Editor:  Quentin here. 

Tortoise: This is the Tortoise.  I understand you wanted to talk to me. 

E:  Oh, yes, Mr. Tortoise.  You were referred to me from an associate in the Caribbean regarding your writing. 

T:  What, that ugliness I coughed up for the St Thomas Tribune a few months ago? 

E:  That would be it.  I've been reading some excerpts, and I think our office could be persuaded to make an offer for your memoirs. 

T:  *coughs*  Uh, okay.  May I ask why? 

E:  We think you have a unique perspective about certain theories that might prove interesting for the mass populace to understand. 

T:  Once more in English, please.  My bullshit translator isn't working properly today.

E:  Exactly.  That’s my point.  Your brashness lends itself to entertaining reading.  

T:  Let me see if I understand this.  You want to publish my stories because they might be fun to read, not because they’re true.  

E:  *pauses*  Frankly, yes.  I mean, we don’t believe them from a “truth” standpoint, but we like your point of view.  

T:  Okay, you don’t think they’re true.  Pick a subject.  

E:  What?  

T:  You heard me.  Pick a subject.  I’ll give you a story.  

E:  Fine.  Aesop.  The Tortoise and the Hare.  

T:  *heavy sigh*  Goddamn it, if anyone ever brings up that goddamned rabbit again, I swear to God I'm gonna roll his ass over, stomp on him until the blood gurgles out of his mouth, sit on his bleached bones and tell the world what really happened about that silly race.  

E:  You’re saying that such a race actually happened.  

T:  Damn straight it did.  “Aesop’s Fables”, my ass.  The idiot had no idea what he was talking about.  I don’t know why the story was written that way.  Sure, it had to have a spin on it, because no one would have believed the real story, but even so, to make it into some sort of silly morals tale... goddamn it.  

E:  So tell me what really happened, then.  

T:  That stupid furry bastard harassed me for years.  I’m not talking about Aesop here, although he was a stupid furry bastard too, never could keep a damn thing straight in his head.  One of my neighbors put saltpeter in his beard once and it must have absorbed into his head.  The big one, mind you, not the little one, although he never did have kids.  He was eventually ostracized for that, you know.  It wasn’t a good thing back then to not produce heirs, no matter what part of society you were in.  Come to think of it, maybe that was the spin on the story, some weird perseverance bullshit.  They should have just castrated him and thrown him on the rocks, especially after that book came out.  I mean, talk about pissing off your neighbors.  He lowered the land value just by the book alone.  

E:  Let’s come back to Aesop later.  Tell me about the rabbit.  

T:  Well, the rabbit and I got along early on.  I would putter around in my garden and he would just do normal rabbit stuff, jump everywhere, nibble on things – pretty benign stuff.  We both understood the basic tenets of society, being polite, not cranking the stereo at 3 a.m. without warning, sharing drugs, stuff like that.  

E:  Sharing drugs?  

T:  Hey, we were civilized.  Share and share alike.  We were both herbivores and believed in diversifying our palates.  

E:  All right.  So when did things turn sour?  

T: *sigh* A bad mix, that’s all there was to it.  I was doing some grafting of various coca plants I had brought from South America.  Now, if you have my writings, there should be a story in there somewhere about the woolly mammoths, and how they were a result of partying gone wrong.  

E:  *shuffles papers*  Oh, yes, here it is.  An ugly story, that one.  

 T:  Just think about the coupling involved if you want ugly.  Bad, bad Tortoise for organizing that party.  

E:  Please continue.  

T:  You’re not one for tangents, are you?  Fine then.  I was trying to find a better way to spend my afternoons, if you will, and I needed someone to bounce the new variety off of.  

E:  And you had a prefect foil in your next-door neighbor.  

T:  You got it.  He was way too high-strung anyway.  I thought I’d help him by taking the edge off.  

E:  But something happened.  

T:  Oh, I’d say so.  You see, I mistakenly grafted the wrong leaf – one that rabbits are allergic to.  A purely stupid mistake on my part.  We’d already documented that variety as bad for rabbits, although the variety didn’t bother me at all.  I didn’t think the problem would manifest itself in the new brand.  But boy, did it do a number on the rabbit.  He just went off the deep end.  Got the shakes all the time, started eating all my plants down to the nubs, slept with everything he could, made more silly rabbits every other goddamned day, it seemed like.  What a fucking mess.  

E:  So how did the race come out of this?  

T:  Well, it got to the point that something had to be done.  I mean, here’s a permanently coked-up rabbit not only fucking up everyone’s property, but creating hordes of tiny rabbits doing the same thing.  Rabbit-locusts, that’s what they were.  It would have been really nice to have used them to clear out land for farming.  I wish we had thought of that, but what’s done is done, I suppose.  

E:  Which was?  

T:  The neighborhood finally had a meeting to figure out what to do about the Rabbit from Hell.  I just said, “Look, I started it, I’ll finish it.  Trust me on this one.”  I mean, what were they gonna do,  poison him?  Not with his drug tolerance.  So I organized a race, with the premise being that if I won, the rabbit would go, but if the rabbit won, I would go.  The rabbit, stupid creature as he was, readily agreed to this.  I mean, all the rabbit had left was how to eat and fuck, and it doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out how to do that.  

E:  This was not what the rest of the people had in mind, I’d wager.  

T:  Indeed.  They were not happy about the race concept until I told them after the deed was done, but you gotta take some risks occasionally.  We set up a course around the island, word got around about this little wager, and the money went flying everywhere, mostly against me, of course.  Being biased, I put a great deal of cash on myself.  I received a great deal of advice not to do this, of course, as my friends didn't fully comprehend the underlying theme of this race.  Silly people.  There was no way in hell I was going to lose.  

E:  And where does Aesop fit into all of this?  

T:  Right now, actually.  The race was getting press, primarily because of the money-making angle, and Aesop was the local publisher.  We put him in charge of promotions, press passes, all the menial stuff.  *pauses*  So anyway, the day of the race came.  We lined up, and at the shot the rabbit flew down the course as I slowly wandered my way forward.  The spectators quickly lost interest and moved down to the finish line, where they expected the rabbit to show up later in the morning.   Morning passed, then noon, then late afternoon, and no rabbit.  Boy, were the bastards in shock when I lumbered around the corner and into view of the finish line.  I won a hell of a lot of money that day, and took care of the problem.  

E:  What happened, exactly?  

T:  You see, the course went through the woods, a very nice place for a hungry wolf to lay inwait, especially a wolf named Vito who happened to be a good friend of mine.  

E: No wonder Aesop couldn’t print that.  

T:  Hey, don't mess with the Big Tortoise.  

E:  *pauses*  Okay, we’re prepared to offer you an exclusive contract.  

T:  One condition.  You’ll be my personal editor.  

E:  Fair enough.  We’ll send you the contract.  

T:  It’ll work out.  You’ll see.  

E:  Thank you, Mr. Tortoise.  Have a good afternoon.  *click*