The Tortoise that drowned

When I think of myself in a form other than human I always see a tortoise- so shy, so insecure, so untrusting of the world that I find refuge in my shell- only to venture out again, till the cycle repeats itself. So this tortoise wished to seal himself in his shell forever, wanted to lock it with a key and ask the wind to blow it away but never really did.

Hardwired to the inherent optimism that had been the bane of many before him, the tortoise kept the key buried in the sand that was his home. Escape was hidden, but always close enough. Retriveable just in case someone knocks on his shell. And so he comes out every time he hears that familiar knock, dances the ropes, opens the box and lets out the phoenix within him. The wooing, cooing and enjoying, smiling…he goes all the way; hides the grimace with the practiced ease that time has gifted him.

He pushed aside the pain, in his jaw every time he had to appear pleased. And then compromise does what compromise knows best- it takes away the blanket and prods at him. The branch hurts his side, but why is it there?, he wondered. Was he not one of them?, he thought and suddenly he was not.

The water gushes in and he gasps for breath. He is drowning and he does not understand why. He was a creature of the water, yes? he was. He can swim. He could swim. But then his eyes close and he stutters and his body quivers he raises his arm to claw his way back to sandy shore. Where he belonged, his home; out of the dimming corner of his eye he sees wings where his webbed arms should be and then it dawns on him. He could swim, yes. But he hasn’t ‘he’ anymore. He was the phoenix, the high flyer; he had let his tortoise go. He didn’t have his shell anymore, he doesn’t have a place to go.

The sea wasn’t his home anymore. He was now the tortoise that had drowned.