A Turtle's Existentialism

El Existencialismo de la Tortuga 

Sometimes I can't tell if my turtle just wants to call it quits.  This would be ironic, its having another five or six decades to plod through, minimum, but I can't help wondering if my turtle is satisfied with living.

It just sits there, ever underwater, beneath a big, fake rock, surrounded in a vulgar milieu of rigid, plastic plants and a bumbly pirate theme of sunken treasure--a treasure chest which bursts with bubbles on one end of the tank while a skull (adorned with a pirate hat) rests agape on the other.  And what could truly mock a longing for death like a skull, la calavera itself, in costume?  Its manufacturer's soft swing at realism leaves the cartoonish skull with a sparing amount of teeth; its mandible juts outward with a smiley underbite.  A pirate hat remains above the cranium, though skin and hair must have long since been eaten away, and in only such a treacherous abyss like the one found in a 45-gallon tank, the same tank that became the burial ground of this presumed Hanna-Barbera character's head, apparently lopped off and tossed into the murky depths of Baltimore City's water, sinking all the way to the bottom, all 18 inches, and where after some time was pecked bare in the livingroom darkness, is where only my turtle now lives.

Anyway, the turtle just sits there underwater, staring out at a bookshelf with books, old CDs and a framed quote from Thoreau: "Go confidently in the direction of your dreams.  Live the life you've imagined."

And that's what the turtle stares at all day from under its fake rock.  Looking away from the pirate scene and at the bookshelf, it faces a quote from one of the most progressive, ascetic minds ever, an enviro-anarchist at that, one who protested the very same capitalism that had these words framed in the first place, the same words that are probably on fifty-plus percent of graduation cards around the United States, all sold in mass and bought in haste for $4.99 a pop, most the time accompanied with a check from a guilty uncle, an awkward neighbor or an AWOL godparent, the child's name written legibly if the name is spelled right; these are the Go Git 'Em words of the future that this turtle stares at all day.

Her name is April, by the way, and she wasn't always like this.  She used to swim all day.  When the room was empty and no one was around, she would climb up onto her plastic, floating island and bask underneath the heat lamp.  This was back when she still had the island, and when the tank was filled to the top.  April isn't actually mine, either; she's Tommy's--I just live with the two of them.  Anyway, when her tank was full, Tommy used to have a floating, little island for April--he got rid of it when he lowered the level of her water.  She would swim feverishly around the tank all day, and when she wanted to rest, she would climb up onto the island and chillax in the human sun.  I never actually got to see her perched on her island because, back then, the slightest movement would send her careening back into the water.  I just know that every time I entered the room there would be a splash.  Now she just sits under the rock and stares.

I think it's sad, really.  Would she be happier outside, in a stream?  I feel like her life expectency would obviously be cut by decades what with predators and harsh MD winters.  But wouldn't she be more a fit to her natural role in life, if there is in a fact a natural role when borne into the human hands of captivity?    Tommy bought her out of a kiddie pool on a street corner in Brooklyn.  She even came home with a brother, Soapy.  The two of them were swimming around the inflatable pool with all of their brothers and sisters when Tommy saw them.  Actually, his girlfriend wanted them, so Tommy bought them.  They took April and Soapy home and watched them grow.  

Eventually Soapy got sick.  His eyes swelled up and he went blind.  He couldn't find his food, so Tommy had to feed him by hand.  Tommy would push Soapy's jaw apart and feed a vile of liquid protein twice a day for Soapy.  He even gave Soapy daily (and expensive) antibiotic eye drops.

The hard work never paid off, though, as Soapy would eventually pass.  Tommy felt super guilty and told himself that the same thing wouldn't happen with April.  He went to the pet store and consulted the pro's.  He took their advice: he bought the best dehydrated krill out there; he got cleaner and a new water pump, a treasure chest water pump; he started filtering her tank bi-weekly.  He started giving her playtime outside of the tank.  He got her a small crew of various little fish, for companionship he said, and even though she ate them one by one, he went out and got more.  The only piece of advice he didn't catch, or at least failed to infer, was that the tank shouldn't be full.

So for a couple years, that's how April lived, in a full tank, and that's when I met her.  I guess it's hard to tell if a turtle is happy, but I could tell that she was definitely more active.  When she wasn't swimming furiously about the tank, she rested under the heat.  When she was swimming, she would follow passerby as they walked past her tank.  She played with the bubbling, pirate chest water filter.  Each time a bubble emerged from the belly of the chest, the chest's door swung open.  April would float above it and try to keep the chest shut.  It was like her game, or her meditation in motion, or her daily workout; she would play with it for minutes on end.  

Then Tommy found out the tank shouldn't be full, so he emptied it down to a quarter its original capacity.  We felt guilty--should she have been forced to swim that much?  It made me think: with all that swimming around, she must have had some serious little turtle abs under that shell.  

Now I am not so sure.  Since the lowering of the water, I've only seen her sit under the fake rock.  The island is gone, too, just sitting in a shopping bag on the floor next to the tank.  And so she just sits there, staring out at the picture frame.  She pays less mind to the people who walk by her.  She gives her chest little attention, and when she does, her chest "wins" every time because she can no longer float above it--the bubbles swing open the door and blast her little arms away when she tries covering it.  It's sad, really.

So what is to make of this whole operation or ritual or cradling?  What, or who, is April, and what is the meaning of her existence--is her shell her home, her tank her planet and our house her universe?  What is the role of Tommy, or me for that matter, and where or how do we co-exist?  I've never felt that our lives are meaningless; I think that life, whether it is engineered or an accident, the results are a beautiful gift and should be showered with celebration every waking second.  But as for April, what is she doing here, in this tank?  It's like the tank is furniture and she is a toy, or she is just part of the furniture, a living piece of furniture.  Who started this mess, not just April's situation, but the whole declining population of turtles on this planet, los tortugas entiro de la Madre Tierre?  Who started selling turtles?  Who started buying them?  Who is breeding them?  What is this sick cycle we perpetuate, one that spontaneously sparks in me enough existential anxiety to cry in my kitchen on a Monday evening after work?  

This can't be what it feels like to be God, but if it does, if there is a "hand that feeds" from the skies, is a turtle tank a microcosm of it all?  Are we all stuck under a fake rock, just staring at the direction of a once-shiny quote, now hackneyed and mangled by the rest of us, casting spells and shadows at each other from our own tanks, cannibalizing our own kind, leeching off each other for shit like ego and money and material, which, when thought in the context of a turtle's tank, is all meaningless anyway?  Is that what we're doing, creating our own gods and killing each other with them, even killing ourselves, all with the same shit we adore?  And if these earth gods we create are in fact meaningless, what is to make of a God god--is a God god even there, or just forgotten?  Is there a God god circling around our overpopulated tank, checking in on us twice a day, making sure we are caught up on our premium crawdads?  And if so, if from outside the tank, if this is what it is to be a God god, simply by being a neutral third party which keeps us alive with minimal effort, if this is what it feels like to be God god, then a God god could just as easily forget the tank and start over.  Being a God god is to have no consequence.  Nihilism can be the name brand and the erupting liberation of no commitment is the currency.

It is only by this comparison, my life and hers, the human population and turtles', which makes me question whether April wants to die or not.  She is just sitting there: this is her eternity, her yesterday, today and tomorrow.  She doesn't have anything to feel and even less to work for, and just knowing that, to me, with this wealth of human experience, I could not live that existence.  I live to be moved, but that is only because I have felt what it is to laugh in fear and cry with joy.  But what about the pragmatic essence of never feeling moved, no pain and no joy, just... being, maybe, just maybe turtles in her position are lucky to be so confined, and maybe, just maybe they end up on top.  They don't have anyone else to quarrel with, especially about money or God, because to them, money is nothing and God is boring.  They, too, can live without consequence, just like a god.  In essence, the raw, concentrated peace of nihilism without knowing a damn thing makes them their own god, or better yet, breaks them free from God.  One day it will all be over anyway.  But for now, April can just be.

In the meantime, it is we who should never forget to enjoy the heat from above, even when you're swimming furiously.