Metaphorical Turtles

Leaving work this evening, I saw a Chinese couple selling turtles. They had a row of plastic boxes on the sidewalk next to the subway entrance. The terraria were full of tiny green turtles. Cute.

The turtles were about three layers deep. The ones on top wanted out. Their heads waved frantically as they tried to climb the smooth plastic. Some of the turtles in the lower layers were also trying to climb; others just sat. Most of the sitters had their heads pulled in.

Suddenly, it wasn't cute anymore. I had just left a glass box in Wall Street's canyon; I was about to ride the subway home, to a neighborhood where beggars shake paper cups on every second street-corner. I didn't want to think about the turtles. I didn't want to think of them as a metaphor for anything.


Copyright 1993 Edward Gaillard. All rights reserved.
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