"Greetings, Wicked Stepmother--
I'm sure you're surprised to hear from me again. Didn't know that all good turtles go to heaven, did you? Bet you thought that you were quit of me. Not so fast, turtle murderess.
Oh, I know you didn't just pick me up out of my cage and flush me down the toilet. You wouldn't have been so obvious. Daddy would have figured that one out. Instead you chose a long, slow demise.
First, you stole him away. Before you, there was just him and me; endless sun-drenched days of Daddy visiting my cage and dropping in my pellets, stroking my shell and telling me about his day. But one day, he fed me and immediately got on the phone. He told you about his day. He verbally stroked your shell. It was sad, but I adjusted.
Then you made him marry you. Suddenly you were there beside him as he dropped in my pellets. I saw the look on your face, the disdain for his "shell-child". I heard you speak soothing, manipulative words, "Oh, you're so good with Mott. Maybe now we should have a real pet." I knew what that meant.
A fur-child.
I saw you make that poor man go through years of allergy shots to indulge your cruel whim. I wept for his sneezing and watery eyes, things his lowly "shell-child" never caused him. And one day, there she was.
An eight-pound fur-child with an ugly flat face, breathing problems and a little curly tail that did nothing to hide her unsightly poop-hole.
And now he was sucked in, enamored of that thing called "pug". He prepared her meals like a chef and sat beside her, talking puppy-talk to her. He humiliated himself. He never spoke such words to me; he spoke to me as an equal. This is the way it should be between man and turtle.
And while he gibbered his little pugisms, he forgot that I was upstairs waiting for my pellets. At first it was just a day. Then maybe two days in a row. Then...a week.
On my last day, I gathered enough strength to crawl from my cage, knock the phone off the hook and dial 1-800-582... and that's as far as I got. I never finished that call to the ASPCA. Jesus came and took me home instead. And now I live in a pool of light and the Lord feeds me pellets with His own hand.
I do not blame my Daddy. I blame you and your damnable fur-child. Oh, I know you suffered some pain when you realized that I had departed; you felt guilt. But then you moved on to skin-children and forgot me entirely. It wasn't until you found this prompt for a writing assignment that you recalled my short, painful life. Shame on you.
But at least now my story will be told. And all the world will know what you did. Or, at least the ten people who read you on a daily basis will know. And that's good enough for me.
Farewell. I told the Lord what a meanie you are. He said he forgives you. Lucky you. I don't.
Mott"
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