Outcasts
Disclaimer: I deny any ownership of any adolescent transformed shadow warrior chelonians.
Chapter Three: A Light in the darkness.
The life of the party, The PARTY in and of itself fun loving easy going and care free and quite willing to trust anyone. Raph said I was too trusting, too innocent, too naïve. I don't even think Raph knows what naïve means but I figure it is way better then walking around with an attitude.
Still while those things best described my nature and who I was, I knew at heart there was far more to me then that. I couldn't help but wonder what my life, our life would be like if we could just go walk around topside, be around people without them being afraid of us.
Sure people might be scared of us at first but I really think in the long run that in the end they would see we weren't so different. I mean other then the obvious stuff, we really were more alike then we were opposites.
I once told Splinter about this thought, about just going up and letting people see us and know we are here.
Splinter gave me a sad smile and a shake of his head " It is possible my son, but by the time the humans fears have died down it could be far too late for us my son."
I knew what he meant, I understood it but it bothered me having to hide all the time. It wasn't in my nature for one thing, but I could see our father's point of view.
What people don't know they fear and what they fear they tend to destroy, you can see it hundreds, millions of times in the past so you didn't have to be psychic to know we didn't stand a chance.
I longed to be out in the open, I was a social type; I wanted to be out there meeting people making friends, or just basking in the sun soaking up some great rays. A few minutes with me and I think any human could see that we weren't all that odd. Okay so maybe we are but what of it? It shouldn't make a difference right? At least that is what I tell myself.
No instead I get to sulk around in shadows, hide from the light, keep my distance and be a ninja hiding below the streets, like I was some sort of vampire.
I knew there was good people out there we have a few of them April and Casey being the main ones, but there have been others here or there. I looked hard to see the good in people maybe because I saw too much of the darkness the streets offered.
If I reflected only on the dark, then I'd turn Raph and the lair just isn't big enough for two Raph's in here.
Raph also spends far too much time with Casey searching out the scum to get them off the street and I don't think that helps my bro's views any, though it does help him blow off steam.
I know about the dark side of the streets, I've seen it more times then I care to remember or even think about. All the drug dealers pushing their children into becoming addicts, children not even nine or ten years old living off the streets doing what ever it took to get by, that included things far worse then stealing or, the gang fights that broke out now and again and the numerous senseless crimes that shattered lives.
What was even worse then seeing all that inhumanity to man, was when we put our lives in danger to help someone, who ends up dying anyways because we were too late to stop it. Those were the times we always went home questioning ourselves, and what we were doing.
We might not belong in society and in those times I felt we were the only ones that really gave a damn about the city we lived in!
It doesn't work that way in movies, the good guys always win unless of course you have a sequel coming out and you know the good guys are going trash the bad guys in that.
Real life wasn't like the movies, sometimes the bad guys won and nothing was ever as simple!
I suppose I watch the amount of television and movies that I do because it is my escape, we all have them, Leo does katas, Raph takes off and Donny locks himself up for days at a time.
In movies you know that everything is going work out and no matter what the hero/heroine faces they will prevail. It was great seating down relaxing and not having to worry about what the outcome was going be, with video games you had the knowledge it was just a game. It really didn't matter.
Unfortunately all it was was an escape, a way to avoid the harsh bitter realities of my life as an outcast.
I was meant to be in the sun; I needed the fresh air the freedom to move around. I wasn't meant to hide even if I was born a turtle, yet an outcast especially ones like us can't allow themselves to be seen for it will only cause trouble.
Our existence, if you could call it that was the most pathetic thing one could ever be given.
Sometimes all that goofing around I do is nothing more than a mask, another disguise, and yet I have grown so used to it that perhaps it has become a part of me and who I am now.
Face it we all wear masks, or put on a disguise to fool someone else, perhaps you might do it to impress a friend or associate, or you tell that little lie to the boss about how you would just love to work overtime, or extra time on your day off, even though you detest the very thought.
No one wants to be seen as weak or vulnerable unless they feel it can be used to their advantage. Sure we can be tough and hard nosed with co -workers but with some one we care about more relaxed and casual.
Perhaps the hardnosed person isn't really who you are any more then a relaxed person but you've played the role and you are used to it, so it becomes a part of you.
Sometimes I think I laugh because it is the only alternative to breaking down and giving up entirely and that just isn't an option to me. By choosing laughter and making light of even the hardest problems we face I am able to keep going and also, keep others around me going.
Yeah, I admit I played the clown when I was younger to get attention, with four young kids to look after one has to use what you got for quality time you know.
I learned early that laughter truly could be good medicine.
So I might act the clown in battle, but that doesn't mean I don't focus on where I am or what is going on around me. My brothers of course will berate me telling me to grow up, but I know they need the laugh as much as I do.
If I am feeling the pressures and strain of a battle then I know they must be too. They need a brief light to shine through the darkness giving them renewed strength to fight on and I know they appreciate it in spite of their words.
Just as I know no matter how much I want to go out and make friends and meet new people and walk truly empty handed among my enemies, I know it can't be because of what we are.
People on their own are easier to win over, then in a group. Get a large group of people together and either through fear or a sense of unity, a feeling of you can't touch us, due to the strength of numbers alone, you will find all of them suddenly acting irrationally, even the ones who would never do that outside of a group.
For they act and react to everything going on around and about them.
If we were to expose ourselves and a crowd were to gather the crowd judgment would rule and in such an instance we would either be forced to dishonour our training by harming, or even killing innocents, or end up dead ourselves.
It isn't worth it.
I know in my heart we are not all that different from the people topside just like them we have our fears, doubts, dreams, goals, we have tried and failed and we have tried and succeeded. We love, we hate, we cry we laugh, we become discouraged and yes we even bleed and one day we will die.
Yet how many can look beyond their fears and open their eyes to see the truth of the matter?
No, the only thing the people will see and react to is what makes us different our skin, our looks, the fact that we are animals, we are something out of some weird sci-fi show.
Teenage mutant ninja turtles! What a joke the thought is ludicrous in itself. It is impossible, it shouldn't be and yet we are, so how can you explain that?
I think therefore I am, I must exist in spite of all the odds that say it could never happen.
My brothers are an extension of that improbability. There is only us four and for all I know when we die no one will mourn our loss, because they won't know we were even here.
I have often dreamed of the possibility that there might be others like us, or a place where we might fit in, I think my brothers all share that dream.
Don once told me that there were other mutant turtles out there, I was thrilled, ecstatic, finally someone we could get together with a way so we don't have to be alone.
It seems my hopes were not to be for Don quickly explained it wasn't like that at all.
" It is a disease that effects the green sea turtles Mike. It ends up killing them."
It seems being a mutant turtle isn't all it is cracked up to be. An endangered species threatened all the more, by a disease that ends up causing pain, suffering and eventually death.
I can totally relate to that. After all I had seen others hurt, been hurt more times then I can count sooner or later I will die. Such is life.
While I care for my family and enjoy just about any time I spend with them, I think if I were the last to survive I'd go topside and take my chances in the world above.
I'd sooner face that then a life all alone.
I can cope and deal with the way my life is now if only because I do have my family, they are my strength, and their strength gives me courage. My laughter and jokes gives them the strength to keep going and fight on with renewed purpose.
My family my brothers make the isolation we deal with bearable.
Without them I don't know how I could manage continuing on living in the shadows when there is no one to share my life with.
I sometimes lie awake at night wishing, hoping that people will be a little more understanding, start to accept, that, which is different without fearing it first for whatever reason.
This might not be the time or place, but maybe we will live to see that time and then we can go up and be a part of society instead of outcast living on the edge in the shadows.
Until then the safest thing we can do is hide. Until then as long as a joke can ease the tension and darkness, I will gladly play the clown, though I am much more than that.
For I am the light and any light whether a candle's flickering flame or the bright rays of a midday sun have a way of leaving the darkness behind, and a light can raise spirits even in the darkest of nights, my brothers and I know that well.
In our own way we are all lights.
I know that an understanding might only be reached if people return to the roots of their ancestors, when what ever you took, you gave back and you never took more than you needed. To understand, to accept people had to overcome their fears and realize that there is a balance and as long as the balance is upset only fear and hatred can rein.
If people fear and hate they will destroy, that is simple enough and that is why we must stay outcasts.
TBC
If you talk to the animals they will talk to you and you will know each other.
If you do not talk to them you will not know them and what you do not know you fear.
What one fears one destroys- Chief Dan George " My Heart Soars."
Pretender Fanatic: There must be some similarities in a story line like this as each turtle is thinking about what makes them an outcast in the world they are forced to live in. However the different personalities allow a bit of freedom in how and why each views themselves as Outcasts.
Lenni: Hopefully you can get into Nike's chapter.
Reinbeauchaser: I agree on your view of if the turtles were real and actually alive. I think they'd get a good laugh over many of our stories. Course that was the premise for one of my stories.
