Writing

S.L.C.’s Featured Fiction

The Tortoise and the Hair

by Eric Dufault

Thursday February 15, 2007

“Bet you don’t know the fastest land mammal on earth. It’s not the cheetah. Not an antelope. It’s a goddamn taxi cab!” the cabby scowled and the taxi growled and Donovan Holt laughed until his stomach seemed to spelunk.

“Sure,” Donovan lectured, “You’re laughing now, but just wait. Soon, everything will evolve an internal combustion engine; we’ll all have tailpipes poking out of our asses! follow my example: I’m adopting a new philosophy, sticking to my roots. And roots? They don’t budge an inch.”

Donovan could feel it if he really concentrated: the world rotating at an approximate rate of 67,000 miles per hour with the inhabitants armed with sleep patterns and sexual organs to combat the invisible speed. We were all moving so terribly fast. Was it any wonder so many people were dying and crying and suffering from motion sickness?

“That’ll be twenty-five,” mumbled the cabby.

“I hope you take my warning seriously,” Donovan cautioned, “I’m studying to become an African tribesman. And nudist.” And before the driver could object, Donovan plunked three crudely carved Griqua tokens into his palm.

Donovan Holt worked in a baobab tree of steel and silver, decorated in unusual foliage that spelled out “Montgomery Mortgage and Loans”, and infested by packs of termites in expensive three-piece suits. Donovan Holt was well-dressed and well-read and well past bald, and this, if anything, only made him further aerodynamic.

“He’s getting up there, sure, lost his wife and hair just last year; but he’s a good hard worked,” his colleagues avowed, “And an African American to Boot!”

“Mr. Holt? You have a conference call with a Mr. Julien,” the intercom-hive buzzed.

“Give me some time, Nancy,” Donovan replied listlessly as he removed his cot jacket, unfastened his belt, and began to think.

We’re oftentimes far to busyt o think, an sas such, thoughts and stories tend ot frolic about with little fear of capture; there;s a special story hidden directly before us, in the zebra-stripe sidewalk cracks in the open Serengeti streets of late-night New York.

“My wife told it to me,” whispered Donovan, “That’s how I know it to be true.”

The son of King Jaja of the Opobo empire was born far before such things as dates were assigned. At age twelve the Prince spoke his first word, which bled into his first sentence, which bled into his first holy sermon, last approximately three days and four nights, and revealing all the ancient secrets of the Sky Fathers as he tried out fresh syllables on his tongue. At age twelve he reinvented all obscene gestures to register as divine hand motions. At age thirteen he transcended his name, at age fourteen he transcended his age and soon after he transcended the role of messiah, and so departed sorrowfully at noon upon the back of an exceptionally large African Tent Tortoise.

The Prince sat cross-legged atop the great beast mother’s shell as she crooned subtle walking chants to the sand. And as the tortoise walked, the Prince grew, his sun-baked skin cracking into odd tectonic plates, his fingernails growing and sharpening, his hair crawling over his shoulder to kiss his blackened belly button. It was he hair that was truly magnificent, like a wildebeest mane helmet shawl, with are hair wing-flaps attaching themselves to his elbows, and a tunic of a coarse guinea grass, so that the tortoise always walked with a fringe. She was the Tortoise. And he was the Hair.

“Where were they going?” Donovan murmured to his wife.

“It wasn’t like it is not,” she said softly, “They didn’t need a destination. They had time. You ask me, they’re still walking to this day.”

The Prince’s hair now spans for miles, composing whole seas of strange stringy vegetation that wriggles itself across the desert floor. And when the time arrives, the Prince shall shear it all of, and with it construct elaborate hair kingdoms, whisker castles, and eyelash turrets, and invited the entirety of the world over to dine. And all shall be furnished and nourished and perfectly content with how it is they choose to spend their time.

“That reminds me of another story,” Donovan remarked, “That the world was built on the back of some giant sea turtle? What I want to know is where the heck is the thing now? Maybe all the shouting and worrying and running about has frightened him off.”

“I don’t know,” his wife said sleepily, “The continents they look like a big shell pattern, don’t they? I think we still live atop him. He’s al curled up in a ball. And when we settle down, when he’s not afraid of us anymore, he’ll pop his head out, and we’ll wander across the sandy, starry universe.”

“Maybe,” said Donovan.

“Donovan!” the intercom shrieked, “Mr. Holt, Mr. Julien is waiting!”

When Donovan did not respond, Nancy shuffled off frantically towards his office, opening the door to reveal Donovan Holt, nude as an African water baby, sitting cross-legged atop his painted acacia desk, rocking backwards and forwards as he rubbed hiw exposed head rhythmically. “Slow and steady,” he repeated, “Slow and steady. Tell Mr. Julien that I’m coming, Nancy.”

“But sir!” Nancy yelped, “Sir, you’re – you’re indecent; you’re not even moving!”

“Sure I am,” said Donovan quietly, as the world hurled itself past his pupils, as the poison arrow stop lights blinked and shuddered, and the collective voice of the city shrieked for a new savior, “Just very slowly.”