The Turtle

The sight of the moss-green, wheel-less Volkswagen, dumped in the rough-floored outdoor basketball court, right under the basketless ring, gave me the impression of the white junk being a motionless turtle bathing under the sun. On the left of the wreck, there stood a man clad in full-battle gear. He was in at rest position, holding the M-16 the way kings hold a scepter. He, too, was motionless. He could be my father. I couldn’t be sure, though, unless the shadow of the hoop that partly masked his face would dissolve in his face or be peeled off. “What’s the point of safeguarding a junk?” I thought.

An adolescent of 13, maybe 14 or 15, I witnessed this sight while in a passenger tricycle - seated facing the basketball court, my two feet dangling on one side of the driver’s side of the vehicle, my right side adjacent to the driver’s back. An unopened amber bottle of San Miguel Grande was wrapped in my left hand. The driver doubled, maybe tripled, his speed as we drove past the basketball court until the distance we had covered obscured the images of the court, the turtle and the guard.

But the image of turtle lingered in my mind on my way to waking life. It crawled slowly. Its shell had brown spots on a green background. The brown spots could be the corroded areas of the Volswagen. Splinters of rust fell as the reptile moved.

That day was the day before my father’s 69th birthday.

{Jan. 11, 2009}