Tortoise Shell

The year his grandfather gave him the fifty cent piece the shamble leg man found a tortoise shell latticed into the sewer grating behind the aqueduct. It was emerald green with flecks of opal and brittle round the edges where it had run up against the wire fencing. He kicked it with his boot, releasing a hackling of flies that have woven themselves into the soft underbelly. He kicked it again and the flies scattered, a coil of intestine snaking round his ankles.