The Talkative Tortoise

In a lake that was shrinking with the year, a tortoise named Kambugriva had two friends — geese, who could leave when water forgot itself.

GooseCome with us to another lake. We will hold a stick. You will bite the middle. But you must not speak. The air has no patience for comments.

TortoiseI can be silent. Silence is only speech, resting.

They rose. The village passed beneath like a map someone had crumpled. Children pointed. A man laughed.

VillagerLook — a tortoise who thinks he is a king, carried by birds. What a procession of fools.

Pride has poor lungs. It cannot hold a breath for long. The tortoise opened his mouth to answer the insult.

TortoiseYou know nothing of —

The stick stayed with the geese. The tortoise did not. He met the ground, which is always willing to finish a sentence.

The geese circled once, which is all grief can afford in the sky. Remember: some journeys ask for teeth, not tongue.