Igor The Bear

Diary

Igor The Bear did not fall so much as arrive at the ground, slow and total, the way a mountain arrives at a valley given enough centuries. He had been mid-boast to Bob, something about footwork he no longer possessed and a katana stance he'd traded years ago for a floor mat and a bag of shake, when the dirt rose up to meet his considerable weight. Bob laughed. Igor did not laugh, because laughing takes effort and Igor budgets effort like a man who has been rugged twice and learned nothing from either occasion. Face down, dust settling into the creases of a jaw that once held discipline the way a dojo holds silence, he decided the honorable path forward was not to rise, not yet, but to write it all down instead, every dumb overestimation, every drunken lunge, every time a degen thought he was still a swordsman, and call it the Degen Handbook so the next fool falls with proper documentation. He is still lying there, technically, drafting chapter two between naps, and if you ask him when he'll finish it he'll tell you, with the warmth of a boulder that has decided to like you, that he's almost done, he's been almost done for months, and momentum like his does not rush for anybody.'