There are many different signs that summer is coming to an end for another year. Children return to school, the air gets cooler, leaves begin to turn color and fall to the ground—a kid slashes apart the family’s inflatable swimming pool with a samurai sword.
A clip shared by @smarxist_ documents the last of these familiar seasonal changes. In this brief, beautifully staged bit of video, a kid, presumably hopped up on anime, Kurosawa films, and the fruit-destroying implications of swordsman Miyamoto Musashi’s teachings, stands in his backyard with a katana held against a shorts-wearing hip. He unsheathes the blade with grim determination, squares up an apple sitting atop some logs, and prepares to cement his place in middle school legend by displaying mastery of the blade.
He swings, knocking the apple from its perch and simultaneously slashing open the side of the inflatable pool immediately next to his set-up. The warrior appears stunned at his handiwork. Water gushes out from the ripped plastic, flooding the backyard. He steps back a bit then begins wading through the new lake, lost in thoughts of either the awesome power of his martial skills or of exactly how much shit he’s going to get in when his parents get home.
What happens after the video ends is none of our business. The important thing is that summer 2019 has officially come to an end now that the traditional destruction of a backyard swimming pool by samurai sword has occurred. Farmers, hearing the splash of water, must prepare to harvest their crops. Squirrels, ears twitching to the sound of slashed plastic liner, must begin gathering food for the winter. This kid, samurai sword locked away by his parents, enters a grounding that will last at least until the first snow falls.
[via Digg]
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