Turtle

In which I turn the car and my imagination around.

Yesterday I was driving on a scenic local road that meanders along a river. Smack-dab in the middle of the road, in the dead center of the yellow dividing line, was a shiny, domed rock. It wasn’t until after I blew by that I realized it wasn’t a rock, but a turtle.

By the time I fully processed this I had gotten significantly beyond the turtle. I kept driving, thinking how unfortunate a place the middle of a road is for a turtle to situate itself. Turtles do not move swiftly under the best of circumstances, and this one, from what I could tell, had given up. I imagined my return trip featuring the flattened turtle baking on noonday asphalt.

Twenty seconds after this sad musing it struck me that I could change the turtle’s fate by going back and saving it. By the time I worked this out I was even further away, but I knew I couldn’t forgive myself if I didn’t at least attempt a rescue.

I pulled a U turn. On the way back, there had been no cars coming from the direction of the turtle sighting, which gave me hope. Then, a bright red Jeep filled with raucous Disney villain teens of the sort I could easily imagine deliberately swerving to hit a turtle careened by.

My immediate forgone conclusion- turtle blam, kaput- was horribly upsetting, but I figured the least I could do was punish myself by confronting the gruesome aftermath of my delayed reaction.

As I approached I saw the shiny dome still intact, still in the middle of the road. I pulled over, jumped from the car, and grabbed the turtle. Placing it at the edge of the river, I imagined it sliding into its sweet migratory destiny from the same overwrought headspace as turtle pancake and Disney hooligans, only this time, happy.