Turtle - a short story

God, it was so muggy out. Not to be melodramatic, but it was miserable. Absolutely miserable. Everything stuck to you - your hair, your shirt, your panties. Even the air seemed to stick to you. The atmosphere felt heavy and dense, and the humidity hugged the heat to your body, creating a choking, clinging cocoon. The sun was harsh and combative, and between it and the humidity, it was almost painful to be outside. Even breathing felt like too much effort.

I was wearing an old gray t-shirt with "Tiger's Baseball" barely legible on the front and holes under the arms. The collar had separated from the body in places and the sleeves were gone. It was a relic from junior high, an artifact from my first boyfriend, whom I held hands with on the bus and let feel me up behind the concession stand at the run down football stadium. I was also wearing a sports bra, cut off jeans, and my torn up doc marten's (another relic from the days of grunge that I kept around for just the right occasion). Today, that occasion was going down the street to help my aunt with cleaning up her yard. The brush was growing in stubbornly despite it being the end of summer and the time of the year when everything was giving up to brown. The weeds were defying every environmental obstacle the earth threw at them. Despite the humidity, it hadn't rained in over a month, and the dry soil sucked any moisture down with greedy intensity. Everything else was dying from the sun's heat, but the nasty, bristly plants that we battled constantly were thriving.

Of course, she insisted on taking care of them in the middle of the day, after church but before supper. To her, it made perfect sense to do it in the heat of the noon sun as that was the only time that fit into her schedule. My aunt was not human, I was sure of that. She didn't sweat, she didn't smile, and she didn't tolerate laziness. She kept plastic covers on her furniture, and even her knick-nacks were lined up with rigid precision. She was a machine.

When I made it down to her house, she was just coming out from her screen porch. The door banged shut behind her, and I took a second to marvel at her appearance. My aunt was a she-demon from another era, a time that demanded proper dress and accessorizing in every circumstance. Even in the heat and humidity, she was dressed with aggressive perfection. Her dyed black hair was shockingly artificial against her paper white, cracking skin, and it was set in a high bun atop her head. Her lips were painted a rich scarlet, and her fingernails matched them. She was wearing black cat eye sunglasses, a red and white, long sleeved gingham blouse tucked into snug tapered leg jeans, and prim black gardening gloves with a dainty white bow at each wrist. It was as though she were a sun vision or a hallucination. She shimmered in the heat and looked like she had been superimposed on the landscape. She was completely incongruous to the weather,and she stood out blatantly against the brown, withered lawn and the bright white house.

"Let's get started," she said without preamble, handing me a dull machete.

"I'm looking for a turtle shell," I said. "Even if it has a little bit of flesh still in it, I would like it. I'll just put it on an ant hill and let them clean it up." I knew that turtles lived in the brush, and every time we cleared this part of the yard we found some live ones and some empty shells. I didn't really have a good reason for wanting one. I just did.

She frowned and replied, "Alright." Then we got down to work. She was never one to waste words.

After about half an hour in the miserable heat, she straightened from picking up something from the ground. "I found one," she informed me. I looked up from the vine that I was struggling to cut, and I saw that the turtle was still alive. Without a change in the expression on her face, she tore off the hind legs, then the front legs, then the head. Until the head was removed, it thrashed wildly from side to side, and the little legs kicked in a desperate struggle to escape, it's claws straining for purchase. At least, they did until they were torn off. She handed it to me, and without thinking, I took it. There, in my hand, was a dismembered, beheaded turtle.

My aunt turned around and continued cutting through the weeds.