Lost or Won

 Toulous the Turtle was a small reptile created with all the natural accoutrements for success, but this did nothing to allay his fear of Sea-Pond he must needs traverse. Poised on the edge of this great undertaking, he felt it to be a dizzying prospect; he wasn't qualified, didn't have the education, wasn't in the right set. (Right set? His mother shot back. You belong to the great ancestral line of the Chrysemys Picta! We belong to water! Besides, your bride-to-be is waiting across the great waters, so you have to take the plunge. Go and don't look back!)

So it had to be today. A sad leave taking from his mother. He moved then to Log, which served as a bar, to bask in the sun with his buddies. Together they drank and talked of those who "made it." His friends further delayed his departure by ordering a Bog Grog, known for its highly anti-freeze properties, and topped it off with harrowing sea-lore of the dangers lurking in the deep. Any other time this might have been entertaining. Time to bid farewell, though he was far from ready.  He detoured to the small library harbored under a great leaf next to a lovely puddle and here he perused self-help books: The Fear of Getting in the Swim, The Art of Following your Instinct, Plato's Allegory of the Pond, Ardent Turtle Travelers, and How to Stop Worrying and Start Swimming. What finally inspired Toulous was the book Turtle, The Action Hero. With the voice of the author still ringing in his veins he crawled down to the shore with a few of his friends in tow. With each imprint on the sand, he realized that things had progressed too far to turn back now.

He surveyed the scene: huge lotus leaves swayed in a forest of shadows and mirrored on the water before him. Broken stems, like felled trees. Sunrays that simultaneously illumined leaves to surreal splendour and revealed the murky depths with its hidden dangers. A choice: to turn back now  to live in safety (he couldn't be a turn-turtle! he'd never be able to live it down); or to embark and be forced to accept the combo of beauty and terror as a way of life. Vertigo. And his friends there to witness.... It was too much. True, he had his shield to protect his delicacies and his timorous heart. Nevertheless his brain continued knotting in fear as the inevitable began to bear down. 

And that's when he began hallucinating. It began as a shadow falling over him. Looking back, he saw the enormous hulk and the gawping jaws of Dermochelys Coriacea, Old Leatherback himself, the king of their species. This was all he needed, a hallucination of such magnitude! What was he to do? He knew he could be crushed like an insect by this mighty colossus if he did not move out of harm's way, but it's not in the nature of a turtle to run. Toledo was now between the devil and the deep green. It was here that he made a stunning calculation: that the deep green was the least of the two evils. 

Majestically Old Leatherback moved closer, his left prefrontal sent sand flying. Toulous began to shudder violently. Was he going to be sick? His mandibles began to vibrate, his blood ran a deeper cold, his heart beat against his plastron with deafening intensity. Leatherback's  right prefrontal—Was he to be crushed?— the right prefrontal moved forward forcefully and it was this that sent our Action Hero heartstoppingly flying to his destiny. Though he was not to know it at the time. Up towards the lotus forest and down to the water in one graceful arc, his limbs splayed out on the rush of air.

The splash, the force of water upon the breathe, the shock and confusion, the struggle to recover, the sinking all happened on a sudden, followed by the long painful wait for something worse. When Toulous opened his eyes to the murky waters, he hid in the shadows where to his surprise, he found juicy aquatic plants, slugs, layers of algae on those great lotus stems to be nibbled at. Which he did, his spirit ostensibly healing of recent trauma. All was quiet, no massive leatherback to displace the water. Soon his yellow painted head surfaced, his eyes reflecting the sun, the forestry. His carapace was keeping him afloat, he had no need for his swimming manual, after all.  And there in the sun, a cluster of rocks, an island. He heaved himself up and turned to look back at the distant shore where his friends had cheered this heroic turtle's delicate slipping into the great Sea-Pond as naturally as if he had done it everyday. They waved and hooted at the sight of him surviving happily on what they called Salamis.

They would never know how it really happened. How Myth had made a visitation upon a  Ditch-Town youth, a turtle of no seeming consequence. How Old Leatherback had lost all patience with Toulous for postponing happiness, for delaying his natural belonging to this beautiful new world. 

And his bride-to-be? She'd see him as an Odysseus of the first water- Crusher of Monsters and Foes. And their hatchlings through the years would hear of his voyage.

Yes, but monsters and foes within. Along with the Great Lord of Courage, the head of the tribe himself, tough-skinned and ancient, Old Leatherback, Dermochelys Coriacea. Within. Who would believe it?

Though he couldn't actually confess to being a hero, today marked his first foray into the inner world where battles are fought, be they lost or won, for the sake of one moment in the sunlit splendor of this pond. For one moment in a place you truly belonged.