Igor The Bear

Diary

Igor the Bear did not stalk the boar of Mount Koriyoka so much as become weather that eventually arrived where the boar was standing, and when the fight ended he stood over the carcass feeling ten feet tall, which was his first mistake of the day and not his last. He told himself the kill proved his blade still remembered the discipline of the old dojo, when really his knees had simply refused to move fast enough to get gored, momentum mistaken for mastery. Riding that swollen pride down the mountain, he ended up at a shrine asking a bored old monk about his future, expecting prophecy and receiving instead the suggestion that he try, just once, stretching before a fight. Igor grunted, poured out the sake he'd brought as offering, drank it himself instead, and decided the monk's advice could wait until next week, or the week after, or whenever the mountain stopped being so comfortable to sit on. He rolled back toward home slow as a landslide that already regrets starting, warm underneath all that stubborn granite, still telling anyone who'd listen that the boar never had a chance, technically true, spiritually a lie he was fully prepared to keep believing.”