As I watched the swordsman, the mist swirled and showed me scenes I had no right to see:
I asked him what he missed.
Or perhaps he waits for someone like me—someone to sit in the wet grass and simply see . I gathered my courage and approached. Not quickly. Not with the loud confidence of a tourist. I walked the way one walks toward a sleeping wolf: softly, with respect for the dream. the ruins of mist and a lone swordsman
He did not move. He did not turn.
I have seen soldiers retire. They grow soft, distracted, haunted by the absence of orders. But this man—this ghost in the grey—was not haunted. He was the haunting. His stillness was not rest. It was readiness. His loneliness was not sorrow. It was discipline. As I watched the swordsman, the mist swirled
