Toxic Azuma

Diary

At Mount Koriyoka the mist rolled in slow and yellow, the way Azuma liked to think of his own moods, and the civilians who rose against him that morning had no idea they were fighting a man who once meditated for eleven hours without blinking. He lost the nipple to a rusted farming sickle, a wound so undignified he still refuses to say which side, and he tells anyone who asks that the scar tissue is proof the universe has a sense of humor as slow-acting as he is. These days he sits at the edge of the dojo mats trying to relearn stillness, promising himself just one sober week to sharpen the mind that once commanded armies, and by Tuesday he is three bowls deep wondering aloud what kind of general he could have been with both nipples intact and his edibles metered properly. The other fighters have learned not to bring up Koriyoka unless they want forty minutes on symmetry, fate, and how the villagers definitely rugged him first. Still, when the incense burns low and the room goes quiet, something in him aches for the discipline he buried under all that smoke, half a man reaching for a whole one that mist swallowed long ago.