#yeah I'm still turtleposting ask me about The Symbolism

[zorilleerrant]

Names are important, Phillip has been told. He studied that. He remembers. It’s hard to feel how important they are in the moment when all he has is facts and figures to back that up, but sure enough, there they are: so many names. So many instances in the historical record of people fighting to keep the name that’s theirs.

Phillip never had a name until he borrowed one. Some of the others did, before, but he was born into the program, and the Director was the only parent he ever knew. He was born with a file number, a specialty, a destiny. A part to play in the Director’s ever expansive vision, and he was jealous for a while, early on, of some of the children it let him play with, children with names, children with families.

That was before he learned so many names he would have lost his own among them. The Director knew that, probably. He always thought it did, but he always thought it would send him into a host that could accommodate him, one that wouldn’t cloud his mind with a vice that was never his. A vice it could have told him about, back then, one that might have made it just a little less painful to be a Historian, back then, back before he learned how to deal with it. Back when it was just constant screaming in the back of his mind.

It was easier, then, being a number. Numbers were simple. Numbers lined up. Numbers were what made the screaming stop, ordering things in rows and columns, keeping his memory chained where it couldn’t hurt him anymore. When he was a number, he knew exactly where he fit in, how to order himself with his fellow Historians, where in the stack to look for his work, his instructions, his missions.

Being Phillip, he doesn’t know where the hell he belongs anymore.

The historical record deals with specifics, a lot of the time. It deals in generalities more. There’s only so much the human mind can hold, even trained, even modified. And Phillip’s still human enough. Human enough to know a generality when he sees one: pets keep you company. Comfort you. Help you cope.

Pets are the kind of companion you’re supposed to name, so that they know you love them. Pets aren’t important enough to the flow of the timeline to come with pre-approved names, either, probably, usually. There are some. Enough to put his money on. He doesn’t think, probably, the kinds of names that racehorses and showdogs have are the kind you’re supposed to give a turtle.

There are names for turtles in the historical record. Franklin, Yertle, A’tuin, Merton, Donatello. Somehow, he doesn’t think any of those will suit his needs.

His turtle is female. This is important, in the 21st. Phillip still doesn’t understand why, but he’s been learning it long enough that the pronouns come naturally to him, and so: she needs a name. Because names are important, in this instance. She needs a name that’s meaningful to her, or, rather, that’s meaningful to him, so that he can project meaning onto her, so he can most efficiently benefit from their mutualistic symbiosis.

Ray says he needs a pet to get him off drugs. Something else to concentrate on, sure. It’s dark humor, he thinks, to name her Heroin, or Methadone, or Therapy. It’s dark humor still to name her after a plant that opiates are derived from, but it was different, then, under the care of the Director. When it gave him something – something else, not something that gentled the mind so effectively he couldn’t do his job – it stopped the burning like code scrolling endlessly across his synapses. He didn’t control the dose then, either, but it was less out of his control. It hurt more, but it didn’t hurt as much.

Poppies weren’t there just to derive medicines from, either. That was therapy of a sort, too, gardens prepared for residents to take their turns walking through, necessary to the optimal mental health of every human alive. Not that anything was really optimal, in those days. But he walked through on schedule every week, leafy greens shining in artificial sunlight, just enough to add a smidge of variety to their diets, when their lotteries came up.

The light felt warm on his skin, light sharp against his eyes like a billion sunrises across a billion lives, memories blooming like the flowers around him. He couldn’t see the sun directly, but he could feel what it must have been like, here and now, where he can feel the sun burning against exposed skin and hair whenever he wants. Warmer, brighter, but with the same sense of care, hope, too grand purpose he could never understand.

He walked through the garden every week, running tiny fingers gently against the bright splash of color, petals too soft for anything but joy. One species that might have been replaced a million times over, living on in the glint of artificial light, as if it caught his eye and winked at him. The weekly task that never felt like one.

Phillip can see that same spot of color in Poppy.