turtles in space

Dear everyone,

I am not on drugs.  Really.

As the last rocket ship's fire faded orange into black, the crowd turned and scuttled home.  It was as if their euphoria had given way to nervous apprehension.  For 300 years they waited for the independence, for the turtles to give up their colony and return to their home planet.  But now, who would keep the peace when riots broke out?  Who would drive the economy?  Who would finish the half-completed solar sanitation system?

Nobody worried more about these questions than Blorak.  As chief administrator of the Yar Yar tribe, he had orchestrated the turtles' departure.  It hadn't been hard to do, really.  The turtles were already sick of the freezing, desolate Yar Yar landscape.  There was nothing good to eat.  And the turtles, though sometimes cruel and unyielding, were also cultured.  They had tried to introduce the beauty of their music, but the Yar Yar, who scuttled everywhere at hyper speed, had no patience for the slow--what they called plodding--pace of the turtle symphony.

"They are hopeless," the king turtle had said as he signed the separation agreement.  "They are barbaric.  Let them fend for themselves."

Blorak knew, even as he watched the document being signed, that he had probably made a mistake.  He didn't think the turtles would actually leave.  He was unaware that they had secretly decided to withdraw long before Blorak began his negotiations.  And now, as he realized that all security was gone, and that it was only a matter of time before the looting began, he felt like a fool.

Blorak's wife, Plonkrat, had already confirmed that he was an idiot.  She had pleaded with him to reverse course, to entice the turtles to stay.  Plonkrat was wise--a Yar Yar with vision.  She had also been having a two year affair with a sentry turtle.  She craved him now, how he took his sweet time with his slow moving tongue.  More than this, though, she worried about her children Beergup and Zizifit.  their school would go to hell now.  Not even the kind turtle teachers, who were actually committed to Yar Yar kids, had been permitted to stay.  Plonkrat shuddered when she thought about her children's future.  What type of work would they get without a proper education?  She clenched all ten of her fists and screamed through her blow hole.