I Killed a Turtle — Now I Have Mixed Feelings About It

Wouldn’t you?

Nadja Scarlett
4 min readMay 17, 2022
Photo by Jeremy Bezanger on Unsplash

While driving to Starbucks on a gorgeous spring day, I saw a turtle inch across the busy street, slowly but surely into my lane.

There was a car behind me, so I couldn’t slow down.

Instead, I did my best to move over to the left, to miss the reptile, and prevent an accident by this sudden maneuver.

I heard a crunch as I drove by, yikes! Then checked my rearview mirror to see the turtle move as if in pain — sure to be flattened by oncoming traffic.

Photo by Max Kleinen on Unsplash

This bothered me! I had empathy for the reptile’s vulnerability, and certain agony. I felt guilty that my vehicle was the cause.

To manage these uncomfortable feelings, my thoughts were:

Too bad; it shouldn’t have crossed the road; being hit was inevitable!

The car behind me would’ve run the turtle over anyway, if I didn’t.

The poor thing doesn’t know the dangers of crossing a busy street.

I did my best!

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Nadja Scarlett
Nadja Scarlett

Written by Nadja Scarlett

“Witchy, not wicked” | Hodgepodge of stories from spooky fiction to nonfiction, and ALOT in between with a mix of quirky for extra fun!