Memoirs of a Samurai
Kumamoto Castle rises against the sky. We stand at its base, looking up. A monument of samurai, sieges, fires. The earthquake, when the ground split open and the walls crumbled. They rebuilt it. Stone by stone, piece by piece, putting history back together. Some parts new, some parts old, all of it held together by something invisible. Effort. Memory. Time. The air feels different here, charged with something that isn’t quite present but isn’t gone either. We walk along the stone walls, stopping where the lines blur between past and present. Some of the stones are darker, weathered, soaked with rain, with sun, with war. Others are newer, cleaner, set into place with precision and care.
Inside, the past lingers behind glass. Swords, armor, old rifles that still seem to hum with gunpowder and blood. A mask stares at us, its iron grin sharp, empty. Behind it, a face once breathed, once sweated, once fought. Now it’s just lacquer and metal, something to be looked at, something to be remembered. Names carved into plaques, letters written by hands. Words fade, ink smudges, but the feeling stays. The smell of iron, of old paper, of wood polished smooth by time. Outside, the world is loud again. The food market is alive, thick with the smell of frying oil, of soy sauce, of something sweet drifting in the warm air. Steam rises from skewers, from bowls of noodles, from sizzling pans.
We find a small shop selling fried croquettes with minced horse meat inside. The first bite is hot, rich, and unfamiliar. The second, deeper. The third lingers, something heavy, something that doesn’t quite belong to the present. The wind shifts, carrying voices - chatter, laughter, orders being called out from behind the stalls. But beneath it all, something else, something older. Hoofbeats in the dirt. The distant clash of metal. The low murmur of men waiting for battle. The taste of salt, of iron, of something unspoken. Night falls, and the castle glows in the dark. It stands tall again. The sky stretches wide above it, deep and endless, as if history itself could dissolve into the black.