Slow Polky

Slow Polky

“Look at him,” said Swift, as he intently stared off into the distance, sprawled across the long, thick limb of a forked tree. “He’s so slow.”

“I know,” replied his brother, following Swift’s gaze from the other limb. “It’s dIsgusting, right?”

Swift glanced over at his brother and reflected for a moment whether to respond. His amber-colored eyes then returned to the distance. “Ya’ know, I actually think it’s kind of cool…”

“‘Cool?!?’” his brother repeated, dismayed and yanking his face away from the sight and back to Swift’s direction.

“Yeah, I mean… Look at him. He’s always so chill. So relaxed. And he moves so slowly. Life must feel pretty relaxing to him, for him to move that slowly. You know what I mean?”

“No, I don’t,” his brother’s face contorted even more. “What are you even talking about?!"

Swift’s gaze persisted, seemingly unfazed by his brother’s reaction. His eyes squinted, in an effort to block out the beaming sun’s glare through the trees and to see the creature out in the distance more clearly.

“Yeah, I mean he’s so laidback…” he continued, “As if he doesn’t have a care in the world. And maybe he doesn’t! But in moving that slowly, you would think he would. You would think he’d know that could make him the perfect prey. And yet, slowly and steadily he still goes…”

After a brief pause, his brother retorted, “Yeah, it’s pretty stupid. I mean, how dumb can you possibly be?”

“Well, clearly not that dumb, because in spite of it, he survives. They all survive…”

Both of their large, bright-yellow bodies squirmed at the same time on its respective tree limb to find a more comfortable position, with each of their sea of big, black polka dots seeming to swim with the movements.

“Yeah, but survive at what cost?” his brother asked rhetorically. "They lead a life with probably little to no excitement. I mean, they’re so slow and boring, we don’t even bother messing with them—”

“Exactly,” Swift interjected. “And isn’t that smart—how they’ve managed to make themselves not prey for probably millions of years by naturally moving so slowly and being essentially ‘unchasable'? You don’t find that smart and interesting?”

They watched the creature’s short, stubby feet patiently work one-by-one to drag its round, muddy-green-colored anatomy across the arid landscape.

His brother’s faintly lighter-amber eyes rolled. “No. I find it boring. And all I know… All we know…” the enormous feline said as he leapt off of the tree and began jumping around, showcasing his speed—contrasting that of the reptile below—and pouncing onto make-believe prey on the ground. “All we’ll ever know… is to move fast. If you want things done and you want it done quickly and you want life to be halfway interesting all the while, you gotta move fast. I mean… Even the deer know that!”

“Yeah,” inserted Swift, barely glancing at his brother, unimpressed by his antics. He continued to mainly focus on the creature in the distance. “But what if we didn’t? What if we didn’t always move so fast? ”

“But…why?” asked his brother, genuinely puzzled.

“Why not?” returned Swift.

“We don’t even have it in us to mostly move that slowly, Swift. I mean, we might sometimes go more slow but mainly to take a short break and to strategically hunt and capture our prey. And even still, it’s never that slow. I mean, he’s walking so slowly, he’s practically standing still! He might as well be walking backwards!!” his brother chuckled.

“But do we ever try, though?” Swift persisted.

“But why would we want to, when we can be fast! And exciting!!”

“Well, I don’t think I always need ‘exciting’,” Swift reflected. “I need…calm. I think I’m going to give it a try…”

“‘Give it a try’? You’re talking crazy, brother. We don’t try to move slowly. If anything, we try to move faster. In our world, the slowest ones starve…and eventually die out.”

“Well, maybe we haven’t tried it the right way…”

“What right way? You move fast so you can get your prey, chow down, and live to see another day!”

“There has to be another way,” Swift said.

“Brother… There is no other way.”

Swift contemplated this conversation with his dear sibling for the rest of the day. He knew this would sound mad to most. His brother was right — as a cheetah, he was supposed to be quick, fast, mighty, and, in the greater animal kingdom, kind of ferocious. But he was finding himself increasingly questioning that way of living. He thought there must be more to it than just…hunting and chasing the weak for most of his waking life.

And he was anxious. Both during and in between his hunts, Swift had felt a sense of alarm within him that was unsettling. His body felt constantly in a revved-up state. As the kind of cat he was, even his heartbeat was always on alert, clocking in at 120 beats per minute—equivalent to that of a jogging human—even as he only lay around doing nothing.

He knew he was alone in this thinking among his kind, but he couldn’t help himself. He felt tired, overwhelmed, on edge, and he was ready for something different. So, he planned to try something different.

The next morning at six, instead of joining the rest of his pack to go hunting for the next several hours as he normally would, he decided to stay behind. He told them he wasn’t feeling well—maybe it was the result of eating a bad kill that had been sitting in the sun too long the day before, he’d said.

That seemed to work.

He made it a point to try this out while his brothers were away. Heaven forbid if any of them caught him—as his brother had put it—moving so slowly, he might as well have been walking backwards! He needed to be able to practice in peace. Without judgment.

Once he could see that they had all left, he began. He recalled in his mind the image of the gentle reptile, and he willed himself to walk and move as slowly as it had.

Immediately, he felt extremely awkward. Every bone and muscle in his lean frame screamed to move more quickly, to take off. And a few times, they started to. It was like an impulse. Swift felt his frustration rise as he continued to try, but it was almost as if it was physically impossible for him to move that slowly. Maybe his brother was right.

Still, he continued.

The next morning, after again calling out sick from his coalition’s hunt, he tried again.

He began his awkwardly slow gait, and he still felt the urge to speed things up. At this point, his heartbeat would’ve measured at around 150 beats per minute while just walking slowly.

“There has to be more to this,” he said out loud.

After frustratingly trying for two hours, Swift eventually gave up.

Later that day, he spotted the tortoise he had come to admire from afar, and he watched it again.

This time, he paid more attention to its physical stature—more specifically, to its tiny, stubby legs. He contrasted this with his own that he hadn’t realized until now how long and lanky they were in comparison.

Maybe that’s why I struggle to walk more slowly! He reasoned. My legs are too long.

He had an idea to try and mimic shorter legs. He was going to crawl.

This time, he didn’t wait until the next morning. He figured he would look less-suspicious crawling around for short distances than he would walking very slowly. “I’m practicing a new technique for stalking prey,” he would tell anyone who asks.

He crouched down, lowering his body so close to the ground that his white belly nearly hugged the dirt, and he began dragging himself along.

It still felt awkward, but he somehow found it easier to do this really slowly versus walking at that pace—perhaps because he and his brothers actually had crawled at times while stalking their prey. He just would need to do it even more slowly and for longer than usual. I think I can manage that, he thought to himself.

The next morning, so as to not cause any suspicion, Swift rejoined his coalition. His hunger had also grown, and he realized it had been several days since he had last fed.

During that hunt, he along with a few of his brothers scored a meaty gazelle. It was satisfying for his nourishment, but he also felt bad, as everything it had taken to get the gazelle was everything he was trying to fight against in favor of a new life. He had basically given into his instincts.

Over the next several days, that certain cat of the wild made it a point to keep track of that certain turtle. He studied it and observed how else it lived that might shed more light on its steadied movements.

He saw that the tortoise often traveled alone. Swift rarely saw any other tortoises nearby, and when he did, they would usually also go their own way, alone.

So, he began spending more time alone, and away from his coalition, too. He knew it would raise some eyebrows, but he was determined to nail down this more unhurried, peaceful way of living—even if it meant isolating himself from his pack.

To reduce attention, he often made it a point to carry out these unusual behaviors further away from camp. Another of these was his latest sleeping habit. He noticed the tortoise would spend long stretches of time sleeping, even more than Swift was accustomed. So, what did he do? He began sleeping even more.

Swift knew this would look especially troubling to his brothers—visually, he could see how everything was adding up to him just generally becoming a lazy cat. So, he spent as much time with them as he could muster but also did whatever he could to minimize how much he was seen essentially revolting against their nature.

Over time, as Swift continued to do these certain things that attempted to mimic the tortoise, he admittedly found himself feeling off, a bit weaker. But he trusted that this was part of the process—the journey, as uncomfortable as it might be, that he needed to take to get to everlasting peace.

The final main habit Swift picked up from the tortoise was how it ate.

While Swift had been a lifelong, card-carrying carnivore—often capturing and devouring everything from a deer, to a wildebeest, and on a daily basis—the tortoise was a proud plant eater, mainly taking in such things as grass, leafy vegetables, weeds, cacti, and even flowers. And it wouldn’t do so as often as Swift was accustomed—sometimes it was daily, but often, every other day.

But Swift was determined to live it all.

He also reasoned that perhaps this was part of the key of the tortoise’s slowness. If all you need to survive on are the green stuff that grows out the earth, literally just inches beneath you at any given time, who needs to run? Chasing down food was literally the only reason Swift ever ran. Maybe there was something to this eating food just always there, everywhere around, and waiting for you, he thought.

So, Swift began feeding on the plants and other greenery in their shared area.

After trying this for the next several days, he noticed a sharp decline in his energy. And his stomach ached like it never had before—using the bathroom was an especially unpleasant experience.

As the days went on and he grew further and further away from his last fleshy meal, continuing to graze the same as his unwitting mentor, he found himself struggling to walk or barely even move at all.

Maybe… he struggled with a new epiphany. Maybe this is how the tortoise is able to move so slowly. From exhaustion!

Swift still wasn’t confident this was it, though. Yes, he moved a lot more slowly, but he still didn’t feel the peace and relaxation he had hoped for and thought would come with this kind of lifestyle. And his resting heart rate was still pretty high.

There’s gotta be something else, he thought to himself. What am I missing… What am I missing?

Ah! Its shell.

With that, Swift began his slow crawl through the area, searching for something he could use as a makeshift shell like the real one of the hard-backed reptile.

After searching for a few hours, he came across this large, concave rock. It was big enough to cover most of his body.

That’s it, he thought. That’ll be my shell!

Before he approached it, he saw a puddle full of mud and had another idea. He walked over to it and rolled around until his bright-yellow fur became varying shades of dark brown, nearly even camouflaging his thousands of black spots. He thought this would give the added touch of channeling the tortoise’s energy and approach to life, as he embodied it even on the outside.

Swift then approached the rock and struggled to lift one end of it with his head. It took him over an hour, but he finally crawled underneath to where the mass rested on his back.

And he crawled on.

He quickly realized the rock’s weight significantly slowed him down even more.

This is it! He exclaimed through his exhaust. I’m finally living the life of a tortoise!

Hours later, he was back in familiar territory, near his favored dwelling as of late.

The tortoise observed this large, spotted creature passing by, moving even more slowly than himself—at nearly a snail’s pace—and actually grazing, with a big rock on its back!

Its eyebrows furrowed. As the creature got closer, he was able to see more clearly what it really appeared to be. At first alarmed, that feeling quickly faded as he observed how slow and weak this feline was. The tortoise realized he wasn’t afraid to go near it, and so he bravely approached Swift.

“What in the world happened to you?!” The tortoise asked, bewildered.

Swift barely had the energy, let alone words, to answer. But he managed to string a few together. “Actually. I was trying to be more like you,” he mustered, “So I could find more peace.”

“Me?” The tortoise replied. “Peace? What makes you think I have peace?”

“Because, just look at how slowly and calmly you move…”

“Oh, and how exactly were you going to move as slowly as me? Was this—“ the tortoise waved one of his front paws out towards Swift’s puzzling appearance, “your great plan to do so?”

Feeling the most defeated he had since he’d begun this whole experiment, Swift deeply sighed. “I thought if I did the things you seem to do, eat how you eat, live how you live, even look how you look, I would start to slow down and be more at peace, like you.”

“Oh, you silly cat,” snickered the tortoise. “You can’t be more like me. You’re a cheetah. I’m a tortoise. We’re two completely different animals, with different behaviors, and serve different purposes in the greater kingdom.”

“But why can’t I adopt some of the things that you do that seem to be more calming than what we do?”

“Okay, then sure, do that,” replied the tortoise. “Adopt some. You can live a slower, more peaceful life, but you don't have to do it exactly how I do it. You’re not a tortoise. You’re a cheetah, so be a cheetah. Instead of doing it the way I do it, why not try a version of how you do it? Of how you're built to do it.”

The words of Swift’s brother suddenly roamed through his head: We don’t even have it in us to move that slowly…

In our world, the slowest ones starve…and eventually die out…

You move fast so you can get your prey…and live to see another day…

There is no other way…

“But what if how I do it isn’t peaceful like it is for you?” asked Swift.

“And don’t assume what I’m doing is peaceful. ‘Slow’ doesn’t always mean peaceful. A lot of my life happens to be, but that isn’t always a given. Friend, you have to find your own version of peace.”

Swift pondered his words for a few moments, wondering what a cheetah’s version of peace would look like.

“Can you teach me?” He finally asked.

“‘Teach you’?” The tortoise repeated.

“Yeah… Teach me. Help me find my peace.”

The tortoise sighed. “I mean… I have no idea where to even begin to help a cheetah find his peace…”

“Oh, come on,” Swift said hopefully. “Let’s just try.”

And so try, they did.

Over the next few weeks, Swift continued to juggle two lives, splitting his days between hunting time with his brothers and peace-training time with his new friend, the tortoise.

There was no guidebook for it, but Swift found that just being around the gentle reptile, continuing to observe and slow down like he did was in fact more calming than his feline way of life.

He of course ditched the big, heavy rock and the plant-eating. And he had returned to his clean, bright-yellow fur that neatly showcased his endless spots. He no longer crawled everywhere and instead returned to his lanky, confident stride.

He just was a little more measured in his movements—yes, he moved a bit more slowly, as often as he could, especially when around the tortoise. It just wasn’t extreme like before. It was a cheetah’s measured slowness.

Slowly but surely, he was discovering the cheetah’s version of peace.