You stand under the winding staircase leading to your room, and with your imperfect hand you run over the unknown handwriting that on the envelope put down your name.

You feel a strange stirring inside you, a puzzlement, and you smile... because somebody remembered you—and sent you a letter. JUSTIN CERNY, SCHOOL STREET 10, OLOMOUC. You read your address and suddenly you cannot catch your breath—you realize that... that it was written by a woman.

You firmly grasp the envelope—until your arthritic fingers ache, lean on the crutch and, lost in swirling thoughts, unheeding the pain, you climb those twelve coiling stairs to your forgotten realm, where you will sit down and look who wrote to you...

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Right after the door is closed upon you, you drop the crutch, and breathe out; you have left the world behind, outside, all by itself. You take in the silence of the little room in the centre of the ancient city. The silence. And the mute movement of your three companions—three turtles—running at their own independent, time-challenging pace in the closed space of the four carton-box walls. You have always admired them—their serenity and peace. But tonight there is no time for watching them, you hold a letter in your hand. From a woman.

You switch on the lamp and slowly open the mystery. By now you ignore the quiet of the room, the tranquility of the misty city on this November evening, the distant chimes of trams; your attention is focused on your clumsy fingers—and once again you think it a curse being so clumsy, so handicapped at your age of thirty years—but quickly you cast it all off, automatically—the way they had taught you at home—and begin to observe the violet paper protruding between the pale lips of the envelope... A double-folded sheet—you smell it—and there is a faint fragrance that reminds you of something, like almost all faint fragrances do, but you vainly try to connect it to anything concrete.

You spread the sheet and read the black letters:

Justin, we should see each other; you know, you owe me something, and I, too, owe something to you. Take your turtles, as you did last time, and come to see me. Yours Mina... P.S. I am waiting for you every night in my flat in University Street.

MINA... TURTLES... MEETING... SPECIAL PEOPLE... THE TURTLE FRIENDS (ha!)... CARNIVAL... DARKNESS... CHANTS... BEAUTY... YES, BEAUTY... BEAUTY?, and you pause.

In your mind a film starts to unreel, a film of what happened a week ago in University Street, at Mina´s place, where she had invited a dozen of absurd people to a Turtle Carnival.

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You went somewhere after six years of regular solitary life which was taking place in three locations—at your home, in the library, and in the house of your parents.

You went because someone invited you—even if it was only a printed anonymous invitation card thrust in your letter-box—a carnival! In fact, you did not hesitate, you bought a new sweater and put on the pair of jeans you had worn the last time you went to see a movie—a billion years ago. You got the necessary mask—a grinning buffoon that, however, did not stick to your face properly; and you polished the shells of your turtles (and even let them sleep in your bed, so much you were excited...).

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Then, you did not know who Mina was, nor who the other special Turtle Friends of Olomouc were. You left the safety of your flat, but on the way there your paranoia got you—when you walked down the dark street with your crutches supporting your crooked body, with the backpack on your hump.

And you reached University Street and found Mina´s house and met the Turtle Friends—they already knew one another, and you were there new, but as Mina explained later, she had found your address in the library where you worked and where you advised a friend of her, a Turtle Friend, on some books about the Galapagos Islands, and where you also inadvertently mentioned your hobby...

You were new, because every year there had to be a new Turtle Friend introduced at the carnival. You did not mind.

Now you think it was a dream...

First, the heavy odour of incense sticks, then the light—Chinese lanterns and candles on the window sills, on the tables, in the jars on the floor, in the hands of the Turtle Friends... and in the hand of Mina. And her candle illuminated her large brown eyes set in her small face framed by a long, dark hair... and then the sounds—a muffled classical music, laughter, coughing, choking... and the view of lots of turtles—small and big—crawling over everything, stretching their necks as if smiling, coupling, chewing grass... and the Turtle Friends—males and females, young and old, a dozen, all wearing masks—except the hostess—of pigs, monkeys, dogs, ghouls, zombies—in bizarre clothes, or without them—full of scars, livid bruises, bumps and humps...—special, oh so special -- ...and the touch of their hands while greeting you, the touch of the turtles, and the touch of Mina when she kissed you hello. She was interesting. A bare-chested pirates´ sweetheart. With her brown eyes and long hair; long thin limbs and long fingers, with ribs showing against her pale skin, half covered with splendid round breasts—the loveliest, and only, breasts you have ever seen... special—all counterparted by the hunch on her back.

In a flood of introductory words she told you she was a poetess with too lazy to write a single poem, a keen observer of people, a slightly perverse girl, fond of turtles and mysteries, unloved...

And you talked, circled by the dark-green animals, not paying attention to the rest of the Turtle Friends, who were engaged in things too outrageous for you to look at.

All the time you were as if stupefied—by the place, by her spontaneity and beauty, by the music and scents, and you were excited, because she treated you normally, as a person, and caressed your fingers... and it occurred to you that you wanted her! And you were drunk, and so was she, kissing you and your turtles. Then she started to dance, with slow passionate movements she induced all present to join her, even you agreed, but you could not withstand too much, since you were drunk for the first time in your life, not understanding anything.

In your dizziness you caught sight of the Turtle Friends turning the turtles on their backs and spinning them. And then the pigs, monkeys, zombies took knives... and Mina, at first entranced by her expressive dance, now almost lost herself as she stood observing what was going on, as if there were some inevitable process of Nature being played out for her to see -- a revenge being taked on the weak, the strong crushing the weak—and after a while she completely undressed and rolled slowly on the floor, chanting, offering her body to some imagined weapons that she felt were attacking her...

You had to flee. You collected your pets and stumbled out onto the street, still hearing the sounds of the orgies upstairs.

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In the morning you could not believe anything; your head was aching and you were exhausted—telling yourself it was a dream... or rather a nightmare, haunting your inebriated mind. You tried to discover the meaning and reason for her behaviour... her chant... were it not as if she were reaching somewhere through her inner torment?... she was definitely scared of something, and obsessed with it, but despite it, she forced herself to open up her body and soul to suffering... your MINA.

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After seven days, then, you repeat the long tiring journey through the magical centre of this city, carrying the turtles that you have never left at home by themselves. You know that in a way they unite you to her.

It has started to drizzle, and you feel fine; disconnected from the real world, and plunging into the mists of the wish-world you have always indulged in... it helps you now... because Mina is your wish-world now... but still, you hardly know what she meant by this second invitation. (or rather, do not want to know, or are you afraid to know?)

You try to remember the cruelties of the Turtle Friends—the disemboweled animals scattered on the floor when you were rushing out, their guts decorating the incense-filled room and their necks like some gory garlands—expressing in their cries—oddly metaphorically -— their hatred towards the cruel human world that refused them for their inappropriateness and monstrosity.

Ah... but you are also a monster... like them... but God! You still feel hope, you have always felt it, deep inside your heart, the hope for winning the little piece of happiness against the alien world... the Turtle Friends are lost, selfish, hell-bound in all their monstrous lack of belief... but who is Mina?

A heat runs along your misshapen bones, you dare not think of her... who is she?—an unspoken question. And the turtles keep moving along your crooked spine.

Slowly you go up the straight flight of stairs ending in front of her door. You knock at it... all thoughts erased.

...No reply... no reaction... you knock again. Silence. Even your turtles hold their breath... and you touch the handle which yields to the pressure of your ridiculous fingers, and you are in... in... in the darkness of the little hall.

That is really something you did not expect after the last-week´s mad festivities... and you smile... isn´t it funny? A total change of atmosphere that makes you at ease, paradoxically. But is she here at all? Something strikes your nostrils—a faint residue of the hypnotising incense; little by little you become aware of an almost inaudible stealthy movement in the murk of the room; a flicked of light catches your attention—direction: the sitting room.

And before you have the time to react, the ethereal music that accompanied your conversation a week ago floats across the room, and awakens fully your ears—almost all your senses are by now receptive—each one of them tuned to something that you already know, but which is also absolutely new...

Mina—you want to taste her.

It is all right—she is here, waiting. You put down the backpack, letting the turtles roam with Mina´s ones, the rest of them. They have been the source of the low, rustling sounds.

You begin to understand the magic. She is waiting for you. She has always waited for you. The candlestick lit up in the room, you can now direct your steps towards her... her who lies comfortably in her bed, covered with a white sheet outlining her breasts and also her curved spine. She is smiling... waiting for you.

Time seems to stop in its tracks. Looks. You feel her long-restrained need to speak, to feel, to touch. Are you ready?

"Justin, you have come..." she talks to you. "I was scared... always at those parties, yet I invited them again and again. I wanted them to show me what I should never do... because they resigned, Justin, they let it all go, and I wanted them to show me what it´s like, after all those barren years of pain—what can appear inside of you—they taught me and warned me—my special Turtle Friends—always since I had first met them, they attracted me and repulsed me at the same time... what they do... I waited. Patiently."

A torrent of words, making a distant sense...

You stand still, and begin to dive into a new world, finding something new; and the fall is rapid now, without reflexion -you are changing.

No words, no whispers. The shadows of the candles dancing on the walls... you and her... like two turtles—two hunch-backed people... shells on their backs—deformed—hardened. And you join your minds and tentatively, cautiously, in an exciting process of Nature you also join your bodies, which can now form one neverending entity shielded from everything external... your soft parts are protected... finally.