I’ve just driven back from Cape Town. Negotiating the Fury Road was surprisingly mundane and no one tried to murder me. Which feels… (in all honesty) exceptionally weird. Usually there’s at least one fellow pilgrim (with a penchant for kamikazism) who seems wholly committed to the tenets of velocity and sudden stops.
I appreciate that breaking with the tradition I’ve now jinxed myself (and potentially everyone else on earth) and that this bump in the space-time fabric has just caused one of the celestial elephants to stumble, cantilevering our planet dangerously off to one side. This could be the end for us. (I always suspected my life had purpose) Joey, pusher of the big red button, destroyer of humanity.
Vaguely I wonder if cantilevering is really a word. And more importantly if I’ve used it correctly. My thought process being, since there are four elephants holding up the ‘planet’ (standing on the back of a giant space TURTLE), one stumbling means, at that point, the planet would be cantilevered? Ie, not supported. Anyways. I apologize if I’m getting it wrong. I am not an architect, engineer or astrophysicist. If you want to send me some pithy, hate mail, I’m okay with that. (I’ve long since stopped internalizing criticism)
The above (also) assumes you have a working understanding of Discworldian physics. How someone could get this far in life WITHOUT an understanding thereof is beyond me… but I imagine there are people out there… you know… living in a dark Platonian cave playing shadow puppets, or whatever it is people do for fun in allegories of this type.
And yes, I realize this isn’t (technically) a turtle. But he’s now the central character in this post going forward. For which I’m going to claim either ignorance or poetic license, I haven’t quite decided yet. Also this might be a girl tortoise. I didn’t check. Mea Culpa.
This particular one was spazzing out on the side of the road, quite close to home, turning in circles, seemingly quite (as far an one can anthropomorphize these things) discombobulated. He was also struggling to breathe.
It might be difficult to appreciate from the photo but he is actually trapped in his testudo-Decepticon form, having chomped down (accidentally I assume) on a rock, and then having retracted his head he’s managed to wedge himself inside his shell. And as far as I can tell can’t open his mouth wide enough to spit the stone out. (He also can’t see where he’s going)
Despite making this horrible wheezing sound, I still do the contemporaneous thing and take a selfie. You know, for posterity. If I’m going to attempt a roadside intervention I want to be able to brag about it afterwards. (should it be successful)
In terms of procedure this is achieved through long-nose pliers. I also have my first aid (level three) scout badge and plenty of enthusiasm. The things that qualify me ‘to have a go’. I mean you probably disagree. (and likely should)
The actual “thrillin’ heroics” is nastier and altogether, eh… less heroic than I imagined. I briefly try and talk the patient through the plan, but I can tell from the onset that he intends on being less than cooperative. He manages to retract even further in and getting a firm grip with one hand while orientating the tortoise in such away so that I can see what I’m doing means I’m getting my face right into the danger-zone. Having said that, when the last defense tortoise fecal matter claymore comes, I’m ready. I’m no noob and this isn’t my first rodeo he says, somewhat arrogantly… still, I do get semi-splattered, but it could have been worse. Like waaay worse.
Getting enough plier-on-rock proves to be harder than anticipated, but after some finicky maneuvering I manage to get the offending object orientated in such away (and also breaking a piece off) that he can extend his head and spit out the offending object.
Yay me.
He seems fine at this point. But I disregard another cardinal rule of conservation and relocate him to my garden. My thinking is that we at least have a stream (is case he’s dehydrated*) and perhaps more importantly a tortoise proof fence towards the road. He can then migrate up the mountain (and into the conservancy) at his leisure.
*He still had enough digested material coursing through his body to make this unlikely. But you never know.
That’s my good deed done for the month I decide. Don’t want to overdo things. We’ve already established, somewhere near the beginning, that everything is out of whack now and that we need to tread carefully. Balance in all things.
Or words to that effect. I’m also done playing Gerald Durrell for the day. And probably need to take a nap now.
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Go Darke 