Turtle dream
On the night of Saturday, November 2-Sunday, November 3, 2013 I dreamed about a violent, destructive earthquake in Tokyo. I was not at home but for some reason found myself on a residential street where people had fled out of their homes with a few of their personal possessions. One man had fled his house with his plastic aquarium and three green pond turtles, one small and the others increasingly bigger. Turtles are my favorite animal. I think they’re fascinating. As a boy in Canada off and on I kept green pond turtles and painted turtles as pets. And a few years ago in Tokyo I once more kept three as pets in my apartment for a couple of years (until they outgrew the aquarium and my wife’s patience).
Back to the dream: after reaching the street and seeing the destruction this guy decided to abandon his aquarium and turtles and flee. Save his own skin. But in the slight chance that he might return he filled the aquarium with water and fastened a tight lid to keep the turtles in.
I yelled at him, “Turtles breath air, you idiot!”
But he was already running down the street. By the time I turned around to pick up the aquarium I noticed that the turtles inside had already managed to pry off the lid. One had escaped and was on the ground outside. The other was wedged between the lid and the plastic side. My own experience taught me that turtles are very clever this way. The ones I kept managed to escape their lidded aquarium and have adventures outside in the living room of my apartment.
Back to the dream: a large crow quickly swooped down and scooped up the smallest of the turtles. I couldn’t save it. But I could rescue the others.
Later in the day, around 2:30 p.m., we had a brief strong tremblor in Tokyo. I was in the middle of watching the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie The Last Stand and was surprised, remembering the Friday, March 11, 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake which struck on a Friday afternoon while I was at home watching the Tom Hanks movie Castaway on DVD.