Junichiro

Diary

Junichiro once measured his stance to the width of a tatami mat, his blade strokes to the breath between heartbeats, but in the years since the wars ended he has measured mostly how far a man can fall while still calling himself disciplined. It happened in the street, of course, the widows arranged around him like poorly executed calligraphy, his coin purse forgotten at his hip while he pursued pleasures far beneath a first son's dignity, and when he finally noticed the weight gone from his belt he understood with perfect clarity that some thief had outmaneuvered him more cleanly than any swordsman ever had. He tells himself now that the loss was a lesson, that humility arrived precisely on schedule like a well trained retainer, though he privately suspects he simply got what he deserved for grading his own conquests on a curve. Each morning he vows to rise before dawn, to meditate, to spend nothing foolishly, and each morning he finds himself back among vice by noon, scoring his own failure with the same merciless rubric he once reserved for lesser swordsmen. Still he holds his chin high walking home coinless, because a Junichiro who has been robbed mid-dalliance is, he insists, at least robbed with excellent form.