Turtle Diary

by Russell Hoban

Three-hundred-pound turtles navigate the ocean and come ashore to be slaughtered for the five pounds of cartilage that gets sold to the soup-makers.

When I was a child grown-ups often told me to smile, which I found presumptuous of them. People still tell me that sometimes, mostly idiots at parties.

They won’t stop killing the whales. They make dog- and cat-food out of them, face creams, lipstick. They kill the whales to feed the dogs so the dogs can shit on the pavement and the people can walk in it.