Chapter 5: The Cowboy Life

Hang on, I still hadn't gotten to the mountains yet. I was still on the train at this point in the story. Stretched my rubbery head out of my little haven in the middle of the night, just about forgot where I was. Rusting metal walls with flecks of paint tumbling off-- I was still just waking up in that short bubble of time where the mind draws a blank from the registers of the past and present, so these walls could've been my home. Then my ears came to, and the rhythmic ka-lump-a-lumping of the train grew on my consciousness. These things, with the full moon looking in on me through the gaping door, acted together not only to shake some memory into me (I was not at home), but to inject a cold, raw fear into my system.

I panicked, shot up to my feet, and called out, "Pa! Pa?" I ran breathlessly over to the door and peered outside-- couldn't see much out there but these big, scary dark lines racing beneath my feet in a speckled pale blur. I called out for him, but he didn't answer. My lips began to quiver, my eyes to burn, as a certain despair gripped my heart. Would I see my home ever again? Where was I? What have I done? I'm going to die! I need my Pa!

The indifferent nighttime only made it worse, not to mention the cold, nasty wind whirling in. "Toughen up, boy!" They seemed to say mercilessly. "Ya gotta be rough to make it in this world!" I was all alone, without my Pa. I just couldn't help it; I just sank to my knees and wept and bawled my little heart out.

So I did the only thing I knew to do: Retreat to my corner again, hide in my shell, and squeeze my eyes closed. Just then my eyes peeked open and felt drawn to the dark, shadowy corner opposite from where I was. A new fear pierced me. I sniffed and said, "Hello?" There came no reply. But an instinctive fear began to grow in my stomach. Why does my imagination pick the worst times to tease me? But only, I couldn't look away from this evil patch of black, growing more and more evil the more I tried to ignore it.

Did something move? "H-hello?"

Without warning something satanic and enormous, twice the height of a grown man, was unmistakably rising from the ground. My blood ran ice-cold.

A long, wretched face slowly emerged from the shadows; on it were no eyes. Out from beneath it grew long, bony legs in ragged overalls of faded hue; bare feet with untamed claws! And those terrible demon eyes seared a hole through my face. I edged toward the door slowly, trying not to excite it. But suddenly he screeched-- the most horrifying screech in the world-- burst forward, and these long, hairy arms reached up and grabbed for me; I scurried and stumbled on something, and-- for a brief moment, the world disappeared from beneath my feet, and my stomach was lost.

Wham! All fours whipped in with my head. The trembling world outside my shell rumbled across like a violent slideshow. At this very instant I was stricken with the painful realization that I was waking up for a second time. Gravity must've just woken up from a bad dream too, because he pushed and pulled furiously, not remembering which side of the world he was on. If ever there were a rude awakening from Pa marching around my room flipping on all the lights and bang-bang-banging away on his "good-morning" pan till I was deaf (I wanted to steal that blasted pan and bury it somewhere many times but was too afraid to), this topped them all.

Gravity sobered up, and the motion picture came to an abrupt pause. It was suddenly silent. The wind whistled a little bit. Then some startled crickets shrugged and resumed their chirping nearby. My dizzied eyes, squeezed shut, now opened, and slowly, heart-pounding, I peered breathlessly out the corner of my little cave.

Just as my dancing vision adjusted, and as I began to slowly slide all fours out of my shell to feel the earth, at a faint shout they all retreated quickly back in. I listened intently; it wasn't human. Something somewhere, miles away from here, howled mournfully. Then a whole pack of them picked up on the first's solo and joined in a cacophonous chorus.

Coyotes. It chilled me to the bone. But it grew on me, and when they stopped, I wished they hadn't.

By now any regrets I had for having left home only minutes ago, any tears shed on the train, and the night terror of mine were forgotten and replaced with an overpowering wonderment of the world all around me. An exhilarating wind whipped around violently here, exercising ruthless authority over the land. Every last silhouette of the shifting trees with their leaves glittering in the moonlight, the swaying grass of the whispering plains, the towering hills around this dark valley, the little specks of stars up above, and the coyotes' music most of all-- all came pouring into my senses like-- like what? Just plain richness, that with which reality trumps dreams. The richness wasn't in what I saw, but in how alive I felt in comparison to before, how much existence I felt, and it was terribly fantastic. To attempt to express this to another would be blasphemy-- it just hits you on the inside, but no words or music or pictures can justify the feeling that it gives you to be out there among the wild things with nothing but a soothing canopy of twinkling stars over your head. It's almost enough to make you hate the bed you sleep in. Wandering cowboys with horses and campfires had it made back in the day. I thought I could live out there forever.

I'd always wanted to be a cowboy. I didn't know how a turtle would look in an outfit like theirs, but maybe I'll try it on sometime when nobody's looking.

So why did I come out here?

None of my friends wanted to. Pete seemed warm to the idea at first, but when the fateful morning came and, after playing sick, I telephoned him to come over and join me on my quest, his mama answered instead. That lousy chicken had gone to school-- just plain chickened out on me. She had no idea about the plan, so he was honorable in keeping quiet-- but still a big, fat chicken. I wondered if he had told anybody else at school. Pete was the only boy there who almost had the guts as I laid out my plan for adventuring and cowboying across the vast, dusty land to the group of enthralled boys with lit-up eyes huddled around my desk. At first they didn't think I was being serious, so they all smiled and said things like, "Dude! That would be so awesome!" and, "I would totally be down for that!" But then as I went on, I read it plainly in their fading smiles, they didn't even have to say it: "Wait a minute... He's serious?" and they slowly backed away. Pete was the one who stuck around and showed promise of being my sidekick, but when the metal came to the music, he shrank away too.

Pa had had adventures as a reckless kid. Now it was my turn, and here I am. I wasn't about to let any of my classmates stop me, no matter how hard they pleaded for me to come to my senses. Wouldn't even think about letting them talk me out of it. And if I'd asked Pa, he'd just laugh and suggest a weekend trip to the Grand Canyon. The only image that came to my mind was a long, miserable walk behind a tour-guide explaining things that no reasonable ten-year old would want to know. "No running," he'd probably say (as if my running could get me anywhere). "Stay five feet behind the railings. Okay, now look at this gorge here. Back in 1845..." (I'd gathered that all tours went this way after Pa took me to a tour in the mountains before. It was the most excruciatingly boring day of my entire life, and I wanted to die.)

And so there I was, 'bout twelve hours after I'd dove into the roaring river, now fresh from the spill down the hill off of that train. I stood up and dusted myself off. I looked around and surveyed the majestic dominion of mother nature that engulfed me on all sides, and I suddenly felt very, very small. To a bird up above I would have been a speck; any onlooker would've lost patience and gone crazy watching the little speck of me inch its way across the endless void.

My four little feet started their long, hard work as I began moving toward a spot on the black horizon I'd picked out with my eyes. It was a distant hilltop capped with a solitary tree; I'd figured that, since there was no place in particular to go to out there, that was as good a destination as any.

Must've been half a mile away, and I think that any average human being with nice, long legs that swing each step what would be two whole leaps for me could've made it there in about two seconds. It took me all of half an hour. Actually, it might have taken me twice that long if I didn't hurry as I did-- not that I'd felt impatient to get to any place before, nor am I impatient in general, but this night I was anxious to start on my newly found cowboy life. (I needed a hat, a guitar to strap around me to look cool with, a horse to speed things up, and a piece of straw sticking out of my mouth to complete the set. Can turtles ride horses? Well, Pa taught me fiddle, so I think I can ride a horse too. The author seems to agree.)

After what seemed an eternity of scraping and boosting, scraping and boosting, and scraping and boosting (to the point where my mind would have exploded had it gone on any longer, as the tree sometimes seemed to never get any closer), I finally reached the hillside, panting my poor turtle heart out.

Voices floated over to me across the air. They were going up and down, high and low, louder and quieter. Then some uproarious cackling. Then it all went up and down again. Took me a minute to figure that they were singing. Then it took me another minute to realize that I was approaching those voices; and then it finally struck me that they were coming right from where the tree was! An orange halo flickered over the hill's brim. And by golly, there were three big ol' beasts hitched to the tree as well! Were they there thirty minutes ago, or did I just not see them?

One of the horses snorted nervously as I drew near to him, so I kept a safe distance around him, not wanting to get punted a mile away and have to start the walk all over again.

In about five more long minutes, I strategically positioned myself in some tall grass beside the clearing around the oak tree and peered through: Three grown men in overalls (what is it with the author and overalls?). One big, hairy one on an scratched-up bass, another tall, lanky one with a brand-new, glistening green guitar that mirrored the flames, and another short, stocky man on an old fiddle, all three of them huddled around the campfire. Empty bottles of whiskey littered the ground all around them, giving off an awfully potent stench that nearly knocked me out.

The man on the fiddle was just going at it, zipping his bowline up and down like there was no tomorrow. The fat, jolly bass giant set the mood with a big grin across his Santa Clause cheeks while he watched the fiddler and followed hurriedly along. The guitarist sang some, plucking his strings with fingers of lightning. I could've sworn that if I'd amputated his hand while it still playing and set it down, it would've outrun a bullet train!

I didn't even notice my own foot stomping, then my head bobbing up and down, then my elbows swinging left and right like a sailor, and a big, goofy grin on my face, till I was downright dancing and having the time of my life. You don't get this kind of service at home.

Chapter 4: Launching off

Remember what I said about Hubert's "grip on life"? It turns out that Hubert had the spirit of a conqueror, because he wanted to subdue everything in life, everything in his path. The success he'd experienced thus far had emboldened him, made him feel larger than life, larger than people around him. He could control everything his eyes saw and easily manipulate groups of children as he wished.

Pa began to teach him some fiddle, and he picked it up like a charm. How can a turtle play a fiddle? Don't ask me how, but Hubert plays it. Can turtles run, jump, play, sing, and dance too? Because Pa taught him all those things just as well, and although he wasn't especially adept at the former three, he knew nothing of his own limitations. And that's all that matters. (Don't worry, this author won't venture to tell you how Hubert fiddled and danced, because he himself knows nothing of the matter. But who cares??)

Hubert was walking down a dirt path. This dirt path was high up in the mountains. Birds he'd never heard before called out to each other up in the trees, strange (but tasty) creepy crawlers scuttled about, and even the wind whistled a new tune. Little Hubert hobbled along with his walking stick to aid him, because when he stood up, he could see a lot more of the world around him. Standing up was getting easier for him, and he less afraid of it than before. The life-threatening mistake of falling backwards still loomed over him, but he figured he should (and would) learn to find a way to deal with that dilemma.

He even sat down one night and gave it a good thinking. "How would I ever get back up if I fell?" Afraid to experiment, he just drew pictures in the moonlit dust with a twig, thinking through them. Nothing came up.

Another time he found two turtles fighting in a creek. One was apparently the aggressor, the other merely defending itself. The bully wouldn't relent; he finally landed a good bump to the other's shell and flipped him over, rendering him helplessly drowning in the water. Horrified, Hubert rushed to the victim's aid and turned it back over with his walking stick before it was too late. Then he looked at the other indignantly and, picking it up (wanting to fling it downstream, but refraining), carried it far away from its target. He set it down in the grass a good couple of stones' throws off and hoped the two would never meet again. Then he picked his stick back up, wandered through the woods, and resumed his merry journey to who-knows-where for who-knows-why.

This mountain trail was a thousand miles from home. Back at home, frantic Pa had no idea where he disappeared to, and he ordered the police to scour the countryside for him. Being the influential community man that he was, the police complied willingly. The newspapers displayed his face in the "Missing" column. Hubert had not shown up in class for over a month, and even the teachers who couldn't stand him were starting to get very worried. Classmates spread rumors that he'd gotten kidnapped, or that he'd been murdered, but none of these rumors were true. Hubert was alive and well, healthier and happier than he'd ever been in his whole life, and he wasn't kidnapped. Truth be told, he forgot all about his teacher and classmates.

You see, it happened like this:

Hubert had wandered out to the creek after a heavy deluge had swept across the land. He fooled Pa that morning with moans and groans about a fever, and stumbled around feigning dizziness. Babysitter Betty was summoned, and Pa quickly paid her and rushed out the door, late for work.

Betty hauled the TV from the garage (Hubert's bedroom) into the living room to get sapped up on her favorite soap opera. As if soap operas weren't repellent enough for fun-loving turtle boys who were perfectly happy with life… So Hubert went outside and headed for the stream.

The nearer his waddling feet plodded to the stream, the louder the hissing of the rushing waters grew; this thing wasn't a gentle gurgling stream anymore. As he came still nearer, the hiss grew to a roar. Then, as it came to view, Hubert's jaw dropped to the ground.

The place where he and Pa had sat many Saturday mornings was three feet underwater. As he came up to the water's edge, which had risen well above the bank, he wondered at the fearsome display of heavy tree branches drifting down this angry river's path. It had been raining for a week, just raining and raining, and this was the storm's wrathful creation. A bunch of simple little raindrops from the sky got together and started a mob here.

People look at these kinds of things and say, "Oh, that's dangerous!" or "Make sure you don't fall in!" Hubert didn't think any of these things... You see, Hubert is a turtle, and turtles... well, they think differently. Hubert turned around and looked at where he'd come from, his triangle-toed footprints in the mud walking backwards to the tiny dot of the house off in the distance. Way over there, he thought, that pea-brained babysitter's watching her stupid TV show, not getting to see any of God's awesome power out here. But I kinda like seeing it by myself this way.

Then he swiveled back around. Suddenly an impulse took hold of him, and his legs were possessed by a spirit. They began moving forward. Slowly at first. A little faster. Then faster. Then faster, until they were full-out running. His left foot struck the last of the dry ground with a force only heavily burdened turtle legs can have, and hurtling through the air he shrieked with delighted excitement. Shell and all plunged into the torrent, bubbled, and up he resurfaced with sheer thrill coursing through his whole body. "Daggum it, when you get to see the awesome might of a rushing flood, you don't sit there and watch. You get off your boring butt and dive in!" This, anyway, was his turtle logic.

The noise like a rumbling stampede enveloped him; the sound of a million bubbles bloating and bursting and wind blowing-- that's all it sounded like. He looked behind him and imagined the babysitter seeing him floating down the river, going frantic on shore like a furious chicken, screeching things unintelligible to him over the roaring water. He smiled mischievously at this imaginary apparition and turned back ahead. The soaked little brown floater, all fours tucked in and head craning over the water, was enjoying the ride. "How come other people aren't doing this?" He laughed for no reason, full of delight, and his spirits soared as the river stole him away.

Hubert later got bored of the water, especially with there being nobody to share it with. So he wrestled himself out and found himself at an opening in the woods, a parting that revealed a field he had never seen. The same spirit that had taken hold of him before again ordered him to move forward. So he did.

Then he saw a train coming. All of its boxcar doors were open, and the train was slowing down for something, so when he saw an opportunity, he wrestled himself up onto one of the boxcar floors. (Any time Hubert gets out of something, if you were to see it, you would agree that "wrestle" is the only word for it. He was a good wrestler.)

The train sped up just then, as if it had purposely slowed to invite Hubert to hop on, and Hubert looked out the door at the yellow-green blur of the land rushing by. He shrugged and spoke by the spirit of adventure: "Well, that's it. Guess this is goodbye for a while. Goodbye Pa. Goodbye Betty. Goodbye school. Goodbye Miss Gladstone." And he said goodbye to every classmate whose name he could remember, until he could speak no more and was lulled to sleep by the rhythm of the train tracks. Fast things make turtles very tired.

Chapter 3: The Amazing Turtle Rocket

Yes, Hubert made friends.

Hubert made LOTS of friends.

EVERYBODY loved Hubert. In fact, his turtle-domedness gave him status in the world of undiscriminating children, but that was only the start.

Kids lined up at recess to ride on Hubert's back; the teacher, Miss Gladstone, squawked that Hubert didn't want to give rides to others. "Are you kidding?" Hubert said. "I never said that!"

He'd take them on rides; he'd play the part of the friendly dinosaur, horse, or dragon offering safe passage on his back across the kingdom or swamp or lava field.

One day it rained, and this was the best day of Hubert's life.

The playground was as it always is when it's beneath dismal, cloudy skies and on wet, soggy ground: dead. Yes, kids populated it, but they weren't running kids, or smiling kids, or laughing kids. Nobody could do anything! The puddles kept children from playing sports, and the ground was too muddy for tag or hide-and-seek.

There was a hill on the margins. Hubert took two buddies on his back up to this place, with no intentions whatsoever on this dismal day.

It was this way that they accidentally discovered Hubert's most exciting gift: being a self-steering, walking, talking mud-sled. As the two friends blazed down the hill at unprecedented playground speeds, at their shrieks of delight all play stopped, all chatter hushed. Everyone turned. They watched with gaping jaws. As the amazing turtle rocket dragged to a stop, Hubert peered out of his shell and looked casually around, trying to hide his smile, but couldn't. The sun itself also peered, out of the clouds, just then and sent one lone ray on his glistening green head. All eyes were on him. And they blew up, cheering for Hubert, proclaiming him the hero of the day, rushing forward for their turn on the amazing turtle rocket, shouting and clamoring and fighting over him. All the rest of the recess was a long line of impatient, excited boys and girls, waiting their turn as the ones in front hurriedly escorted the royal Hubert up the hill in a wagon. Hubert didn't have to do anything, anything at all, except lean left or right now and then to miss a rock. He thoroughly enjoyed being treated this way.

And as Miss Gladstone's whistle blew, a loud groan went out.

And so his dominion over the elementary school grew and solidified. It was also his grip on life; he had life in a clenched fist, completely in his control, and he felt it too. He was slow both in speed and speech, was a head shorter than the rest standing up and a body shorter when he turtlized his stance. But if he noticed this, he paid it no heed. It was his attitude--as if he were there to lead the children into the Promised Land of fun and laughter-- that made him great, loved, and sometimes even feared, by girls and boys alike.

Pa would warn him not to get too cocky sometimes.

Chapter 2: Growin' On Up

:

        Hubert grew like a weed. From the time he was old enough to show recognition of his father entering the room— bouncing up and down wearing a big, bubbly grin emitting squeals of excitement and delight (he loved his daddy!)— to the time he was taught by Pa how, with confusing coordination, to trade four limbs for two like the rest of the human race (Pa saw Hubert as a person and wanted to keep it that way), Hubert exploded in size. The father therefore was seen more and more often stumbling through the door looking like a walking grocery-sack tree to feed this growing stomach.

        Luckily, our wishing well was too dim to know about turtles’ absent jaws. Hubert defied nature and developed two full rows of them, as each poked out of the gum one by one. (Pa, however, not knowing much about the species either, didn’t think anything of it.) Learning to speak therefore didn’t challenge him; in fact, Hubert pronunciated words with impressive clarity, and with, more noticeably, a certain characteristic and easygoing slowness that made him even more likable to Pa. It soothed Pa’s ears—they were always sick of enduring coworkers’ chitchat about the most amazingly boring things—“Look at my new coffee mug my wife bought me,” or “So, how about the game last night? What’d you think of the new quarterback?” (when Pa thought no more about sports than he did of how the economy must be faring in Kazakhstan) or, in worst case scenarios, “So yeah, I got a new shirt.” (Great, let’s talk about your new shirt. There must be a million things I can say about that!) Every evening he escaped from that cave of screeching office bats into a calm, quiet house out in the gorgeous countryside, wherein the air was filled with the soothing little voice of a turtle boy. Each day he returned home from work, handed the babysitter her due, and joyfully watched his son waddle up to him. He could tell too that Hubert had to think painstakingly about things before exerting the drawn-out effort to say them, because he was so slow and didn't want to waste time repeating sentences; just for this he loved him all the more, for he sometimes smiled unconsciously when listening to him.

As years passed by, Hubert’s shell began to require grunts and groans of laborious effort to squeeze through cramped doorways; traversing the household became more and more of a burdensome ordeal to him, until at last all such endeavors skidded to a standstill; one morning he awoke and couldn’t exit his own bedroom! In distress he called out to Pa for help, and so Pa had to call in sick to work that day.

Hours later, Pa was sorry for the gaping hole in the wall where Hubert’s window had been, wrenched completely out with a thundering thud after he’d wrestled Hubert’s bulging frame through, along with debris of plaster and snowing pink fluffs of fiberglass insulation. Hubert was going to be homeless outside for a few days and nights, but being a turtle, this was alright.

So Pa had an idea. The garage door yawned open early one Saturday. Hubert stood by his dad's side, looked up at him, and wondered what he was about to do. Then with an intimidatingly mighty display of zeal and force, Pa took it by storm; he ripped out everything that uglified, tore down the cobwebs, and gassed the pesky spiders, rodents, and roaches into oblivion. Go live in your own habitats! 


This was before he knew Hubert would eat them, making the room all the more suitable for him. Hubert hardly cared whether it was humanly habitable or not; he had not yet picked up the many strange fears and tastes of people, which are usually acquired rather than inherited. Would you care to buy new clothes if people around you didn’t condemn your faded old ones with holes in them—if they themselves wore rags and hand-me-downs? Later on, Pa would walk in on Hubert munching on a handful of squirming roaches, and Hubert, surprised and confused, with his cocked head and inquiring eyes would watch his grimacing, retching father reel in disgust and clamber backwards through the door. A few long minutes passed in suspense Then he sauntered back out apologetically, wiping his mouth with an honest grimace, saying, “You're goin' to take that outside next time, you understand me?” Hubert didn’t understand, but he lied and nodded his head. Pa got scary when he was mad.

Beyond the well-trimmed and mown backyard stretched limitless golden plains, through which the father and son had ambled many a sunrise after breakfast and sunset after dinner, holding hands. Pa each time enlightened curious little Hubert a little further on the mysterious details of life, or enthralled him with charming stories of his own childhood capers and adventures. Hubert knew that someday he himself would go on adventures like these, and even better ones too. It planted a new seed in him.

        Trudging together man and beast down the half-mile path, they'd come to a quiet little stream.

        On weekends here they’d often plop down their lazy Saturday morning bodies there and doze off in the shade of their favorite apple tree, which seemed to exist for the sole purpose of providing a resting place for two friends, the way its inviting trunk was shaped; they’d let go of themselves there, munch on a few handfuls of nature’s juicy red sweets, and inevitably be lulled into a bit of blissful shut-eye by the gentle, serenading song of the stream's gurgling. Nothing in the world was ever wrong in those times, and Hubert sometimes wished they’d never leave. He always hated it when his dad made his habitual loud yawn, which always meant he was about to climb to his feet, stretch, and prompt Hubert awake, though he nearly always already was, only pretending to be asleep, soaking in every moment of it as best as he could. Sometimes as Pa’s hands would reach for the ground to boost himself up, Hubert would reach out and take a hold of him, shake his head, and plead, “No, let's do it longer!” Now and then Pa acquiesced, but most of the time he’d say that it had to end sooner or later. There was a time for everything that made it beautiful, but when that time passed, it just got plain boring. Children, however, when not as used to some things as adults are, have a larger capacity for remaining in those moments than grown-ups do. Hubert didn’t understand this and began to think that people must get more and more boring as they aged. He secretly decided he wouldn’t be this way.

         So went Hubert's early childhood. Pa loved Hubert dearly, and Hubert dearly loved his Pa.

        

Chapter 1: Fatherly Soul-Searching

You may be wondering, “Why would a man throw his baby down a well?” But if you caught on and realized that it was a wishing well, even then you may think, “But why turn him into a turtle?”

Well, you see…

There really is no good answer to that question. If I’d said that that was the only wish left the well hadn’t granted, the world would be teeming with all kinds of bestial misfits, and this story would simply be a grain of sand on a beach—nothing extraordinary to tell.

The truth, however, is much less interesting. The truth is, this wishing well just didn’t know any better. And how could it? Stones, dirt, and water don't generally score highly on the IQ test, no matter how magical they may be. As a matter of fact, we should be very happy that Hubert, our very own turtlized son, didn’t turn out any worse than he did; he might have come out a gasping fish, a bawking chicken, or something even less lovable, like a grumbling cardboard box. Because nobody likes irritable boxes, and the former two make for a good dinner.

But on a more serious note: 

Earlier that year in the hospital, as the mother lay on the bed, she gazed meaningfully into Pa’s eyes. She knew her time had come—not for birthing. The grisly, fleshy mess around her sweaty figure left evidence enough of that agony having just passed. But the strain had proven too much for her. The burly man knelt by his shriveled wife’s side, quivering in tears, clutching her frail hand in both of his; his tears soaked his beard, unseemly for a man of such stature. He begged her not to leave him. She only offered him her sweet, but sad, tranquil smile. Her lips parted, and she squeaked, with all of her last effort, “Give him your best." At that she capitulated, like a wilting flower to a relentless rainstorm, to the inviting darkness behind closed eyes.

Pa stuck around, always nervously wringing his hands or clenching his fists, keeping distressed vigil over his endangered beloved one hour, then slinking out into the hall the next to inquire after the baby's health. (That Hubert was destined for the life of a paraplegic had pierced him to his paternally sympathetic heart. He wouldn't accept it at first. The brutality of it all! The world needed to wait for his wife's full recovery before mercilessly dropping another predicament on his lap!) Back and forth he drifted like an apparition through the hospital halls, losing all feeling-- back and forth between the two benumbing scourges of his existence.

Later that week she died.

                                                                  -------------------

Maybe I shoulda left him disabled. At least he’d fit into the cripple society.

Pa sat on the moonlit porch, arms around his knees, a glowing cigar poking out of his mouth, and somberly stared off into space. An acidic bubble of anticipation swelled against the insides of his stomach; the infant was more an anxiety than a blessing right now. Why it had to be this way, how it was fair for poor little Hubert, what biblical sense it made—none of these things mattered right now, though he might take them up as complaints to God's throne later. But who can concentrate on such metaphysical things when the immediate and portentous responsibility over one's cursed offspring alone, with no partner, menacingly overshadows him?

Can I handle him alone? Will he have friends? Will he be happy? No, no... I gotta stop this. Pa had a knack for worrying, and he knew it. He rested his clammy face in his hands, silently calling on all his own forces to pull himself together. I’m getting too old for this needless fretfulness, he thought; back in the day when I had youth left to waste, maybe, but not now. It’ll wreck my health, and the baby needs a strong daddy. And speaking of a strong daddy... He snatched the cigar out of his mouth as if it threatened Hubert himself, threw it down between his feet, and almost angrily crushed out its flickering flame.

Some moments later he rescued himself from his downward spiral by clinging to one hope: that all baby Hubert, like any other baby, truly needed were love and attention. "Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up," he murmured from memory. That was all Pa could give! He wasn’t a scholar in childhood psychology, but, out of pride, nor was he about to sacrifice the liberty of possessing some parental spine to a bunch of ruthlessly constricting self-help books. He didn’t understand why parents wouldn’t dare think for themselves anymore, or why they turned to so many websites, books, and doctors for directions. Didn’t we get along just fine without these in the old days? My parents did. And judging by the mental meltdown much of the modern world is plummeting into, maybe the old ways were easier on us, were healthier for us. Instinct. Self-reliance.

And occasionally some guidance from one’s neighbors. He could feel that it was his own naivete speaking as he thought this, but he didn't care enough to correct it. He didn't feel like questioning himself.

Pa craned upward, surveying the serenely starlit sky looming above that soothing, warm summer night.  The twinkling specks up above seemed to mock his anxieties, which were still not quite dead, with their divine indifference to petty, earthly matters, boasting a sufficiently safe distance between them (though they might lose considerable arrogance if they were to be roped and dragged a couple thousand lightyears, to meet our battered world's woes face-to-face). Pa sometimes wished he could sit up there in their philosophical company, away from all the responsibilities in the wearisome business of living. He realized that compared to them and their all-seeing eyes, he knew nothing; he was keenly aware that he was but a bumbling pioneer crossing an unprecedented frontier of fatherhood, stepping out onto fresh and untrodden territory never seen by any other man. But then, knowing and living were two distinct entities which couldn't mingle together anymore than a preacher and a bartender; both belonged in their own territories. And anyway, there was, as far as Pa was concerned, no book on how to rear a boy in a shell, or one with glossy green skin and big, dreamy, alien eyes like little Hubert had. This led to thinking about how he was to discipline Hubert in his childhood years. Shoot, how am I going to discipline him? Spanking will hardly at all faze him. He'd probably laugh at me from inside the safety of his little fortress. He heaved a deep sigh. Well, I'll climb that hill when I get to it. Maybe he'll be such a good boy that I won't need to lay a finger on him. But if he's anything like I was...

There suddenly came to him a sort of strange and unexpected peace. What is it? he asked himself. He waited patiently for his mind to catch up to see what his heart had already comprehended. Then it came: As long as you’re improvising, no one can expect anything of you. I can only do as best as I know how. Yeah, that's it! That's all I need to know!

Finally satisfied with the fruit of such taxing mental labor, he resolutely roused himself from the porch steps, which groaned under his weight. Pa straightened himself up slowly, stretching and yawning, and carried his sleepy body into the house. His heavy eyelids had been protesting for sleep hours ago, only to be snubbed by Pa's dogged craving for immediate answers. He would undertake building Rome in a day if only it meant pacifying his demanding inquisitiveness. People often told him he thought too much, but he paid them no heed; why struggle to change something he enjoyed? What others might have deemed unhealthy was to him an invigorating exercise of exploration (for the most part, though it did hold repercussions of misery sometimes, when answers hid themselves from him, or when they sprung open trap doors to more questions).

He stepped stealthily into the nursery and, after some intent searching, laid his eyes on the murky, swamp-smelling dome nestled in the crib. He wouldn’t have seen the little thing if it weren’t such a noticeably dark blur in the quiet dimness of the cradle. His little scaly arms and legs were drawn in, his head tucked inside of his private domain. All the bright yellow and blue blankets had been deliberately bunched into a corner; the baby had situated itself on the bare, naked wood of the crib’s frame, more to his strange, reptilian liking. Of course, thought Pa. What's the point of giving blankets to an animal with a built-in house of its own? 

Hubert apparently already had developed a sense of reorganizing! He had done this with no help. Pa smiled suddenly with irrepressible warmth; it was a flooding sense of relief to realize that he wouldn’t have to do everything himself; Hubert could figure out many things well enough on his own, even as a baby. They would be a team.

And again, as if to thoroughly cement it into his memory, he thought, Alright, that’s just what I’ll do. I’ll just love you and give you my best shot. There's nothing to worry about after all. Pa kissed the shell, gently placed it down with greatest care so as not to stir the slumbering little creature within, and turned to grope his way through the blackness to bed.

A brand new story now has begun!

- Intro-

A brand new story now has begun
It's a story of a man and a turtlized son
This grand new glory will shine like gold
It's a story of somebody with a turtle body and a human soul

A brand new mission is there to tell
A man will go a-wishin' to the wishing well
With a burnin' heart and a babe in his arms
To turn a paralyzed son into a turtlized one by the wish-well's charm

I've seen a whole lot o' crazy things under the sun
Of all sizes, shapes, and hues
But I never thought I'd lay my eyes on a turtlized son
Now I've got the turtle blues