Mōrena Kindlingers – due to a family emergency this edition is coming to you from the ever lovely Timaru. Enjoying some whānau time here, rugged up and by the fire.

I’m back from Japan and adjusting to the winter months. We had an absolute ball for the three weeks we were there. The food, the people, the trains!

I’ve had my first story published last month online for Ensemble. You can read it here. My second published piece on teeth grinding is in this month’s House of Wellness mag and can also be found on Stuff here. Very exciting! Watch this space for more to come!

The below was sparked while on our travels – I must say it’s good to be back behind the keyboard again. Enjoy!

For some reason Felix agreed to save a turtle from a lifetime of being a classroom pet at the insistence of a girlfriend that didn’t last the summer. That was almost fifteen years ago.

Though marriage had eluded him and children along with it, he’d always had Kame. The school Felix had adopted him from had named him Kame – the Japanese word for turtle. It was a Chinese pond turtle, but he hadn’t had the heart to say this when he’d heard the name, nor change it.

Kame was a slow mover, hungry and expressive. At mealtimes, his neck stretched far outside the shadow of his shell to reach the bits of lettuce and mealworm left out for him. If his basking spot was too hot, he’d give Felix a look until he checked the thermometer and adjusted it for him. Kame was by no means in charge of Felix, but Felix felt that his life had in turns been both ruled and tainted by his turtle.

Although Felix knew Kame had an appetite, he could never seem to buy enough food to keep up with it. A woman at the petfood shop noticed Felix sporadically rushing in at odd times to buy extra food and tipped him off that fresh mealworms were delivered every second Thursday. From then on, Felix made a point of coming every second Thursday. Eventually he learned the woman’s name was Sasha and that she’d had a turtle, Shelly, growing up. Sasha was easy on the eyes. Blonde and tall she could’ve stood beside any movie star and looked the part. Softly spoken, her quiet confidence was intoxicating. She was ten years his junior, out of his league and out of the question – it wasn’t usually until the Tuesday following a trip to the petfood shop that Felix would be able to stop thinking about Sasha. He only ever bought two weeks’ worth of worms at a time.

‘You need to ask her out!’ Connor drunkenly prescribed. ‘That’s why you’ve been so bloody dreary all these years.’ He started counting on his fingers. ‘You need to do a little bit of self-care, get some new clothes, maybe a haircut, and ask her out.’

‘Yeah, you’ve turned into this sad guy who’s always at home with his pet turtle.’ Raj chipped in.

‘He has!’ Conner choked on his beer, spluttering all over the table.

‘I have not!’

‘You have. And you can’t even get rid of the turtle you hate so much because it’s the only reason you have to see the petfood chick.’

‘Her name’s Sasha.’

‘Sorry, Sasha.’

‘And I don’t hate Kame, I— I just wish he would die already.’

‘Woah! You wish he would die?’ Raj gave him a look.

‘That is not what I thought you were going to say.’ Connor coughed barely recovering from choking on his beer again.

‘He was only supposed to live to, like, fifteen.’

‘How long have you had him?’

‘It’ll be fifteen years in a couple months.’

‘What will you do when he dies? Bury him?’

‘Have him cremated? I don’t know.’

‘You know,’ Connor said. ‘A friend of mine just got back from Japan, and he said he went to a place that had turtle on the menu.’ He raised his eyebrows and grabbed a handful of peanuts. ‘You could eat him.’ He threw the peanuts into his mouth.

‘I’m not going to eat him!’ Felix gave Connor a light push. ‘What, I just boil him up? People don’t eat their pets when they die, man.’

‘I don’t know why it’s any different to a cow or a chicken. I don’t know, man,’ he held up his hands. ‘Google it. I bet it tastes like chicken. Everything tastes like chicken.’

At home, Felix fed Kame and checked the temperatures of enclosure. No way could he eat him when he died. Surely his breed wasn’t even edible. The shell, though softer, would be too hard to negotiate. He Googled it.

The Chinese pond turtle is highly nutritious, nourishing and has long been considered a delicacy proven to prolong mortality.

The flavour is similar to that of chicken.

Not only would eating Kame be delicious, eating him would make Felix live longer. The notion of it was ridiculous. He wouldn’t have Googled it if he had a cat or a budgie, why was a reptile so different? He thought about the insects he’d eaten at markets on holiday, the kangaroo he’d eaten in Australia, the Guniea pig he’d avoided eating until one drunken night. Felix looked at Kame. He thought about licking his shell and was immediately repulsed. He got up and went to his room – tomorrow was petfood Thursday, he’d ask Sasha out tomorrow.

It was raining when he pulled into the petfood shop carpark. He ran into the store sheltered under his jacket. Sasha had seen him come in and smiled to herself as she bent down to collect his bucket of mealworms. He walked straight to the counter, hardly bothering to acknowledge the other workers in their yellow uniforms.

‘Thanks Sasha, you’re the best.’

‘It’s the least I can do on a rainy day like today.’ Still smiling she scanned the barcode and waited for him to procure his loyalty card.

Handing it to her he let his hand linger as he said, ‘Sasha I think Kame is dying.’

Her eyes widened and she brings a hand to her mouth. ‘No, really?’

‘He’s almost sixteen now. I just can’t see that he can go on for much longer.’

‘I’m sorry, Felix. That’s sad. You’ve had him for so long.’ She touched his hand.

‘Yeah. This could be the last lot of mealworms I buy for him.’ He’s surprised by the grief that began to ebb in his chest.

‘Oh, Felix.’ Sasha walked around the counter. ‘Can I give you a hug?’ He nodded.

He hadn’t asked her out in the end. The moment hadn’t felt right. If Kame lived another next two weeks he’d try again. If he didn’t, he’d figure out another way to see her.

When he got home, he fed Kame some fresh mealworms and lay down on the couch. The rain drummed overhead and lulled him to sleep. He dreamed about asking Sasha on a date to eat turtle burgers at the park. A car horn woke him an hour or so later. Drowsy, he wiped drool from his cheek and peered into Kame’s enclosure. A few of the mealworms had wriggled away from the spot he’d put them, uneaten. In the corner, Kame lay spread, watching his food.

‘Kame?’ He didn’t move. Felix crouched down and stared at his pinched grey face, followed the yellow markings on his neck to the familiar curve of his shell. It was a few minutes before Felix brought himself to reach into the enclosure. He knew Kame was dead even before he touched him. His legs were limp and eyes unblinking.

‘Just like that.’ He said to himself.

He slumped back on the couch and messaged Connor and Raj that Kame had died. Raj replied first.

I’m sorry to hear that man. Kame was a special dude. Best turtle to have ever been saved from a classroom of screaming kids. You gave him a good second life.

Connor replied five minutes later with a gif of a chef stirring a comically large, steaming pot. Raj and Felix left him on seen before Connor sent another message.

Kame was a lucky turtle bro. I hope you’re doing okay. Did you manage to ask Sasha out before he died?

Felix listened to the rain for a long time before scooping Kame out of his enclosure. He took him to the kitchen sink and scrubbed him with dish soap and the scrub brush. He focused on the shell and his belly. Scrubbed his wee webbed claws and wiped down his tail. He couldn’t look at his face, couldn’t touch it.

He put his largest pot on the bench and put Kame in it before filling it with warm water. Salt in hand he peered down at the lifeless body of the turtle who’d quietly altered Felix’s life. He should’ve given him back to the school years ago. He should’ve asked for Sasha’s number.

The gas clicked and ignited. The blue flame caressed the pot. Small bubbles formed on Kame’s shell and got trapped between his toes. Felix put his finger in the water. It was warm, just as it’d been in his enclosure all these years.

He put the lid on and let it boil.

The next day the water in the pot was cold again and Felix buried Kame in the garden.

He bought three more buckets of mealworms before conceding he would never ask Sasha out on a date. All these years he’d thought Kame had tainted his life, created a void where his life should’ve been. To him, the moments spent with Sasha every second Thursday had been a glimpse of the life he’d forgone when he was forced to adopt a Chinese pond turtle.

But Kame died and nothing changed. Felix hadn’t been able to eat him – even after he’d cooked him through. If he lived a long life, it would have nothing to do with Kame.