The Tortoise and the Geese

Just one thing. From the moment he left the ground until the moment he landed, no matter what he heard rising up from below, he must never open his mouth.

The warning was given very seriously, one morning when mist still hung over the pond. The one listening was a tortoise. The ones giving it were a pair of wild geese, the two closest friends he had ever had.

The tortoise had lived for a very long time in a small pond at the foot of a hill. He knew every lotus root and every flat stone where he sunned himself in the early morning. One day the pair of wild geese came flying past and landed on the pond to rest, and they happened to meet him. The three animals talked until late afternoon before they parted. The next day the geese stopped by again. And the day after that. Day after day it went on, and before long the three were inseparable. Every morning they watched for one another at the edge of the lotus pond. This is one of the Jataka tales, told again and again by Buddhists over many generations.

But that year a drought dragged on from one month to the next, and not a single drop of rain fell. The pond kept shrinking, uncovering patches of mud cracked like a shed snakeskin. The lotuses wilted, the fish and shrimp died off one by one, and in the end only a small, muddy puddle was left, huddled in the middle of the dry pond bed. The geese looked at that puddle, then at their small friend the tortoise, and their hearts filled with worry.

The geese told him they had another home, on a high mountain very far away. There was a large lake there that never ran dry, however fierce the drought. They wanted to take the tortoise with them, so that he would not have to suffer this dryness for even one more day. The tortoise was so happy that tears came to his eyes. Then he stopped and asked them how. He had no wings, so how could he ever fly along with them?

The geese came up with a plan. They found a sturdy stick, and each of them held one end in its strong beak. The tortoise only had to bite down hard on the middle, and the geese would beat their wings and carry the stick, tortoise and all, into the air. When he heard this, the tortoise nodded eagerly and agreed at once.

But the geese gave their warning again and again, and their voices suddenly turned very serious. For the whole flight, whatever sounds rose up from below, however anyone teased him or talked about him, the tortoise must not open his mouth to answer. If he opened it even a little, he would let go of the stick. And once he let go, nothing would be able to catch him. The tortoise nodded firmly. He promised to keep his jaws clamped shut and not say a single word until all three of them landed at their new home.

That morning the three friends took off together. The tortoise bit hard on the middle of the stick and tucked his legs in close to his body. His heart was racing, because it was the first time in his life that he had flown so high into the sky. Below, the rice fields stretched out like a dark green blanket, the winding rivers glittered, and tiny thatched roofs slipped past as quickly as in a dream. Again and again the tortoise wanted to cry out with delight. But each time he was about to open his mouth, he remembered the warning and clamped his jaws shut again, letting only his two round eyes gaze out in every direction.

Toward noon, the three friends flew over a small village beside a road. A group of children playing in a yard suddenly looked up, astonished at a sight stranger than any they had ever seen. They pointed and burst out laughing, calling to one another to come and look. "Look at those geese carrying a whole tortoise through the sky!" one of them shouted. "A tortoise that wants to fly, how silly!" another one cackled.

The tortoise heard every teasing word clearly as it floated up. He tried to hold it in, his jaws clamped tight on the stick, but the laughter kept ringing in his ears, more and more grating. He thought to himself that he had done nothing wrong. If his friends wanted to carry him, that was no business of theirs, and they had no reason to laugh. The thought grew and grew, until the tortoise could not hold back any longer. He opened his mouth, meaning to shout down at them as loudly as he could, "If the geese want to carry me, that is none of your business!"

But before he could get out even half of it, the stick slipped from between his jaws. For a moment the tortoise flailed in midair. Then he fell straight down, with nothing left to hold on to.

Luckily, right below the spot where he fell, there was a ditch beside the road, thick with lush green weeds and a layer of duckweed as deep as a cushion. The tortoise landed right in it, bounced once, and then lay stunned in the grass. His shell and all four legs ached, and his head was spinning. But he was still breathing and could still move. He was frightened and bruised, but otherwise unharmed.

Hearing the strange noise, the geese whipped their heads around, cried out in alarm, and swooped down to the patch of grass. They crowded around the tortoise, nuzzling him with their heads and asking over and over whether he was hurt anywhere. The tortoise lay there a long time, slowly coming back to himself. But strangely, this time he could not say a single word, even though no one was asking him to keep quiet anymore.

That afternoon, the geese stayed beside the tortoise for a long while in the grass by the road. The tortoise lay still, his ears still ringing, but his shell, his four legs and his life were all whole. High above, clouds still drifted across the stretch of sky the three friends had just been flying through, far away toward the mountain with the lake that never runs dry. The tortoise gazed up at that sky for a long time, his mouth pressed tightly shut, and did not say another word.