Gloomy Masumi

Diary

On the summit of Mount Haku, altitude thin and patience thinner, Fred's snake sank its fangs into Masumi's ankle, and what he said next surprised no one who has ever met him: something flat, accurate, and unkind about the snake's character, Fred's judgment, and the fundamental design flaws of mountains. Masumi does not scream. He simply narrates the disaster as it happens, the way a man reads a eulogy he wrote for himself years ago and finally gets to use. He used to meditate before dawn with a blade across his knees, disciplined as a temple bell, and now he microdoses discipline the same way he microdoses everything else, in small doses that fail completely by noon. The venom left his system faster than his opinions did, and Masumi decided, with the grim clarity of a man reading his own tarot, that he wants a quieter life now, no snakes, no Fred, no mountains, ideally no more truths spoken aloud at altitude. He knows he will fail at quiet the same way he fails at everything he attempts sincerely, which is to say completely, immediately, and on camera for the whole dojo to see.