The day I was born a turtle, I wanted to die. It’s not that I was sorry, that it wouldn’t be and that I didn’t care. Nor was it the stupid shell I would apparently have to carry on my shoulders for the rest of my life. And besides, while we’re at it, how long did a turtle live? One hundred, two hundred years? I should spend my life hidden under the shell, defending myself against an innumerable host of enemies, as if I saw it. Just the idea of such a ridiculously long life span gave me neurasthenia.
I insist that I had nothing against turtles, despite the label that hangs on them as boring or unemotional, but mainly because they are slow.
No. It was just an unfortunate mistake: I was definitely not a turtle.
Oh, the turtles! Who wants to be one of them. Do you know how to manage to hunt and cook a turtle?
They are boiled alive.
That’s the way the goddamn world was made. Tell me what you eat and I’ll tell you what you are: the man, another pig. A pig who also smokes a pipe and reads the ‘Times’. I don’t want to be belligerent, I’m not a lefty turtle, I’m not even a turtle; but gee, they’ll tell me what’s the use of all that luxury and so much waste of imagination in two thousand years of culture, when they end up cooking a living creature so that the meat becomes more tender.
Lots of Oxford and lots of milk, but they still hunt sharks, sperm whales and seals with their shovels, leaving the beaches stained with blood. Not to mention bullfighting in the 21st century.
And to leave it now, I don’t want to prolong, I already say, I was not a turtle. Although, I admit, yes the plastic proof of the shell gave me away, a notch, however unmistakable, on the back; so much so that if I touched it with my dorsal fin, the certainty of my imperfect nature blinded me so much that I would want to cry.
Because,
dubium hominiumCould there be a reality that transcends us, an unknown dimension that traps us, that web of identity that makes us doubt everything, including ourselves?
No.
I didn’t live in a metaphysical fifth wall; What stretched out before me was not Escher’s staircase, but the perfect, clear shoreline of a tropical beach.
Can there be anything more real than a coconut beach?
I was certainly not a turtle and you only had to know me to realize it.
I remembered that, perhaps in another existence, I was a very handsome man. She had dreamy blue eyes and smooth skin like a bar of soap. The fine hands, the long, refined and graceful body, certainly thin, with fibrous limbs, agile, nervous, dynamic, a body in constant motion, a lover of risky excursions, extreme sports, an unconditional lover of oxygenated air.
As a correspondent for the London Post, he had traveled the world several times, by car, boat and hot air balloon. I had sat on the terraces of cafes and read the French Existentialists with a pencil behind my ear. From there he had written the best association articles, which he later sent out on teletype, long before the internet. They knew me in all the newsrooms in the world. I was the one who discovered that King George V liked to dress as a woman, with panties and tights and goose feathers in his hair. I’ve been following the news for weeks. I slept in the car, bribed the servants, housekeepers and cooks, until I found the bone and never left it. Days later, I ran the article in the newspaper, sparking one of the most serious government crises in decades, making my name. Thanks to my correspondence card, I snuck into all the parties, weddings, baptisms, and birthdays of industrialists and politicians across the ideological spectrum; international conferences, symposia and art galleries: he understood medieval triptychs as well as modern and contemporary novels. My collection of rare wines has been the envy of many winegrowers in the region. She had it all: grace, fortune, beauty, and I say that in all humility. I was the lord of my time and I steered the ship of my bachelorhood with a steady hand. He was an acknowledged villain, but likeable.
And now I drowned in the strait from a shell! And now my individuality, the most precious possession for every Westerner, was entangled on a beach with thousands of shells like mine! And yet my complaints were useless.
When I hatched and saw the light of day and thousands of companions who were indifferent to my existential outbursts ran to the water, I knew it was run or die.
Soon the beach was literally covered with shells and empty shells. Only when I heard the sound of wings beating overhead did I forget my chimeras: a cloud of cormorants, gulls and other birds contested our bodies still sensitive to the bite. You had to run from here. I then hatched, left the shell I was born in, and started running. Without wanting to, moved by a categorical imperative stronger than myself, I saw myself waving my arms among the mass of newborns, or above them, they me. How many of my sisters died on those beaches.
On that endless beach I paused to quietly contemplate the scene and said to myself:
Oh come on Cecil. This is not happening to you… This is just absurd!
I remember falling several times, and getting up many more times, still dizzy from the horrors of chasing those mad birds. And here I don’t remember. I must have tripped over another turtle; Or maybe I bumped my head against a palm tree when I had that strange dream where a man was born. And since then I inhabit a body that is not mine and live an existence that is not mine.
Be careful, it may seem that I am complaining, on the contrary. I live in paradise, I have it all, sex, beach and enjoying the sound of the sea all night long. The salt has left some very attractive tattoos on my shield. I have friends. Everyone likes me, I hardly have predators. The world leaves me alone. I’m a lucky guy.
Then?
Not a single day of my life has gone by that I didn’t want to find myself in a different skin. And don’t ask me why. I suppose it is the eternal song, the ancient trial of Tantalus.
We desire only what we have not been given to possess.
Years have passed, I already say, it’s not a bad thing to be a turtle and I’ve gotten used to it; I only insist that an absurd and lamentable mistake has been made with me: a mistake that has forever robbed me of my human condition.
Source: La Verdad
I am David Jackson, a highly experienced professional in the news industry. I have been working as an author at Today Times Live for over 10 years, and specialize in covering the entertainment section. My expertise lies in writing engaging stories that capture readers’ attention and deliver timely information about the latest developments.
