there are no more turtles in turtle bay.

the last one packed up his ****
and moved out just recently.
i think he was quoted in the paper
as saying, well this place
sure went straight to hell
… soon as those **** toads
started moving in here.

luckily, there wasn’t even 5 miles
until the next bay where
that turtle from before
could go to live with some
other people like him, resoundingly
intolerant of toads in any shapes
or
sizes.

he built a house for himself,
that turtle from before,
and found a wife who
was going through a rough patch,
employment-wise.
he gave her some good advice:
follow your heart because life is short.
[he was full of good slogans.]
they thought about having kids
[and tried]
but decided in the end
that they were better off
just the two of them.

one night she put a cigarette out
on his shell while he was asleep
and he woke up and screamed
what the hell did you do that for?!
and she fell over, passed out drunk.
[might as well be a toad, right?]
he coughed up a bit of slime,
but didn’t pursue the matter further.
he just laid her down on the bed,
and left without saying goodbye.

the road to tucson was quite long
and he was an amazingly slow walker.
and a few days later he hadn’t even
really gone anywhere because he
decided to stay for like two weeks
at his buddy’s across the street from High Dive,
some bar they always went to
if it was after 1 am.
[no special reason- just proximity.]

but there’s only so many
times someone can watch
“fear and loathing in las vegas”
before anyone is going to feel
like he spent that last twenty years
on acid and wasting every second.
so he begrudgingly moved out,
and bumped into his wife at the grocery store.

hey
i thought you were gone.
i was at Tino’s, but his wife is back now.
where was she?
her mother’s.
what was she doing there
house sitting- you remember her mom does that quilting contest every year?
oh.
do you remember that?
yea… listen why didn’t you tell me you tried to **** yourself?
what
mary saw you…
oh jesus
... through the window sitting in the garage with your car running a while.
no- what? i can’t believe we’re even talking about this
well, did you or didn’t you?
didn’t i what?
try to.
yes i tried to, but i didn’t expect mary to be watching or anything.
why
no reason
why
i did it- i was just, tired
[...]
don’t you think it’s funny the way we eat out on wednesdays? every wednesday we always eat out
i have to go, actually
i didn’t mean anything
goodbye


eventually, the turtles moved back to turtle bay,
when a pet shop moved in there
around seventeen years later.
[you know, turtles do live very long]
and that turtle from before
solitarily revisited his homeland.