Meg Pokrass: TURD-L • Cleaver Magazine

Flash by Meg Pokrass
TURD-L

There was the time my actress sister taught me how to take a bath like a TV star. Ran the bathwater hot so that it felt as if my skin would glow like a pink orchid.

While her tub filled with bubbles, she sprinkled in myrtle leaves from a big glass jar.

“Breathe this in, Babe, and your pores will open,” she winked, raising her long hair off her neck, tying it back in a band.

She wore a hairy sweater given to her by a co-star. It came from a Vacaville alpaca farm. I gazed at her cheekbones, sucked in my formless ones, elongated my neck. Could feel tendrils of my hair curling up from the moisture and pulled them down.

I sank into the water, the top of my face peering out. I liked the word “myrtle” because it rhymed with the name of my ceramic pet, “Turd-L”, perched next to me on the harbour of the bathtub—his shell becoming bright from steam. Turd L. was usually landlocked with lint from my pocket. I had discovered him trapped in the sand last summer at Hendry’s beach. When I came out of the ocean, I saw a tiny gray head poking out near a flattened sandcastle.

“Someone left you here to dry out and die,” I thought.

All summer I had been trying to teach myself not to fear the waves, going all the way over my head. Sometimes, I believed I could do it, and other times, my throat filled with salt water, and I felt like I was going to drown. When I held him close to my bathing suit Turd-L would become wet and beautiful, emerald-green instead of dull gray.

After I’d steeped long enough in my sister’s myrtle bath, she dried my hair with a mango tree patterned towel.

“Turd-L looks like a real swimmer,” I said.

Her green eyes darkened. Then looked at me sceptically, as if evaluating a piece of slightly bruised fruit.

“Turd is an ugly word,” she said.

“But it’s Turd-L!” I said, emphasizing the sound of the L.

“You need to stop saying it,” she replied.

That night, at a Thai restaurant in Hollywood, Turd-L escaped from my pocket. When I stuck my hand in to pet him, all I could feel was sand. I imagined him, fearless, walking away. Stealing the tiny plastic umbrella from my sister’s Thai iced coffee—twirling it like a celebrity as he made his way back to the sea. I wondered how he knew it was finally time to survive on his own.

Meg Pokrass is the author of nine collections and two novellas-in-flash. Her work has been included multiple times in The Best Small Fictions and the Wigleaf Top 50. Recent publications include Electric Lit, Lit Hub, and New England Review. She’s the Founding Editor of Best Microfiction.