A body of water

Where the tortoise finds a place to rest.

The naked recluse with the TORTOISE mask happens upon the body of water. A large and calm body of water with a rocky beach, it could be a lake or an inlet from the sea. It is a place of calmness, a place of acceptance. A place to forget the pressures of achievement and striving for success, it is enough to simply be here.

The naked recluse with the TORTOISE mask forgets. Perhaps it is the sound of the waves lapping against the pebbles, perhaps it is the sun warmed rock. Forgetting allows you to live in the moment, to luxuriate in the warmth of the sun on the skin, to relax to the smooth firmness of the stone, to appreciate the moment, this moment. It is the effect of the House of Masks: a strange kind of forgetting that truly makes the past a foreign land. A disconnect between the event and the memory, a lifting of the weight of the past, a new lightness formed by a numbing combined with a pleasure of the moment.

The naked recluse with the TORTOISE mask tells a story to one of the seabirds, who knows which one - it is difficult to tell the seabirds apart, or perhaps the seabird tells the story. It is the life of a carefree young girl walking home with her parents from the school play. The girl had played the wicked witch. The father asked the girl to laugh her wicked laugh for the one more time, the girl lifted her chin to let out her cackle but the sound that came was a screech and a thump, an almighty clatter of a car mounting the curb and crushing the family. It was months later in the hospital that the event was explained to the girl: the death of the mother and the father, the consequences for the drunk driver, the processes and procedures, the prospects and the expectations, but the girl got confused. Brain injury can do that.

The naked recluse with the TORTOISE mask knows other stories, short little stories about animals that get on with things. Stories about animals with problems, solving problems. Simple stories with just one problem and one solution, just a few words ending in a moral guidance.

The naked recluse with the TORTOISE mask thinks this place is reminiscent of those stories, this place is like falling into one of those stories, but the stories have changed, grown strange. Estranged.

The naked recluse with the TORTOISE mask lives like life is a story about a simple problem which will soon be followed by a straightforward solution, and a moral imperative. It is surprising how well this approach works. As it is written: the simplest approach is the shortest route to happiness and a better quality of life without the fuss and fanfare. Now, even at the water’s edge the tannoy can be heard: THE TORTOISE AND THE EAGLE TALE SHALL BE TOLD NOW.