The Turtle God

By David Bowlin

The only pleasure I've found in the past few years has been staring at the lily pads that float atop the water in this little pond. Their calm swaying to the rippling water soothes this eternal ache in my heart, breaks the sorrow of my mind and gives me a few precious moments of relief. It's the simplest things that can keep a man sane when everything else is madness.

Perhaps madness is too strong a word, but you'll have to decide that yourself. Am I mad? Am I insane? Clearly. So are you. No? Prove me wrong. Do you tear the little tags off the mattresses even though it is against the law? Do you curse while cutting the grass, and immediately afterward turn the sprinkler on, causing it to grow again? Madness, you can't deny it. Only the insane have need of tagged mattresses.

I wasn't always insane, hard as that is to believe now. My daughter and my wife pushed me over the edge of sanity three years ago, and every day since then has been a struggle. They didn't do it intentionally, don't misunderstand me. It wasn't their lives or actions that brought about my understanding of sanity and the acceptance of the insane.

It was their deaths.

Three years can seem like an eternity. Maybe it is an eternity, and the passage of time is an illusion where all the insane people of the world play a game of make believe. A game called normalcy or perhaps adaptability. Civilization, it could be called. Reality could be another name for it. Whatever name we tag it with, the game is still a world of make believe and occasionally someone figures it out.

What do we do with those who break the barrier of delirium, who grasp the concept that all is madness? We lock them away. We give them rubber dolls to play with, straight jackets and padded cells. Insane, we call them. Raving lunatics. We hire medical doctors and mind doctors to study them in a desperate attempt to understand our own mortality. We try to comprehend why these rational people suddenly become psychotic and dangerous. "The poor dear," we are heard to say. "He lost his wife and child, and now he's unstable." Isn't it obvious? I see it so clearly now. How could I have missed it for so many years? The blindness of civilization, I can only guess. The desperate attempt to rationalize all that isn't readily explainable.

This, above all, is clearly madness.

Explain to me the rationality of my wife and little girl burning to death. Where's the sense in that? A faithful wife that loved everyone and an innocent child are murdered by Life and you dare call that sane? I wonder if you would feel the same if it had been your wife and your child that died such horrible deaths. I think you might be the one wearing this jacket and eating your meals with plastic spoons instead of me.

You say I'm crazy, and I haven't disagreed. Even now you shake your head at me, so sure of your intellectual supremacy. Careful, Doctor. As your field is so fond of saying: The line between madness and genius is very thin. I think it's not only thin, but nonexistent. Beethoven is a perfect example. A man who is deaf and blind writes music that he can't hear, and we call him brilliant. How can we judge? Perhaps to him it was ludicrous. History teaches that he was a genius. Yet, I wonder what Beethoven thought of himself. I think he knew he was stark raving mad. Why else would a deaf man write music?

Another example for you. Alexander the Great. The conqueror! He strove to conquer the world, and very nearly succeeded. We celebrate his brilliance and greatness, we honor his name as one of the greatest military minds ever. At the same time, by the same standards, we detest the very mention of Hitler. Wasn't he also a genius? How can one be considered brilliant and the other insane? Surely not by the degree of their achievements.

I grow tired of your questioning, Doctor.

Yes, the lily pads. That's why I am a guest in this fine establishment, isn't it? The lily pads. I ache to see them again, though I think I will never have this one small pleasure, and so I am sinking farther and farther into the raging blankness that is madness. He took them away, he took all of them away.

You know who I am speaking of! Why do you ask me this every day? Would it not prove my insanity to you if I denied it after repeating the same story to you each day? Would you believe me after all these years?

Fine. One more time, and then please leave me. It's late, and I'm very tired.

There is a pond on Barnes Street. The little brick and stucco houses that surround it cuddle their families within, the typical American middle class neighborhood. Backyard barbecues, baseball games, and bicycles. We lived there, right across the street from the pond, and every Saturday we would go fishing there, though we never caught anything. We didn't try, really; it was just for spending time together.

Damn you, Doctor Brine! Damn these tears and damn you for making me relive these memories every fucking day! She's gone, you son of a bitch, she's gone and she's not coming back! They're both gone. Why don't you just leave me alone!

Just shut up and listen, Doctor. I don't need or want to hear your analytical bullshit right now. You wanted the story, here it is.

They died in a house fire. Wiring problem, so typical of today's society, don't you think? Another proof that we're all mad. We live with death just a spark away...

They died in the house fire while I was at work. Nothing could have saved them, I'm told. The fire spread too rapidly, and they were sleeping. Woke up to the alarms blaring, but too late, no escape. One of the neighbors heard my little girl screaming, Doctor. Can you even imagine for a minute what it's like for me to close my eyes each night knowing that my little girl's last breath was a scream of terror? Fuck you.

I don't care.

No. You wanted the story, you're getting it.

The house burned, and I was called by the police chief to come home, there was a problem. I rushed home to find it ruined, and my wife and little girl already being taken to the morgue. The charade of sanity and the little house with the perfect family was shattered forever. I don't pretend anymore. There's no reason.

My family died, and I was left with nothing. As the weeks passed, I couldn't stay away from where our house had been, but I couldn't stand to look at it either. So, I started sitting on the bank of the pond, watching the lily pads float back and forth on the water. So gentle. They remind me of an angel's dancing steps: soft, peaceful and calming. I'd stare at them for hours at a time, heedless of weather or the time of day. It was the only place I could feel close to them, and I needed to feel them with me. How's that for crazy, Doctor? Oh, normal, you say. I guess I should have known. Anything that appears crazy isn't, and what doesn't, is.

Anyway, that's when it happened.

I went back to the pond one Saturday night, just as I had for two years. I got out of my car, looked across the pond--but there were no lily pads. They were gone, every one of them. I started screaming, and everyone in the neighborhood came running. I guess they thought someone had fallen in the water, I don't know. But they all came running.

"Where are they?" I was in hysterics by this time. I guess I looked insane just then. How ironic. "Where are the lily pads?"

Everyone looked at me, then at the pond.

After a few seconds of confusion, Fred Dallents spoke up. "What lily pads?"

I couldn't believe it. They were gone, and everyone was looking at me like I had lost my mind. "The lily pads! The lily pads that have been all over this pond since before any of even lived here! The fucking lily pads! Where are they?"

Mothers pulled their children closer to them, and started backing away. The men looked apprehensive, and began eyeing each other nervously.

"Ray," Fred said, "there's never been lily pads in that pond."

"What?" I screamed. "What! How can you say that? I've been coming here for the past two years to watch them. Don't tell me they weren't there! I've seen them a thousand times!" Strange looks from my neighbors and a few muffled tears from the children brought my temper under control. "Fred, they were there yesterday, I swear to God. They've been there for as long as I can remember, and now they're gone--"

That's when I saw Him. His eyes were there, right there in the open. How I could have missed them before is a mystery to me. Two yellow eyes, full of the wisdom of the ages. Patience was what I saw there. And grace. My voice caught in my throat, and I could only stare at Him. Slowly, He swam to the edge of the pond where I was standing, and then He raised His head out of the water.

"It's okay, Ray. They can't see me, or hear me. I can hear you if you'd care to talk."

The voice was in my mind, but it rang as loud and clear as the voice of a minister. Seconds passed, and I noticed that everyone was staring at me again, and trying to see what I was looking at. A giant turtle, utterly invisible to everyone but me.

"What are you?" I managed after a while. I wasn't paying attention to the crowd now; my mind and eyes were completely fixed on this turtle that was smiling at me with what seemed sadness in his eyes.

"I'm the Turtle God."

"The Turtle God? What's a turtle god?"

"I am. I protect and maintain the turtles around the world. I am their god."

My mind did somersaults. I really thought I was going crazy then, but as I've told you, that moment was when I realized that we're all mad. My neighbors were hearing my side of this conversation, and thought I was going insane from grief. How could I be talking to a god, much less a turtle god, if I wasn't crazy? What strikes me odd is that I'd neve considered that there could be such a thing as a turtle god before. Why not? We go to church and worship a god, don't we? Why not a protector of turtles? I think it proves once again that we are indeed insane, the whole lot of us. After all, I don't see turtles killing each other in the name of their god. Only humans. Makes one wonder, doesn't it?

In that moment of clarity it all made sense to me. We're all insane, and we're all blind.

"Do you know what happened to the lily pads?" I asked.

"Yes," came the throaty reply from the Turtle God. "I took them away."

I was dumbfounded. "Why? Why did you take them away? They were the only thing in the world that relieves my grief. I've never harmed you, I've never harmed a turtle in my life. Why would you do this to me?"

Patience swam in his eyes. I could feel it washing over me in waves, the patience and compassion of a true god.

"It was nothing that you did, Ray. I took them away to prevent another person from feeling the pain of loss that you've felt for the past two years. You see that man standing beside you? His little girl was going to come out here tonight and see a beautiful water lily in the middle of the pond, and she was going to try and get it for her father. She was fated to fall into the pond, and she would have drowned."

He paused, and his eyes focused on a little blond girl standing beside Jake Dickens. Maria Dickens, a nine year old angel. She had been my daughter's best friend. Tears leaked from the corner of the turtle god's eyes, and he continued.

"She would have died tonight because she would have waded into the pond, slipped, and drown. After seeing you suffer because of the loss of your little girl, I couldn't bear to see it happen to another if I could prevent it." He looked back at me. "So, I took the lily pads away. They've never been here, Ray, as far as everyone else is concerned. I left them in your memory because you enjoyed them so much."

Anger swelled in my heart, though I'm ashamed to admit it now. "If you're a god, then why didn't you save my little girl and my wife? Why did you let them die in that fire?"

The answer was slow, but it was the truth; I've no doubt about that.

"I have no control over fire, Ray. Just turtles, and the things that surround them."

I saw a pain in His eyes then. He would have given his own immortal life to bring my little girl and wife back to me if it were possible. Instead, he did what he could to prevent another man from going through this pain that I live with each day.

That makes Him a god to me, Doctor.

No lily pads, no water lilies. No drowning.

I visited Him each day, and spent many long nights talking with Him about various things. I enjoyed His company, and He mine. Until I found myself here, talking to you.

It's been a year, Doctor. I'm ready to go home now. No, I didn't think so. Please leave me, Doctor. I've lost everything, so please leave me now.

"What do you think, Doctor Brine?"

"He's a nut, Charlie. A complete madman. Turtle God! Still, I guess losing a wife and a child at one time would make any man a basket case, eh?"

"Yeah, I guess it would. Hey, you wanna go get a beer? The bowling alley's still open. We could get a few games in."

"Sure, sounds good. Being around all these crazy people all day stresses me out. Nothing like throwing a twelve pound ball down a wooden floor to make a guy feel better..."

There is a pond on Barnes Street, surrounded by brick and stucco houses. A typical American middle class neighborhood, with baseballs, bicycles, and backyard barbecues. Watching over them all is a god, a turtle god. Unseen, unheard. It is a thankless job, but once upon a time he made a friend. His name was Ray.