Turtle

It was some time last fall, and I was still very new here, in my little corner of Northwestern CT. My only company was with the animals. I’ve told you about Zinger the horse, but I don’t think I told you about Turtle.

I came driving down Herrick Road one day, and swerved to avoid running over him. I wasn’t sure— I got very nervous. I stopped at the end of the road, got out, and started walking back. I peered into the sun soaked road.

Had I killed the turtle?

I stood still, using my hand to block the sun from my eyes. I saw a black orb, on the upslope of the road, and studied it to see if it was moving. I finally detected some movement and felt a ray of joy in my heart.

I walked up the hill until I reached him, he was making his way across the road, and I kneeled down and spoke to him sensibly. I lifted him up gently by his shell, noticing a radiant orange rim he had on the underside of it, then carried him over to the swamp on the other side of the road, and placed him on the embankment. “Now stay here,” I said. “Be reasonable.”

The next day I once again encountered him in the road, but this time I was driving more slowly. I got out of the car, happy to see him, but distressed he was in the road again.

”Turtle,” I said. “I want you to know I don’t want to control your life, or be like a Nanny State. You are a Free Turtle. However, I want you to live. I care about you. Do you have a family? Are you trying to get food? Why can’t you get food in the swamp?”

I picked him up and, as I placed him on the embankment I felt a need to spent a little more time with him. He was motionless, probably wondering what kind of alien spaceship it was that kept kidnapping him when he was minding his business. I imagine I traumatized him.

“Do you know I am a turtle too?” I said.

He turned his head a little but, and I saw how absolutely perfect his small face was.

“Like you, I am slow,” I said. “I have so very slow, I always have been. I don’t like to rush and everything takes me a long time. It’s part of the reason it’s hard for me to have friends. I don’t know how to get places fast enough, and also, I have a hard shell and a soft side too.”

I really enjoyed talking to him.

”You’re my favorite animal, Turtle. In addition to snails. Snails are even slower than you. I like slowness. I wish we had more of it.”

A car passed us by. I bid him adieu and went back to my car.

The next day, I was bicycling down Herrick Road, in the late afternoon.

I saw him right away and stopped cold.

He lay flattened, in the middle of the road.

I screamed “Noooo!!! Nooo! Noooo!”

I pulled my bicycle to the side of the road and fell over the steering wheel sobbing so hard I gasped for breath. I wept for a good long while, not caring who saw me or what they thought.

I didn’t understand how this was possible. I had unconsciously arranged a belief system that because I had “saved” Turtle twice, he would never be run over. This made no “sense” but this was my narrative.

I was not able to bring myself to walk over to him, but I saw his orange stripe from the distance, after briefly trying to tell myself that perhaps it wasn’t him.

I walked the bicycle home slowly. That evening, I had no choice but to be on that road again, returning home. Somebody had removed him, but a stain remained.

This too was a mystery. Who had removed him?

I never get answers.

Well, almost never.