If you could see all the lives you might have lived, would you still be happy with the one you chose?
The island had not changed in 100 years. At least, that was what I believed. The salty smell of the sea drifted through the air as hungry, wild waves smashed against the volcanic rocks, cutting through the earth like bruised, black scars. I placed my short, rounded right foot on one of the volcanic rocks. As I solemnly turned my head to glance at the countless palm trees behind me, I spotted my earlier footprints in the powdery sand. I lifted my right foot off the rock and started heading towards my usual path, the one I walked every day. However, something about this walk didn’t feel quite so ordinary this time. Something was different. For the first time in 100 years, I asked myself: What would my life have been like if I had made different choices?
“Goodness, Nilo! You look as though the entire island has collapsed on your shell!”
I could already imagine who was planning on ruining my day. Standing beside me was Julian, a tortoise who seemed to possess an extraordinary talent for appearing whenever I least wanted company.
“Nothing has happened,” I replied. Except, of course, for Julian bothering me with his exceptionally wicked aura.
“Nothing?” he repeated, following me. “Then why do you look so miserable? Has someone died? Have you lost something? Tell me, what tragedy has befallen you?”
“Must there be a tragedy for someone to think?”
Julian blinked. “Well, usually, yes.”
I sighed in desperation, wondering whether a version of my life existed in which Julian had learned to remain silent or, at the very least, think twice about what he was going to blurt out.
Thankfully, Julian eventually decided that he had more important things to do than investigate my supposed tragedy. I continued along the familiar path, grateful for the silence at last.
As I continued wandering, my thoughts rushing through my head like racing cars in a competition, I suddenly noticed something unusual between the palm trees. A narrow path, hidden beneath tangled roots and fallen leaves, stretched towards the centre of the island.
Curiosity, as I would later discover, is a rather inconvenient thing for a tortoise.
I followed the path until I reached a small clearing. In its centre stood a peculiar stone archway, covered in symbols I could neither recognise nor understand. Beyond it, the air shimmered like the surface of the water.
I approached cautiously and peered through.
There I was.
Or rather, there was another version of me. He stood tall on a distant beach, surrounded by tortoises I had never met, laughing as though the world had never given him a reason to worry. Perhaps he had travelled beyond the island. Perhaps he had found something I had never been brave enough to search for.
I stepped back, and the vision vanished.
In one life, I had left the island and explored distant shores. In another, I had become a respected explorer, my name remembered long after my death. In yet another, I lived alone on a quiet beach, free from interruptions, unnecessary conversations and, most importantly, Julian.
“Now that,” I whispered, “would have been a magnificent life.”
“Talking to yourself now, Nilo? I knew something was wrong with you!”
I nearly jumped out of my shell.
Julian stood behind me, looking thoroughly pleased with himself.
“Go away,” I muttered.
Instead, he peered through the archway. The usual mischief disappeared from his face, replaced by something I had never seen in him before.
“Do you ever wonder,” he asked quietly, “whether we would still be friends if things had happened differently?”
I looked at him. For once, he was not smiling.
The other lives were still there, each one offering something I had never experienced. Adventure. Recognition. Freedom. A thousand possibilities, each more tempting than the last.
But none of them could promise happiness.
Perhaps the tortoise who had travelled across the world was lonely. Perhaps the explorer who had become famous regretted everything he had left behind. Perhaps the version of me who lived peacefully on a distant beach spent every evening wondering what he had missed.
And perhaps, in every one of those lives, I would still be searching for something else.
I glanced at Julian, who had already begun poking the strange stones with a stick.
“Do you think we should tell someone about this?” he asked.
“No.”
“Do you think it could be dangerous?”
“Probably.”
“Do you think we should investigate further?”
I stared at him.
“Julian, if there is one thing I have learned today, it is that some questions are better left unanswered.”
He considered this for approximately three seconds.
“Right. So, shall we get something to eat?”
I laughed. Actually laughed. And for the first time that day, the weight that had settled upon my shell seemed a little lighter.
I took one final look at the archway before turning away. The other versions of me were still there, waiting patiently for someone who would never come.
The island had not changed in 100 years. Perhaps I had simply forgotten how to see it.
As Julian and I made our way back along the familiar path, I realised that a different life might have been wonderful. It might even have been better in a thousand different ways. But I would never know, and perhaps that was the point.
We spend so much time wondering about the doors we never opened that we forget to notice the world waiting behind the one we chose.
And as for whether I was happy with my life?
Well, I still had an annoying tortoise to deal with tomorrow.
I suppose that was a beginning.