Glad I Had Nothing (remix)

That day too, the man woke at six.
Light came thin through the curtain, tracing the wallpaper seams. He drew a deep breath, released it, held the emptiness fifteen seconds, drew breath again. Three times. Then zazen. Fifteen minutes.
He unrolled the yoga mat. The sequence from a video. His spine waking vertebra by vertebra - not bad. To the kitchen, the beans, the smell filling the room. Two cups: first hot, second slow.
On the train he stood. He did not sit.
At the office, thirty minutes early. Desk wiped, coffee brewed, greetings given. By the time the others drifted in, the day was arranged inside him.
Promotion to section chief was coming. A colleague teased him; he smiled.
Lunch: a homemade bento. Nutrition over flavor.
Overtime, as little as possible. Making others feel free to leave - duty of a man above.
The gym, every other day.
A single beer on the balcony, night wind against him.
An hour of reading before bed.
Asleep by ten.
Days that resembled prayer.
That evening, on the way home, he stopped at the convenience store. Drew cash, turned, met his own eyes in the glass. The line of his suit shoulder seemed to have dropped a little, lower than usual.
That was all. Yet for a long moment he could not move.
Who is this.
The man in the glass was a stranger. Well-arranged, clean, pleasant, disliked by no one. A man he had spent years assembling.
But who was he.
On the train, unusually, he sat. The promotion beer lay in his bag. Meant for the balcony, the chair, the view he always looked at. Swaying there, he felt like someone else.
He got off and turned from his usual route. No reason. Only - if he went straight home, the prayer would begin again.
He walked narrow alleys. The shadow of a utility pole stretched oddly long across the asphalt. Night wind blew; his necktie's tail lifted.
He counted as he walked.
The morning meditation - whose words? The yoga - whose video? The bento - what book? The section chief who never stayed late - whose ideal? The beer on the balcony - some interview he'd read.
All of it borrowed. All of it someone else's dream.
What he had called his life was an altar of other people's words. He had been praying, every day, to no one.
He crouched at the foot of the pole. Did not weep, did not rage. Only - something on his shoulders slipped, fell, rolled away. He heard it go.
Lighter, he thought. Funny, that. He laughed once, aloud, into the empty alley. That too was not bad.
A man who was no one, laughing in the shadow of a utility pole. Perhaps that was who he really was.
Take the decorations away. Then who are you.
The night did not answer. That it did not answer was right.
He stood, opened the beer, drank standing there. It had gone warm. That was better.
He would go home. Tomorrow, the office. The promotion he would probably accept.
But he would not pray anymore.
No more arranging. No more mistaking the arranged self for the real. He would strip it back, return the borrowed things one by one. If nothing remained, that was fine. The man who was no one had been the most himself all along.
The night wind laughed again. A little loud.
Ah, well, he thought.
A night when he could think that - that was the kind he liked best.
The shadow of the utility pole lay beside him. As if it had stretched into him too, words rose. A new prayer, perhaps. Or not. Either way.
"Still - stay here."
He murmured it, looked up at the sky.