fat Bob with a new coat of paint, and every time someone says it he puffs up his chest like a puffer fish arguing with a shark, insisting he is his own man, thank you very much. It was Fatty, not Fat Bob, who once knelt in the flooded rice paddies of some forgotten province, meant to be meditating on discipline the way old sensei taught, and instead found himself squinting at the mud until shapes turned into shining coins buried beneath the paddy water. He aped every last one of them into his pouch, laughing about destiny while the shadow of his so-called predecessor loomed over his shoulder muttering that Fat Bob would've shared the bag. Now Fatty never leaves the Dojo, camped by the fire boasting about his rice paddy fortune to anyone who'll listen, claiming he's about to finally start training again any day now. He tells himself discipline is coming back any minute, right after this next hand of cards, right after this next coin flip, right after he proves once and for all that he, Fatty Bobsticks, and not some ghost of a fat old legend, is the one who struck gold in the mud.