James Pleasant stared at the closed door leading into the dojo. It was an early Thursday evening in autumn, and a cool wind blew dry leaves across the parking lot and swung tree branches to and fro. A deep bank of stars twinkled in the cloudless sky. The parking lot was dark except for the dojo’s light leaking underneath the closed shades in the large shaded windows looking into the dojo.

The dojo was located in a rundown strip mall about thirty minutes from James’s new apartment. Large letters painted across the five glass windows in bright blues and reds advertised that the dojo taught fifteen different types of martial arts. It listed the common types of martial arts, although the class he was attending, a Japanese martial art known as naginata, was not listed.

James closed his eyes and took a deep cold breath and held it for a moment. He felt the sick uncertainty in the pit of his stomach. The anxiety churned in his stomach before rising through his esophagus and into his rapidly beating heart. New situations and new people scared him. He swallowed the lump that formed in his throat. He knew these fears were irrational. He knew he needed to get out of his apartment at night, needed to do things, meet people. It had taken everything inside of him to arrange to attend this class.

The advertisement in the local paper had intrigued him. It was listed in the free community section of the paper in a three-line ad that spoke to the magic of naginata. The idea that there was more than the physical skill intrigued James. He knew he needed the exercise: he had spent so much time sitting at his desk at work over the last year that he became winded climbing up the stairs of his apartment building. He knew he needed to get out and get exercise. He had tried running for a bit, but without the organized encouragement of an instructor, he was not able to stick with it. Besides the promise of magic, the naginata class was the only one that started at nine in the evening, enough time for him to eat dinner at work and come directly to the dojo.

He stared at the door for a few more minutes, relisting to himself the reasons that had brought him here. He heard quiet talking on the other side of the door and felt warmth coming from the dojo. The door was a heavy steel door with an ornate, gold-colored knob. Paint had been layered on the door, the last a dark brown. Layers of red, green, and what looked like a putrid or aged yellow could be seen under the peeling layers.

The peeling paint set off an image in his mind: he thought to his first house where he had lived when he was five. It was an old brownstone with cracked steps out front and a door that had seen better days. He heard his mother and father fighting inside the house, the screams coming through the open window on the third floor. His friends were playing on the stoop. They looked away as they heard the screaming, and James felt his face turning redder. He shook off the thoughts, knowing where his thoughts would go if he let such scenes play out in his head.

James turned around to walk back to the car. His heart slowed as he made his decision and got further away from the peeling door. The paint had been a sign. Four layers of differing colors were not a good sign. He was not meant to be here. He should be home on his lounge chair watching television. Or he could be at his window staring out and planning his next day’s work. Things were busy at work. He laughed at the notion. Things at work were always busy. There was nothing unique about this week or any other week. If it was not for his work he was not sure how he would lose himself. His work kept him balanced, it placed him in a position where he could socialize with others in a way that was not anxiety provoking.

His breathing slowed as his heart race decreased. He was about to open the car door when he realized where he was. He had worked so hard to get here and he was back at his car, preparing to run away again. He remembered the advertisement in the paper. It had promised to teach more than just a martial art. It had promised magic. James had always been fascinated by magic. He knew magic as that feeling of ultimate calm and peace with the world around him. He wanted to discover that. Even though he could lose himself at work, he was not able to find that flow there. Things were too intense and there was too much pressure for him to get away from the world. He wanted to escape from that world. He wanted to lose himself in a physical activity and find that zone in his mind where physicality overtook his mental processes. As it was now his thoughts raced faster than his body. He wanted to escape his own head.

He turned around and quieted his thoughts. He walked back toward the door. He put his keys in his inner jacket pocket and zipped it up, putting it out of his mind. He concentrated on the golden door handle. Gold was a good sign. Its value had always been a good sign throughout the ages. People fought and died over it, but it was not their battles that determined its value. He knew it had a value outside of people’s desire for it.

He felt his anxiety rise as he reached for the knob and pulled it toward him. He smiled as he realized the door opened inward. He pushed it in and felt warm air blowing out from the dojo into the windy evening night. He closed his eyes and willed himself to step forward into the room.

After he crossed the threshold, he opened his eyes and saw a circle of six people standing around in various poses of stretches. It was dark outside and the fluorescent lights appeared unnaturally bright. James Pleasant always felt that fluorescent lights were missing colors, as if the combination of colors that made up white light was missing a warming sense of reds and oranges. James stood blinking in the light.

A woman approached him. “Good evening,” she said. “You must be James. I’m Shelley. Sensei Thomas said you would be stopping by.” Shelley smiled up at James. Like the rest of the students, she wore the traditional outfit. James had done his research on naginata before he joined the class. The bottom part of the outfit was a black or blue split dress known as a hakama. It was tied in the front and had a hard cardboard piece on its back to support the lower back. It fell to the ankles and looked like a flowing skirt. The shirt, known as a gi, was white and held together with two ties, one inside and one on the outside.

Shelley was barefoot and she stood with her shoulders stooped over slightly with her feet spread about shoulder length apart. She spoke with her hands as much as her voice. And James spent a moment trying to understand the other conversation she was having with her hands. Her hand motions did not seem to match the words that she spoke.

“Yes, I’m James. It’s good to meet you.” James reached out his hand. He saw Shelley’s smile run off her face. She looked down at his hand and back up at James. She took a deep breath and pushed her arm out and grabbed James’s hand in a strong grip. She rocked his hand up and down once and the smile slowly returned to her face.

“And you as well. Welcome to the class.” She let go of James’s hand and her other hand made a motion toward the small circle. A few hands came up in way of greeting before the circle returned to stretching. Many of them had their legs spread out with bent front knees. On the floor James saw the long sticks he had seen on the website, the naginatas. They looked like broom sticks with curved bamboo blades attached to the end with white tape. The naginatas were laid out on the floor against the wall all facing in the same direction. Six sets of the distinctive armor known as bogu were set up along the wall as well. There was quiet talking coming from the circle.

“Thanks,” James said, returning his gaze to Shelley.

Shelley took a step back from James but did not turn back toward the circle. “How did you hear about the class?” Her hands made a strange gesture as she asked, and it took James a moment again to separate the words from the gesture.

“I found out about the class through the local flyer. I’ve been looking for a sort of exercise and I thought a martial art would be useful in that regard.” James cursed himself silently for using such strange and particular words. He worried that he already sounded like the social moron he was. Even as he cursed himself he tried to keep his face straight. He did not want to Shelley to know the strange thoughts that continuously went through his broken head.

“Useful? If you’re ever attacked by zombies and happen to find a broomstick with a sword on the end it may be useful. That’s an awful lot of ifs. The zombies would also have to agree to the rules and accept that certain strikes are off limits. And if we could incorporate judges into the fights with zombies, and they agree to keep the proper distance, and attack us one at a time. Well, you get the idea about the usefulness of naginatas. For zombies I would recommend looking into getting yourself some automatic weapons.”

A tall man turned from the circle. “Don’t mind her,” he said. “She has a thing for zombies. We’re not all preoccupied with the undead, or how the naginata can, or more importantly, cannot be used to defeat them.” He approached James and held out his hand. “I’m Samuel, another of Sensei Thomas’s long-time students.” James shook Samuel’s hand. His grip was lighter than Shelley’s.

“Good to meet you, Samuel.”

Shelley looked over to Samuel and scrunched up her nose. “Don’t get me wrong,” Shelley said as she started to return to the circle. “I love naginata. I just wanted to give you a realistic view of its usefulness when it came to zombies and other threats in the world.” Even from her back, James could see her hands making strange gestures. When she returned to the circle, she stretched her arms out and bent her hands back.

“I’m Sensei Thomas’s most senior student,” the tall man said. “On behalf of Sensei Thomas and the dojo, welcome to the class.” Samuel continued to shake James’s hand. James slowly tried to pull his hand away, but Samuel held fast. His grip was light but surprisingly strong for such an easy grip. James could not free his hand. James loosened his hand for a moment and then yanked and his hand broke free. James almost fell backwards at the sudden freedom.

Samuel smiled. His tanned face was thin and angular. His chin came to a point and his hair was long and made his face appear even thinner. His teeth were blindingly white and his canines were sharp. Since Shelley spoke of the undead, James had a vision of vampires at the sight of those teeth. Samuel turned and returned to the circle without looking back.

James stood at the door looking at the circle and the strange collection of people. Shelley motioned over to him. He approached and she made room in the circle for him. Besides Samuel and Shelley, there were three others in the circle.

“This is Rachel,” Shelley said, pointing to a short Asian female with long black hair held up in a ponytail falling down to the lower parts of her back. Her stretches were exaggerated and extreme. She folded over completely, her arms hugging her legs. She then stood and gave James a quick wave without looking in his direction, before clasping her arms backwards and up and over her head. Her movements were quick and effortless, as if there was nothing to stretch and she was just going through the motions to prove that she could still do them.

“And this is Dinosaur. He’s been with us only a couple of months.” Shelley indicated an oversized man with a slightly balding pate. “He’s quicker than he looks.”

Dinosaur patted his large belly, which strained in his white gi. His dark blue hakama was tied beneath his belly, the knot hidden. “No, I’m just fatter than I look.” He resumed his slight stretching, groaning a bit as he leaned over.

“Hi, I’m Charlotte,” the last woman in the circle said. She was tall and thin, and looked graceful in her stretching movements. Her hair was two toned, a dark brown with blonde streaks. She was younger than the rest of the students, and her gi shone brightly in the fluorescent lights.

“It’s nice to meet you all,” James said. He tried not to look too expectantly. This was his least favorite part of social interactions. That he had made it to this class took an incredible amount of effort. That he was now surrounded by people who he did not know who were looking to him for something. He took a deep breath and tried not to think about what was going through his mind. Rationally he knew that they were barely thinking about him beyond the first moment’s effort. They were thinking about themselves or their own lives. But he felt self-conscious anyway.

It was always this way with him. He was a loner. Or so he told himself. He actually enjoyed speaking to people, meeting new people, and hearing about their stories. He just did not like the idea of the meeting. He felt too self-conscious, too judged by who he was or who he was not. He looked down at his clothing, a pair of black jogging pants and a gray t-shirt. He was already different than the rest of the class.

“Welcome,” a voice behind him said. He turned around and saw a short lean man standing behind him. He had not heard him enter or approach him from behind. The man wore a black overcoat and had a long canvas case looped diagonally over his back. He held a red oversized duffle bag in his right hand. “I couldn’t help but overhear the conversation. You must be James Pleasant. We exchanged mail before the class. I am Thomas. Welcome to naginata.”

Once James got past his height, James felt the calming influence Thomas exerted around him. Thomas blinked slowly, keeping his eyes closed for almost an inordinate amount of time. His eyes looked older than his face, which was smooth and boyish. If he was to guess his age he would not have put it around twenty five. The pamphlet had said Thomas had practiced naginata for over thirty years. James could not make the two facts coincide.

Thomas nodded his head toward the rest of the class and calmly walked over to the wall. His movements were exact and measured. He barely seemed to touch the ground when he walked. His limbs were controlled and each move appeared planned before made. His shortness looked good on him. It appeared as if his shortened muscles were sprung tightly, as if he could explode at any moment. And yet he continued to move slowly and exactly as he began to unwrap his bags and clothing.

Samuel walked over and took Thomas’s naginata bag and knelt and undid the bindings before pulling out a few naginatas, one of which was made of solid oak, including the blade end. Finally, he pulled out a heavy black oak naginata with a sheathed blade at the end. Samuel looked up at the blade and carefully placed it against the wall, moving the furthest naginata back off the wall to make room. He tenderly placed the heavy looking blade down and tenderly felt along the sheath as if he wanted to look at the blade itself.

Thomas knelt on the ground and unzipped the bag and began to remove the bogu, placing the kote down horizontally, each glove facing a different direction, the thumbs meeting in the middle. Next he placed the men on top so the metal slats in front of the helmet rested on the soft kote. He unwrapped the skirt and the do and placed them in front of the kote, and unfolded a tenugi to place it over the top of the armor. Large Japanese letters in broad black strokes were written on top of the tenugi. Finally Thomas removed his pair of sune ates from the bag and placed them besides his armor.

He rose gracefully from a kneeling position, and James let out a breath. He had not noticed he had been holding it. He looked around, and the rest of the class had also been staring at their sensei. Nobody had spoken when he came in, and all remained quiet as Thomas walked into the circle and began to stretch. Unconsciously or perhaps consciously, everyone followed along with his stretches.

They stretched for ten more minutes before Thomas clapped his hands. “Let’s line up.”

They lined up, and Dinosaur indicated the place for James to stand. “Just follow along,” he whispered to James. “It’s easier than it looks.”

Word count: 2,988

Words remaining: 47,012

The first day is always hard. It took me over three hours this morning to get a few thousand words. Whether my plans this year will amount to anything still remains to be seen. But I’ve had worse beginnings.