Oriental Rugs in Japan II

    Piko Seijiro was the twelfth master of the Hiten Mitsurugi style and found killing men easy. Especially in the early autumn when the moonrise was orange and made his sake taste better. Piko traveled all along the Tokkaido, watching seasons change, and everything else staying the same: men killed each other, women cried.  And one night in early autumn, Piko came upon a ring of highway raiders laughing uproariously at the little boy between them, trying to lift a man-sized katana to defend himself.
    Piko slaughtered the men with a few easy slices. He said to the boy, wiping the red out of the dragon engraving on his katana: do not linger, but rejoice that you have survived. And then he walked away. He vaguely wondered, as he passed through the flickering moonshadows of trees, taking a pull of his jug of sake, if the boy would find refuge in the village down the road. But he didn’t really care one way or the other. Was protecting the weak good karma, if Piko didn’t feel anything?  Could he really stop killing by killing? Should he even try? Maybe he’d be reborn as a dragonfly.
    That night,  Piko went home and stretched out on his meditation oriental rug and willed himself to sleep, he dreamt for the first time in years. He saw, painted on his lids, a golden sun in a dark night sky. Millions of small red sakura petals, crushed and seeping under his feet. Sails, and old rugs, and: a sky-blue dragon, hanging silently in the air above him. The dragon opened its fangs wide, and swallowed the bright sun, smoke curling from its nostrils. It glowed blue like a glass lantern, lit from within. Its snout was crossed with red flames. “Sensei,” it said. “Master.”
    No, I don’t know anything, I can’t be a teacher.
    Piko looked down and saw his muscles withering, his wide chest shrinking, his long hair graying.  His hands seemed to melt where they clutched his sword. The dragon breathed over him, and everything went white.
    He jolted awake. If he were a lesser man, he’d be gasping.