8. Turtle Talk
"I'm quitting today, Jane," he said simply, without preamble, in between bites of his peanut-butter and jelly sandwich. Then he peered across the table at me through those thick nerd glasses of his, to see my reaction.
I felt that I must have misheard him. Nobody quit a job these days. Either that, or this was just another ploy to get my attention, the childish sort of thing he'd been doing off and on ever since I came to work at The Company five years ago. Now I was supposed to fall all over him while I solved some blown out of proportion crisis of his? Well, if that was it, I wasn't having any. He just wasn't my type romantically, and I'd already let him know that often enough.
Still, I considered us to be workplace friends, and fairly close ones at that. Compared to some of the creeps that inhabited this place, George was OK; like an odd but friendly puppy dog that it was all right to pet, even if you didn't necessarily want to take him home.
"I'm serious, Jane," he elaborated. "This is my last day. I'm heading South tomorrow. I'm all packed to go."
What hit me first was curiosity. Nowadays numerous folks, tired of sunscreen, sun-hats, high collars, long sleeves, sun umbrellas and so forth, and disgusted with sickened plants and wildlife, were moving south, where the ozone layer was still adequate, even though it was hotter and flooded due to other aspects of the global warming/ozone disaster thing.
However, the conventional view, pushed by the Government and the news media, was for people to 'tough it out', and most people were doing just that. Lots of the folks in the area were fourth or fifth generation upper New York state citizens, and not about to give up their homes. Only paranoid, fringe type people were headed south, so George leaving came as a big surprise. He was as dull and conventional as anyone I ever knew, or at least I thought he was. "Just last week you gave me your big lecture on how moving south made no sense, given global warming," I reminded him. "What changed your mind?"
"True. In the long run, the warming will do us in, if trends continue. But ozone layer losses are the more immediate threat. At least that's what I suspect the reason is for moving south."
"Suspect? You mean you're giving up your job to move south and you don't even know why?"
"I'm taking expert advice. Anyway, I wanted to tell you about it, and advise you to do the same. This state is too far north. It's unhealthy." He finished his sandwich and started to clean up his end of my little table.
He was actually serious. It suddenly hit me that I'd really miss this guy, very much. I suffered from no shortage of qualified and unqualified suitors, that's for sure, but I did have a severe shortage of what I'd call friends. It was my shyness, on top of my accursed good looks, that made most other woman wary of me, I suppose, and the good looks that made men react in ways that were beyond just friendly. George coming by my cubicle at lunch time had become a comfortable habit that helped keep some of the wolves away. Besides, he was a nice guy, and pleasant enough to be with, even if he didn’t meet all the qualifications that I had defined for The Ideal Spouse. Still, realizing just how much I'd miss him came as quite a shock, and I began to re-examine my feelings, as I continued to pry more information from him.
"Wait a minute! Whose advice?"
"You'll think I'm crazy."
"I already think you're crazy. Whose advice?"
"A turtle."
"A turtle? You mean those green things that live in the ponds around here? A real turtle?"
"Well no, not exactly. This is a land turtle. They live in the woods and fields, though they like a swim now and then, I suppose. The Yellow Box turtle is what we humans call the particular species, I looked it up on the web. But they call themselves the Ahhhh."
"They don't call themselves anything. Turtles are pea brained animals, stupid as stumps."
"That's what I used to think. Then last week, she showed up behind my apartment, walking south."
"She?"
"She. Brown eyes, that's how I could tell. Males have red ones. Times being what they are, I gave her water to drink and some apple. They don’t normally eat apples, of course, but these are desperate times. Last damn apple I had too; cost me ten bucks. Grown from green-house trees."
I remembered when greenhouses used to be designed to let all the light in, instead of to keep some of it out. "OK, so you fed a stray turtle a ten dollar apple. You're a kind and eccentric guy. What's that got to do with you moving south?"
"She advised me to. After she thanked me for the grub."
"The turtle actually talked to you then," I stated, incredulously.
"Sort of."
He really had me going now. I knew either this was some kind of scam he was pulling on me, or he had gone loony tunes, or both, but I was hooked. "Turtles don't have the apparatus to talk with, even if they had enough brains, which they don't."
"I've got some theories on that. True, they don't speak the way we do. They use some kind of mental telepathy. And it's really slow. I have to sit quietly with the turtle and sort of let my thoughts go blank, and over ten or twenty minutes, a word just sort of takes shape in my mind. Just one word. I reply by repeating a word slow to her, over and over. Takes all damn night for a short conversation. They're slow talkers and thinkers, but they get the job done."
"You do this at night?"
"Yeah, the last few nights, while she's been chowing down with me, and waiting for her friends to come. They've adapted to the stronger sunlight by hiding and sleeping under cover most of the day. I have to wait until she's done eating though; they can't talk and chew at the same time. Brains are too small."
"But not too small to talk with you?"
"Right. I'll give you an analogy. Remember computers when you were a kid? Remember the 286 and the 486 and so forth?"
George was a computer engineer, so naturally that's what he'd come up with. "The earliest one I remember was a Pentium."
"Those are the ones I mean. Of course today's computers are thousands of times more powerful, but when you think of it, those earlier ones still did quite a bit, only slower. And even those computers were much more powerful than what our astronauts had to make do with when they first landed on the Moon." George gestured with his hands the way he always did when he got excited about something, and his glasses slid down his nose, making him look ridiculous. "Don't you see? The turtles are like those old Moon rocket computers."
I was missing the point. "This isn't leading to some theory about astronaut turtles, is it?" I asked.
George laughed. "No, don't be silly! What I am suggesting is that turtles are cognitively challenged, that's true for sure, but just because they think slow, we shouldn't sell them short. Of course, I suspect that Issy is unusually smart for a turtle. Issy spent twenty of her thirty years in a human kindergarden classroom as a pet; that's how she learned to think in English, instead of just in turtle. The concepts behind the mere words used, the memes, are less dissimilar to human ones for her than they are for other turtles."
"This girl friend turtle of yours, Issy, is thirty years old and went to kindergarten for twenty years?"
"Right. It took her an entire night to tell me that."
"You're crazy."
George gave a deep sigh of resignation. "True. Just like you always suspected. Anyway, I'm headed south in the morning, after I get some more cantaloupes, bananas, and other fruit and vegies, and put them out tonight for Issy and her friends."
"Turtle friends?"
"Turtles, and lots of other animals too. Apparently, when the turtles talk, other animals listen, and the turtles have come to a consensus to all head south. Issy says the first wave will hit town tonight, led by turtles. I figure that in return for her sound advice, the least I can do is give them a meal. I've been stocking up on stuff for days. I'll have hundreds of pounds of animal food by tonight."
"Of course," I humored him. "What else could you do?"
He got up to leave, but leaned over the table and looked into my eyes, his face serious. "Only one more thing. I'
d like you to come with me."
I even considered it, which shows how low my expectations of life had become. Ditch my job to run off with a guy that talks with turtles? Sure, why not, give me a minute, let me think about it.
"No strings attached, Jane. We don't have to be lovers, unless my natural charm, wit, and rugged good looks finally win you over. I just wish you'd come with me to where it's safer. Or, I could come with you; your car's a lot better than mine." George was famous for his old clunkers.
"The truth comes out at last; you want me for my car."
"You've seen right through me. I'm transparent as a sandwich bag; it's one of my best features. Anyway, I'll be feeding the troops tonight, and leaving town by eight AM. Right now I'm headed to the front office to quit." He headed out of the cubicle and out of my life.
I had to stop him. He was throwing away a good job because he was having hallucinations or whatever. "George, you can't do it." I grabbed him by a shirt sleeve before he could escape. "Not based on turtle talk that could just be your over-active imagination. Or, maybe your turtle friend is wrong, or lying to you." I could tell by his reaction that he hadn't even considered these possibilities.
Then I told him something that I couldn't believe I was saying, even as the words were being formed by my mouth. "Tell you what; I'll make you a deal. If animals hike through town tonight led by turtles, I'll go south with you tomorrow. But only if you hold off quitting your job until the morning. We could both quit together." Of course, I knew that there wouldn't actually be a turtle migration, and by this time tomorrow we'd both be laughing over this goofy little fantasy of his, and he'd still be gainfully employed and here with me. We might even end up being more than just friends, I was beginning to suspect. Somehow this craziness of his made him more interesting.
He smiled that nerdy smile of his. "Jane, that's great!" He gave me a hug and looked at me with those puppy-dog eyes. "I'll see you in the morning then? Pick me up at my place?"
"Only if the animals show up."
"All right! See you then. I'll still be taking off this afternoon to prepare a feast for my little friends."
There was an awkward moment when I thought he was going to hug me again or worse, but after a moment's re-consideration he simply gave me a little wave bye-bye and headed out of the building, smiling.
I thought about him all afternoon, along with the crazy idea of heading south. My apartment, my job, and my life here were real, though imperfect, while George's turtle business was fanciful fantasy. It reminded me of all the children's stories my folks read to me when I was young, stories that I loved.
Then I grew up. There was no Santa or Easter Bunny anymore, and real animals were too dumb to play more than bit parts on life's stage. Mom and Dad divorced, and there was no such thing as real love. The real world had death, taxes, pollution, global warming and thinning ozone, and no talking turtles. But it did have money. So I ran off to business school to learn how to make fast bucks, and how to snare a high-rolling, high-powered spouse, though I couldn’t stand any such guys that I’d met so far.
But this crazy thought kept coming back. What if there really were talking turtles? What would that mean? Wouldn't it mean that lots of other wonderful, crazy things might also be true?
By the time that I started home, I found myself actually hoping that the whole thing was true. I even stopped at a supermarket and bought lots of fruit and vegetables, plus some dog and cat food just in case there would be carnivores too. I packed my suitcases, and then as it got dark, I sat out on the North-facing porch in front of my apartment, waiting for turtles. Mrs. Lundberg, one of my neighbors, was out there too, taking in the cool, clear night, and listening to country music on her radio.
"Don't see you out here much, Jane," she said, when I plopped down beside her. "What's in the bag?"
"Fruit, mostly." I felt a bit silly, sitting there with that bag of food.
"You going to feed the animals when they come?" she asked with a chuckle, sending a shiver down my spine.
"What animals?"
"Didn't you hear? Hit the radio just an hour ago. Lots of wild animals are on the move tonight, and nobody knows what it's about. Crazy, right?"
I was stunned. "You don't say!"
"I don't say, the radio does. Me, I think it's all just a hoax. Nothing unusual happening around here anyway. I'll show you." She turned off her radio and we listened and peered out at the front lawn, which was well illuminated by moon-light and the dim porch-light. "The night seems normal enough to me."
All that I could hear was the faint sounds of a radio or TV, probably coming from one of the apartments, and the usual chorus of crickets. Then the crickets stopped.
"What's that?" whispered Mrs. Lundberg anxiously, pointing straight out towards the edge of the light.
I didn't hear or see anything.
"Is that a rock?" she asked. "Does it seem to be moving to you?"
Then I saw it, a dark patch at the edge of the illuminated area, the size of half a football , that hadn't been there a minute ago, that I could recall. Was it moving? Yes, just barely. It seemed to lurch ahead towards us an inch or two perhaps, and then do it again and again, so slowly that it was hardly noticeable.
"Look! There's more!" she exclaimed, her voice raising in alarm.
Yes, there were several other similar dark forms slowly moving into the light, and it seemed that there were others, dozens more, just coming into view. Turtles, heading south. I smiled at the absurdity of it.
"Look! They're edging away!"
Sure enough, now they were moving left and right around the light's edge, as though trying to avoid entering it. They were avoiding the domain of man. Besides avoidance of the UV light, that could be another reason for their traveling at night.
I rushed to the doorway and turned off the porch lights.
"What in the world did you do that for?" asked Mrs. Lundberg crossly, when I returned. "Whatever those things are, the lights were keeping them away!"
"It's just turtles, and I want them to come closer," I explained.
Even in just the moonlight, I could see that she was looking at me like I was crazy. "Well I'm going in," she said, and she did.
I grabbed my kitchen knife and a cantaloupe out of my bag, sat down on the porch steps, and peered into the darkness. At first I could see nothing, but I thought that I heard the faintest of rustling sounds. Is that what turtles walking sounded like? I had no idea.
After my eyes had further adjusted to the darkness I carefully carved the cantaloupe into small pieces. The sweet smell of the sticky juice flooded my senses. I scattered cantaloupe pieces on the lawn and sidewalk directly in front of me and waited. Even in the dim moonlight I would be able to see them if they came that close.
Nothing happened. I thought that I could hear faint sounds all around the dark yard now, but nothing came close enough to be seen. Then I suddenly realized that they were avoiding me. Of course they would try to avoid humans! Why would animals trust humans?
"Ahhhh!" I hissed into the darkness the only turtle-language word that I knew, in my best turtle voice. "Ahhhh!" I repeated slowly, again and again, for perhaps five minutes.
"Ahhhhhh" came a quiet reply, to my right. There, just outside my ring of cantaloupe pieces, was a big turtle. Not a smooth shelled, sleek looking, flat, water turtle, but a thick, rough shelled, highly mounded one, about the size and shape of half a foot-ball. I tossed a piece of cantaloupe right in front of it, and watched an inch-wide head dart out from the shell and stab at the soft melon flesh. George was right, they liked fruit. Within five minutes a dozen more of the turtles descended on the cantaloupe. I reached into my bag and tossed the remaining fruit and vegetables onto the lawn. They particularly liked strawberries.
The turtles were suddenly joined by others. Squirrels, raccoons, and other small animals, dozens of them, were soon making short work of the food. I walked slowly to my car, being careful not to step on any creatures. S
oon the contents of three more shopping bags, including fruit, nuts, and dog biscuits, were also scattered on the lawn. In a few minutes, the additional food was also gone, and the animals began to disappear towards the south.
As I was piling dog and cat food onto paper plates and placing them on the sidewalk I had my first real scare. I turned around and there it was, towering over me on its hind legs, the biggest polar bear that I ever saw! But after staring at me for a moment he dropped down on four feet and started eating a plate of cat food, ignoring me, as I slowly backed away towards the porch. In the moonlight I saw that the bear was far too thin.
Other bears appeared out of the darkness, white ones and smaller black ones, all thin. They were quickly joined by other predators, wild cats, foxes, badgers, and wolverines, which quickly ate anything and everything that was left. Inside a half of a minute all the food was gone, and the predators faded into the night, without eating me, each other, or the other animals. There must have been some sort of truce between them. Fascinating as this surreal experience was, I can't say that I was sorry to see them go. I sat back down on the porch steps, smiling.
"Ahhhh" hissed a small voice. It was a box turtle, perhaps the same one that I first saw, looking at me from a few feet away. Behind it were a dozen others, also staring at me. As I stared back at them, a thought clearly formed in my mind in a matter of only seconds. I suspect that multiple turtles can together think faster and louder than one. It wasn't a word; I guess these turtles hadn't attended kindergarten. But I understood it anyway, perhaps as the bears and rabbits and squirrels had also understood it. Roughly translated, their simple message was to come with them south.
After the turtles left, Mrs. Lundberg came back out with a video-camera in her trembling hands. "I got it all recorded with this thing set on low-light mode Jane, but if I watch it a dozen times, I still won't believe it, especially when they said to head south."
"You heard it too?" I asked in surprise. I had thought that the message was just for me.
"Clear as anything. Didn't know that turtles could talk."
"Only when they have something important to say, something they want everyone to know. All the animals, including us."
After I finished packing and went to bed, visions of sugar plum fairies danced in my head. In the morning, I'd pick up George and we'd head south together. Hopefully, Issy and a few other friends would ride with us. In the face of ecological disaster, I was quitting a good job and running off with a nerd and a reptile, but I was happier and more optimistic about life than I'd been in years. For if turtles can talk, anything is possible. Anything at all!
****
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