Woman of Am-Kaw and Other Stories by Charlson Ong

Author:Charlson Ong [Ong, Charlson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789712702396
Google: NzNbAAAAMAAJ
Amazon: 9712702391
Publisher: Anvil Pub
Published: 1992-01-01T16:00:00+00:00

Turtle

Season

I know—this skin,

this memory of turtles

—Merlinda Bobis, “Print”

I LIKE BEING A TURTLE. The sense of superiority one realizes as an upright reptile is quite ineffable. All about me are these thin- skinned mammals with hardly any body hair on them scampering hither-tither, struggling vainly to keep erect, their hearts hopeless­ly exposed, towing along their pathetic young who wail at the slightest danger signal. Such evolutionary disasters these creatures who smirk at my thick green covering and rock-hard shell, while their kids stick out their tongues and kick my shins. The best of the lot couldn’t match my present survivability in a million years and something must indeed be said about being able to carry your own home around. An evolutionary advance doubtless subverted by real-estate developers and their agents. For the season, being a teen-age mutant Ninja turtle pays the rent.

Despair may have triggered my latest foray into turtlehood but my fascination with these reptiles has ancient roots. It all began in Grade Two when my cousin Andrew showed me an artist’s con­ception of how homo sapiens could have turned out if God hadn’t played too much dice with planet Earth—a slender, biped reptile with a turtle’s head. I’m almost certain whoever dreamed up this Ninja turtle craze had seen the same photo.

Still, the evolution of the turtle is one of the most remarkable in the story of all vertebrates, so my friend Vicky asserts. While some reptiles flourished and vanished (as dinosaurs), others per­sisted, some as once-successful groups and a few as initiators of expanding groups (snakes and lizards). The turtles, however, have plodded a stolid and steady course through 200 million years, changing very little in basic structure.

Legend further has it that my maternal grandfather sailed to these islands on the back of a giant sea turtle after their overloaded boat from Amoy, China capsized.

My first pet as a four-year-old was a black snapping turtle our maid had discovered wandering near the neighborhood store. The poor thing—I named him Wimpy—was tossed back into the river by my small-footed grandmother after he (I was at an age when every living thing other than human could only be male) finished off half of grandma’s flower garden. Upon finding this out, I threatened grandma with a pair of scissors for which mother slapped me half-deaf.

Many years later, at my maternal grandfather’s burial in the Chinese cemetery, they placed a live turtle in the empty tomb beside his—which is meant for grandma—before sealing both tombs. The Chinese believe that the slowness of the turtle will somehow delay arrival of the empty tomb’s future tenant. I hear that plastic turtles have since replaced live ones in these rites. But way back then, I was sure grandma had avenged her orchids by having actually sequestered Wimpy for such a purpose. I burst into tears upon this realization for which my filial piety became legendary among our clan.

So when good buddy Cisco Sanchez, his fat tongue in his bloated cheek, offered me a job to

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