[story] the turtle in the well
author: halved fool (halvedfool)
Once there was a shallow well, and in its cool depths lived a turtle.
She was a a small turtle, with black eyes and a carven green and yellow shell. A streak of red had been splashed across the skin by both her eyes.
But few saw this in the dark well.
During the season of rain, when the turtle huddled beneath a soggy red leaf and a brown pebble, a seabird was blown inland by the blustery wind. She took some weeks to recuperate, for plucking out the damaged feathers on the back of her head was lengthy work.
One of these feathers floated into the turtle's well, where she swept it up onto her pile of rocks so it would not impede her laps around the well. It sat primly on the rock, catching the glimmering sunlight on its grey and white surface. Then a shadow fell over the water, and the turtle raised her head. "Hello," she said, by way of greeting.
"Salutations," said the seabird, peering curiously at the small face of the turtle. "I say, you're a small one, aren't you, young turtle?"
"I am indeed a turtle," said the turtle. "But you have the advantage of me. What manner of creature are you?"
"I happen to be a bird, most commonly found by the sea," said the seabird. "Freshly blown in by the blustery winds, you know. Since opportunity dropped me here, I thought I should take in the sights and all that."
"What is the sea?" asked the turtle, who did not know.
"Not know what the sea is!" exclaimed the seabird. "Why, it is the largest body of water in all the world!"
The turtle looked about her well. "I live in a large body of water," she said. "Is it comparable?"
The seabird cackled in astonishment. "This piddly thing!" she exclaimed. "Why, it would be no more than a drop, if you put it in the sea!"
"Oh," said the the turtle, abashed.
"Have you never left this well?" asked the seabird.
"No," said the turtle. "But I am content here. I have water to drink. I have green moss and yellow weeds to eat. When I wish it, I can clamber out of my well to stroll through the woods. I can swim in the deeper end of the well, or carry myself over smooth pebbles and soft mud to rest in the crevices of the stone wall. Sometimes the sunlight slants in to brighten the shining ripples of the water. And when I am happiest of all, I can sing to my heart's content and listen to the echo in peace and quiet."
"Oh, but the sea, don't you know!" said the seabird. "It's wider than the eye can see and deeper than deep. Though the rivers flood, the sea never rises. Though the land may parch, the sea doesn't evaporate. It is the bluest blue you've ever seen. It's tame as a kitten and mad as a dragon, by turns. A myriad of creatures depend upon it. No one can truly be said to have lived, until they have seen the sea."
The turtle mulled this over for a bit.
"What is a dragon?" she asked.
When the seabird was presentable once more, she flew away towards the sea. The turtle watched her shadow pass over the mouth of her well.
She then busied herself over the next few days with business she had forgone to keep company with the seabird. Small oval leaves speckled the water, floating yellow and serene. Thin twigs jutted into crevices in the flint-grey stone and marbled pebbles, which darkened where the well-water lapped up and down over them. The turtle cleared them all away, carefully wrapping the refuse in a wet maple leaf she could then haul away into the woods.
She splashed and swam in her well. Sometimes, she even sang, and the echoes of her song rang out against the stones.
Then one day, in a gust of wind that whistled in a thready voice as it crossed the well's mouth, an impeccable seabird in white and grey landed by the well. "How d'you do," she said kindly.
The turtle smiled. "Hello."
Every so often, the seabird would stop by the turtle's well with curious tales.
"I once saw, on the deck of a passing cargo ship, a ramshackle hut. It was a strange hut, for it was dark and crooked, and its windows were all askew, but the strangest thing of all was that it jumped and danced about the ship on the legs of a very large chicken," the seabird would for example say. "And all the sailors were chasing it with ropes to pin it down. How I laughed!"
She told the turtle of dancing teakettles, whose tarnished bronze and silver skins would fold and unfold like paper wings into the dull hides of dancing foxes and dancing badgers; of basilisks, whose baleful glares would turn the objects of their glares into chiselled stone. She told the turtle of an enchanted jewel from the centre of the earth whose polished skin was cool as glass, but which shone with the light of eight stars; and of stone cities that melted away into salt and water beneath the weak light of false dawn.
The turtle would listen avidly as she traced patterns in the mud. She was fascinated even with stories that the garrulous seabird considered boring. "Come and see the sea with me," the seabird would invite before she left.
But the turtle would merely smile in decline. "Not yet," she replied.
"A shoal of skyturtles arrived half a week ago," said the seabird in explanation for her visit one day. "Nuisances! Though I grant they are not as bad as salamander infestations."
The turtle, who already knew what a salamander was, asked, "What is a skyturtle?"
"Why, the very opposite of you: a turtle who never likes to land," said the seabird. "They zoom about like reckless hatchlings. They're migratory creatures roaming over all four corners of the sky so they needn't ever set flipper to the earth."
"Oh," said the turtle.
The pattering on the leaves was audible before the raindrops tapped their way into the well. It was a gentle rain, though that did not stop the grumbling of the seabird, who had disappeared in search of a dry bough elsewhere.
The turtle swam aimlessly around in a figure of eight, looking up every so often in the hope that the seabird would return, perhaps on the wind's bluster again. But no seabird of any stripe hurled past the well to dash itself solidly against a tree's trunk.
She squinted through the haze of rain to look at the low, grey sky, and wondered at it.
"Take me with you to see the skyturtles," said the turtle.
"Certainly, certainly," said the seabird in muzzy agreement. When she had woken up a little more, she blinked. "Oh, I say, d'you mean that?"
"Yes," said the turtle.
"Hrrm," said the seabird. "This requires some logistical planning. You are no longer as small as you once were, old chum."
"Aren't I?" said the turtle, craning her neck to look at her shell.
"Indeedy, you aren't," concurred the seabird. "I shall require two things. Firstly: the strength of a second pair of wings. Despite my pleasantly large frame, I am rather a frail creature, skinny and hollow-boned. It serves me well for flying, but not when carting turtles aloft, I do not think."
"What is the second thing?" asked the turtle.
"Secondly," continued the seabird. "I shall need a stick."
"A stick?" said the turtle.
"Quite so," said the seabird.
The seabird, when she returned, brought in tow a dozy friend, who was round-ish and amiable. He was rather an unkempt fellow, who shed black-tipped grey feathers willy-nilly, but the seabird was his friend, and the turtle tried not to mind.
The seabird had also brought with her a stout brown stick. "Put this in your mouth," she said to the turtle.
Puzzled, she examined the stick. It had been smoothed of splinters or knobbly bits. "Must I?" she asked.
"Indeed, indeedy," said the seabird's friend. "You see, the gist of the plot is this, what: you, being the turtle, shall wedge this stick between your jaws. Then we, having wings, shall carry you into the air by gripping the ends of this marvellous stick with your feet. Of course, you mustn't let go of the stick, or you will fall onto a convenient rock and smash your delicious entrails across the ground. What a dashed bother that would be to clean up!"
The turtle resolved to keep this in mind as she shuffled away from the seabird's friend.
"There, isn't that simple?" asked the seabird. "Though we can do very well without talk of being delicious."
"I suppose it must be," conceded the turtle. "Simple, that is."
"Capital!" declared the seabird. "We shall set off at once."
"Now?" said the turtle.
"No time like the present," said the seabird.
As the seabirds took off laboriously, the wind stung at the turtle's eyes, wringing small tears that fell down her green cheeks. The stick in her mouth was dry and tough.
Below, her dear well grew smaller and smaller with distance as they flew away.
"Look," called the seabird's friend. "See how scrummy the hills are!"
Where the forests did not cover them, they were limestone white. Into the foot of one hill, a temple had been carved. A majestic yellow and brown façade was built around the entrance, and its name generously inked on the limestone. They flew past before the turtle could read it.
They followed the river, as it meandered past forest and village and town. Bursts of coloured birds flew out to watch the curiosity, and some even laughed. But they all shied away from the wax-patterned kites with large eyes, which patrolled over fields heavy with the ripening harvest in soaring arcs of red, blue, purple, gold.
In a banana grove, a spirit crept out of a banana tree to gaze up at the turtle from beneath her long hair. The turtle saw her too.
They passed a town that was built on stilts for the eventual bursting of the river's banks. The river was dotted with narrow boats here, and a young boy gasped to see the trio.
The turtle waved gingerly in return.
When they reached it, the turtle marvelled at the sea, which filled the whole of the horizon.
"There, the Eastern Sea!" called the seabird in breathless cheer.
It was dancing, sparkling, foaming. Far away, in its bluer-than-blue depths, swordfish jousted and speckled crabs scuttled along the sand, keeping a wary eye open for fire-breathing salamanders. Fishermen in their fishing boats cast their rope nets into the sea, and shouted at one another in hearty cheer.
"Look up," encouraged the seabird. "Didn't I promise you skyturtles, friend?"
And there they flew. There were not so many as the seabird had implied, for such a number would have blackened the sky altogether, but they zipped along at such a pace that it seemed they were everywhere at once.
One turtle dashed over inquisitively. "Shoo," said the seabird crossly.
The skyturtle flew around the dumbfounded turtle in a curious circle, and winked. It flew beneath the turtle as if in promise to catch her.
"Do not--" cried the seabird, but it was too late. The loss of the turtle's weight threw the two seabirds off balance, and the stout brown stick fell away with a whoosh. The skyturtle laughed at them all from a distance, clearly enjoying the joke.
"That was not nice of you at all," said the turtle in dismay. "Now I'm about to fall."
"What a silly thing to say," pointed out the seabird's friend. "You are flying, not falling."
"Am I?" said the turtle. She craned her head back to look behind her, and turned a leisurely somersault as she did so. "How strange!" she said, as she fought to regain her balance. "I had never known I had the knack."
"What a toothsome thing it is that you can," said the seabird's friend. "For you are jolly heavy. Now, we had better rouse our friend from her stupor. Why, one would think she'd never seen a turtle fly before!"
"You are flying," said the shocked seabird.
"Isn't it peculiar?" said the turtle. "Will you show me the sea? I should like very much to see it."
They sailed across the sky, snubbing the poor skyturtle rather cruelly by ignoring it. The seabirds told the turtle all the stories of the sea, and the secrets of the wind, and they showed her many strange things that one will only find at seasides. They tumbled into the damp floss of sunset clouds, and rollicked in the saline waves.
When the day was done, they guided the turtle back to her well, marvelling all the way that they hadn't got to carry her.
In a shallow well in the woods, there lives a turtle who can fly. On most days, she is content to keep her well spick and span, and to sing as she swims in figures of eight.
But on occasion, curiosity will nip at her heels, and she clambers over the side of her stone well, launching herself into the sky. Once there, she will follow the winding river, waving to the banana tree spirit as she sails along to the beach, where she visits her seabird and skyturtle friends.
For her small but clean little well could never comfortably hold them all, while the sea is vaster than vast and wider than wide, and it will accommodate one more turtle on its horizon. That is why many creatures depend on the sea, after all.
the end
Once there was a shallow well, and in its cool depths lived a turtle.
She was a a small turtle, with black eyes and a carven green and yellow shell. A streak of red had been splashed across the skin by both her eyes.
But few saw this in the dark well.
During the season of rain, when the turtle huddled beneath a soggy red leaf and a brown pebble, a seabird was blown inland by the blustery wind. She took some weeks to recuperate, for plucking out the damaged feathers on the back of her head was lengthy work.
One of these feathers floated into the turtle's well, where she swept it up onto her pile of rocks so it would not impede her laps around the well. It sat primly on the rock, catching the glimmering sunlight on its grey and white surface. Then a shadow fell over the water, and the turtle raised her head. "Hello," she said, by way of greeting.
"Salutations," said the seabird, peering curiously at the small face of the turtle. "I say, you're a small one, aren't you, young turtle?"
"I am indeed a turtle," said the turtle. "But you have the advantage of me. What manner of creature are you?"
"I happen to be a bird, most commonly found by the sea," said the seabird. "Freshly blown in by the blustery winds, you know. Since opportunity dropped me here, I thought I should take in the sights and all that."
"What is the sea?" asked the turtle, who did not know.
"Not know what the sea is!" exclaimed the seabird. "Why, it is the largest body of water in all the world!"
The turtle looked about her well. "I live in a large body of water," she said. "Is it comparable?"
The seabird cackled in astonishment. "This piddly thing!" she exclaimed. "Why, it would be no more than a drop, if you put it in the sea!"
"Oh," said the the turtle, abashed.
"Have you never left this well?" asked the seabird.
"No," said the turtle. "But I am content here. I have water to drink. I have green moss and yellow weeds to eat. When I wish it, I can clamber out of my well to stroll through the woods. I can swim in the deeper end of the well, or carry myself over smooth pebbles and soft mud to rest in the crevices of the stone wall. Sometimes the sunlight slants in to brighten the shining ripples of the water. And when I am happiest of all, I can sing to my heart's content and listen to the echo in peace and quiet."
"Oh, but the sea, don't you know!" said the seabird. "It's wider than the eye can see and deeper than deep. Though the rivers flood, the sea never rises. Though the land may parch, the sea doesn't evaporate. It is the bluest blue you've ever seen. It's tame as a kitten and mad as a dragon, by turns. A myriad of creatures depend upon it. No one can truly be said to have lived, until they have seen the sea."
The turtle mulled this over for a bit.
"What is a dragon?" she asked.
When the seabird was presentable once more, she flew away towards the sea. The turtle watched her shadow pass over the mouth of her well.
She then busied herself over the next few days with business she had forgone to keep company with the seabird. Small oval leaves speckled the water, floating yellow and serene. Thin twigs jutted into crevices in the flint-grey stone and marbled pebbles, which darkened where the well-water lapped up and down over them. The turtle cleared them all away, carefully wrapping the refuse in a wet maple leaf she could then haul away into the woods.
She splashed and swam in her well. Sometimes, she even sang, and the echoes of her song rang out against the stones.
Then one day, in a gust of wind that whistled in a thready voice as it crossed the well's mouth, an impeccable seabird in white and grey landed by the well. "How d'you do," she said kindly.
The turtle smiled. "Hello."
Every so often, the seabird would stop by the turtle's well with curious tales.
"I once saw, on the deck of a passing cargo ship, a ramshackle hut. It was a strange hut, for it was dark and crooked, and its windows were all askew, but the strangest thing of all was that it jumped and danced about the ship on the legs of a very large chicken," the seabird would for example say. "And all the sailors were chasing it with ropes to pin it down. How I laughed!"
She told the turtle of dancing teakettles, whose tarnished bronze and silver skins would fold and unfold like paper wings into the dull hides of dancing foxes and dancing badgers; of basilisks, whose baleful glares would turn the objects of their glares into chiselled stone. She told the turtle of an enchanted jewel from the centre of the earth whose polished skin was cool as glass, but which shone with the light of eight stars; and of stone cities that melted away into salt and water beneath the weak light of false dawn.
The turtle would listen avidly as she traced patterns in the mud. She was fascinated even with stories that the garrulous seabird considered boring. "Come and see the sea with me," the seabird would invite before she left.
But the turtle would merely smile in decline. "Not yet," she replied.
"A shoal of skyturtles arrived half a week ago," said the seabird in explanation for her visit one day. "Nuisances! Though I grant they are not as bad as salamander infestations."
The turtle, who already knew what a salamander was, asked, "What is a skyturtle?"
"Why, the very opposite of you: a turtle who never likes to land," said the seabird. "They zoom about like reckless hatchlings. They're migratory creatures roaming over all four corners of the sky so they needn't ever set flipper to the earth."
"Oh," said the turtle.
The pattering on the leaves was audible before the raindrops tapped their way into the well. It was a gentle rain, though that did not stop the grumbling of the seabird, who had disappeared in search of a dry bough elsewhere.
The turtle swam aimlessly around in a figure of eight, looking up every so often in the hope that the seabird would return, perhaps on the wind's bluster again. But no seabird of any stripe hurled past the well to dash itself solidly against a tree's trunk.
She squinted through the haze of rain to look at the low, grey sky, and wondered at it.
"Take me with you to see the skyturtles," said the turtle.
"Certainly, certainly," said the seabird in muzzy agreement. When she had woken up a little more, she blinked. "Oh, I say, d'you mean that?"
"Yes," said the turtle.
"Hrrm," said the seabird. "This requires some logistical planning. You are no longer as small as you once were, old chum."
"Aren't I?" said the turtle, craning her neck to look at her shell.
"Indeedy, you aren't," concurred the seabird. "I shall require two things. Firstly: the strength of a second pair of wings. Despite my pleasantly large frame, I am rather a frail creature, skinny and hollow-boned. It serves me well for flying, but not when carting turtles aloft, I do not think."
"What is the second thing?" asked the turtle.
"Secondly," continued the seabird. "I shall need a stick."
"A stick?" said the turtle.
"Quite so," said the seabird.
The seabird, when she returned, brought in tow a dozy friend, who was round-ish and amiable. He was rather an unkempt fellow, who shed black-tipped grey feathers willy-nilly, but the seabird was his friend, and the turtle tried not to mind.
The seabird had also brought with her a stout brown stick. "Put this in your mouth," she said to the turtle.
Puzzled, she examined the stick. It had been smoothed of splinters or knobbly bits. "Must I?" she asked.
"Indeed, indeedy," said the seabird's friend. "You see, the gist of the plot is this, what: you, being the turtle, shall wedge this stick between your jaws. Then we, having wings, shall carry you into the air by gripping the ends of this marvellous stick with your feet. Of course, you mustn't let go of the stick, or you will fall onto a convenient rock and smash your delicious entrails across the ground. What a dashed bother that would be to clean up!"
The turtle resolved to keep this in mind as she shuffled away from the seabird's friend.
"There, isn't that simple?" asked the seabird. "Though we can do very well without talk of being delicious."
"I suppose it must be," conceded the turtle. "Simple, that is."
"Capital!" declared the seabird. "We shall set off at once."
"Now?" said the turtle.
"No time like the present," said the seabird.
As the seabirds took off laboriously, the wind stung at the turtle's eyes, wringing small tears that fell down her green cheeks. The stick in her mouth was dry and tough.
Below, her dear well grew smaller and smaller with distance as they flew away.
"Look," called the seabird's friend. "See how scrummy the hills are!"
Where the forests did not cover them, they were limestone white. Into the foot of one hill, a temple had been carved. A majestic yellow and brown façade was built around the entrance, and its name generously inked on the limestone. They flew past before the turtle could read it.
They followed the river, as it meandered past forest and village and town. Bursts of coloured birds flew out to watch the curiosity, and some even laughed. But they all shied away from the wax-patterned kites with large eyes, which patrolled over fields heavy with the ripening harvest in soaring arcs of red, blue, purple, gold.
In a banana grove, a spirit crept out of a banana tree to gaze up at the turtle from beneath her long hair. The turtle saw her too.
They passed a town that was built on stilts for the eventual bursting of the river's banks. The river was dotted with narrow boats here, and a young boy gasped to see the trio.
The turtle waved gingerly in return.
When they reached it, the turtle marvelled at the sea, which filled the whole of the horizon.
"There, the Eastern Sea!" called the seabird in breathless cheer.
It was dancing, sparkling, foaming. Far away, in its bluer-than-blue depths, swordfish jousted and speckled crabs scuttled along the sand, keeping a wary eye open for fire-breathing salamanders. Fishermen in their fishing boats cast their rope nets into the sea, and shouted at one another in hearty cheer.
"Look up," encouraged the seabird. "Didn't I promise you skyturtles, friend?"
And there they flew. There were not so many as the seabird had implied, for such a number would have blackened the sky altogether, but they zipped along at such a pace that it seemed they were everywhere at once.
One turtle dashed over inquisitively. "Shoo," said the seabird crossly.
The skyturtle flew around the dumbfounded turtle in a curious circle, and winked. It flew beneath the turtle as if in promise to catch her.
"Do not--" cried the seabird, but it was too late. The loss of the turtle's weight threw the two seabirds off balance, and the stout brown stick fell away with a whoosh. The skyturtle laughed at them all from a distance, clearly enjoying the joke.
"That was not nice of you at all," said the turtle in dismay. "Now I'm about to fall."
"What a silly thing to say," pointed out the seabird's friend. "You are flying, not falling."
"Am I?" said the turtle. She craned her head back to look behind her, and turned a leisurely somersault as she did so. "How strange!" she said, as she fought to regain her balance. "I had never known I had the knack."
"What a toothsome thing it is that you can," said the seabird's friend. "For you are jolly heavy. Now, we had better rouse our friend from her stupor. Why, one would think she'd never seen a turtle fly before!"
"You are flying," said the shocked seabird.
"Isn't it peculiar?" said the turtle. "Will you show me the sea? I should like very much to see it."
They sailed across the sky, snubbing the poor skyturtle rather cruelly by ignoring it. The seabirds told the turtle all the stories of the sea, and the secrets of the wind, and they showed her many strange things that one will only find at seasides. They tumbled into the damp floss of sunset clouds, and rollicked in the saline waves.
When the day was done, they guided the turtle back to her well, marvelling all the way that they hadn't got to carry her.
In a shallow well in the woods, there lives a turtle who can fly. On most days, she is content to keep her well spick and span, and to sing as she swims in figures of eight.
But on occasion, curiosity will nip at her heels, and she clambers over the side of her stone well, launching herself into the sky. Once there, she will follow the winding river, waving to the banana tree spirit as she sails along to the beach, where she visits her seabird and skyturtle friends.
For her small but clean little well could never comfortably hold them all, while the sea is vaster than vast and wider than wide, and it will accommodate one more turtle on its horizon. That is why many creatures depend on the sea, after all.
the end