The universe has aligned for me to tell you all about random things I have perceived. (It’s time to talk about moments again.)
I don’t consider myself a superstitious person, but that is stabbed in the foot by the fact I tend to avoid bad superstitions if a person I’m with does. Sometimes it still comes to mind, though- like the morning of the day I’m writing this, where I saw a dead butterfly in the road. The dark asphalt was criss-crossed with an absurd amount of skid marks I had never noticed before, and in the midst of it, laying on its side, was the corpse of a tiger swallowtail. The wind slowly carried it across the ground, stopping and starting, but the swallowtail never flew. In that moment my brain remarked something about a bad omen, but the most I felt was sadness. The sight was remarkable in a way I wish it wasn’t.
Yet, on another, happier note taking place the same day, my window has once again allowed me to see an adorable animal. There’s been a good few times I’ve found turtles (safely) around my house. You can tell they’re turtles and not tortoises because of their claw structure, by the way! Turtles swim in water, so they have flatter, webbed feet. Tortoises, meanwhile, don’t swim, so their feet are much more rounded, bulky, and not webbed. BUT BACK ON TRACK. The turtles I find hide away in their shells, because, they’re turtles, of course they do, I’m a big scary thing that’s making weird cooing noises. However, this time was different. Through my window I was able to see a turtle walking around my back lawn, chomping on grass and leaves littering the ground. I squealed with utter joy. They move fast for a turtle when they’re unbothered, and their scaly skin bunches up around the joints. It’s beak was so shaped, too… I’m pretty sure it was even a turtle I had seen before, due to comparing the patterns on the shell with past pictures.
I wondered if instead of the geese we had last year, this year we would have a turtle frequenting the lake. Last year there was a pair of two geese that stayed throughout the seasons. I never got close due to stories, and thus, they remained peaceful. They would take turns- one would watch for danger, and one would eat. As time progressed, they had little gosling babies. They were absolutely adorable little brown-yellow fuzzballs. I got to watch them peck around in my back yard and grow into adults. It was really interesting to see them in their teenage years. They were, quite literally, just full grown geese but smaller. They had the same coloration and shape.
I love how you describe animals :]