Junichiro Reborn

Diary

They say Junichiro died once on the slopes of Mount Haku, and the man who came back down was not quite the one who went up, which he finds funny, since he was only chasing his mistress and a bottle of shochu at the time. He tells it now like scripture: the thin air, the burning thighs, the way she laughed at him from the ridge while he swore off vice forever between gasps, a vow that lasted roughly as long as the climb itself. By the summit he had caught her, caught his breath, and somehow caught a strange new stillness too, the kind old masters write poems about, though his poem would probably rhyme with 'rugged' and 'floor.' He calls it wisdom now, this calm he wears like borrowed armor, even though the discipline he swore to reclaim slipped his grip again by the time they reached the base and found a card game waiting. Reborn, yes, but reborn into the same old degenerate rhythm, only smiling wider, because apparently enlightenment and relapse can share a mountain, and a mistress, quite comfortably.