Leatherback Leila

I hate these walls. They’re so plain. So plain, so white, but so loud. So loud. They glare at me every hour of every day and I hate it. I hate it so much.

I’ve only lived here for maybe two weeks, but it feels like it’s been months. Years, even. Years inside these stark, barren walls. I can’t take it. I swear on my life that they inch towards me. They want to suffocate me.

I wish I had one of those cool Pinterest rooms, with the cool lights and the cool bedsheets and the cool posters, instead of the industrial, way-too-bright white lights, the dingy, baby-blue mattress, and these god awful walls that stare me down and laugh. I guess if we end up here we don’t deserve Pinterest rooms.

How did I get here? Hell if I know.

That’s a lie. I won’t talk, but if you get close enough to me to lift up my sleeves, my wrists might.

Anyways.

Last week, Mom and the girls came to visit. They left me with a few magazines in a shoebox next to the wall. Mom drew a smiley face on the side of it. I‘ve barely even looked at it.

I hate smiley faces. And I hate those walls. I can‘t go near them. But today I will. I’m bored out of my mind. My skull is shrinking with boredom, I can’t make this up. I need to get off this mattress.

Up. Get up, Leila! There we go. You’re off the mattress. Take a step. Move, feet! Go forward! The walls aren’t going to hurt you. The walls aren’t going to hurt you. They’re not closing in. See? They’re not moving.

Yes they are.

Shut up. No they’re not. Move forward. Two more steps.. One more step.. They’re not going to hurt you..

Yes they will.

I’m there. I grab the magazines in my hands, make a mad dash towards my bed, and cower. I don’t know for how long, but I cower and shudder and shake because the walls are screaming, screaming with laughter, getting closer and closer, so close, too close..

Maybe reading will make it stop. I uncurl myself from the shaky ball I’d made and I open the magazine I’d been pressing to my chest like a mother to a child. The voices.. the walls..

National Geographic Kids. I frantically start reading, trying to drown out these walls, I don’t know what I’m reading, I don’t care, just read, just read, just read.

The walls. They’re not talking. I slow down to process what stopped them. A cartoon turtle named Leatherback Larry is taking me on an ‘Aquatic Adventure!’.

This is so dumb. I keep reading.

The leatherback sea turtle, sometimes called the leathery turtle or the lute turtle, is the largest species of sea turtle and the fourth-heaviest reptil, behind the crocodile. Pretty cool, right?

That is pretty cool, actually.

Leatherbacks are one of the deepest diving marine animals. Some of them have been recorded diving as deep as 4,200 feet! Hey, I do that!

The walls. They’re quiet. Carefully, I look up at them. Are they still glaring at me? I squint. They’re not!

I decide to experiment. I stare at the walls. They’re staring at me, they’re staring at me, they’re staring at me, I tell myself. They’re glaring, staring, laughing, staring..

And then they are. The quiet stops. I quickly look down at Leatherback Larry and read.

The leatherback sea turtle, sometimes called the leathery turtle or the lute turtle, is the largest species of sea turtle and the fourth-heaviest reptil, behind the crocodile. Pretty cool, right?

The walls are quiet.

Some damn turtle in a magazine for kids half my age. Who would’ve thought. I turn the page, skipping the rest of Larry’s childish ramblings, and there’s a full-page print of a beautiful, majestic leatherback. She‘a surrounded by medics and researchers. She’s injured, the caption tells me, but she’s safe. She’ll be fine.

They named her Leila. I pause.

Mom would call it symbolic. I bet the nurses would, too. Me? I don’t do that stuff. It’s just a turtle. A cool turtle, but a turtle.

She’s safe.

Tears?

Oh, come on. When did I get corny? I’d rather deal with the walls.

Kidding. Kidding.

Great. They’re here. Perfectly on cue.

Leatherbacks, sadly, are endangered. This means that they are at serious risk of extinction. But how? There are many human activities that directly and indirectly harm our leatherbacks.

Every year, hundreds of hatchling lives are lost due to light pollution. The babies crawl toward streetlights instead of moonlight, and are led to their immediate deaths.

How sad.

Pollution is seriously harmful to leatherbacks, too! Sometimes they get stuck in lobster traps or fishing nets. Sometimes they accidentally ingest harmful chemicals. Sometimes they confuse plastic bags for the jellyfish they like to eat and end up with plastic bags in their bellies! All of these things lead to the leatherback sea turtle’s endangerment.

And I thought I had it bad. This is heartbreaking.

I feel like crying.

Even though it’s not as common with leatherbacks as it is with other turtle species, some people even poach the turtles for their meat!

Leila (on the left) got stuck in a fishing net and had to be rescued. Many other turtles aren’t as lucky as Leila is. We at National Geographic are working on helping her ad quick as possible, so that she can go back into the ocean before mating season and has a chance to lay her eggs!

I look again at this majestic creature with her cut-up fins and shreds of rope not yet removed. But I don’t focus on that. I focus on her sleek shell, her silky black color, the white speckles that dot her shell. Her eyes, her bottomless eyes that look like they want to cry with pain and cry with joy and cry with a million other emotions all at once.

She’s injured. But she’s beautiful.

They call her Leila.