American Turtles

by The Students in the Art of Neil Gaiman

  “Do you like it here?” he asked.

  “Yes!” she eagerly replied, “I can now match the sound of running water to a stream, the smell of wet dirt to mud, the taste of mangoes to gold, and a warm sun kiss to bright light. A whole new world! That’s what I see!”

  He laughed like a joyful god; which is how… you know, how they laugh.

  The days passed as he showed her around. They seemed to have walked in circles for the last few days; or at least that’s what she thought.

  He again told her, “This (pointing at the same bluish short palm tree) came from far lands in the south; and that (pointing at a dark red spiky plant) belongs to the motherland.”

  “Ah.” She was not surprised.

  “You have nothing to say again?” Growling and staring at her.

  “I have a bit of a frog in my throat.” Frightened, while holding her collarbone with one hand and her neck with the other.

  Roar! He jumped at her and shook her violently like a ferocious god.

  Ribbit ribbit, cough. And he dealt with the matter.

  He stood her up, fixed his whiskers and continued, “this gloomy stream runs all throughout and it was dug by many. And those poor things were donated and arranged in it nicely.”

  “Who?” she asked.

  “Who what?”

  She rolled her beautiful dark brown big eyes like a frustrated goddess; which is how princesses roll their eyes.

  “Men! Humans! Mankind! Who else?” Crying as a desperate animal.

  That was the last time she felt his penetrating, and not so intimidating, breath on her neck again. Cinnamon asked for her pair of pearls, and followed the signs back home wishing she had had the same resolution as her mother’s aunt.

  * * * Author’s Note * * *

  After reading “Cinnamon,” I was left wishing the story didn’t end (the way you feel with most of Neil Gaiman’s short stories). So this is more or less a follow-up of the story after the tiger and Cinnamon go to the “jungle.” I appreciated how Gaiman’s story was beautifully crafted in a simple but meaningful way. Thus in my story, I attempted to capture some of Gaiman’s descriptive and literal writing strategies as well as some of his “Cinnamon” characteristic phrases. For instance, writing short paragraphs, turning “have a frog in your throat” into a reality, and throwing key elements or hints from a different story of his (while keeping a decent amount of mystery). Although this is not exactly how I think Cinnamon’s story would have unraveled, the idea of an artificial garden in the eyes of a somewhat dark writer could have sounded like this.

  Acknowledgments

  Rachel Maples

  In nature, there are certain undisputed truths. In human nature, there are uncertain disputed truths.

  For example, where you and I may see a bird and recognize that it is, in fact, a bird, and that a flower is a flower, and a river is a river, and so on and so forth, young Hannah would see the bird and inexplicably describe a rhinoceros. When she would attempt to paint a red fire engine, her teacher would admonish her for painting it deep blue.

  You see, Hannah saw the world in opposites. Opposite images, concepts, numbers, ideas. You could ask Hannah to add 2 plus 2 and she would respond,“0.” When the rest of the town bemoaned a stormy, cloudy day, Hannah would only feel the rays of the sun on her face.

  By the time she was 6, adults had had quite enough of Hannah’s “antics,” as adults are known to possess very small amounts of patience, and are wont to ignore anything that is not utterly obvious and accepted. Yet Hannah’s parents, doctors, teachers, and any passing adult authority figures were quite at a loss in what to do. It seemed Hannah, much to their chagrin, simply would not stop seeing things oppositely.

  At the age of 9, Hannah was enrolled in a class with children like her, ones who saw extraordinary things in the seemingly mundane. Yet this class was different than others before it in that her teacher, Merl Lin, was quite appreciative, encouraging even, in Hannah’s ability. He did not correct her when she claimed to see a swan in the painting of a bear, instead, he agreed with her.

  One day, in the moments between the final bell’s ring and the scraping of chairs being pushed back in a mad dash for the back door, Mr. Lin called Hannah to his desk. Hannah patiently waited for him to finish drawing the lesson notes on the whiteboard before he turned to her.

  “Hannah, I want to tell you something. And this is something you cannot tell your parents, or your friends, or the other teachers, or the woman sitting next to you at the train station, or anyone else. Is that clear?”

  She stood as solemnly as a 9 year old about to be informed of a big secret could, and nodded quickly.

  “Good. What I want you to know is this. A long time ago, in a place not far from here, a few people got it into their heads that they wanted to rule above everyone else. And in a short period of time, they accomplished their goal. Not through violence, not through politics, but through people’s imagination. You see, imagination is one of the most powerful forces in our universe, yet it is extremely undervalued. As people grow older, they spend less and less effort on the maintenance and care of their imaginations, so much that they become susceptible to influence. And these few villainous people had the brilliant and devastating idea that they would feed hate, sadness, and misery into everybody’s imagination until they looked to the only people that could imagine a better world, the tricksters themselves. However, their influence could not reach everyone. A few people, like me, and like you,” and here he smiled, “are immune to their power. And you mustn’t ever, ever, stop seeing things in opposites because then they will have turned you, and you will be just like everyone else.”

  And at this he stopped smiling, looked over his shoulder through the porthole behind him, and quickly escorted Hannah out of the classroom.

  Not knowing she was never to see Mr. Lin again, Hannah went home that night, ate her macaroni and cheese, listened to her parents kindly ask each other how their respective days went, and smiled.

  * * * Author’s Note * * *

  For this story, I really wanted to evoke Neil Gaiman’s unique style of writing, and I am hopeful I was at least a little “Gaiman-like” in my word choice and sentence structure. I also wanted to do my own “Gaiman twist” at the end of my story, since those are usually my favorite part of his short stories. Finally, like Gaiman, I included a well-known character in a subtle way, which readers may have realized if they read the teacher’s name out loud. The title of my story is in line with the theme of opposites, as writers often put their acknowledgements at the end of their works. I picked the name “Hannah” since it reads the same forward and backward, so the opposite of “Hannah” is still “Hannah.” Perhaps the people who have untouched imaginations all have palindrome names.

  American Turtles

  Andrew Takeda

  Benjamin’s eyes stretched open lazily but with all the awareness of a hawk when the alarm buzzed. It would happen today. Benjamin was not normally one to concern himself with the boy’s trivial goings-on, but this one would affect life for the both of them.

  “Aw man. Time to go already?” The boy – Andrew – directed the question at no one in particular, stupidly. Benjamin might have been amused at the penchant for senseless babbling had it not kept him up so many nights. “Okay buddy, in you go.” He felt a pair of greasy teenaged hands wrap around his body before the lift. “It’ll just be a little while.” The world instantly shut into blackness. The box.

  Benjamin had a long, albeit scattered, history with the box. It was the box that took him to the classroom for show-and-tell, it was the box that took him to the doctor man when he had the infection, it was the box that first took him to the glass in the boy’s room from The Store (Benjamin still remembered the pounding of the boy’s excitement echoing even in his own chest) when Andrew was still a snotty-nosed, Nilla-wafer-guzzling toddler.

  “Bye, buddy. Mom says I can’t take you to college.” The box eventually lifted – it al
ways did – and Benjamin found himself, for the first time in years, on grass. Real grass, not the plastic garbage from inside the glass. It felt – Benjamin struggled for a word – bold? Like this moment was the beginning of a grand new adventure, like every other moment was just a stepping stone for – no. Those were the boy’s thoughts, though someone in Benjamin’s situation may have thought them as well. Not bold. Natural. The grass felt natural. Benjamin took a step forward, into a new life.

  “Ooh look, Missy! A newcomer!” Benjamin blinked. His head turned toward this unfamiliar voice, and he found himself face-to-face with two beady black eyes set into a leathery green head. A turtle. And another, just behind. Like the grass, it had been years since Benjamin had seen another of his own kind. “Hi, what’s your name? Are you here to stay as well?”

  “Roosevelt, settle down. You mustn’t come across so strong to strangers. Hello now, welcome to the Garden. I’m Missy, and this is Roosevelt. Would you like to meet the others?” A maternal tinge softened the second voice.

  Benjamin blinked again, still shocked by the pair before him and wholly unable to comprehend what sort of self-respecting turtle has any business chatting with him, of all things. Still, his curiosity was piqued.

  “Others? How many others are there? What is this place?”

  “The Botanical Garden. It’s where we turtles come to live after our owners can no longer take care of us.” Missy smiled beakily. “Let’s see, with you here now, that brings us to forty-four, I believe.”

  Benjamin rolled his eyes. Owner. Andrew was no more his owner than he was Andrew’s. Sure, the boy kept him in the glass, but he also served food at Benjamin’s command. Which reminded him, he had already missed a meal today.

  “I’m Benjamin. I suppose I’ll meet the others.”

  “Yay!” Roosevelt squealed. Idiot.

  The three turtles made their way down a grassy bank to a pond. And then Benjamin saw them – just as Missy said – turtles. More than Benjamin had ever seen in his entire life. And yet…

  “What’s going on? What is this, nap time?” Benjamin tried not to let his alarm register on his face.

  There were maybe twenty-five turtles in his field of vision, but they were all absolutely frozen, transfixed by some unknown force. Some floated aimlessly in the pond; others stood on the bank, statue-like.

  “Hmm? Just watching,” Missy replied, dismissively. “They’ll let you know when they’re done.”

  “Done? Watching? I don’t understand.”

  “Ooh, Missy! He doesn’t know! Their owners! They’re watching their owners!”

  “Roosevelt, enough. Yes, dear. Watching. Through your owner’s eyes. Try it.”

  Benjamin was quite nearly certain by now that a great practical joke was being played on him. And no less, he thought, than by these fools. “Err, no. I don’t do that. I, uhh, can’t.”

  “Nonsense.” Missy’s eyes glistened proudly, ready to share one of the great truths of her kind. “You have a connection, don’t you? To your owner. You feel what he feels.”

  Benjamin couldn’t help himself from rolling his eyes again at that word. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “I don’t think so. You can tell when he’s hungry or tired. You feel his happiness, his sadness because they echo in you.”

  Missy paused to wait for Benjamin to nod or agree, but he just stared ahead. Could it really be true? He knew what she was talking about, like a sixth sense to the boy ever since The Store, but he had never thought about it.

  “That’s not all you can do with that connection. Think about it. Try to remember the last time you felt him, and imagine your eyes in his head. Concentrate.”

  Benjamin couldn’t believe he was about to do listen to Missy, but figured he had nothing to lose. He closed his eyes and delved into himself – only to find, to his dismay, the presence of the boy. I guess I couldn’t get rid of him forever, Benjamin mused.

  “Yeah okay, now what.”

  “‘Now what?’ Enter his presence. Become him.”

  Another eye roll. Benjamin sighed and – he couldn’t believe it – saw. He saw a pair of arms – the boy’s arms – unpacking a suitcase. Grabbing bundles of socks and shirts and who-knows-what and stuffing them into drawers.

  “Moving into a new room and he still doesn’t bother to fold his shirts,” Benjamin sneered.

  “Help him. Guide him to do what he needs.”

  Benjamin snapped out of Andrew’s perspective, startled, and raised an eyebrow in question. “You’re kidding.”

  “No.” Missy smiled a knowing, eternal smile. “Feel your flippers. Feel them become his arms. The arms will listen.”

  Still in disbelief, Benjamin obeyed. He closed his eyes, delved, found Andrew. It was easier this time. Andrew had moved onto the pants, still stuffing them haphazardly into a bottom drawer. And then he stopped. The arms opened the top drawer, reached inside, and picked up a single T-shirt, now wrinkled. They folded. They returned. They repeated for all of the other shirts, and then they closed the drawer.

  “So this it, then? I’m going to sit here in this pond and fold his clothes for the rest of my days? That’s what all of the others are watching?”

  “Oh dear, no. The others are… They’re busy keeping… You see, the humans are stupid.” Benjamin smirked. “They don’t know how to survive on their own. The only reason I’m not watching right now is that Stephanie is sleeping. Otherwise I’d be keeping her from running out into traffic.”

  “But then why do we care? If the boy drowns at sea, or your girl runs into traffic, what difference does that make?”

  “The connection!” Roosevelt jumped in. “You have to help the boy! If he dies, then so do you!”

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” Benjamin groaned. Idiot.

  * * * Author’s Note * * *

  The initial concept for “American Turtles” called for a group of turtles calling on their omnipresent former (human) owners to solve a central turtle problem. Upon writing, though, I felt that a more WWNGD twist would be to reverse the relationship so that the humans depend on the turtles for assistance in their human problems. Working from the same premise that the humans donate their turtles to the Garden as they move away for school, I chose to incorporate laundry as the archetypal zone of conflict for American humans at college.

  Whereas the humans of American Gods bring with them physical manifestations of their respective gods/spirits/deities to America, the turtles of the Botanical Garden simply retain a mental connection to their owners. As an additional distinction, the human-god connection is (per my understanding) the source of conflict, while the turtle-owner bond is the key to resolution. Slowly, “American Turtles” grew less like American Gods and more like The Matrix (or, more recently for me, Sense8).

  Overall, the elements of Gaiman’s works which contribute to “American Turtles” include uniting the supernatural with the real world (The Sandman, Neverwhere, etc.) and symbolic names (Benjamin, Missy, Roosevelt are different people also named Franklin, for the turtle characters). I also attempted to include Gaiman-like descriptions (“greasy teenaged hands”) when possible.

  The sequel (if it happens) will recount Andrew’s outing to The Fraternity Party, where Benjamin saves him from his own awkward attempts to meet girls (à la “How to Talk to Girls at Parties”) and/or a belligerent drunk.

  About the Contributors

  Melanie Gharehptian is freshman at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is hoping to major in Communications and minor in Film. Melanie enjoys traveling to Peru every summer to visit her family. She is a proud film geek who loves watching indie and horror films. Melanie hopes to work in the entertainment industry one day as either a screenplay writer or a director.

  Cynthia Huang is a lady of shyness, lady of thought, lady with love for all Gaiman’s taught. This is the biography of a microbiology girl. With a love for her Taiwanese heritage and all the food that comes with it, Cynthia enjoys sharing traditions that her
family has upheld for generations, trying to reconnect with her roots even while growing up in the Bay Area. She’s always looking for ways to delight her taste buds, so let her know if you have any food recommendations. Her mouth and stomach will thank you.

  Kimberly Juarez is a Political Science undergraduate student at the University of California, Los Angeles. She frequently travels home to South LA to visit her family and dog. In her free time, Kim and her two younger sisters explore the multitude of exciting worlds hidden in their bookshelf.

  Alexander Kim is a 4th year undergraduate student studying Biophysics. He entered UCLA as an Astrophysics major, and the classes he took will always be a source of inspiration for him. Alex hopes to attend graduate school for a combined MD/PhD program. He enjoys science, art, nature, and music (hip hop above all else). For fun, Alex likes to go to shows with friends and dance.

  Erik Knall is an aspiring physicist from Sunnyvale, California. He is still finding his way through the vast sea of writings by Neil Gaiman. He finds Gaiman’s dedication to “making good art” refreshing and inspiring. Erik’s favorite Gaiman work to date is the short story “Harlequin Valentine.” Especially when it is read aloud by Neil Gaiman himself.

  Rachel Maples is a third year History and Gender Studies student at UCLA. She generally prefers dogs to people, excels in Harry Potter trivia, and craves any type of weather that isn’t always warm and sunny. To find her on campus, simply look in any shady spots and listen for the telltale sound of her complaining about various television shows.

  Brandon Pham is a third-year undergraduate student at UCLA majoring in Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics and minoring in Biomedical Research. Brandon’s favorite work from Neil Gaiman is Coraline, a short novel that recounts the tale of a young girl who enters a strange, mysterious new world and saves her parents from the clutches of her evil “other mother.” The eerie elements in Coraline inspired Brandon to incorporate similar themes into his own short story. In his free time, Brandon enjoys biking at the beach, snowboarding, and hiking.