My name is Teresa Tortoise. Some time ago, maybe forty years or so, or it might have been yesterday, (I am not quite sure, time does not seem to have much meaning to me as a tortoise,) our predecessors built a bridge to our nearest neighbours. On the whole this worked out fine, but over the hours (or was it years), people in my extended family started to get very mouthy about the neighbours interfering with the control of our end of the bridge. So my immediate predecessor, we will call him David Tortoise, thought he could shut them up by having a vote. An idea he had taken from one of his great idols, Maggy Tortoise. In the past, she had a vote which silenced her critics for years to come.
So that is what David tried.
Unfortunately the campaign got hijacked by another tortoise called Nigel. Out of the blue, the vote ceased to be about who controls our end of the bridge and became a rampage against foreign rabbits who are coming across and eating all our lettuce and breeding, well, quite frankly, like rabbits.
David pointed out that the lettuce is actually produced by the rabbits, and stopping them would cause a massive drop in the availability of lettuce. That did not seem to cut any iceberg, Nigel just called him a scare-monger.
So, ultimately, the vote did not go David’s way. He threw his toys out of his shell and said “stuff this I’m off. Somebody else can clear up the mess.”
After a stunned period, there was a call for anyone to step forward who wished to take over from David. Suddenly (well as suddenly as a tortoise can muster) I found myself standing out in front of the line because every one else had stepped backwards without me noticing.
So I got the job. I was to be the one to burn the bridge. ‘Burn the Bridge’ has now been shortened to ‘Buridge’ presumably because ‘burn the bridge’ is too long winded for a tortoise to say every time and also, not being quite so graphic, will not alarm the general tortoisedom. Given time, Buridge will enter the Oxford dictionary with its definition being ‘A self inflicted disastrous act.’
After the vote, Nigel Tortoise realized that the result was not quite what even he expected so he buggered off to help some hare (or hair) drum up disquiet about an influx of chinchillas and win a race against a tortoise, but that is another story.
So to recap, I have now got to implement Buridge and I have not a clue where to start. I do have a rather nifty catch phrase though.
Buridge means Buridge. I thought it up myself, good isn’t it?
Basically we are all going to jump off the cliff because 37% of the tortoises voted to, whereas only 34% voted not-to. The other 29% were presumably on holiday over the bridge at the time.
The problem I have, is whether after jumping off the cliff, should we go for a hard landing or a soft one.
A hard landing would mean we would have to rely on our bombproof shell and thick skin. That is risky, our skin may be thick, but our shell strength may be over estimated. On the other hand, if we go for a soft landing we could very well end up deep in the mire without the means to climb out.
What I needed was a diversionary tactic, something to draw the attention of the expectant voters away from the dilemma I was in.
I was just about to come up with some new nifty catch phase when I was distracted by that troublesome lot the other side of the wall. Anyone would think we have mistreated them for the last 350 years. I don’t know why they think that. I mean we did send most of them on permanent holiday abroad and cleared all those shabby cottages to improve the views.
Anyway they say they did not vote to burn the bridge, and are not going play ball until they have their own cliff to jump off. If they get their way, they say they will build a new bridge.
The lot over the wall have, in turn, caused the tortoises over in Emerald Green to start shouting about jumping. The Greens point out they do not need to build a bridge because they already live in the same field as some of our neighbours.
And now to cap it all, one of the neighbours wants back a field we stole off them years ago. I can’t think why, it’s only a bit of rock.
Well I say to them, good luck with that. I am not having anything to do with it. I will just ignore them all until I have been voted out of office. I’ll just let some other mug deal with it, just like my predecessor.
POSTSCRIPT
After floundering about keeping, my cards close to my shell and trying to think up other cliches, I have decided that I need another distraction. So I have called a vote to prove that I am actually the person who has to implement Buridge. Hopefully I will lose and that little grey tortoise, Jeremy, will win. He can start again if he likes and I will just trip him up whenever I can. Just like the good old days.