01 Tyche in Friendship and Focus
Added 2020-03-01 20:01:02 +0000 UTCThursday nights are traditionally pretty slow in the West End, which is why I teach Women’s Self Defense at the Rec Center between six and nine every Thursday night, barring holidays and emergencies. The last of my assistants, one of Soke Frankel’s young black belts, bowed and left my studio, breaking the solemn mood by grinning and waving as he departed. I waved back, then flopped onto my back, slapping the mat to break my fall. I let the tension drain out of me and soaked in the night sounds— traffic on the nearby SR19 was the main sound, although there were also the sounds of night fauna coming awake in the summer air. Light, quiet footsteps approached my door. There was a rustle of fabric and I smelled ginger tea and the pleasant musk of age and honest sweat.
I smiled faintly without opening my eyes. “Hello, Shidoshi,” I said.
Shidoshi Thomas Chao, the oldest of the masters at our eclectic martial arts school, chuckled. “Good evening, dai-Sensei,” he replied formally, then sat in one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs that lined the wall before the mat. “You always know it’s me,” he remarked.
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This story has been sitting on my hard drive for more than a year; it was never released, although, properly, it belongs between A First Small Apocalypse Part 01 and A First Small Apocalypse Part 02. I like it because it's a good little slice of life, but it was always too short to stand by itself as a purely textual story, clocking in at only a little over 1300 words, all told.
