To Claim Mortality
Snapping turtles hatch from their eggs with the yolk strapped to their bellies, goblins clutching orbs of gold. Dark, sharply pointed snouts and legs defend the delicate membrane, these precious nutrients their one head start in the lottery of survival. This is mine, they say. Mine, mine, mine.
No thoughts extend to the sibling bond, of sharing or strength in numbers. Little chance exists that even one of them will live long enough to create eggs of their own, and they seem to know this. Are they mad then, to guard these treasures? The yolk will slowly absorb into their bodies in the days ahead, leaving them with nothing. Perhaps this is the foolishness of youth—to hope for a chance.
The skunk who tracks their scent scorns their selfish pride. The hawk laughs as he descends from above, scooping their trilobite bodies from earth. They face the indifference of deep water when they have not yet learned to swim, the depravity of starvation, the futility of persisting.
The turtle who survives will not tell you her secrets, only wink at you amidst her wrinkles. If you wander close enough, jaws of prehistoric, beaked lightning will deter you from asking a second time.
Yet I think I know how she has dared to become old, this stubbornest of creatures, for she was not afraid to grasp at life, to firmly take hold and say this, this is mine.