O:JA&L Flash Fiction: Short-short Story
John Brantingham
Naming the Turtle
Henry’s making a delivery for his hardware store across the state line, all the way down in Pennsylvania, on one of those nameless little ribbon roads that are asphalt one moment and gravel the next when he has to slide to a stop to avoid running over a turtle wandering out in the rain. It’s going to be five minutes until it is free of the road, so he steps out of the truck, listening for cars coming up behind him and lifts the little guy, thinking he’s going to walk it over to the side of the road, but finding out he intended to keep it the whole time because the next thing he knows, it’s in a box on the seat beside him.
His little cousin Jenny loves turtles, he thinks. This turtle is hers, he thinks. At least, she was interested last year when they found one on her parents’ lawn, and he showed her how interesting they were. He got her to touch the shell and watch the way it protected itself. She giggled when she touched it and then shook her arms as though she were trying to get rid of cooties that crawled up on her. She needs something to love, he thinks.
By the time he’s made his delivery and is back into the truck, he has named the turtle Benedict and has planned out the terrarium he’s going to build for the little guy out of chicken wire and wood. The thing is that in his mind, he’s constructed out behind his garage, and he’s been thinking about making it extra big so he can find a friend for Benedict.
This turtle, he thinks, isn’t a present for his cousin. His cousin, he thinks, isn’t the person who needs someone to love. Henry is still on the same ribbon road, close to where he picked up the turtle on the way in. When he reaches the spot where he thinks he found Benedict, he stops the truck and carries the little guy to the side of the road.
Who knows what goes on in the minds of turtles, but Henry watches him go for a moment, crawling off into the bushes. He hopes Benedict has turtles who care for him, he thinks. Life is too difficult, he thinks, to go it alone.
About the writer:
John Brantingham is the recipient of a New York State Arts Council grant and was Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks’ first poet laureate. His work has been in hundreds of magazines and The Best Small Fictions 2016 and 2022. He has twenty-two books of poetry, nonfiction, and fiction.
Image: Bathers with a Turtle by Henri Matisse (1869-1954). Oil on canvas. 71 1/2 x 87 inches. 1907. Public domain.
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