Baby Turtle races against the wind that overtakes him in waves. His tiny heart threatens to beat out of his chest, and the growing reign of pure terror is about to have absolute power over his mind. He spares a sliver of a moment to look up towards the sky beginning to sink itself in darkness. He chases the crumbs of his memory, and trusts them to lead him to the small body of green muddled water he hopes is still his home.
He remembers its beauty while he heaves his weight forward. Sounds of the swans that sing heavenly lullabies, and ducks that quack obnoxiously, dance vividly in his mind. The odd towering animals sometimes come visit to throw bread down at the birds. The sounds they make are so various and delightful, so loud and echoing. None of his friends know what they are called for sure, but he has heard they call themselves “humans” from nearby communities. Baby Turtle imagines the birds that chatter above, flying humorously in the sky, and the big brown deer that strut and gallop around in the surrounding flowers.
His smile that appeared in dreaming drops, his run almost falters, and his mind finally settles on the red-orange monsters. They come quietly in the night and arrogantly in the day, snatching children and stealing food. They are violent and do whatever that pleases their cruel desires, because there is nothing any of the Baby’s Turtle’s friends can do to fight or outsmart them. They are defenseless to their powerful monsters and there is no one to help them.
His eyes blink and snap to the moment. That sinister moment that took place at where he is returning to now. The moment when he couldn’t hear the silent screams of his mother, who motioned for him to take refuge in his shell. The moment where the beautiful place he lived in and loved was torn from him. The moment when he made a decision he would regret for the rest of the seventy-five years of his lonely life perhaps. He felt the desperation that filled his air and made it unbearable to breathe, as he had in that moment. So heavy was the air, that as he ran, it almost made him want to stop. It went up his nose and down to his stomach, where it ached like a ship sinking inside him. It tasted awful too, having a metallic sting and worrying burn.
Baby Turtle’s eyes absorbed themselves in that movie playing repeatedly in his head, soundless and slow. He had watched as the sly, stealthy animals ran where he slept, and eat his friends. He was all alone then, in a parade of panic, madness marching all about him. His mother had always told him to escape into his shell if something bad happened. She had told him never to worry, his shell would protect him. But he didn’t listen that day. As panic consumed him he fled, faster than any snail, leaving his mother to fend off the monsters herself. He shouldn’t have, even if his mother had begged him. Even if he would have died, he shouldn’t have left her alone. He never looked back, but as he grew farther from where he played with his friends, he heard the terror clearer and clearer, over and over, until he passed out from exhaustion and the weight of his guilt.
He had been lying out in the open for hours, exposed and vulnerable. When his eyes peeled themselves open, the moon had risen. The moonlight shone in a ray upon him, a corpse full of shame and loneliness. Loneliness is what he deserved. What had he done? His poor mother. What would he do? He was empty and fatigued. Baby Turtle sat there staring at the black pond water, listening to the chirpings of grasshoppers in the night and searching for answers. He always hated how he could hear them but never see them. His eyes landed on a baby grasshopper. Baby Turtle was just about to make his way over to it to have it for dinner when it began climbing a tree, with all its might, towards its patient mama. Its skinny arms weren’t strong enough and it plummeted down towards the ground. Baby Turtle took a few more steps toward his food, when the baby grasshopper got up and began to climb once more. The mama grasshopper began to climb down, doubting her child’s abilities. But she misplaced her claw and fell down to the ground. The baby grasshopper saw and panicked. He didn’t know how to climb down yet so the only thing he could do was fall. But this fall would hurt more than the last. The baby grasshopper let go of the tree and fell with all his might towards his hurt mama. At last they were together again. Baby turtle watched them leave, knowing that he could eat them both at any time. But he let them leave because he knew now what he had to do. He ran, with all his might and hope, back to his mama.
Now he was back to the place which he should never have left.
His home had been transformed into something much scarier than the eyes of the slithering snakes that tried to eat him one time. The smell took him by no surprise, but nevertheless made him vomit. He pillaged through the wreckage and called out for his mama until his throat tasted like the blood on the ground. No one replied except for the distant chuckling of the beasts that slept with full stomachs tonight. His pilgrimage had been for nothing. All it had brought him was a prickly reminder of his guilt. He had swallowed a mouthful of poison instead of sweet honey. A single useless tear escaped, salty and undrinkable.
Baby Turtle didn’t think this could happen, not to him, not to his friends and family. He was always a good turtle, and everyone he knew were good animals too. They didn’t deserve this. He didn’t understand why the orange animals had to eat animals like him. Why couldn’t they just eat the worms and plants like he did? Didn’t they care that Baby Turtle had a heart just like they did?
Suddenly, an absurd thought occurred to Baby Turtle, slowly, separating his mind into pieces that scattered everywhere. He couldn’t piece them together exactly. He couldn’t make sense of it. But his thought, what a thought it was. Did it even make sense?
He had never even considered if the worms and small bugs that animals like him ate, felt the same way as Baby Turtle’s friends did when they were eaten. Baby Turtle thought back to the baby grasshopper. Yes, he ate baby grasshoppers. His mama had said that’s what they ate, so he ate them. Everyone ate them. But the baby grasshopper had a mama just like he did. So wouldn’t he have felt sad if Baby Turtle ate his mama? Maybe the foxes’ mamas’ had told them that they were supposed to eat baby turtles. Could he blame them now? Hadn’t he done the same thing to so many grasshoppers? To so many worms? Baby Turtle felt sick. In all his thinking, he just realized that someone was calling out for him.
He couldn’t believe his eyes! It was his mama! It was his mama! They ran to each other and embraced like it had been years instead of just a dreadful day.
“I’m so sorry mama, I’ll never leave you again,” he said shaking, even while warmth returned to him.
“Oh hush my baby, I’m so proud of you,” His mama said with a strong voice.
“Why did this happen mama? Why would they do this to us?” The Baby Turtle asked, wide-eyed and now searching for answers in his mama’s old eyes.
“It’s the way of the world, the way it always has been,” she said simply, and let her head rest on top of his. Before he fell fast asleep he heard her whisper, “Oh Baby Turtle, you’re no baby no more.”