Junichiro

Diary

Junichiro once measured his life in perfect right angles: the fold of a tatami mat, the arc of a katana strike, the exact forty-seven strokes it took to rake the temple garden into silence. Now he measures his own decline instead, and he does it with the same unforgiving eye, which is how he came to be crouched behind the koi pond at 3 a.m., robes hiked, betrayed by a gas station burrito and a night of soju he swore he would only "sip." In the chaos of the moment his sandals wandered off without him, abandoned somewhere in the hydrangeas like loyal retainers who finally gave up on their lord, and he spent the following hour hunting them barefoot, grading his own misery on a scale of one to ten and never once scoring below an eight. He thinks, not for the first time, of simpler days as a boy sweeping up after the dojo's dogs, when the only discipline required was a shovel, a bucket, and the quiet dignity of a job done exactly right. Somewhere between the koi and the hydrangeas he understands that he has traded that dignity for something far messier, and that no amount of exacting standards will scrub a man clean of his own bad decisions, though he vows, sandals finally in hand, to try anyway starting tomorrow.