Victoria likes collecting things.

Trims and seams and smallest bits, cut out from making fellow beakies, she keeps them all on her shell.

Camouflage, decoration or obstinance I’ll never know.

Her shell got so heavy she couldn’t go out collecting anymore.

I told her she needs a new shell, she looked at her stumpy feet and nodded.

Now, in her lighter shell, she skips to the garden and picks up flowers.

I know they are integrated, but didn’t as a child.

A tortoise can’t separate from his shell.

But what if he could.

His home is made of layer upon layers of memories, compressed with stitches, in the form of a shell.

Sometimes he puts it behind and goes for a walk.

I call him Gabe.