Michelangelo's Section of the Saga of the Next Generation by Red Turtle
Okay, before we begin, I strongly suggest you all take your bathroom break, get some food, some drink (coffee goes well with this story, or a good soda), make sure your nice and comfortable because this part is eighteen pages long and its goood.
Here we go, long anticipated section from Mikey himself. I intend for this to be one of the best Michealangelo stories every written, and it has a lot going on in it. Now he's over fifty years old, so in the mist of what going on there's going to be flashbacks, and sometimes there's going to be flashbacks with in the flashbacks, so even as those heavy questions get answered there is potential for things to get confusing. I went over it many times trying to find the best lay-out and make everything make sense, but with fifty years of life experiences to catch up on and then the actual events going on currently its going to be long. I divided it into parts to make it more reader friendly.
I don't think I have to tell you all that I eagerly await word on how I did here with him, and their lives in general. I never really wrote a lot on Mike, so this is kind of different.
Michelangelo:
PART I:
"Michelangelo!"
I hear the voice, but its not enough to rouse me from my dreams. I'm very attached to my dreams. Very attached. The voice is urgent, but not "house on fire" urgent, so I choose to stay asleep.
"Michelangelo!"
Still asleep. They'll go away eventually.
"Michelangelo!"
. . .
"Michelangelo!"
Shit. They're not leaving. What a bad day. Bad luck day. Fuck a duck luck, as Darin would say. Actually, were he here he would say that so far this day sucks fucked duck.
Oh, God! Why did I have to think of him? This bad, shitty, fucking day.
"Michelangelo!"
Again with the calling. The relentless calling. I can't wake up this way. I need to wake up on my own terms, and then I can maybe deal with the day.
But it's too late. Now it's hard to keep my eyes closed, although I sense the brightness in the room, and I don't want to open them to that much light.
Where am I, anyway? Lets see, yesterday, if I got this right, I was doing pretty well. Pretty darn good. I'd cleaned up my apartment. I wrote a letter for Jellybean congratulating him on turning thirteen, it was a few months ago but I'm determined to give him this letter somehow. It was night then, and I was getting ready for bed. I brushed my teeth in the bathroom and made the mistake of looking at the toilet. Then it was over, the grief hit me like a ton of bricks. For some reason, this toilet makes me think of Donnie. I look at it sometimes and just like that, I'm collapsing on the floor, crying, screaming, hitting anything in the area, and finally puking my guts out. It happens so much I started keeping food, beer and a pillow over here so I can feed myself and everything. I don't understand it, Donnie's never even been in this bathroom, but its like his ghost is haunting it or something, I see him all shot up like on the TV and I just go to pieces. I guess I really am fucked up.
Anyway, the only way I can pull out of something like that is to drink a lot of beer. It also gives me something to throw up later. So instead of going to bed sober like a hero, which I almost did, and would have with out having drunk anything all day, I ended up spending the night coiled next to the toilet downing eight packs (six packs went out about twenty years ago).
Probably I am in the bathroom still. I gingerly reach out with my hand and feel the cold linoleum under me, and the pillow under my head, and I reach up and follow the curve of the porcelain toilet to confirm this.
"Michelangelo! Are you awake?"
Now I know why I started thinking of Darin. This is Simon calling to me, Darin's brother Simon, I am sure of it. He has a very distinctive way of talking, an Iranian accent but also the accent of autism. What the hell is Simon doing here?
I hate this fog of not knowing what's going on around me. That's what I miss most, I feel like I'm not even alive anymore. But, in the fog, I don't feel the pain so much, and the pain of life is so unbearable. Sometimes I try and get outside and experience something, just walk around in the sun. It feels good at the time, but it doesn't last. Eventually my pain swallows me back up again. I know everyone else matured beyond this, only I am left behind in this state, and that hurts me too.
Now the calling is accompanied by shaking. I hate shaking. It's such an awful way to wake up. I summon all my strength to be able to growl, "Go Away!"
"Michelangelo. You are a warrior. We need you." Simon responds.
Warrior. Where the fuck has this guy been? I'm not a warrior. Haven't been for about thirty years. But Simon is strange, and he probably doesn't realize this.
"You want Raphael or Leonardo. They're in England or something. I'll give you their number", I mumbled, thinking I'll just write down any fucking number and get him out of the house. How the fuck did he get in here, anyway? I have security, don't I? Maybe I don't, next time I really wake up and feel like thinking I should go find that out.
"No, Michelangelo, they are dead. It must be you who comes with us. Your whole species faces genocide, we must save them", an unknown voice tells me. It's very strange, sort of musical.
(If this technology allowed, his voice would be typed in TimeScrMed, or Grant's hand, or some such fancy type.)
Strangely, this discordant news given by the melodic voice doesn't shock or sadden me. A sort of numbness spreads through my veins, but I'm not sure that's not the result of something I unknowingly took last night just hitting me now.
PART II:
I suppose you all are just dying to know how I ended up this way. Well, I could go on and on about the horrible tragedy that changed my life. I know people just love stories about drama and angst, people want death and misery, and I have just the story to fulfill all those desires. But there's more to me than that, at least there was. So before you learn that story, you're going to sit through another story, a short happy story.
When I was twelve years old Splinter brought home a ton of art supplies he had found in an abandoned apartment somewhere while looking for food (you wouldn't believe what people might leave behind in their houses). This was really high-quality stuff, watercolors, oil paint, some canvases, drafting pencils and erasers, fancy pens and markers and some ink, brushes, little palettes, special cleaning solutions and mixes for the paints to make them last longer, all kinds of little tools you would never imagine you needed to paint until you read the labels and realized what they did and then you couldn't imagine painting with out them. Since I was the most artistically inclined of my siblings I inherited most of the bounty. Raphael and Leonardo occasionally dabbled with the paint. Donatello never really touched it beyond reading all the boxes and labels, and performing some experiments with additives and paint techniques. It seemed that Splinter always found something like this for each of us from time to time, something precious and valuable to us that just arrived with out the expectation of a birthday or Christmas. Leonardo would get weapons, martial art books and incense. Raphael got a lot of music and movies, Donatello got all books and anything involving wires and computer chips, and I got art and poetry. Splinter saw that glimpse of potential in me and nourished it with a vengeance. I half suspected he had bought these supplies himself and just disguised it as having found them, but they were dusty and obviously used.
These art supplies fueled my muse for years afterwards. I painted my half of the bedroom with all kinds of murals, mostly fairies, elves, dragons, knights and even unicorns, because at the time I was really into Dungeons and Dragons, which Donatello and I played obsessively with each other. Soon I expanded beyond my room to the kitchen, where I was allowed to depict fruit, eggs, herbs, bread, milk, and of course all kinds of pizza. From there it spread to tables, chairs, bookcases, shelves, and the refrigerator, TV, radio, and microwave. I remember a particularly well- done Pac Man scene on one of the doors. I painted Christmas ornaments for the tree. In fact I just painted the tree on the wall one year, instead of trying to piece our old plastic one together. I literally painted Easter eggs. When Splinter died I painted a tribute to him and placed it in his coffin. I was quite the painter, and that in turn made me a better poet, because my own art inspired me. By the time we met April I was good enough for her to publish some of my work. It was hard, because I couldn't use any poems mentioning my mutant state, but the cold detachment from humanity seemed to really resonate with people anyway. I wasn't anything huge, nowhere near the amount of money Donatello was making by the time we were twenty-one, but I was proud to have contributed something to the world. Leo and Raph never actually earned income at anything, we all lived off Donatello.
So there you have it. Thing weren't always so miserable, but things do change. If you handed me some paint now you'd be lucky if I didn't drink it.
PART III:
At the time, back when I was in my teens, I remember life passing so slowly. Towards the end of my teens was when all the changes happened. First Splinter died, shortly after our nineteenth birthday. That was the kind of change we were expecting to happen, he had been sick the last year, and he was old. Still it hurt of course. But being prepared helped me deal with it, and I had my brothers to depend on.
Even before Splinters death changes were happening in the country in terms of the mutant status. As we grew older there seemed to be more and more encounters between humans and mutants, and gradually they were becoming a part of society whether humans liked it or not. New York already had enough immigration and cultures in it that a few more species wasn't going to matter.
Canada was the first country to break the ice as far as allowing mutants full citizen status; they did this three days after Splinters death. We watched the debates on this raging every day, and with in a month were convinced to move there. If anything our country was getting more divided against mutants, and we wanted to move from our lair anyway. Plus Canada mostly spoke English, and was relatively close by, so April and Casey could visit. But what really got us was the interview with six young mutant turtles recently moved there from Iran. They had applied for asylum and received it, and a few Talk shows interviewed them. One of them was a girl. That cinched the deal.
The immigration authority for Canada was still in an experimental phase, so there was a period of processing, but we were accepted and three months later settled into a sort of half way house. Donatello already had been granted a scholarship to attend a university.
I actually don't remember much of that time. Everything was so new and special when you experienced it as a "normal" person. Just going into a bar and having a drink, that was great. I abandoned the ninja masks and evolved into wearing cloaks and shoes or boots, especially in winter, not as a disguise but because now there were stores selling tailored clothes for mutants, and it was encouraged to be more part of society. Shoes I suddenly couldn't imagine how we grew up with out them. We had toughened our feet sufficiently in New Yorks sewers and rooftops that it was possible, and lots of other mutants found the idea strange and wouldn't wear them. Leo in fact took a while to try it out, but then he adapted quickly, choosing to think of them as armor for his feet. He kept wearing ninja garb.
At first we were very poor, we were provided with the housing and standard food but not tons of spending money, and Canada hadn't figured out how to enter us all in the job market yet, so we actually spent a lot of time watching TV. We couldn't even go look for the other turtles; we had to stay at the house as part of our program. It was sort of a mutant ghetto, but we felt safe, we had no trouble from humans at all.
Things picked up by the time we were twenty-one. Donatello's abilities were quickly recognized by the right people, and soon he was developing and researching to his heart content, and being paid mad for it. He bought us a house, and we found that free life was really, really great.
The sharpest change came at twenty-three. We finally met those other mutant turtles that had inspired us so long ago. And that girl was just as beautiful in real life. Raphael met one of them while he and Casey were fishing at over in a mutant-segregated part of the Georgian Bay, and of course they wanted to combine our families. They had ditched the halfway house program and had been all living in this old beat up pick up truck, and eating fish or whatever they caught hunting, so moving to the city was quite an adventure for them. Don wasn't a total millionaire (yet), so all he could do was rent them a loft space to live in, in one of the poorer areas of town, but it was their first real home and they loved it, and it allowed us to all visit each other.
Their names were Nikki, Darin, Jory, Tory, Simon and Molly. Before Canada they had lived all their lives in the city of Teheran in Iran. Unlike us, they're father was human and they had been born in their state, so they were raised differently. They had hung out with the students and youth there as if they were human, joined in many of the struggles the humans did. It seemed like Iran was always going through some turmoil, and the US stopped trying to install dictators after the Bloody eclipse fiasco of 2008 (which they hinted they had participated in). I fondly called them my Iranian comrades, because of that, it was a phrase I picked up from some movie. But a religious fraction was gaining power right now, and they help a very hard line on mutants, so it was decided they should leave. They spoke Farsi but had been speaking English too for years, but they didn't get a lot of popular American phrases and stuff. Darin made himself memorable to me by coining up tons of colorful rhyming English phrases, not the least of which was the fucked duck luck thing. He said English was so much better than Farsi for that. Me, in the months that I knew them, close as I was, I only learned one word in Farsi: aziz. It means "beloved". I wrote it by hand on Molly's tombstone, adding a picture of a heart.
Simon and Molly were our age; the others were all older, Jory and Tory by one year, Darin by two, and Nikki by three. We all found something in them. Nikki and Leo hung out a lot and debated ideology of warriors (like reading Sun Tzu's Art of War). Raph had fun with the twins Jory and Tory, they played pranks on each other and traded insults to sharpen their wit, and of course sometimes they fought too, which I thought was the true test of friendship. Donatello and Simon practically merged into one being. Simon is autistic, which meant that he shared Donatello's genius abilities, but he was in a way more developmentally retarded. He was actually a lot like Donatello himself had been when we were all younger, he barely talked, wasn't social and viewed the world way differently then we did. Me, I had Darin as a best friend and Molly as a girlfriend, almost a wife.
Those times.I was so alive back then. These guys were my best buds ever, all of them except for Simon. Simon bonded only with Donatello. But the others, they all loved me and I loved them. I loved them with out end. I was so young, and I put my whole life in them.
When we were first getting to know each other, we invited them to our house for dinner, which was of course pizza. We sprang for the best Pizza we knew of, the best toppings, and soda, because pizza is always better with soda. This was incredibly fun, because they had never had pizza before. The twins remembered something about a Pizza Hut back in Teheran, but they had never gone in and didn't really understand what a pizza was, and it didn't translate well into Farsi. It was so great, watching them experience their first pizza, I guess I felt as if I had a child, and was living vicariously through them, you know, feeling that sense of pride as their eyes lit up from the taste, and they played with the stretchy cheese and experimented with the toppings.
Two days later they had us over for dinner. They served us pizza too, but it was different, it was Iranian style, which was frozen pizzas heated over an open fire (Donatello later taught them how to use the oven), served with olives and something called pickled cucumbers, which, they insisted, was not the same as pickles, and indeed they didn't taste like any pickles I've ever had. They had Coke Cola but they also served us Basil soda, which was an incredible strange banana-tasting liquid full of soaked basil seeds, which I thought looked an awful lot like tadpoles. They explained that the Basil drink was actually from an Indian store they had found and they wanted us to all try it, so it was new to them as well. I was very touched by their meal; it had so much of their hearts in it, that's what won my own heart over to them. I loved them all after that. I know its weird or immature or whatever, but pizza forms powerful bonds for me, and I grow attached to memories that involve it.
PART IV:
After that we went out every day together, at least me, Molly, Jory, Tory and Darin. We went to bars and drank, swore, brawled, flirted, played cards and darts until three in the mourning or so, then we went to other places, diving in the lakes, hiding in the woods, staring at the stars, and if I was lucky the night ended with me sleeping with Molly at their place, or if I was really lucky in the woods.
Maybe half the time Raphael would join us; he enjoyed all those activities as well, including sleeping with Molly. That girl was all of our first loves, I think. Even Leo slept with her a couple times, although he was terribly ashamed of it afterwards and would get all self-beating about it. Only Donatello didn't ever touch her, of this I am sure, because he was quite the virgin when we were younger. It was funny actually, he only started having sex fourteen years ago and it was like a dam broke, he had so many girls and kids in so short of a time it was hysterical.
Sometimes Leo joined us, but that wasn't really his scene and I think he only went through the motions when he wanted a shot at Molly. Nikki also came along from time to time, but usually he was working at a mechanic shop, trying to make the family self-sufficient and all, and then he preferred to stay at home and rest. He reminded me of Leo in his seriousness and determination to take care of his family, but he could drink, swear and fight like nothing else. He and Donatello were the only ones with a job, even though we were officially citizens, we were not fully entered into the job market because there were still issues between humans and mutants, for instance we could not be short-order cooks because there was a concern that we would contaminate food and stuff like that. I earned a little money with my writing, later Darin helped me with some poems. I have those somewhere.
Simon and Donatello never came with us, not once. Those two had their own form of fun.
Which is how Simon ended up being the only one left alive from that crew.
I ended up being left alive because at the time I had stopped spending the night at their house.
PART V:
See, I made the mistake one mourning of waking up next to Molly and almost proposing to her right then. I usually feel very amorous in the mourning, especially after a night like that. I turned and gave her my best 'I love you' eyes. But she was looking at me too, in a different way, an important- we-have-to-talk way, and I made the really bad mistake of asking her what was on her mind, thinking that that was what good lovers did.
"Mikey, I don't think we should do this anymore."
"Do what?"
"You know, silly, this", she elaborated with a gesture I didn't need. I was just playing dumb to buy myself time to work this out in a favorable way. God, I loved her accent, and her mannerism. I loved her so much.
"But, uh, why?" I asked foolishly, "Don't you, uh, like it?"
"Yes, of course I do", she purred, "But, I don't think it is right. See, I think I maybe love your brother, and this with you is then wrong."
"My brother? Raphael?" I stammered, thinking it was Raph. Always it was Raph.
"No, not that one. He's too rough", she almost giggled, "Donatello."
"Donatello?" I gasped. I hadn't seen that coming. She doesn't even talk to him, and he's never so much as looked at her, so much as I knew. In fact at the time I had suspected he might be gay, and his not sleeping with her sort of confirmed that. I wondered if I suggested that it would end her little fantasy of him.
"Yes, Donatello", she purred again.
I just sat there in shock. Here I was about to propose and now I'm losing her forever.
"Oh, I am sorry, Mikey, I don't mean to be rude", She apologized, taking my hands. She almost kissed them but held back.
"But why? I mean, has he, uh, expressed interest in you? Because I have", I stated emphatically, and the proof was visible under the covers.
She touched my chest lightly, sort of a teasing push.
"I know you have, silly", she giggles, "No, he don't even barely talk to me, but he talk to my brother, and I look like him, right?"
This was truer than I was ever comfortable with. Her and Simon were fraternal twins and somehow both got the same color green skin, the same black eyes and long black hair that neither would cut even thought everyone teased them all the time about looking like each other. The hair came from their father, who was actually human, and their mother was a mutant turtle like us. Darin also has hair, his is almost shoulder length and kept in dreads, and it is a dark brown rather than black. The other three were as bald as we were. Don and I later had some kids with human, but none of them ended up with hair. I guess that's genetics for you.
"But, why would you want to." I trailed off. I was going to say, Why would you want to throw away our relationship when I realized obviously it wasn't even a relationship to her, and that would almost be whiny which I didn't want. I almost wanted to throw in that maybe he was, you know, having relations with Simon, but decided that would be crude and would not work out in my favor.
"I don't know, I guess it is because he don't talk to me. He the only one I don't have sleep with. Its that saying, the grass is always greener on the other side, right?" she paused, giggling a little, "I guess in this case it is the turtle is greener on the other side."
"I guess", I replied, trying to hide my bitterness. That ancient Beatles song came to me, 'hey, you got to hide your love away'.
I wished with all my heart that I had taken the time to get to know her before having sex. It would have been the right way to start a real relationship, maybe if I hadn't just hopped in bed with her she would be thinking about me the way she's thinking about Donatello. But I was young and foolish. Everyone makes huge mistakes like that when they're young.
She granted me a last kiss, but kept her word, there was no more sleeping with her, and certainly no proposal. But I thought I could bide my time. She and I seemed so right together, my heart told me that it would happen, if not now then in the future, she would get over Donnie someday, and I would then tell her how I felt and I would date her right and not sleep with her for months, until we were sure we loved each other, and then she would be my wife.
I was so sure that was going to happen. And maybe it would have, its certainly possible that she would have grown to love me in the future, if a car wreck hadn't taken her life three weeks later. Her and all her brothers but Simon.
PART VI:
Would you like to hear about that? About how the news hit me like a kick in the groin, effectively crippling me for the rest of my life? Well, okay, I'll tell you, even though it hurts. But we're going to get another one of my happy stories first, and this one no one knows but me. My son and girlfriend were there, but my girlfriend didn't care and my son was too little too remember.
First of all, everybody assumes that I am a horrible father. And I never bother to correct them, I mean, overall I am pretty bad, when I think about it, but damn it I try, which is more than some fathers do, and I would never beat them or hurt them. Anyway, when Mickey was born, his mother calls me up to tell me and says I have to name him. She woke me up, and I didn't know what to say, so I was sort of joking and I said "Michelob", because that was the beer in front of me, and I thought that was kind of an interesting name. And he could be Mickey for short, which is like Mikey, so we have that father-son connection there. But I didn't know she was actually going to put it on the birth certificate. I mean, shit, he's her son too; she could have given him a better name. But whatever, I ended up with a son named after a beer.
I was halfway determined to be a really good father to Mickey and sort of redeem myself for being a complete failure with Jellybean. He was only four at the time, but I knew I had already failed with him, and I say halfway determined because, when you're me, you never end up fully committing to anything no matter how much you want to.
So, even though this girl and I no longer liked each other, I started coming over every day, at least for a few hours, baby-sitting and stuff. Mickey really seemed to like me, and he looked a lot more like me than her. She was mixed French and Black, with curly red hair she had fried in attempts to make it straight, and obviously she was human. He kind of inherited her eyes, bright brown ones with lashes although he had no other hair. He and Jellybean both had a different kind of skin than me, it was much smoother. Other than the lashes and skin texture there was no indication he was part human, that's the way it seemed to be with most of our kids, the mutagen part seemed to be dominant. I wonder, if they have kids with human, what they will be like. But that's still in the distant future.
There I was, changing the kid's diapers, feeding him, being responsible. At first she was kind of uncomfortable about it, but then she fell into a routine, I would show up and she would get dressed to go out. I don't think she had a job, she probably didn't think she could find any other baby sitter and I didn't show up 9-5, so I think she was prostituting. It's the only thing that would make sense, and her outfits certainly contributed to the theory.
I was responsible enough to not drink while babysitting, but once I left all bets were off. For some reason, when Mickey was about four months old, I went on some kind of binge. Like the visions of Donatello in the bathroom, sometimes these things just come over me, and I can't stop them, and all I can do is drink and wait. This particular binge lasted somewhere between five days and two weeks, after much investigation I haven't been able to narrow it down any further. When I was conscious enough to return to my ex-girlfriends house and start babysitting again, I found the place abandoned. Clothes all over the floor, cupboard ransacked, dishes piled in the sink, money and jewelry gone, mice gathered in a corner of the kitchen trying to figure out if they had enough numbers to go after me, and in the little crib in the living room was my son Mickey. He didn't look too bad off; I think she couldn't have been gone more than two days. He was weak, dehydrated and hungry, and couldn't even cry, but he was still alive, so it couldn't have been too long. She must have thought I would be coming by soon, or else someone would. I'm assuming that she wasn't totally leaving him to die, but then she seemed to have had a lot on her mind.
Some people might have taken this as a doorway to opportunity, that this would open the sense of responsibility within me, that I would take Mickey and right then and there start a new life, no drinking, no drugs, just me and my son. That didn't happen. But I wish someone would be proud of what I did do. I bundled him up and carried him all the way to my brothers' house, at this time a big mansion outside of town where they were all living together and collectively raising all their kids. They already had Jellybean whose mother had abandoned him pretty much from the hospital. Plus Donatello had twins a year earlier that would be close to Mickey's age, and Raphael just had another baby a few months ago, and Leo had an egg that was due to hatch in a few weeks. So, Mickey would have lots of cousins his age to play with and lots of competent adults to watch over and love him.
I wished I could move in too, and see him everyday, but I knew myself. And so did my brothers. I was allowed to visit their home occasionally but it had been made clear I could not live there until I had been sober for a year, and that was not a goal I was able to reach. They would visit me at least once a month, and they tried to make these visits friendly, but it was so hard for them, I know, to not say anything about how I was destroying everything, how it hurt for them to have lost me this way. When we were younger, Raphael had been the most likely candidate to end up this way, but he found a girlfriend (who didn't die) and that saved him. Now he's as stable and disciplined as Leo. Love can do that to you, save or destroy you.
When I showed up at their door with Mickey, I wanted to explain to them that I could still be a decent guy, that, look, I saved my son and brought him here because I care about him. But I couldn't bring myself to say anything. Donatello's wife at the time, a ¾ human, ¼ turtle hybrid, answered the door. Her name was Connie, and she looked much more human than turtle. In fact she didn't look like a turtle at all, she really looked like a five-five tall three-fingered 250 lb black women with a strange hump on her back that on closure inspection would turn out to be a shell. I had only talked to Connie once before, when I came to see Chicken and Pie after they had been born. She said she wished that they had hair, because she had really been looking forward to brushing and braiding hair as part of the child-rearing process. I said maybe she would have more kids, and she looked really doubtful. So I didn't have much to go on for conversation with her.
"Are my brothers home?" I asked tentatively.
She almost rolled her eyes, and turned back to the house to yell for Donatello.
Meanwhile Chicken and Pie, already walking, had approached the door and stared at me. Soon other children began to gather, led by Leo's son Christopher. Christopher was so cute. He was always my favorite nephew, he had this innocence about him that he kept through his teenage years, he always looked like he was in the wrong path, like he was trying to be his father but didn't have the personality for it. Here he was nine or ten years old, and when he saw me he waved happily and ran to get Jellybean, thinking I was here to see him. I actually didn't want see Jellybean, I hated seeing Jellybean because that kid didn't like me. True enough, he returned with four year old Jellybean limp in his arms, staring at me dully.
"What's that?" Raphael's son Julian asked me. He was nine then.
"This is my son Mickey", I told him proudly.
Julian was not impressed.
"Another baby?" he sighed wearily.
I was sort of shocked by how different our generations were. When I was nine, a baby would have been fantastic. At the very least, it would have assured me that our unique variation of our species would not die out, which after I learned about puberty I was terrified that was going to happen. But here Julian was surrounded by siblings and cousins, and seemed to resent it all.
Finally Donatello came to the door and his wife started shooing all the children away from the room. His eyes automatically drew to the little bundle in my arms.
"Another abandoned kid?" he inquired.
That killed whatever inside of me thought that maybe I could go clean and live here, or at least explain to them the situation, that I tried so hard with this one.
"Yeah. His name is, uh, it's Michelob."
He reached out to take him and I handed him over.
"What happened?" he asked a little gentler than before. He was doing a quick pulse check and eye check and stuff.
"Um.I don't know, exactly. I visit, you know, sort of regularly, and today I found him like this, alone, and I think she, you know, bugged out."
"I see."
After a minute of silence, I felt compelled to go on.
"I, uh, you guys can take care of him, right?"
"Yes, Mikey, we'll take care of him", he sighed.
"Good, cause I."
I didn't finish. My voice started breaking up, and it was too embarrassing to keep talking.
He transferred Mickey to one arm, and with the other he gave me an affectionate hug.
"Mikey, you're my brother and I love you", he whispered.
"I know. I'm sorry", I told him, and then left before he had me breaking down right there.
I drank a lot of beer that night.
PART VII:
Guess that wasn't so happy after all. Sorry. I don't really have happy times after they all died. They took all the happy times with them.
They dropped me off that night, around 1 in the mourning. We started ending our parties earlier after Molly and mine discussion, you know it was just awkward to sleep at their house or romp naked through the forest (we're always naked, but with Molly I really felt naked). Nikki was there with them, also Darin's new human girlfriend, Jenni. Raph and Leo hadn't gone out that night. Just me.
I worried about them driving home. All of them would drink at the bars, usually Darin or one of the twins would drive, and they were speeders. On more than one occasion we came too close for comfort to other cars, trucks, trees, red lights and bridges, but they always stopped or swerved just in time. I didn't know how to express my concern, their excitement at the close calls was contagious, and besides I was drinking too.
But based on what I learned happened, I don't know that being sober would have helped them any. It might have made it worse; they were probably better off being a little buzzed.
Apparently some kind of freak accident where some construction equipment fell off a bridge.fell off a bridge on them, and to finish the deal a truck behind them that couldn't stop in time. Freak accidents for freak turtles. Not even our shells could do shit about that kind of misfortune. And of course poor Jenni didn't even have that.
I knew something bad had happened as soon as I woke up. I had this creepy feeling, my blood wouldn't go through my veins right. And then there was Raphael knocking on the door.
"What?" I called out.
He came in, closing the door behind him quickly, but not quick enough. Through that brief crack I heard an awful sound. I didn't know right away what it was, I thought a dog or something. Something that wasn't supposed to be here.
Then there was Raphael's look. Our lives have been temperamental. We have cried a lot through out childhood, and being a teenage mutant ninja turtle really wrecks havoc on your hormones, let me tell you. But never had a seen a look of such agony, and the worse part was that I knew instantly the look was not about him, it was about me. I knew then it had to be Molly or Darin at least, and then my mind made the further leap that, if it was Molly or Darin, one of the others would have come. The fact that Raphael was here meant.
"Mike, buddy, I'm sorry I got to tell you this."
I waited. He sat down at my bed.
"There was an accident. Everyone in the car last night died."
And that was it. I shared with you all the worst thing to ever happen to me.
I made them take me to the accident site. I wouldn't believe they were dead until I saw that. Simon came too; it was he who was making those awful sounds in the mourning, not a dog howling but him crying. Donatello focused on helping him. Leo and Raph helped me. I know they were all upset at the loss, but none felt it so deeply as I did. Donatello, in fact, surprised me with how emphatic he was, that all his grief around this seemed to be reflecting from Simon or me. He didn't seem to have any of his own. I always wondered if Molly had ever told him how she felt, I doubt it because I'm sure that kind of revelation would have put something more in his heart for her. But with him, especially when we were younger, it was hard to tell.
The plan inside me had been to go there and say, "Look, there's nothing here. Nothing happened. Let's go call them and they can apologize for worrying us so much". That was really my plan. It was dependent on the police and ambulance or whatever having cleaned the place up, leaving nothing behind to so much as hint at the atrocity that now marked this road.
That plan fell apart before I even got out of the car. The truck they died in had been removed, but evidence of a horrible crash still scarred the bridge in question. Small pieces of metal and glass debris littered the area. There was even what looked like blood smeared on the ground, as if to really let me know that they were dead. The construction equipment was gone, and tarps and markers covered the area they were working on, above the bridge.
So, that plan went out the window. Instead I formed a new plan, which was, given the understanding that some divine fate wanted me to live yet did not want to give me anything to live for, I would go through life on the bare minimum of existence. I would enter a form of hibernation until something drastically changed, new friends or loves came forward that could bring me back to the profusion of intense feelings I had prior to this day. To achieve the desired hibernating state, a lot of beer was required.
I am still in that state today, and I intend to never leave.
PART VIII:
"Did you hear us, Michelangelo?" Simon asked me when I hadn't responded to him.
"Yes", I answered slowly, "But I still can't help you."
I reached around the toilet for an unopened beer can, but I was shit out of luck. I must have gone through them all already. I hadn't actually opened my eyes yet, I was afraid to face Simon and whoever had accompanied him. But, I guess I'll have to, because this day isn't ending any time soon.
So here it goes. Eyes opening slowly, gently, easy now.not too much light. I look down to the floor first so the light won't be right on me. It takes a minute, it seems really slow to me. The initial pain wears off and things come into focus. But when I finally look up at Simon and his friend, I think I must have done something really wrong last night. This is a fucking dream. This is going to be the mother of all dreams. I'm going to write a poem about this shit.
I haven't seen Simon since Donnie's funeral, but he looks the same as ever. Still has the ridiculously long hair, of course now there's no Molly to confuse him with. I actually forget sometimes how much he looked like her, or like all of them, really. I hate looking at him, because there is a dark side of me that wishes he had died instead of all of them.
But that's not the shit. The shit is standing next to him. It's a big-ass horse, with wings and a lizard tail, and its head is not a quite a horse head, its an alligator, but with a mane and almost a horse shape. And it talks. I mean, I know I don't have the right to say anything; me being a five-foot talking turtle, but still.
"Michelangelo, you must come with us. They will be here soon to murder you. We must save your people", the horse tells me.
"I'm sorry.what the fuck are you?", I inquire bluntly.
The horse does a strange movement, sort of a roll of the eyes and a sigh, but alligator/horse heads don't do that the same way that humans do.
"My name is Endram`e. I am.hmmm.how to explain simply, I am your brothers step son, sort of."
"Which brother?" I asked incredulously.
Another sigh-eye-roll motion.
"Donatello. Were any of your other brothers mating with dragons?"
"I didn't know he was", I explained, although, really, of all of them Donatello was most likely to do something like that. And I could never keep up with all his relations or kids.
"He had four children with my mother", Endram`e explains, "And we might be able to save them if we hurry. We were too late for Raphael or Leo, or the others. I am sorry, my powers are great but I can not be everywhere at once."
"Others?" I asked. Now a cold rush replaces that numbness. How much of my family was lost? How could I have fucked up so badly as to not know what had happened to them all. I hope my children are okay. I hope Chris is okay.
"Please, get on my back and allow me to take you away from here. We will try to explain later, we must leave now", Endram`e says.
Simon gestures for me to get on first. I think he doesn't trust I will do it, but I do. I want to ask about saving my kids, I suddenly feel a rush of paternalness.
As soon as I have successfully mounted the horse-dragon (the wings got in the way the first time), Simon gets on behind me and Endram`e takes off, galloping into my wall and then.
PART IX:
Then we enter a different area entirely. We are in a cavern. It looks like a huge hole dug in the ground, but there are indications that it is more than a hole, it is a home for someone. Pictures decorate the sides, for one, painted on as I had once done to our own home in my youth. And there is light, from where I am not sure but it is beyond sunlight.
I am so taken with the pleasant atmosphere of the place that I at first don't realize that it has obviously been attacked. I am looking upwards, trying to find the light source, so I'm not looking at the ground where all the evidence was. Upwards all I found out of the ordinary was a crumbled and charred section of ceiling.
"We're too late", Simon whispers behind me.
Then I look down and I see we are too late. Much too late. Everything in the room is destroyed. A lot of blood covers the floor and three small bodies lay still there. I did not rejoin reality to see this.
"No, one of them still lives", Endram`e exclaims, and trots over to its side.
Simon and I hop off, and almost instantly I recall my first aid training. I used to be really good at bandaging up my brothers wounds, and I even performed surgery, I removed a bad tooth from Raphael and I removed a bullet from Leo. I fixed Raphael's broken wrist once. Donatello didn't get hurt nearly as often as they did. I think the most I ever did for him was feeding him when he was sick. Remembering this I start to feel as if I am fifteen again.
I quickly ascertain that it is indeed alive, and kneel to investigate. It has a shell and three fingers, evidence of my brother. The rest is more like the horse, alligator like. The skin is rougher than mine, it has sharp scales. It has wings and a tail sticking out from the shell, just like Endram`e.
All of a sudden I am alone with this injured child, Donatello's child. My brother is dead but his child is here, and that does something to me. He has other children, but they never affected me like this, maybe because I never saw them so wounded. The realization reaches out and drags that beautiful ninja part of me hiding in hibernation into the open, and pushes the other part away. I am awake. I am alive. Mentally, I have returned. My heart practically leaps out of my chest yelling, "This one! This one here! Do it for this one! Live!"
I touch it to be sure. Yes, it is alive. It groans and writhes a little under my hand, probably not knowing what is going on and thinking I am attacking it. It is only a baby, probably about the age of my youngest son.
"Shh. I'm not here to hurt you", I tell it soothingly, checking its vital signs as gently as I can. I can't tell if it's a boy or girl, I'll figure it out eventually.
It coughs faintly, takes a deep breathe, and screams, "Momma! Momma!"
This tears at my heart, exactly the kind of thing I was not living for, but it doesn't pull me back under. No, I can do this. I am Michelangelo the Ninja Turtle who must save his brothers child.
I pick it up and try to comfort it physically, but it writhes too much for that to help. It doesn't seem hurt too bad, by the way it's moving. One claw scratches my arm. Some of that is trembling, I don't think its totally in control of its body. It has a deep cut on its neck, probably it had been assumed to be dead and left. It doesn't hold its head up well, and I gently support it even as it cries in my ears. Simon hands me some cloth that looks clean, and I use it to stop the bleeding. Appling pressure to its neck is hard, because I don't want to choke it, but judging from the unabated wailing that is not a danger.
I try to sing to it to calm it down. I sing in Japanese, because I'm sort of embarrassed to sing in English. I sing something Master Splinter used to sing to us when we were little. I know that alone won't be enough, this kid has been through hell.
It seems like an agonizingly slow time, and yet almost no time at all. All of a sudden it is quiet. I think I might have even been asleep or something, the next thing I know I have stopped singing and the kid stopped crying. For the first time I am conscious of Endram`e standing next to me, trying to nuzzle the child. Simon is not there at first, but he arrives with warm, wet cloth, which we use to clean the wound and rest of the body so we can check for other injuries. There are no others. The cloth also serves to wrap the kid in and help ease the shock. As long as it is pretty stable, I have Simon gather supplies for me, and I mend the cut while he rubs its wrists and watches its vital signs. I don't know what to use to treat it for infection, but Endram`e finds me some herbs he assures me will work, so I apply them under the new bandage. The kid didn't say a word, not so much as a wince the whole time, it seemed to have understood that we were helping. It now stares at us wide eyed, but the breathing and trembling eases.
"You.You're n-not my D-daddy, are you? Are y-you back alive? Or, or am I d-dead?"
"I'm your uncle Michelangelo. What's your name?"
"Shiitake."
"Shiitake, I am your brother Endram`e. We share the same mother."
At the mention of brother, Shiitake glances over at his still siblings. We should really take him out of here.
"Where's my momma?" he asks quietly.
"I don't know", Endram`e answers.
It's probably not a good sign that the mother isn't here. If that heart- rending wailing didn't bring her back here, well.
"You'll have to come with us", I explain to him (I had concluded it was a boy, but I could still be proven wrong).
"Yes. We need to leave here, it is still dangerous."
"Where?" Shiitake asks, giving another glance at his siblings.
"Away. Come, all of us."
I pick Shiitake up and cradle him in my arms while I gracefully mount Endram`e again. This time I do it right on the first try. This is because I am Michelangelo once more. Simon gets on behind me.
"I knew you'd come back some day", he tells me as we gallop away.
Guess he's a lot more perceptive than I thought.
Okay, before we begin, I strongly suggest you all take your bathroom break, get some food, some drink (coffee goes well with this story, or a good soda), make sure your nice and comfortable because this part is eighteen pages long and its goood.
Here we go, long anticipated section from Mikey himself. I intend for this to be one of the best Michealangelo stories every written, and it has a lot going on in it. Now he's over fifty years old, so in the mist of what going on there's going to be flashbacks, and sometimes there's going to be flashbacks with in the flashbacks, so even as those heavy questions get answered there is potential for things to get confusing. I went over it many times trying to find the best lay-out and make everything make sense, but with fifty years of life experiences to catch up on and then the actual events going on currently its going to be long. I divided it into parts to make it more reader friendly.
I don't think I have to tell you all that I eagerly await word on how I did here with him, and their lives in general. I never really wrote a lot on Mike, so this is kind of different.
Michelangelo:
PART I:
"Michelangelo!"
I hear the voice, but its not enough to rouse me from my dreams. I'm very attached to my dreams. Very attached. The voice is urgent, but not "house on fire" urgent, so I choose to stay asleep.
"Michelangelo!"
Still asleep. They'll go away eventually.
"Michelangelo!"
. . .
"Michelangelo!"
Shit. They're not leaving. What a bad day. Bad luck day. Fuck a duck luck, as Darin would say. Actually, were he here he would say that so far this day sucks fucked duck.
Oh, God! Why did I have to think of him? This bad, shitty, fucking day.
"Michelangelo!"
Again with the calling. The relentless calling. I can't wake up this way. I need to wake up on my own terms, and then I can maybe deal with the day.
But it's too late. Now it's hard to keep my eyes closed, although I sense the brightness in the room, and I don't want to open them to that much light.
Where am I, anyway? Lets see, yesterday, if I got this right, I was doing pretty well. Pretty darn good. I'd cleaned up my apartment. I wrote a letter for Jellybean congratulating him on turning thirteen, it was a few months ago but I'm determined to give him this letter somehow. It was night then, and I was getting ready for bed. I brushed my teeth in the bathroom and made the mistake of looking at the toilet. Then it was over, the grief hit me like a ton of bricks. For some reason, this toilet makes me think of Donnie. I look at it sometimes and just like that, I'm collapsing on the floor, crying, screaming, hitting anything in the area, and finally puking my guts out. It happens so much I started keeping food, beer and a pillow over here so I can feed myself and everything. I don't understand it, Donnie's never even been in this bathroom, but its like his ghost is haunting it or something, I see him all shot up like on the TV and I just go to pieces. I guess I really am fucked up.
Anyway, the only way I can pull out of something like that is to drink a lot of beer. It also gives me something to throw up later. So instead of going to bed sober like a hero, which I almost did, and would have with out having drunk anything all day, I ended up spending the night coiled next to the toilet downing eight packs (six packs went out about twenty years ago).
Probably I am in the bathroom still. I gingerly reach out with my hand and feel the cold linoleum under me, and the pillow under my head, and I reach up and follow the curve of the porcelain toilet to confirm this.
"Michelangelo! Are you awake?"
Now I know why I started thinking of Darin. This is Simon calling to me, Darin's brother Simon, I am sure of it. He has a very distinctive way of talking, an Iranian accent but also the accent of autism. What the hell is Simon doing here?
I hate this fog of not knowing what's going on around me. That's what I miss most, I feel like I'm not even alive anymore. But, in the fog, I don't feel the pain so much, and the pain of life is so unbearable. Sometimes I try and get outside and experience something, just walk around in the sun. It feels good at the time, but it doesn't last. Eventually my pain swallows me back up again. I know everyone else matured beyond this, only I am left behind in this state, and that hurts me too.
Now the calling is accompanied by shaking. I hate shaking. It's such an awful way to wake up. I summon all my strength to be able to growl, "Go Away!"
"Michelangelo. You are a warrior. We need you." Simon responds.
Warrior. Where the fuck has this guy been? I'm not a warrior. Haven't been for about thirty years. But Simon is strange, and he probably doesn't realize this.
"You want Raphael or Leonardo. They're in England or something. I'll give you their number", I mumbled, thinking I'll just write down any fucking number and get him out of the house. How the fuck did he get in here, anyway? I have security, don't I? Maybe I don't, next time I really wake up and feel like thinking I should go find that out.
"No, Michelangelo, they are dead. It must be you who comes with us. Your whole species faces genocide, we must save them", an unknown voice tells me. It's very strange, sort of musical.
(If this technology allowed, his voice would be typed in TimeScrMed, or Grant's hand, or some such fancy type.)
Strangely, this discordant news given by the melodic voice doesn't shock or sadden me. A sort of numbness spreads through my veins, but I'm not sure that's not the result of something I unknowingly took last night just hitting me now.
PART II:
I suppose you all are just dying to know how I ended up this way. Well, I could go on and on about the horrible tragedy that changed my life. I know people just love stories about drama and angst, people want death and misery, and I have just the story to fulfill all those desires. But there's more to me than that, at least there was. So before you learn that story, you're going to sit through another story, a short happy story.
When I was twelve years old Splinter brought home a ton of art supplies he had found in an abandoned apartment somewhere while looking for food (you wouldn't believe what people might leave behind in their houses). This was really high-quality stuff, watercolors, oil paint, some canvases, drafting pencils and erasers, fancy pens and markers and some ink, brushes, little palettes, special cleaning solutions and mixes for the paints to make them last longer, all kinds of little tools you would never imagine you needed to paint until you read the labels and realized what they did and then you couldn't imagine painting with out them. Since I was the most artistically inclined of my siblings I inherited most of the bounty. Raphael and Leonardo occasionally dabbled with the paint. Donatello never really touched it beyond reading all the boxes and labels, and performing some experiments with additives and paint techniques. It seemed that Splinter always found something like this for each of us from time to time, something precious and valuable to us that just arrived with out the expectation of a birthday or Christmas. Leonardo would get weapons, martial art books and incense. Raphael got a lot of music and movies, Donatello got all books and anything involving wires and computer chips, and I got art and poetry. Splinter saw that glimpse of potential in me and nourished it with a vengeance. I half suspected he had bought these supplies himself and just disguised it as having found them, but they were dusty and obviously used.
These art supplies fueled my muse for years afterwards. I painted my half of the bedroom with all kinds of murals, mostly fairies, elves, dragons, knights and even unicorns, because at the time I was really into Dungeons and Dragons, which Donatello and I played obsessively with each other. Soon I expanded beyond my room to the kitchen, where I was allowed to depict fruit, eggs, herbs, bread, milk, and of course all kinds of pizza. From there it spread to tables, chairs, bookcases, shelves, and the refrigerator, TV, radio, and microwave. I remember a particularly well- done Pac Man scene on one of the doors. I painted Christmas ornaments for the tree. In fact I just painted the tree on the wall one year, instead of trying to piece our old plastic one together. I literally painted Easter eggs. When Splinter died I painted a tribute to him and placed it in his coffin. I was quite the painter, and that in turn made me a better poet, because my own art inspired me. By the time we met April I was good enough for her to publish some of my work. It was hard, because I couldn't use any poems mentioning my mutant state, but the cold detachment from humanity seemed to really resonate with people anyway. I wasn't anything huge, nowhere near the amount of money Donatello was making by the time we were twenty-one, but I was proud to have contributed something to the world. Leo and Raph never actually earned income at anything, we all lived off Donatello.
So there you have it. Thing weren't always so miserable, but things do change. If you handed me some paint now you'd be lucky if I didn't drink it.
PART III:
At the time, back when I was in my teens, I remember life passing so slowly. Towards the end of my teens was when all the changes happened. First Splinter died, shortly after our nineteenth birthday. That was the kind of change we were expecting to happen, he had been sick the last year, and he was old. Still it hurt of course. But being prepared helped me deal with it, and I had my brothers to depend on.
Even before Splinters death changes were happening in the country in terms of the mutant status. As we grew older there seemed to be more and more encounters between humans and mutants, and gradually they were becoming a part of society whether humans liked it or not. New York already had enough immigration and cultures in it that a few more species wasn't going to matter.
Canada was the first country to break the ice as far as allowing mutants full citizen status; they did this three days after Splinters death. We watched the debates on this raging every day, and with in a month were convinced to move there. If anything our country was getting more divided against mutants, and we wanted to move from our lair anyway. Plus Canada mostly spoke English, and was relatively close by, so April and Casey could visit. But what really got us was the interview with six young mutant turtles recently moved there from Iran. They had applied for asylum and received it, and a few Talk shows interviewed them. One of them was a girl. That cinched the deal.
The immigration authority for Canada was still in an experimental phase, so there was a period of processing, but we were accepted and three months later settled into a sort of half way house. Donatello already had been granted a scholarship to attend a university.
I actually don't remember much of that time. Everything was so new and special when you experienced it as a "normal" person. Just going into a bar and having a drink, that was great. I abandoned the ninja masks and evolved into wearing cloaks and shoes or boots, especially in winter, not as a disguise but because now there were stores selling tailored clothes for mutants, and it was encouraged to be more part of society. Shoes I suddenly couldn't imagine how we grew up with out them. We had toughened our feet sufficiently in New Yorks sewers and rooftops that it was possible, and lots of other mutants found the idea strange and wouldn't wear them. Leo in fact took a while to try it out, but then he adapted quickly, choosing to think of them as armor for his feet. He kept wearing ninja garb.
At first we were very poor, we were provided with the housing and standard food but not tons of spending money, and Canada hadn't figured out how to enter us all in the job market yet, so we actually spent a lot of time watching TV. We couldn't even go look for the other turtles; we had to stay at the house as part of our program. It was sort of a mutant ghetto, but we felt safe, we had no trouble from humans at all.
Things picked up by the time we were twenty-one. Donatello's abilities were quickly recognized by the right people, and soon he was developing and researching to his heart content, and being paid mad for it. He bought us a house, and we found that free life was really, really great.
The sharpest change came at twenty-three. We finally met those other mutant turtles that had inspired us so long ago. And that girl was just as beautiful in real life. Raphael met one of them while he and Casey were fishing at over in a mutant-segregated part of the Georgian Bay, and of course they wanted to combine our families. They had ditched the halfway house program and had been all living in this old beat up pick up truck, and eating fish or whatever they caught hunting, so moving to the city was quite an adventure for them. Don wasn't a total millionaire (yet), so all he could do was rent them a loft space to live in, in one of the poorer areas of town, but it was their first real home and they loved it, and it allowed us to all visit each other.
Their names were Nikki, Darin, Jory, Tory, Simon and Molly. Before Canada they had lived all their lives in the city of Teheran in Iran. Unlike us, they're father was human and they had been born in their state, so they were raised differently. They had hung out with the students and youth there as if they were human, joined in many of the struggles the humans did. It seemed like Iran was always going through some turmoil, and the US stopped trying to install dictators after the Bloody eclipse fiasco of 2008 (which they hinted they had participated in). I fondly called them my Iranian comrades, because of that, it was a phrase I picked up from some movie. But a religious fraction was gaining power right now, and they help a very hard line on mutants, so it was decided they should leave. They spoke Farsi but had been speaking English too for years, but they didn't get a lot of popular American phrases and stuff. Darin made himself memorable to me by coining up tons of colorful rhyming English phrases, not the least of which was the fucked duck luck thing. He said English was so much better than Farsi for that. Me, in the months that I knew them, close as I was, I only learned one word in Farsi: aziz. It means "beloved". I wrote it by hand on Molly's tombstone, adding a picture of a heart.
Simon and Molly were our age; the others were all older, Jory and Tory by one year, Darin by two, and Nikki by three. We all found something in them. Nikki and Leo hung out a lot and debated ideology of warriors (like reading Sun Tzu's Art of War). Raph had fun with the twins Jory and Tory, they played pranks on each other and traded insults to sharpen their wit, and of course sometimes they fought too, which I thought was the true test of friendship. Donatello and Simon practically merged into one being. Simon is autistic, which meant that he shared Donatello's genius abilities, but he was in a way more developmentally retarded. He was actually a lot like Donatello himself had been when we were all younger, he barely talked, wasn't social and viewed the world way differently then we did. Me, I had Darin as a best friend and Molly as a girlfriend, almost a wife.
Those times.I was so alive back then. These guys were my best buds ever, all of them except for Simon. Simon bonded only with Donatello. But the others, they all loved me and I loved them. I loved them with out end. I was so young, and I put my whole life in them.
When we were first getting to know each other, we invited them to our house for dinner, which was of course pizza. We sprang for the best Pizza we knew of, the best toppings, and soda, because pizza is always better with soda. This was incredibly fun, because they had never had pizza before. The twins remembered something about a Pizza Hut back in Teheran, but they had never gone in and didn't really understand what a pizza was, and it didn't translate well into Farsi. It was so great, watching them experience their first pizza, I guess I felt as if I had a child, and was living vicariously through them, you know, feeling that sense of pride as their eyes lit up from the taste, and they played with the stretchy cheese and experimented with the toppings.
Two days later they had us over for dinner. They served us pizza too, but it was different, it was Iranian style, which was frozen pizzas heated over an open fire (Donatello later taught them how to use the oven), served with olives and something called pickled cucumbers, which, they insisted, was not the same as pickles, and indeed they didn't taste like any pickles I've ever had. They had Coke Cola but they also served us Basil soda, which was an incredible strange banana-tasting liquid full of soaked basil seeds, which I thought looked an awful lot like tadpoles. They explained that the Basil drink was actually from an Indian store they had found and they wanted us to all try it, so it was new to them as well. I was very touched by their meal; it had so much of their hearts in it, that's what won my own heart over to them. I loved them all after that. I know its weird or immature or whatever, but pizza forms powerful bonds for me, and I grow attached to memories that involve it.
PART IV:
After that we went out every day together, at least me, Molly, Jory, Tory and Darin. We went to bars and drank, swore, brawled, flirted, played cards and darts until three in the mourning or so, then we went to other places, diving in the lakes, hiding in the woods, staring at the stars, and if I was lucky the night ended with me sleeping with Molly at their place, or if I was really lucky in the woods.
Maybe half the time Raphael would join us; he enjoyed all those activities as well, including sleeping with Molly. That girl was all of our first loves, I think. Even Leo slept with her a couple times, although he was terribly ashamed of it afterwards and would get all self-beating about it. Only Donatello didn't ever touch her, of this I am sure, because he was quite the virgin when we were younger. It was funny actually, he only started having sex fourteen years ago and it was like a dam broke, he had so many girls and kids in so short of a time it was hysterical.
Sometimes Leo joined us, but that wasn't really his scene and I think he only went through the motions when he wanted a shot at Molly. Nikki also came along from time to time, but usually he was working at a mechanic shop, trying to make the family self-sufficient and all, and then he preferred to stay at home and rest. He reminded me of Leo in his seriousness and determination to take care of his family, but he could drink, swear and fight like nothing else. He and Donatello were the only ones with a job, even though we were officially citizens, we were not fully entered into the job market because there were still issues between humans and mutants, for instance we could not be short-order cooks because there was a concern that we would contaminate food and stuff like that. I earned a little money with my writing, later Darin helped me with some poems. I have those somewhere.
Simon and Donatello never came with us, not once. Those two had their own form of fun.
Which is how Simon ended up being the only one left alive from that crew.
I ended up being left alive because at the time I had stopped spending the night at their house.
PART V:
See, I made the mistake one mourning of waking up next to Molly and almost proposing to her right then. I usually feel very amorous in the mourning, especially after a night like that. I turned and gave her my best 'I love you' eyes. But she was looking at me too, in a different way, an important- we-have-to-talk way, and I made the really bad mistake of asking her what was on her mind, thinking that that was what good lovers did.
"Mikey, I don't think we should do this anymore."
"Do what?"
"You know, silly, this", she elaborated with a gesture I didn't need. I was just playing dumb to buy myself time to work this out in a favorable way. God, I loved her accent, and her mannerism. I loved her so much.
"But, uh, why?" I asked foolishly, "Don't you, uh, like it?"
"Yes, of course I do", she purred, "But, I don't think it is right. See, I think I maybe love your brother, and this with you is then wrong."
"My brother? Raphael?" I stammered, thinking it was Raph. Always it was Raph.
"No, not that one. He's too rough", she almost giggled, "Donatello."
"Donatello?" I gasped. I hadn't seen that coming. She doesn't even talk to him, and he's never so much as looked at her, so much as I knew. In fact at the time I had suspected he might be gay, and his not sleeping with her sort of confirmed that. I wondered if I suggested that it would end her little fantasy of him.
"Yes, Donatello", she purred again.
I just sat there in shock. Here I was about to propose and now I'm losing her forever.
"Oh, I am sorry, Mikey, I don't mean to be rude", She apologized, taking my hands. She almost kissed them but held back.
"But why? I mean, has he, uh, expressed interest in you? Because I have", I stated emphatically, and the proof was visible under the covers.
She touched my chest lightly, sort of a teasing push.
"I know you have, silly", she giggles, "No, he don't even barely talk to me, but he talk to my brother, and I look like him, right?"
This was truer than I was ever comfortable with. Her and Simon were fraternal twins and somehow both got the same color green skin, the same black eyes and long black hair that neither would cut even thought everyone teased them all the time about looking like each other. The hair came from their father, who was actually human, and their mother was a mutant turtle like us. Darin also has hair, his is almost shoulder length and kept in dreads, and it is a dark brown rather than black. The other three were as bald as we were. Don and I later had some kids with human, but none of them ended up with hair. I guess that's genetics for you.
"But, why would you want to." I trailed off. I was going to say, Why would you want to throw away our relationship when I realized obviously it wasn't even a relationship to her, and that would almost be whiny which I didn't want. I almost wanted to throw in that maybe he was, you know, having relations with Simon, but decided that would be crude and would not work out in my favor.
"I don't know, I guess it is because he don't talk to me. He the only one I don't have sleep with. Its that saying, the grass is always greener on the other side, right?" she paused, giggling a little, "I guess in this case it is the turtle is greener on the other side."
"I guess", I replied, trying to hide my bitterness. That ancient Beatles song came to me, 'hey, you got to hide your love away'.
I wished with all my heart that I had taken the time to get to know her before having sex. It would have been the right way to start a real relationship, maybe if I hadn't just hopped in bed with her she would be thinking about me the way she's thinking about Donatello. But I was young and foolish. Everyone makes huge mistakes like that when they're young.
She granted me a last kiss, but kept her word, there was no more sleeping with her, and certainly no proposal. But I thought I could bide my time. She and I seemed so right together, my heart told me that it would happen, if not now then in the future, she would get over Donnie someday, and I would then tell her how I felt and I would date her right and not sleep with her for months, until we were sure we loved each other, and then she would be my wife.
I was so sure that was going to happen. And maybe it would have, its certainly possible that she would have grown to love me in the future, if a car wreck hadn't taken her life three weeks later. Her and all her brothers but Simon.
PART VI:
Would you like to hear about that? About how the news hit me like a kick in the groin, effectively crippling me for the rest of my life? Well, okay, I'll tell you, even though it hurts. But we're going to get another one of my happy stories first, and this one no one knows but me. My son and girlfriend were there, but my girlfriend didn't care and my son was too little too remember.
First of all, everybody assumes that I am a horrible father. And I never bother to correct them, I mean, overall I am pretty bad, when I think about it, but damn it I try, which is more than some fathers do, and I would never beat them or hurt them. Anyway, when Mickey was born, his mother calls me up to tell me and says I have to name him. She woke me up, and I didn't know what to say, so I was sort of joking and I said "Michelob", because that was the beer in front of me, and I thought that was kind of an interesting name. And he could be Mickey for short, which is like Mikey, so we have that father-son connection there. But I didn't know she was actually going to put it on the birth certificate. I mean, shit, he's her son too; she could have given him a better name. But whatever, I ended up with a son named after a beer.
I was halfway determined to be a really good father to Mickey and sort of redeem myself for being a complete failure with Jellybean. He was only four at the time, but I knew I had already failed with him, and I say halfway determined because, when you're me, you never end up fully committing to anything no matter how much you want to.
So, even though this girl and I no longer liked each other, I started coming over every day, at least for a few hours, baby-sitting and stuff. Mickey really seemed to like me, and he looked a lot more like me than her. She was mixed French and Black, with curly red hair she had fried in attempts to make it straight, and obviously she was human. He kind of inherited her eyes, bright brown ones with lashes although he had no other hair. He and Jellybean both had a different kind of skin than me, it was much smoother. Other than the lashes and skin texture there was no indication he was part human, that's the way it seemed to be with most of our kids, the mutagen part seemed to be dominant. I wonder, if they have kids with human, what they will be like. But that's still in the distant future.
There I was, changing the kid's diapers, feeding him, being responsible. At first she was kind of uncomfortable about it, but then she fell into a routine, I would show up and she would get dressed to go out. I don't think she had a job, she probably didn't think she could find any other baby sitter and I didn't show up 9-5, so I think she was prostituting. It's the only thing that would make sense, and her outfits certainly contributed to the theory.
I was responsible enough to not drink while babysitting, but once I left all bets were off. For some reason, when Mickey was about four months old, I went on some kind of binge. Like the visions of Donatello in the bathroom, sometimes these things just come over me, and I can't stop them, and all I can do is drink and wait. This particular binge lasted somewhere between five days and two weeks, after much investigation I haven't been able to narrow it down any further. When I was conscious enough to return to my ex-girlfriends house and start babysitting again, I found the place abandoned. Clothes all over the floor, cupboard ransacked, dishes piled in the sink, money and jewelry gone, mice gathered in a corner of the kitchen trying to figure out if they had enough numbers to go after me, and in the little crib in the living room was my son Mickey. He didn't look too bad off; I think she couldn't have been gone more than two days. He was weak, dehydrated and hungry, and couldn't even cry, but he was still alive, so it couldn't have been too long. She must have thought I would be coming by soon, or else someone would. I'm assuming that she wasn't totally leaving him to die, but then she seemed to have had a lot on her mind.
Some people might have taken this as a doorway to opportunity, that this would open the sense of responsibility within me, that I would take Mickey and right then and there start a new life, no drinking, no drugs, just me and my son. That didn't happen. But I wish someone would be proud of what I did do. I bundled him up and carried him all the way to my brothers' house, at this time a big mansion outside of town where they were all living together and collectively raising all their kids. They already had Jellybean whose mother had abandoned him pretty much from the hospital. Plus Donatello had twins a year earlier that would be close to Mickey's age, and Raphael just had another baby a few months ago, and Leo had an egg that was due to hatch in a few weeks. So, Mickey would have lots of cousins his age to play with and lots of competent adults to watch over and love him.
I wished I could move in too, and see him everyday, but I knew myself. And so did my brothers. I was allowed to visit their home occasionally but it had been made clear I could not live there until I had been sober for a year, and that was not a goal I was able to reach. They would visit me at least once a month, and they tried to make these visits friendly, but it was so hard for them, I know, to not say anything about how I was destroying everything, how it hurt for them to have lost me this way. When we were younger, Raphael had been the most likely candidate to end up this way, but he found a girlfriend (who didn't die) and that saved him. Now he's as stable and disciplined as Leo. Love can do that to you, save or destroy you.
When I showed up at their door with Mickey, I wanted to explain to them that I could still be a decent guy, that, look, I saved my son and brought him here because I care about him. But I couldn't bring myself to say anything. Donatello's wife at the time, a ¾ human, ¼ turtle hybrid, answered the door. Her name was Connie, and she looked much more human than turtle. In fact she didn't look like a turtle at all, she really looked like a five-five tall three-fingered 250 lb black women with a strange hump on her back that on closure inspection would turn out to be a shell. I had only talked to Connie once before, when I came to see Chicken and Pie after they had been born. She said she wished that they had hair, because she had really been looking forward to brushing and braiding hair as part of the child-rearing process. I said maybe she would have more kids, and she looked really doubtful. So I didn't have much to go on for conversation with her.
"Are my brothers home?" I asked tentatively.
She almost rolled her eyes, and turned back to the house to yell for Donatello.
Meanwhile Chicken and Pie, already walking, had approached the door and stared at me. Soon other children began to gather, led by Leo's son Christopher. Christopher was so cute. He was always my favorite nephew, he had this innocence about him that he kept through his teenage years, he always looked like he was in the wrong path, like he was trying to be his father but didn't have the personality for it. Here he was nine or ten years old, and when he saw me he waved happily and ran to get Jellybean, thinking I was here to see him. I actually didn't want see Jellybean, I hated seeing Jellybean because that kid didn't like me. True enough, he returned with four year old Jellybean limp in his arms, staring at me dully.
"What's that?" Raphael's son Julian asked me. He was nine then.
"This is my son Mickey", I told him proudly.
Julian was not impressed.
"Another baby?" he sighed wearily.
I was sort of shocked by how different our generations were. When I was nine, a baby would have been fantastic. At the very least, it would have assured me that our unique variation of our species would not die out, which after I learned about puberty I was terrified that was going to happen. But here Julian was surrounded by siblings and cousins, and seemed to resent it all.
Finally Donatello came to the door and his wife started shooing all the children away from the room. His eyes automatically drew to the little bundle in my arms.
"Another abandoned kid?" he inquired.
That killed whatever inside of me thought that maybe I could go clean and live here, or at least explain to them the situation, that I tried so hard with this one.
"Yeah. His name is, uh, it's Michelob."
He reached out to take him and I handed him over.
"What happened?" he asked a little gentler than before. He was doing a quick pulse check and eye check and stuff.
"Um.I don't know, exactly. I visit, you know, sort of regularly, and today I found him like this, alone, and I think she, you know, bugged out."
"I see."
After a minute of silence, I felt compelled to go on.
"I, uh, you guys can take care of him, right?"
"Yes, Mikey, we'll take care of him", he sighed.
"Good, cause I."
I didn't finish. My voice started breaking up, and it was too embarrassing to keep talking.
He transferred Mickey to one arm, and with the other he gave me an affectionate hug.
"Mikey, you're my brother and I love you", he whispered.
"I know. I'm sorry", I told him, and then left before he had me breaking down right there.
I drank a lot of beer that night.
PART VII:
Guess that wasn't so happy after all. Sorry. I don't really have happy times after they all died. They took all the happy times with them.
They dropped me off that night, around 1 in the mourning. We started ending our parties earlier after Molly and mine discussion, you know it was just awkward to sleep at their house or romp naked through the forest (we're always naked, but with Molly I really felt naked). Nikki was there with them, also Darin's new human girlfriend, Jenni. Raph and Leo hadn't gone out that night. Just me.
I worried about them driving home. All of them would drink at the bars, usually Darin or one of the twins would drive, and they were speeders. On more than one occasion we came too close for comfort to other cars, trucks, trees, red lights and bridges, but they always stopped or swerved just in time. I didn't know how to express my concern, their excitement at the close calls was contagious, and besides I was drinking too.
But based on what I learned happened, I don't know that being sober would have helped them any. It might have made it worse; they were probably better off being a little buzzed.
Apparently some kind of freak accident where some construction equipment fell off a bridge.fell off a bridge on them, and to finish the deal a truck behind them that couldn't stop in time. Freak accidents for freak turtles. Not even our shells could do shit about that kind of misfortune. And of course poor Jenni didn't even have that.
I knew something bad had happened as soon as I woke up. I had this creepy feeling, my blood wouldn't go through my veins right. And then there was Raphael knocking on the door.
"What?" I called out.
He came in, closing the door behind him quickly, but not quick enough. Through that brief crack I heard an awful sound. I didn't know right away what it was, I thought a dog or something. Something that wasn't supposed to be here.
Then there was Raphael's look. Our lives have been temperamental. We have cried a lot through out childhood, and being a teenage mutant ninja turtle really wrecks havoc on your hormones, let me tell you. But never had a seen a look of such agony, and the worse part was that I knew instantly the look was not about him, it was about me. I knew then it had to be Molly or Darin at least, and then my mind made the further leap that, if it was Molly or Darin, one of the others would have come. The fact that Raphael was here meant.
"Mike, buddy, I'm sorry I got to tell you this."
I waited. He sat down at my bed.
"There was an accident. Everyone in the car last night died."
And that was it. I shared with you all the worst thing to ever happen to me.
I made them take me to the accident site. I wouldn't believe they were dead until I saw that. Simon came too; it was he who was making those awful sounds in the mourning, not a dog howling but him crying. Donatello focused on helping him. Leo and Raph helped me. I know they were all upset at the loss, but none felt it so deeply as I did. Donatello, in fact, surprised me with how emphatic he was, that all his grief around this seemed to be reflecting from Simon or me. He didn't seem to have any of his own. I always wondered if Molly had ever told him how she felt, I doubt it because I'm sure that kind of revelation would have put something more in his heart for her. But with him, especially when we were younger, it was hard to tell.
The plan inside me had been to go there and say, "Look, there's nothing here. Nothing happened. Let's go call them and they can apologize for worrying us so much". That was really my plan. It was dependent on the police and ambulance or whatever having cleaned the place up, leaving nothing behind to so much as hint at the atrocity that now marked this road.
That plan fell apart before I even got out of the car. The truck they died in had been removed, but evidence of a horrible crash still scarred the bridge in question. Small pieces of metal and glass debris littered the area. There was even what looked like blood smeared on the ground, as if to really let me know that they were dead. The construction equipment was gone, and tarps and markers covered the area they were working on, above the bridge.
So, that plan went out the window. Instead I formed a new plan, which was, given the understanding that some divine fate wanted me to live yet did not want to give me anything to live for, I would go through life on the bare minimum of existence. I would enter a form of hibernation until something drastically changed, new friends or loves came forward that could bring me back to the profusion of intense feelings I had prior to this day. To achieve the desired hibernating state, a lot of beer was required.
I am still in that state today, and I intend to never leave.
PART VIII:
"Did you hear us, Michelangelo?" Simon asked me when I hadn't responded to him.
"Yes", I answered slowly, "But I still can't help you."
I reached around the toilet for an unopened beer can, but I was shit out of luck. I must have gone through them all already. I hadn't actually opened my eyes yet, I was afraid to face Simon and whoever had accompanied him. But, I guess I'll have to, because this day isn't ending any time soon.
So here it goes. Eyes opening slowly, gently, easy now.not too much light. I look down to the floor first so the light won't be right on me. It takes a minute, it seems really slow to me. The initial pain wears off and things come into focus. But when I finally look up at Simon and his friend, I think I must have done something really wrong last night. This is a fucking dream. This is going to be the mother of all dreams. I'm going to write a poem about this shit.
I haven't seen Simon since Donnie's funeral, but he looks the same as ever. Still has the ridiculously long hair, of course now there's no Molly to confuse him with. I actually forget sometimes how much he looked like her, or like all of them, really. I hate looking at him, because there is a dark side of me that wishes he had died instead of all of them.
But that's not the shit. The shit is standing next to him. It's a big-ass horse, with wings and a lizard tail, and its head is not a quite a horse head, its an alligator, but with a mane and almost a horse shape. And it talks. I mean, I know I don't have the right to say anything; me being a five-foot talking turtle, but still.
"Michelangelo, you must come with us. They will be here soon to murder you. We must save your people", the horse tells me.
"I'm sorry.what the fuck are you?", I inquire bluntly.
The horse does a strange movement, sort of a roll of the eyes and a sigh, but alligator/horse heads don't do that the same way that humans do.
"My name is Endram`e. I am.hmmm.how to explain simply, I am your brothers step son, sort of."
"Which brother?" I asked incredulously.
Another sigh-eye-roll motion.
"Donatello. Were any of your other brothers mating with dragons?"
"I didn't know he was", I explained, although, really, of all of them Donatello was most likely to do something like that. And I could never keep up with all his relations or kids.
"He had four children with my mother", Endram`e explains, "And we might be able to save them if we hurry. We were too late for Raphael or Leo, or the others. I am sorry, my powers are great but I can not be everywhere at once."
"Others?" I asked. Now a cold rush replaces that numbness. How much of my family was lost? How could I have fucked up so badly as to not know what had happened to them all. I hope my children are okay. I hope Chris is okay.
"Please, get on my back and allow me to take you away from here. We will try to explain later, we must leave now", Endram`e says.
Simon gestures for me to get on first. I think he doesn't trust I will do it, but I do. I want to ask about saving my kids, I suddenly feel a rush of paternalness.
As soon as I have successfully mounted the horse-dragon (the wings got in the way the first time), Simon gets on behind me and Endram`e takes off, galloping into my wall and then.
PART IX:
Then we enter a different area entirely. We are in a cavern. It looks like a huge hole dug in the ground, but there are indications that it is more than a hole, it is a home for someone. Pictures decorate the sides, for one, painted on as I had once done to our own home in my youth. And there is light, from where I am not sure but it is beyond sunlight.
I am so taken with the pleasant atmosphere of the place that I at first don't realize that it has obviously been attacked. I am looking upwards, trying to find the light source, so I'm not looking at the ground where all the evidence was. Upwards all I found out of the ordinary was a crumbled and charred section of ceiling.
"We're too late", Simon whispers behind me.
Then I look down and I see we are too late. Much too late. Everything in the room is destroyed. A lot of blood covers the floor and three small bodies lay still there. I did not rejoin reality to see this.
"No, one of them still lives", Endram`e exclaims, and trots over to its side.
Simon and I hop off, and almost instantly I recall my first aid training. I used to be really good at bandaging up my brothers wounds, and I even performed surgery, I removed a bad tooth from Raphael and I removed a bullet from Leo. I fixed Raphael's broken wrist once. Donatello didn't get hurt nearly as often as they did. I think the most I ever did for him was feeding him when he was sick. Remembering this I start to feel as if I am fifteen again.
I quickly ascertain that it is indeed alive, and kneel to investigate. It has a shell and three fingers, evidence of my brother. The rest is more like the horse, alligator like. The skin is rougher than mine, it has sharp scales. It has wings and a tail sticking out from the shell, just like Endram`e.
All of a sudden I am alone with this injured child, Donatello's child. My brother is dead but his child is here, and that does something to me. He has other children, but they never affected me like this, maybe because I never saw them so wounded. The realization reaches out and drags that beautiful ninja part of me hiding in hibernation into the open, and pushes the other part away. I am awake. I am alive. Mentally, I have returned. My heart practically leaps out of my chest yelling, "This one! This one here! Do it for this one! Live!"
I touch it to be sure. Yes, it is alive. It groans and writhes a little under my hand, probably not knowing what is going on and thinking I am attacking it. It is only a baby, probably about the age of my youngest son.
"Shh. I'm not here to hurt you", I tell it soothingly, checking its vital signs as gently as I can. I can't tell if it's a boy or girl, I'll figure it out eventually.
It coughs faintly, takes a deep breathe, and screams, "Momma! Momma!"
This tears at my heart, exactly the kind of thing I was not living for, but it doesn't pull me back under. No, I can do this. I am Michelangelo the Ninja Turtle who must save his brothers child.
I pick it up and try to comfort it physically, but it writhes too much for that to help. It doesn't seem hurt too bad, by the way it's moving. One claw scratches my arm. Some of that is trembling, I don't think its totally in control of its body. It has a deep cut on its neck, probably it had been assumed to be dead and left. It doesn't hold its head up well, and I gently support it even as it cries in my ears. Simon hands me some cloth that looks clean, and I use it to stop the bleeding. Appling pressure to its neck is hard, because I don't want to choke it, but judging from the unabated wailing that is not a danger.
I try to sing to it to calm it down. I sing in Japanese, because I'm sort of embarrassed to sing in English. I sing something Master Splinter used to sing to us when we were little. I know that alone won't be enough, this kid has been through hell.
It seems like an agonizingly slow time, and yet almost no time at all. All of a sudden it is quiet. I think I might have even been asleep or something, the next thing I know I have stopped singing and the kid stopped crying. For the first time I am conscious of Endram`e standing next to me, trying to nuzzle the child. Simon is not there at first, but he arrives with warm, wet cloth, which we use to clean the wound and rest of the body so we can check for other injuries. There are no others. The cloth also serves to wrap the kid in and help ease the shock. As long as it is pretty stable, I have Simon gather supplies for me, and I mend the cut while he rubs its wrists and watches its vital signs. I don't know what to use to treat it for infection, but Endram`e finds me some herbs he assures me will work, so I apply them under the new bandage. The kid didn't say a word, not so much as a wince the whole time, it seemed to have understood that we were helping. It now stares at us wide eyed, but the breathing and trembling eases.
"You.You're n-not my D-daddy, are you? Are y-you back alive? Or, or am I d-dead?"
"I'm your uncle Michelangelo. What's your name?"
"Shiitake."
"Shiitake, I am your brother Endram`e. We share the same mother."
At the mention of brother, Shiitake glances over at his still siblings. We should really take him out of here.
"Where's my momma?" he asks quietly.
"I don't know", Endram`e answers.
It's probably not a good sign that the mother isn't here. If that heart- rending wailing didn't bring her back here, well.
"You'll have to come with us", I explain to him (I had concluded it was a boy, but I could still be proven wrong).
"Yes. We need to leave here, it is still dangerous."
"Where?" Shiitake asks, giving another glance at his siblings.
"Away. Come, all of us."
I pick Shiitake up and cradle him in my arms while I gracefully mount Endram`e again. This time I do it right on the first try. This is because I am Michelangelo once more. Simon gets on behind me.
"I knew you'd come back some day", he tells me as we gallop away.
Guess he's a lot more perceptive than I thought.