I get scared at the sight of animals and the only animal I am never scared of is the goat. I believe goats do not bite but I have heard of some wild ones that hurt those who come around them, but seeing domesticated ones around does not scare me than others like dogs, snakes etc. I have always been more careful when around wild dogs, especially with my experience some years back and since I have written about it here before, I would be talking about another animal.
It is only in books and TV that I have seen tortoise and never have I seen one in real life, not until some years back when I was living with my aunt. I couldn't believe my eyes and it was as if I was dreaming that day as I never imagined myself meeting and seeing one physically.
It was early in the morning, we had just woken up. It was a happy morning for me because there were no clothes to wash. My aunt was a dry cleaner and on days I did not want to do any work, I prayed for customers not to bring clothes for washing, and on one of those days, God answered my prayers. There were no clothes to wash neither were there ones to iron, everywhere was dry except for the ones we'd finished working on, waiting for customers to come for them.
There was a particular place outside which was dirty and my aunt told me to go and clean it since not much work to do for the day. I did as instructed and on getting there, I bent down to bring out the dirt under the big and empty storex tank that was placed on a wooden table with the broom in my hand and I noticed it got stuck on something hard which I couldn't see. As I was using my energy to pull out the dirt with the broom, I thought the stuff under the tank was much and using a broom wouldn't do it, I decided to check for myself what was stopping it.
As I bent down, I couldn't believe what I saw at first, the sight of the thing looked so huge and quickly, I dropped the broom and ran away from the place, my scream alerted my aunt who rushed outside as she thought something had happened.
"What happened?" She panickedly asked!
"Mummy, something is under the table. It's so big. I don't know what it is", I said.
While we were there, staring at the table and no one wanted to move closer to see what was there, a man showed up. He came through the backyard which was obvious, he came through a broken part of the wall which demarcated his house and ours.
As if he knew what happened, he made us know that it was his tortoise under the table.
"Tortoise? How sir?" I asked him.
He smiled and said it was his pet and that it crawled from its cage where it was kept and found its way to our house. According to him, he heard my scream and that made him know it was his tortoise as he had been searching everywhere in his compound and knew it must have crawled and stayed under the table. He moved closer and drew the tortoise out. I froze and my eyes widely opened as I saw this giant tortoise which I had never seen in my life. Even on TV, the ones I have seen aren't this huge.
My aunt with a surprise asked how he had been keeping such an animal till it became huge. He said the tortoise has been with him for a while and that same year made it 600 years old.
My hands folded around my body in astonishment and curious to hear more when he began different stories about the tortoise and how it landed in his home and since then have been taking care of it. My aunt even suggested he took it to the zoo where people would come around to watch and pay for it. He just smiled and left with a "thank you" to us.
I was watching the huge animal and how old it has become. While staring at it, I remembered the story of the tortoise we were told of and what I have read in books too that it is a cunny animal, how it had deceived lots of animals and everything I was able to know about tortoise. I saw myself smiling while flashing back to those stories. I relate the tortoise to human beings referring to different stages of development that occurs — from birth to old age till we eventually die.
I could say that was the scariest animal ever seen and one I never knew could come in sight around the house as I only see it in storybooks and TV.
