Читать книгу The Book of Duels - Michael Garriga - Страница 16

Sasaki Kojiro, 27,

Samurai & Founder of the Kenjutsu School

The heavy rain has soaked my robes and it weighs down my body and my blood is leaving me and so I sit in the moist sand and watch my footprints fill with water, my life being erased one drop at a time, and when I am gone who will remember the things I’ve seen—as a child in my father’s orchard, an albino fox in the branches of a cherry tree, its pink blossoms hiding all but his eyes and we stared at each other motionless till the sun quit the sky; in a still body of water, two snakes gripping a carp in their mouths, one by its tail and one by its head, the three joined into a new self-devouring creature; in Master Toda Seigen’s dojo, him tossing, like a sumo, a handful of purifying salt and catching each grain on the flat blade of his nodachi—and I know I will die now on this island and I try to stay calm, relax my mind, and let my spirit leave this crude vessel, but we all in our folly think we will live more years—even an old man on his deathbed can believe he has ten more—but my days are through and only my foolish pride, and the many years preceding this very last day, have allowed me to believe that tomorrow was ever offered, because there is, of course, no tomorrow—there is only this moment—I recline to my elbow and, with my last strength, lower myself flat and cross my hands over my chest, listen to my own breath become the crashing waves, open my mouth to catch one last drop of this world, acknowledge the weak and thankless sun, a dull white hole burned in the gray sky, and close my eyes forever.