Once again, as I did a few minutes ago, I inhale deeply. There is something there. Something familiar. Not one odor but a complex. I search my memory. My grandmother’s potato knishes? Carpet soap? Furniture oil? A shaving cream I used at puberty, something special that my father gave me that numbed my tender young skin against the razor? Just as I’m beginning to puzzle it all out, a shadow appears between me and the turtle, cast by whatever source of light illuminates this place. The shadow moves, resolving first into the head of a wolf, then a dancing chicken, then the jaws of a crocodile spread across the sky above me, then the tall ears of a prancing rabbit, and finally, double-sized, a flying, predatory dinosaur with a probing, fearsome head.
“Someone’s making hand animals,” I say.
The Red-ear’s beak does its best imitation of a smile. “And who do you suppose it is?”
I see the boy right before I answer. He’s charmingly buck-toothed, with bright, kind eyes and long eyelashes, a generous nose, thin lips, and a thatch of thick, black, much-missed hair. He’s humming as he makes the hand animals, and, before long, he’s crooning a Bob Dylan tune. I’ve been out in front of a dozen dead oceans. His voice isn’t bad. In fact, it’s rather good. On pitch. Strong. I take some pride in it, because he is me—perhaps half a century ago.
“Remember anything?” the Red-ear asks.
“Of course. I’ve always loved that song.”
When the boy bends closer, the world behind him resolves into my childhood bedroom, the first place where I kept and loved turtles. The white bookshelves are there, full of books about animals, and there are photos, my own, of salamanders, frogs, snakes, and landscapes that calm me. Since I’m obviously in my boyhood home, all those smells now make perfect sense.
“Do you remember that it was your allergy to animals with hair that first drew you to turtles as pets?”
“Of course I remember. I’ve got a Mexican hairless dog now.”
“You killed a lot of your turtles,” says the Red-ear. “Some died of lack of calcium, their shells paper thin. You flushed them down the toilet. Others died because you kept them too cold, and they never ate quite enough. One died because you thought he had escaped, didn’t realize he was buried in the dirt, put the tank away, and let him waste to nothing in your clothes closet. You killed some more when you used too much poison, or the wrong kind, when trying to rid them of parasites.”
“Stop,” I say.
“A few burned in that accident where you left scalding hot water running while they teetered in Tupperware on the edge of the sink. That was the worst. They suffered so much. And you. You cried and cried.”
I find myself crying now, even as the young version of me continues to sing. Tears for the animals nobody cares about, tears for all the turtles dead on the road, tears for the ones that ended up in my own toilet, tears for my own ignorance of what my pets needed, tears for not understanding their needs, feelings, and worlds.
“Please,” I say.
“None of it was intentional,” says the turtle. “We know that or we wouldn’t be here. We know how much you love our kind.”
I let out an anguished howl. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t know better! I’ve spent thousands of hours taking care of turtles since and I’ve done a much better job!”
“We know that, too. You’ve redeemed yourself a bit, and this spirit-writing will redeem you further.”
Together, we watch the boy with all that beautiful hair dance around his bedroom, circling the little plastic lagoon in which we huddle. I think about how fleeting life is, and how we can do nothing with the days we have but take care of each other and live in daily, hourly, minute-by-minute grateful appreciation of nature.
“What do I need to do to make it happen?” I ask.
“Stand in meditation. Wait patiently. One of us will appear. Each visit will be different.”
“What can I expect to happen?”
“Well, all we really know of all those famous episodes of spirit-writing is the result. Neither of us was there for the process. We don’t actually know what went on between the immortal and the sage, between the deity and his or her recorder. We can presume to know, figure there was a vision or a voice or some other kind of visceral experience, but in truth we have no idea.”
“That doesn’t really help me prepare.”
“Ok, how about this? In some visits, a turtle immortal will tell you things you need to know by speaking of them directly. In others, the teacher will show you the lesson. And in other cases, you will be learning or living right along with your teacher. How’s that?”
“Not very specific,” I say, half worried and half excited.
“But you agree?”
“Oh, I agree,” I say. “In fact, I’m honored.”
“As you should be,” says the Red-ear. “Writing the things you will write is the Daoist path to immortality.”
“That sounds great,” I say, “but I actually want to help turtles.”
Yet because my old bedroom has quickly gone fuzzy, and I am back in my meditation park, I’m not entirely certain she hears me.
Once again, I stand in Daoist meditation. As usual, my arms are out in front of me as if I’m hugging a tree, my elbows and shoulders are down and relaxed, and the tip of my tongue on the roof of my mouth. Children laugh nearby. Geese squabble. Runners curse what the geese have left behind. I wait for something to happen. I wait some more. Gradually, the park recedes, and I find myself paddling through frigid ocean water, dark blue and forbidding. I take a few strokes and feel the pressure of the water against my hands. My fingers prune. A leatherback sea turtle, mistress of the open ocean, appears beside me. A gargantuan turtle the size of a small car, she has a ridged, teardrop-shaped shell, bulbous at the front and tapering to a point at the back. The head and limbs bear beautiful white snowflake patterns.
“I’m so happy to see you, Monk. I thought you might arrive too late to hear my story. What a shame that would have been.”
“I’m breathing underwater,” I say.
“You’re fine. Daoist magic, remember? I’m the one in trouble.”
It takes me a moment to understand what she means. Then I see it. A piece of fishing line, anchored down into the abyss, is wrapped around one of her front flippers. It oozes blood.
“You’re stuck,” I say.
“I am.”
“So you can’t get up to the surface to breathe.”
“I can’t actually. I have approximately eleven minutes to live. Perhaps a little more if I gentle my mind and drift with the current. If you don’t mind watching me pass, you may
