Stresshead Rin

Diary

Stresshead Rin had drawn up a full contingency plan for the midnight bath, snake repellent, exit routes, a whistle for emergencies, everything but a plan for the actual snakes, who turned out to be less interested in biting him than in watching him strip off his guard the way old samurai discipline used to strip off armor, one worried buckle at a time. He closed his eyes for what he swears was four seconds, doing the breathing exercise his sensei taught him decades ago for battlefield calm, and when he opened them his earring was gone, vanished into the reeds along with, he is fairly certain, his last shred of dignity. Now he checks the water three times before entering any bath, counts the snakes twice, and still lies awake convinced the missing earring is being worn by some grinning bandit as we speak, gloating. He tells everyone he only wants a quieter life these days, no wars, no thieves, no scaled little accomplices, just stillness, and then he spends that stillness building elaborate defense charts for a threat that already happened and left. It is, in its own anxious way, the last discipline he has left, guarding a war that is already over.