Greetings. My name is Donatello, and I am a monster. No, not the kind that hides in closets to frighten children, nor the sort you'd swear your in-laws derived from, but in all actuality a ninja monster residing in reeking metropolis sewers.
Ah, I see you're not surprised. You don't find my fragment of truth absurd at all. In fact, I bet through the information I've provided, reader, your thoughts have molded into the form of an upright walking talking mutant turtle.
I won't deny that. Courtesy of Mr. Eastman and Mr. Laird, few in the world have not heard the story of four reptilian skull-busting renaissance artists. However, within that story is a tale of another monster. An incident that remains untold until now. It starts how most mad scientist stories begin...
KAAAABBBOOOMMM!
Raphael and Leonardo looked away from the television to exchange glances. Not again! The two sprung up from the couch. Rushing to their brother's lab, Leonardo paused at the door to give a polite knock.
"Donny? What's going on in there?"
"Oh for hell's sake," Raph chided while bumping Leo aside. He reached for the door knob giving it a hard twist. Locked. With a running start, he let his shell bang resoundingly against the wood. It sprung open with a burst of black smoke frothing out the crevasse.
Leo coughed trying to waft the air away with his hand.
"Good," cough, hack, choke, "thinking Raph."
Raph hadn't heard him. He called into the dark room, "Yo Don!"
No answer.
Behind his brother, Leo stepped in. "Great, he's gone and done something stupid this time, I know it."
Ignoring his burning lungs, Raphael followed a current of air through the bleak lab. He's foot hit something metallic on the ground. It skidded and clanked against a wall. Blinking furiously now against his stinging eyes, he looked up spotting an open sewer vent. The smoke had created a rising vertical whirl pool. After the giant display drained away, the last tendrils writhed as if curling up to die before vanishing.
"Look!" Leo suddenly called from a corner. Beside him, a dim light hanging down from the ceiling rocked eerily. As the beam moved back and forth, it revealed a charcoal black desk littered with shattered glass.
The two looked to one another again, eyes locked with worry. Donatello was no where to be found.
Alright, we'll stop there. Once again, I'll expound on my physic abilities and explain what you're thinking. Aghast! Donatello has finally exploded himself into turtle tetrazinny! Ooooor, maybe, just maybe, he escaped out of that vent. I'll let your imagination decide exactly why, but beyond this point I must admit my memory seems to have suffered a serious lapse. And for that reason, I'll now let the random theme song explain everything you need to know. Hey, I never claimed to be a great story teller. Carry on.
Wind blowing. Clock ticking.
Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.
Donatello works late in the laboratory where things are not as they seem.
Donatello wishes nothing more desperately than to fulfill all his dreams.
Letting loose with a scream in the dead of the night as he's breaking new ground.
Trying his best to unlock all the secrets, but he's not sure what he's found.
Donatello is his only beginning, yeah, cuz they all think he's mad.
Set his sights on the search of a lifetime and he's never never sad.
Oh whoa, it's off to work he goes. In the name of science and all its wonders.
This is the story of Donatello and Mr. Tyde.
They are a person who feels good to be alive.
This is the story of Donatello and Mr. Tyde.
Believes the underdog will eventually survive.
Not long now 'til the ultimate experiment. He's breakin' all the rules.
He wants to cure all manner of imbalances. This world of fools.
Locks the door and he looks around nervously. He knows there's no one there.
He drinks it down and waits for some reaction to all his work and care.
Oh hey hey. He fumbles for what to say.
He loves the world, except for all the people.
This is the story of Donatello and Mr. Tyde.
They are a person who feels good to be alive.
This is the story of Donatello and Mr. Tyde.
Believes the underdog will eventually survive.
Oh whoa, it's out at night he goes.
He slips easily into conversation.
Oh hey hey, he's cool in every way.
Sometimes he loves to sing that old black magic.
This is the story of Donatello and Mr. Tyde.
They are a person who feels good to be alive.
Yes, we know what the story is about now. Thank you.
This is the story of Donatello and Mr. Tyde.
Believes the underdog will eventually survive.
This is the story of Donatello and Mr. Tyde.
They are a person who feels good to be alive.
Who's controlling this anyway?
This is - this is - this is - is - is - is - is - is - is - is -
The theme song is skipping? In a STORY!? Cut it out.
is - is - is - is - isthethethethethe
story of Donatello and Mr. Tyde.
Believes the underdog will eventually survive.
Done? ........ Finally. Here, both the reader and I should ask ourselves, "Who's Mr. Tyde?"
"Who's Mr. Tyde?" April O'neill looked over the roof ledge of her apartment complex.
"I dunno, but we're supposed to meet him here according to this note," Casey Jones held up the wadded piece of paper.
April looked away from the dizzying height to Casey, "I know that. It's just that I'm almost expecting a laundry detergent salesman."
Casey sniggered, "I'm hoping he doesn't. Then it's just you," he points to April then reverses jabbing his thumb against his chest with a smirk, "and me."
She rolled her eyes. Now that he put it that way, she explicitly wanted the stranger to come. Normally she wouldn't have an agreed to random notes tossed through her window, but it was scrawled in Donatello's handwriting and signed as such. April snatched it from Casey to read it again.
April,
Meet me in the usual place. Mr. Tyde wants to see you for himself.
-Donny
Meanwhile, Casey continued to wait in the only manner he knew how. A hockey puck hit the ground and he attacked it with vigor.
"Fake to the left, oooh, a doosey! The goals just ahead and he shoots.....!"
Whack, whooooosh, thunk!
"OW!"
Someone climbing along the ledge stuck his head up at exactly the wrong moment. April screamed and reached out, grabbing him just as his grip slipped.
Lowering his arms from a victory dance, Casey run up as well and helped pull the individual to safety.
"Mr. Tyde I presume?" April bend down to get a better look at the person.
He was a teenager donning jeans, a white t-shirt with holes, and a raggedy brown jacket. Sandy blonde hair cascaded haphazardly into blinking and bewildered eyes. A nasty purple bruise spread like a stain on his forehead.
"Yeah, that's me," Tyde finally spoke up.
"Yo, I'm the Case-miester," Casey held out his hand to shake.
Mr. Tyde accepted the offer and also pulled himself up from the ground. He rubbed the offending injury, "That's some back swing Mister Miester."
Casey beamed, "It's Jones actually, and don't you forget it."
April watched the exchange dully, "Uh, excuse me, but who are you and how do you know our friends?"
The boy straightened shoving his hands deep into his pockets.
"Oh, Donatello? He and I go way back."
"Really?" April's eyebrows shot up.
"More or less," Tyde said absently as he turned and gazed into the morning daylight.
"Then, you know what they are? Why didn't the boys tell us?"
"You know, you're really nosey. And hot," Tyde grin from where he was leaning in the ledge still watching the crowded streets.
"Excuse me?" April was taken aback.
"Hey, there ain't no hitting on my girl, 'specially on my turf," Casey floundered his hockey stick in Tyde's face.
"I'm not your girl, Casey."
Casey ignored it, "You want a bruise twice that size, punk? Cuz you're asking for it...Where'd he go?"
Somehow the strange person and managed to slip from Casey's hold and vanish.
April turned crimson seeing a red rose lying on the ledge.
"Okay," Casey came up from behind, "So he's really a floral salesman with a good disappearing act. A.K.A. Pansy."
April delicately sniffed the fresh rose trying to hide her smile behind the petals.
Mr. Tyde landed neatly on top of a garbage bin. There he gave another flying leap to the ground. He winced. Human feet weren't quite so sturdy. He'd have to remember that. The boy limped from the alley until the pain subsided, then merged with the crowd. Tyde let his stride lengthen, hair and jacket waving in the wind.
Well, you can tell by the way I use my walk,
I'm a woman's man, no time to talk.
Music loud and women warm,
I've been kicked around
since I was born.
Tyde grinned ear to ear nodding to this person, saying hello to that person.
A man with a stereo on his shoulder.
Tyde obliged, "Hello!"
A girl being dragged by her mother.
"Hey!"
And you may look the other way.
We can try to understand
the New York Times' effect on man.
"Lookin' good! Hey, ow! Ow," Tyde let out a string of curses as he went the other direction, a woman blatantly attacking him with her purse.
you're stayin' alive, stayin' alive.
Feel the city breaking and everybody shaking,
and we're stayin' alive, stayin' alive.
Ah, ah, ah, ah, stayin' alive, stayin' alive.
Ah, ah, ah, ah, stayin' alive.
He straightened his jacket and continued, greeting with people who wouldn't even glance back.
A girl in a red dress.
"How ya' doin'?"
A man in suite with a briefcase.
"Your zipper's undone."
Ha! That got a look! He was getting better at this.
you're stayin' alive, stayin' alive.
Feel the city breaking and everybody shaking,
and we're stayin' alive, stayin' alive.
Ah, ah, ah, ah, stayin' alive, stayin' alive.
Ah, ah, ah, ah, stayin' alive. Aah.
Life going nowhere.
Somebody help me,
"Somebody help me!"
Life going nowhere.
Somebody help me, yeah.
"Anyone? Help!"
Tyde stopped dead seeing a guy run out from an alley covering himself with newspapers.
"That's the guy who stole my clothes!"
He glanced around worriedly. Good. They were gawking at the man, but making a point to ignore his pleads. Tyde turned when he suddenly bumped into someone in a trench coat and fedora.
"You take that dude's clothes?"
That voice...did he know this guy? He couldn't make out the face under the fedora, "N-no, 'course not...I..."
A bulky finger jabbed into his chest, "Then why's your shirt inside out AND backwards?"
Tyde looked down, his chin touching a tag, "I don't dress that often..."
"Oooh, so you usually run around butt naked in New York and finally decided the breeze was getting to you? Hm?"
He glanced to the side looking for an escape as the stranger stared him down. Bingo. Uncovered manhole in empty alley at three o'clock. Tyde made a dash for it. The last thing he remembered while being engulfed with the blackness of the sewers was a faint splashing and an echoing "COWABUNGA!"
And now I'm afraid it's intermission time. Go eat some popcorn, Skittles, maybe some Snickers, Almond Joys...(The author suggests if I advertise as many brands as possible, maybe we'll get some sort of funding for this. I get ten percent, see?) Baby Ruth is good, oh, and sour patch kids! Maybe a Coke, never mind, Pepsi pays better. Forget Coke, you want a Pepsi.
Okay, we're running out of time now. Return soon for part two of...
Echoing voice:
The story of Donatello and Mr. Tyde
Peeeeepppssssiiiii.
Don't sue.
Now this is a curious turn of events. Could it be that this teenaged floral salesman is possibly the human counterpart of myself? If I have anything to say about it: No.Way. April prefers daisies to roses, see? Definitely wasn't me.
(They are a person who feels good to be alive)