Turtle Planet - Yun Rou

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      “Now I just feel stupid. Whether we choose our gods or they choose us, it makes perfect sense they should be in a form and context that has meaning for us, that provides succor and solace, that eases our suffering.”

      The turtle nods. “See this fishhook in my beak? Never have been able to get rid of it. Hurts me every day. For a long time, I found it easier to deal with because of the God of Music, because I loved him and he loved me. He would come down to the dock, sometimes with his woman, sometimes with his kid, and play on and on for me. I’d float on the surface, not even worrying about the fishhook or the sturgeon or anything else. If I’d been eaten at any of those moments, I wouldn’t have cared at all. It would have been a fine way to go. These days, when I’m not on a mission like this one, I’m with him all the time.”

      “I wish I could play some music for you,” I say.

      “Thanks for saying that, Monk. You’re a nice fellow. I heard that about you.”

      “So that was it? The wife died and you never heard any more music?”

      “I was here longer than he was, and he knew that would be the case. So, he took care of me. Send his kid afterwards. That’s how I know about Elvis. There are speakers made for swimming pools, for people who swim laps half the day. The boy dropped one of those in the river so I could hear the tunes. He used a radio at first, then a CD player, then a little gizmo that streamed free music. Helped me with suffering worse than the fishhook. Of course, that boy’s no young man anymore.”

      “What could be worse than a hook you can’t get out of your mouth?”

      The snapper let go a laugh, sending bubbles the size of large pizza pies to the surface. “One time, I went after the sturgeon and got a soda can instead. I didn’t mean to swallow it. Didn’t even know it was there. The can was all twisted up and its sharp edges cut me on the inside while they were passing through. I couldn’t move my legs. I had to lie there and just wait for it to come out. All that time, I just focused on how much the God of Music loved me and all he was doing for me.”

      “He might have spared you the can,” I say mildly.

      “That’s not how gods work. Not how immortals work, either. You should know that. Like I told you a minute ago, we’re not here to do the work for you, we’re here to help you understand why the work matters.”

      “The pollution in this river,” I say. “The terrible things you’ve been through and seen.”

      “Those were all so I could share them with you,” he answers. “This is part of your spirit-writing now. To understand about how our gods choose us and we choose them, to spread the word about what humans are doing to the world. I’m a top predator, but nature can still make me suffer. You’re top predators, too, and the same thing happens to you. You have to care for each other, and the world…”

      “The way you care for that sturgeon. Loving him even though—”

      “Just like that. And you have to understand what your gods are for and pay special attention to them.”

      “I have to go,” I say. “Apparently, the lesson is over. But I have one more question.”

      “Shoot.”

      “That key around the God of Music’s neck. What did it unlock?”

      “Really? You don’t know?”

      “I don’t.”

      “My heart, of course.”

      He settles back down into the bottom of the river. That big sturgeon closes in, gills fluttering. He flashes his gleaming belly at that fearsome beak, zooms away with a flick of his tail, then circles back as the giant maw opens and the tantalizing, tricky tongue twists. A wizened old man trundles toward the river. He’s got a rough-hewn cane in one hand and a bright yellow loudspeaker in the other. He walks all the way to the end of the rickety dock, and sends it down by rope, inch by inch, to the surface below.

      “Here you go, old friend,” he says, leaning back against the dock. “Here’s a little Beethoven for you.”

      It’s a quiet day in the park today, punctuated only by the rumbling of a cluster of thunderstorms hovering out east over the ocean. Some ground iguanas, imports that have escaped from a nearby reptile wholesaler, have colonized the area and now peek out of holes in trees and scamper across the ground as if their tails are on fire. Sometimes when I’m meditating, I can hear the sound they make as they pass over dried leaves. Perhaps because it’s a peaceful day and I don’t have to try so hard to get into a turtle trance, it takes a while for me to settle down. I guess it’s because just being there in the park is relaxing enough.

      When I finally do achieve a different state, I find myself hovering over a crowded, tropical landscape. Traffic on a wide road below goes in two primary directions but is largely helter-skelter. There are small trucks and smaller cars and thousands of motorbikes. The presence of tuk-tuks, three-wheelers with bench seating behind the driver, tells me I’m in Southeast Asia. There’s a small lake nearby. I lower myself toward the water and find a group of beggars scattered about. They hold signs proclaiming, in English, that they are victims of Agent Orange. One of them has no legs. Another has no face—his eyes are missing, his ears are missing, there is a single hole where his nose should be, and his mouth is a thin, undersized line. A placard identifies the lake as the one airman John McCain parachuted into after his plane was shot down.

      This is Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam.

      I return to the road. Traffic has jammed up near the lake. A small red pickup truck with its tailgate down stops quite near the water. I see a Styrofoam cooler in the back and notice the lid is ajar and moving. The beautiful, yellow head of a female Vietnamese box turtle appears. She looks around, sees the lake, and begins to clamber out. Her eight-inch-long shell is domed and keeled, and a rich brown in color. Her claws gain a purchase on the Styrofoam, and she pushes off the lid of the cooler and drops to the bed of the pickup with a thud. She’s on her back, displaying her short tail and a yellow plastron. She has some trouble flipping over, but eventually, uses the swell of the wheel well to set herself right.

      “Hey,” I say.

      She looks around and finally sees me. “Monk,” she nods. “How are you today?”

      “I’m fine, thanks. What’s happening to you. What are you doing in the back of that truck?”

      “Teaching you a lesson about freedom, I suppose. And about compassion.”

      “Thank you. But who put you there?”

      It takes her a few tries, but she manages to claw her way to the top of the wheel well, from which vantage point she can look around. “The driver caught me,” she says. “I’ve been so good at hiding in that pond, but he found me at last. Before today, he took my mother and he took my brothers and he took my father and he took my sisters. He has been the bane of our family’s existence for years. He and his friends have taken so many of us, I don’t know if there are any left at all.”

      “Where does he take you?”

      “I don’t know. None of us has ever returned to say. I fear the worst.”

      “The soup pot?”

      “I won’t speak of it. I refuse to accept that my entire family has met such an end. I just want to get away from your kind.”

      “I’m different,” I say. “I’ve no desire to harm any living thing. I avoid stepping on ants. I don’t eat animals. I save spiders on my walls using teacups and saucers and put them outside. Okay, sometimes, I kill cockroaches, but I’m not happy about it and I’m not proud, either.”

      The box turtle steps up

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