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He yawns in the passage. Through the grating of the sewer above him a barely visible sliver of dark sky has lightened to a deep blue. It’s dawn. He stands waiting outside some sort of service/maintenence workers’ restroom. A restroom that actually gets maintained. What luxury! He’ll take what ever luxuries he can get. Speaking of luxury, someone had dropped a bouquet of flowers over the grate and a too rare pleasant smell drifted down to him.
Most of the time this area of the sewer is off limits due to workers and the possibility of being seen…but at this time of morning, there is no one else in the sewer. His family is safe. Nonetheless he checks the baby monitor he brought with him. Silence. The rest of his children are asleep. Hopefully they stay that way until they can get back. He tucked it back into the pocket of his Cerezo Osaka F.C. hoodie.
His main reason for coming over here was his youngest son’s tendency to be in a constant state of talking or singing as soon as he woke up. Speaking of which…
As he waits a young child’s voice sings a mishmash of Donguri Korokoro (Rolling Acorns) and the Wheels on the Bus (“Donguri korokoro aaaaalll over town!”) behind him.
Did he actually have to go or does he just like the acoustics in there? “You almost done kid?”
“Yeah…just a minute.”
”Okay, let me know if you need help, ok?”
“Okay!…….. All done!”
A small turtle child burst out of the stall and raised his arms so his father could pick him up to wash his hands. As his son washed his hands, he finally got to the second reason of why he came to this restroom. The mirror. For some reason no one in this entire city for the past few years had ever thrown out a mirror larger than pocket sized, (that he could find anyway). He finally had the opportunity to look at his face. Despite the changes and pain of his mutation it was still his face.
He looked tired, through the dense brown fur he could see the bags under his eyes (being a single parent of quadruplet toddlers will do that) and towards the top of his head by his ear was that some gray? He wasn’t totally surprised to see gray, and it was a stark reminder of how long he had been down here. (Don't think about it. Be here now.)
Something else he noticed on the left side of his face…stickers. Lots of colorful stickers. His son had finished washing his hands and had started playing in the water. He set him down and handed him a hand towel to dry his hands.
“Did you put stickers on my face while I was sleeping?”
”Yes! I put the dinosaur and the cupcake. Donadello put the robot and the car. Leonarmo put the unicorn and Raphie put the bunny. Do you like them?”
”Hmmm. I can’t see them without a mirror…I wish you had asked me first. It hurts to take them off.”
”It hurts? They don’t hurt me when I put them on my face.”
”You don’t have any fur that gets yanked”
”Oh…” the little turtle boy thought…”Sorry Daddy..”
“It’s ok”...he winced as he pulled the stickers off his face, fortunately he didn’t have any bald patches after. ….”Instead of putting them on me why don’t you put them around the play area? You can do that when we get back.”
”Okay”
”Shall we head back?”
“Yeah!”
“Chii Chii Pa-Pa Chiiiii PAA-PAA Suzume no gakko no sensei WA” Michelangelo hopped and sang as they made their way back home. He jumped in a puddle and suddenly stopped and turned to face his father.
”Daddy, what’s ‘suzume’ in English?”
”Sparrow, it’s a kind of little bird.”
”Can I see a sparrow in real life?”
“Maybe someday… If I ever see a sparrow down here you will be the very first one to know.”
They walked a little further until he remembered. “But there is a kind of bird you can see down here right now!”
His son’s face lit up. “The pigeon babies! Can we go see the pigeon babies?”
”Sure, it’s on the way back. But we can’t stay very long, your brothers are waiting.”
He checked the baby monitor again just to be sure and the others were still sound asleep.
A few meters ahead they ducked down a side passage.
”Ok. Before we look at the pigeon babies there are some rules. You need to be quiet so we don’t scare them. You can look but you can’t touch them, ok.”
”Ok.” Mikey’s eyes were gleaming and he seemed moments away from exploding in excitement.
He picked up his son and held him up to peer into a recessed area of the sewer wall “Remember not to touch them ok.”
Sure enough, 3 skrunkly baby pigeons were cuddled up against each other sleeping soundly in the dim light. Their parents were probably out getting food.
“Hi pigeon babies.” Mikey whispered, his eyes shining. “Good morning. I want to pet you but I can’t. Your daddy is probably bringing your breakfast so I’ll let you sleep some more. I just wanted to say ‘hi pigeon babies’.”
”Speaking of breakfast, let’s go home and get ours. Say “bye bye to the pigeon babies”
”Bye bye pigeon babies. Have a good day!”
He set his son down on the floor and they continued on their way home.
“The pigeon babies came out of eggs.”
”Yes.”
”I came out of a egg.”
“You did!”
”All babies come out of eggs”
”........…yes?....” It's too early for this.
”Daddy, next time you have eggs can I have a baby sister?”
The guffaw had escaped before he could stop it. Oh my god.
The little turtle boy looked up at him, his face beginning to scrunch in the telltale way before he cried.
“I mean…um…look at the time! It’s SPIN O’CLOCK!!”
“SPIN O’CLOCK!!!! SPIN O’CLOCK!!!!”
Mikey shrieked and his head and limbs disappeared into his shell. Splinter set him down on his back and gave him three quick spins while Mikey squealed with delight. After the spinning Mikey popped back up, tears forgotten.
Crisis averted…for now. (You can’t Spin O’Clock your way out of every potentially difficult conversation…in a couple years they’ll be asking harder questions that will need answers)
“Hey! When we get home we need to be quiet because your brothers are still sleeping. You can read books or play with Murtle” (plush turtle with mouse ears haphazardly sewn out of a Knicks hoodie that had been one of his first projects). “Which do you want to do?”
“I want to play with Murtle.”
“Great!” They continued on their way.
They approached a nondescript section of tunnel wall and he raised a tarp that had been painted to blend in and hide a door. (Thank you art degree)
If someone had looked at city plans for this area of the sewer they would have shown that there used to be a series of rooms behind that door but they had all been filled in several years ago. If you looked further into it: Why were they removed? What had been the budget to remove them? Who had demolished them? The paper trail would run cold. Fortunately, no one had done so and hopefully the tampered plans were convincing enough (thank you again art degree).
They slipped through the door and the tarp fell back into place.
“TADAima!! WE’RE HOME!!!” Mikey yelled. So much for letting the others sleep. “WHOOPS I FORGOT TO BE QUIET.”
The Christmas lights were softly glowing around this place they called home. A small whiteboard with different sections drawn on it indicating “lair”, “sewer” and “surface” and a rat with 4 turtle drawing cutouts taped to magnets. He moved the rat and one of the turtles back to “lair” with the other 3 turtles.
Mikey went for the toy box in the corner and promptly turned it upside down to dump everything onto the floor, Murtle and his promise completely forgotten.
The lair was small but cosy. There was a central living area with a sofa and a tv, a small kitchen area and an alcove with a spout of clean running water that he had turned into a kind of all purpose sink/bathtub. There was another door that led to a toilet room. It was illuminated by a crank powered lantern.
The Christmas lights looked kind of dim so while Mikey was getting out every toy they owned and waking up the entire tri-state area his father gingerly stepped over a makeshift baby gate surrounding a corner of things he wanted to protect from little hands. A bookcase with electronics high on shelves he didn’t want Donatello to destroy while he figured out how they worked. Delicate tea things and family heirlooms. Books he didn’t want scribbled in. And finally a giant adult man-sized hamster wheel connected to a generator. He was no engineer but it did the job. He stepped into it and started to run. At least until the others wake up.
After a whille: “Daddy?” He heard Leo's voice. The other boys came out of the side room they used as a sleeping area. That should be good enough to last a while…He got out of the hamster wheel satisfied that the Christmas lights were glowing brighter. He hopped back over the baby gate.
Leo wrapped his arms around his legs in a hug. He bent down to squeeze him back. It was good that Leo had slept through his short absence because sometimes he would panic and cry if he wasn’t there. Leo was his little shadow.
“Good morning! Can you guys help me get ready for breakfast while I clean up? Leo, can you get 5 little tomatoes from the garden? Raph, can you get out the rice? Donnie, can you set the table? Mikey, can you clean up the toys?” “Okaaaay” Everyone was in a pretty good mood this morning.
Leo ran out into their “garden”, an area outside the main room that had sunlight from a series of small mirrors where they could grow some vegetables and herbs and gathered the tomatoes. Raph had got out the bag of rice and handed it to his father.
He stepped back over the baby gate for the rice cooker (he had almost cried when he found it in perfect condition and couldn’t risk it being destroyed by a certain curious little turtle).
He set about preparing the rice and miso soup and turned on the tv for the morning news.
..”Four years after a series of disappearances around Manhattan some families have returned still seeking answers…”
He stopped breathing. He felt that he had been plunged into ice water.
An Asian woman who looked to be in her mid-30s had her arms wrapped around an elderly Asian woman who was sobbing quietly into a handkerchief.
The younger woman spoke: “Today is…..(she choked on a sob)....would have been…..my brother’s 40th birthday….we’d like to ask that if anyone knows anything at all if they could please come forward. We can’t know peace, we can't rest…until we have answers. And Yoshi, if you’re alive out there and you hear this message…We love you. We miss you. Come home.”
Everything stopped. There was footage of them leaving a bouquet of flowers in an alley. The bouquet he had smelled earlier had been left in the last place he had been seen alive.
He didn’t realize he had been gripping his hoodie and not breathing until he felt a small hand on his sleeve. “Daddy ok?” He looked down at his son. His sons. They deserved to play in the sunshine. They deserved to go to preschool. They deserved to have friends. They deserved to know their family.
“Do you know that lady?”
“.....Yes.” You’re going to have to tell them eventually. “That’s your aunt…my sister and the woman next to her is your grandmother…my mother.”
The rice was still cooking and his sons were around him now.
“They’re not mouse ladies….”
“No…” He took a deep breath. “A long time ago, I used to be human.”
“One day I fell down a hole”.
He could remember it clearly. It was a warm evening in late spring. He could hear lighter and the clinking of glasses from people enjoying the evening. He could hear American Idol from open windows as he was dragged down an alley to his death. Dragged by someone he had known his entire life. Someone he could speak to with just a glance. That time was over. His eyes were stinging with blood and the glimpses he could catch were cold and dead like a shark. He had no voice. His tongue was lead in his mouth. Everything hurt. He heard the screech of metal on metal and he was shoved into a damp and dark shadow. He was dragged further until they came to a stop.
“And in this hole there was a magic potion on the ground.”
His captor, his brother, his best and only friend grabbed him by the hair and yanked his head back. He could feel but not see the spike held against his throat. It didn't matter now. His family was safe. He was the target. The other man suddenly lowered his arm and reached into a pouch for a glowing green liquid and shoved him into a wall. He felt the sudden pinch of needle like teeth on the back of his arm as a rat dashed away from it’s den. His captor pulled his hair back again and poured the liquid on his head.
He knew what this was. He had seen that foot soldier writhe and scream on the ground until he was still. He was going to die here and no one would ever find his body.
“The magic potion turned me into a rat.”
There was a splash nearby and and the man with the spike threw him to the floor as he turned. Through the blood and ooze he could make out 4 round shapes and he realized they were turtles. He thought wildly of the turtle pond he had passed as a boy, that they both had passed every day all those years ago. Turtles witnessed the beginning of their friendship. Fitting they would witness the end of it.
Everything started to burn. The man with the spikes left him. He was alone, burning and burning. He felt his bones twist and break. He hoped to die soon. He felt himself slipping away.
And then the next moment it had stopped. He was shakily breathing on the floor. No more pain. No more blood in his eyes. He touched his face….and discovered his snout.
“I was sad and scared.”
He couldn’t process what had happened. It was too insane. He had to get to a hospital, but if his enemies found out he was alive…He couldn’t risk it.
He heard a wail joined by another and then another. A baby?
He stood up and he could see the turtles from before, lying like infants. Hands balled into fists, two toed feet kicking.
“And then I found you and I wasn’t sad or scared anymore”
One of them was on its stomach, its face partially in the water. It raised its head but it wasn’t strong enough to keep its head from falling back into the water. He stumbled over to it and picked up the turtle? Infant? The baby stopped crying and gazed at his face. A tiny three fingered hand grabbed his nose. The baby smiled at him.
He didn’t know what the future held. But he wasn’t going to give up. He turned off the tv and hugged his sons. He would fight for a better world for his children. He would fight his way back to his family. He would fight his way back to his mother so she could die without regret. He would fight his way to revenge. He’d be like a splinter…always there, always painful, until he couldn’t be ignored anymore.
For now though, he would have breakfast with his children. What more could he ask for his birthday?