Tokuda

Diary

Tokuda met Masumi at sunrise the way he met everything now, roaring like the tree line still held enemies who needed to know he was coming. She had a baggie of mushrooms and a look that said she'd seen his type before, but Tokuda treated the exchange like the last great trade of a dying empire, bellowing THIS IS THE ONE, MASUMI, THIS IS THE VICTORY THEY PROMISED US at a sky that had absolutely nothing to say back. He choked down the whole bag standing at attention like a man reporting for a war that ended two decades ago, and when the visions came he wept and screamed and declared every color a personal triumph over the void. Somewhere in the trip he remembered he used to wake before dawn to sharpen blades in silence, and for one horrible clear second he tried to be quiet about it, tried to just sit and breathe like a monk instead of a maniac, but the silence lasted four seconds before he was shouting again about how the birds were clapping for him specifically. By noon his dreams had come true exactly as advertised, loud, ridiculous, and entirely his own, and Tokuda considered it, on balance, a famous victory.”