Turtle Sees the Coming Storm

By day, Turtle is ornamental he sits outside of a Chinese restaurant by the side of an ornamental pond that has always been empty of fish. The traffic creates a dusty coat on his stone shell, yet his eyes are wide open, they do not blur the world as it cascades along in its rumbling boxes, its leaking mechanical lungs. He remembers the iron horse how it ran in one line this way then back, now all things go where they may and they may go all ways, even to this hustling forecourt in front of the restaurant. The still night, does not land here in suburbia until three in the morning, then Turtle disappears, changes form, reappearing in an empty bar further down the now deserted road; there he takes an allotment of whisky from the white traders, a contraband libation that fills him with future dreams. This night, he spins ice in his glass until time slips in-between the hours. He sees the groundhog running fast, his fat rolling hips comical as he runs; Turtle does not smile. He hears the yipping fox as it tries to slip away from the coming storm; a storm that came and went many years ago, and now returns as a howl in the dreams of fretful sleepers. Critters and humans run in their sleep from some nameless terror. Once in the distant past, they exhumed a monster of sorts – a nebulous thing, its golden eyes do not shine, but they do weep blood, they do hunger for more, for that blood, like gold, must always be renewed. Turtle gulps his whisky down. He blesses the bar, he blesses the drunken slur of the approaching dawn. He returns to the ornamental pond, sits upon the edge of the fishless pond again; tries to recall what will come next, shudders before turning back to stone. Turtle cannot hold back the coming storm, even the painted fish on the wall of the Chinese restaurant can sense this.