TORTOISE

Wind your neck in, you tiny brained reptile. 

YAWN GREAT

Is it true you can live for a year without a brain? And for a month without a head? How is it that you live so long without a hippocampus?

The tortoise is its reputation suggests: long living, slow, reclusive, with that hard protective shell. The oldest confirmed record is one hundred and eighty eight years but there are tortoises that are believed to have lived to two hundred and fifty years. This longevity may be due to the low metabolism, or the low metabolism may be what causes their slowness.

The tortoise mostly eat grasses and weeds, and needs little water. In the wild the age of the tortoise can be viewed in the rings on the carapace, because, like their companion in longevity: trees, rate of growth depends on the abundance of food, which in turn depends on the season.

The tortoise may have the reputation of being the oracle in certain cultures, oh dear, this is very unlike the reality of this tiny brained reptile. The high point of sophistication between tortoises is their one form of communication: ramming. They ram in combat, fair enough, but, foolishly, they ram in courtship too. There ends the lesson.

A gap in the fence
A solitary figure meanders along the rudimentary path caused by being leeward of the wall...

An old tree stump
The naked ascetic woman with the TORTOISE mask takes a moment to round the old tree...

A body of water
The naked ascetic woman with the TORTOISE mask happens upon the body of water.  A...

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