Little Miss Turtle

Happy Valentine's Day


It was a blind and broken time
And kindness was forbidden
I guess I tried to hitch a ride
From acid to religion

But every guiding light was gone
And every good direction
The book of love I read was wrong
It had a happy ending

Leonard Cohen
The Great Divide -- from Book of Longing

*** 


I can’t sleep.

And it’s been eight minutes since I last looked at the clock because I’m looking at it again now, and it says 11:13PM and the last time I looked, it said 11:05PM. So that’s eight minutes.

Eight, very long minutes.

There’s something dripping. I can’t hear it all the time but if I stop and wait long enough, and make sure to listen properly, I can hear it. Something dripping. Maybe I left a tap on upstairs. Or maybe it’s the fridge again. Anyways, it doesn’t matter what it is because I know I won’t fix it, I’ll just keep letting it drip, whatever it is.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

I was never very good at fixing things, or solving problems, or finality. I was never very good at letting go I suppose.

I would always wake up before you, I couldn’t help it. Probably the shift work or perhaps the caffeine that I yearned for; the caffeine I still yearn for. You would sleep without moving and I would lie there next to you and worry that the sound of my heart beating would disturb you. Now I just wake up whenever it pleases my body. I toss and turn and make a mother-fucking ruckus. I would wake the dead if they slept next to me.

It used to be that I would wake up and it would be an inconvenience except that what does it matter now? Sometimes I wake up and I hum a tune and then catch myself before I realise it doesn’t matter. Not now.

It doesn’t matter now.

Drip. Drip. Drip. Maybe it’s the other clock — the one outside our room, sorry, my room — the one I can’t see. Maybe it’s the other clock just tick-ticking away and maybe nothing is leaking or dripping at all.

I used to wake up early and be as quiet as I possibly could in the shower and then turn the coffee machine on and get out the milk and rip open a packet of Splenda and I would do all of this on edge. But you would sleep and none of it would bother you or wake you. I’d peek back into our room — sorry, my room — and you’d be in the same spot, unmoved, unchanged, lost in Sleepy Town. Nothing could ever raise you. Not until you were ready, at least.

It’s too early for coffee right now. Or is it too late?

I made bacon and onion and pasta last night. It didn’t work out well. It was too wet and the crappy shrivelled beetroot leaves that I put in it made the pasta an unappetising pink colour. I ate a couple of spoonfuls and then left it to sit in the pot. It’s probably congealed by now, but I’m so lazy that I’ll dump it into a plastic container and pretend like I’m going to eat it for lunch tomorrow, at work. But I already know it’s shit and I already know I won’t eat it tomorrow. At work.

Work. That thing I have to do tomorrow.

I definitely won’t eat it.

You would have made something nice — something impressive — like pasta with a homemade sauce. Or chicken wings with slaw. Or salisbury steak. You would have let me cut the onion.

Baby, you would say, please be careful. Last time you almost sliced off your finger. Pay attention, okay? I would blush and when it was almost done you would let me taste it for seasoning and I would say, no it doesn’t need any salt, and you would smile and say,  And then you would add a little more salt.

I can’t sleep and you would say it’s because I don’t exercise enough. I don’t expend enough energy to be tired at the end of the day and I know you’re right but you’re not here and so it doesn’t matter anymore.

I wake up early, long before you do, but you put everything into your day and I am a slow, underachieving turtle. You are loud and I am turned down so low that soon I might just disappear.

Little Miss Turtle.

11:22PM. Drip. Drip. Drip.

At work you would text me and ask how my day is going and I would lie and say it’s good. I'm killing it, I would say.

Does my pillow smell like you? Maybe it just smells like me and I can’t remember what I smell like so I attribute it to you; to your smell.  It smells more manly than me, I think. You smell like trees. Trees and grass and forest air. You slept like dead-wood and I always woke before you did. You were the slumbering log and I was the…

What was I?

The turtle. Little Miss Turtle.

After dinner you would go for your run and I would watch you out the kitchen window as you disappeared down the path next to the road. Every night you would disappear and all I could think was that you weren’t going to come back. The irony in that, is that one day you didn’t. There was always going to be that day time that you didn’t come back. And that one day held true — you didn’t come back.

I have to work in three hours. I stare at the clock and know that I’m going to look unrested and strung out and there’s nothing I can do about it. I’ll put on my work shirt and some makeup and hope that there aren’t any meetings scheduled today.

When you met me you decided that you hated my job and that in turn, I hated my job. Four ay-em? you baulked. No one starts work at four ay-em! Your body clock will be so off, baby.

You were right I suppose. Perhaps all of me is off. I can still hear it, but I’m not sure if it’s real — drip, drip drip.

For a long time your side of the bed was empty, but that got to be too much. Now I have books on the sheets amidst the dust, because I haven’t changed them for weeks. The sheets, that is. Maybe it’s more than weeks by now.  Drip, drip, drip. Coffee and a grapefruit is not breakfast, baby.

I shaved my legs tonight like it was date night. Like it was Thursday or Friday and you were going to take me out. Like you used to do.  You would give me attention and order me too many drinks and not enough carbohydrates so that I would be easy once we got home. So that I would let you have whatever you want. I knew how it worked and I never said anything but that was probably because I liked it that way. I liked it when I was yours — when I belonged to you.

Now, if I wanted to, I could sleep for days without worry. But I can’t. Now, I can’t sleep at all.

I can’t sleep.

I shaved my legs and they’re smooth now, but me in my bed by myself, what’s the point of smooth legs? You’re not going to take me out. No one is going to take me out. I’m in my bed and all I can think is that I-have-to-work-in-two-and-a-half-hours. It’s on a loop inside my head.

If I wanted to I could come home and get into bed straight away. I could change into my jimmies without doing anything — without cooking dinner or washing the dishes or saying even a single word. I don’t do that, but sometimes I think about doing it. Sometimes I really want to do it.

When I come home now I usually do a lap around the yard and pretend like I am committed to our garden — sorry, my garden. I fill the watering can and feed the parsley, the three rose pots, the succulent on the front table (it has a flower now, by the way), and the rosemary bush, which has grown into a tree in it’s own right. Then I come inside and I kick off my shoes and strip off my sweat-soaked work shirt and wonder how many hours it will be until I can sleep tonight. Drip, drip, drip.

Probably all of the hours to be fair.

I considered dinner on the way home in the car — an old burrito wrapped in tin foil in the fridge, a sandwich made with the bread from the box which I know is already stale, or pizza ordered in. You would hate all three options but you’re not here anymore. I’m a slow, slow turtle who doesn’t want to cook tonight.

Little Miss Turtle.

Last Valentine’s Day you bought me seven roses. They were variegated. Pink and red and peach. It was the first time you’d given me flowers and I didn't’t really know how to act. Today is February 13th and those roses are brown and grey and dried up, but they’re still in the vase that I put them in a year ago. I had to empty out the water because it started to stink, but once they were dry I put them back in and keep them on the dining table, where they sit.

I didn’t exercise today — I came home and poured a gin and drank it in two minutes and thought about texting you. I didn’t get any steps. Well, maybe twenty or so, but not enough to impress you even a tiny bit. I didn’t do all the things you used to tell me to do over and over again. I didn’t expend energy. I didn’t work hard without thinking about what it would get me. I didn’t ignore the externals. I didn’t feel thankful for all the things that I had. All I did, at the end of the day, was consider the ice in my glass and twist my hair into a ratty knot and I think about texting you.

11:22PM. That’s nine more minutes. I pour another gin and watch the dead roses on our, sorry my, dining table. I’m worried they might move or come back to life somehow. Perhaps if I stare at them long enough. Drip, drip, drip.

Sometimes (and you’d laugh at me) I drag my pillow and blanket out and set up a makeshift bed under the table downstairs. It feels like I’m camping — like I’m just out camping and that’s why you’re not here with me. I thought about texting you.

Hey little turtle. Did you get your steps today?

Once, in the morning, I dropped a glass in the kitchen and it smashed into a million pieces and I froze in panic at the cacophonous sound. But you didn’t wake up. You didn’t even hear it. I cleaned up the mess and you woke up at the time that you always woke up and you asked me if I was feeling positive and ready for the day.

Yes, I said. Yes, of course. A lie. Nothing but a lie. Drip, drip, drip.

11:29PM. Seven minutes. Seven minutes.

There’s a space — a point that hollows out in the center of my chest — you used to rest your fingers there after we were done having sex and it made me feel like perhaps gravity really could hold me down and stop me from floating away.

11:31PM. Two minutes.

I didn’t have dinner. I had another gin and I stayed quiet so that I could hear the drip, drip, drip.

I thought about texting you.

Valentine’s Day last year you told me that you loved me and you asked me if I wanted to marry you. I told you I wasn’t sure and that I would have to think about it.

I guess I fucked up. Little Miss Turtle messed up everything.

I thought about texting you tonight.

But you won’t get it. You won’t ever get another text from me.

The space where my necklace used to hang is empty. The space where you used to be is empty. I’m empty.

I’m fucking empty.

And I can’t sleep.


Feb 14th 2015
Man Dies in Chatinnya Lake

The details are still unclear, however the Westlow police station has confirmed that young local man, Bobby Callick, has been lost to the Chatinnya lake just below Chatinnya Bridge.

His car was found in the late hours of today, February 14th, floating downstream towards the spill, and the guardrail damage is consistent with that on his vehicle. There is no sign of foul play.

The county is confident that this incident is an accident despite the insistence by the victim’s finance that this was a suicide.

Mr Callick’s family will be holding a memorial at the Lutheran church in Westlow County due to crews being unable to retrieve the body from Chatinnya Lake. Our prayers are with them. There will be no formal burial.