Sophia

Sophia was not your typical inquisitive six year old. Where most of her friends took an interest in horses, climbing trees, singing or simply splashing about in the muck, Sophia was different. She lived for puzzles. She was born to unravel. To venture in to the heart of matters. So much so, that her father realized after many a long talk about the nature of things, that she would surpass him rather quickly in understanding. Her natural affinity for all things unresolved made her a tireless interlocutor, much to the bemusement of her rather accommodating parents. She had questions, and it was expected that they had answers.

Her inquisitions began rather innocently enough, as children's do. Children ask excellent questions. There is something about turning over a thought for the first time that yields the most unspoiled line of inquiry. Has anyone ever satisfactorily answered the juvenile question "why is the sky blue?" Many elucidations could be given. Where Sophia differed from her peers was not that she was seldom satisfied with the answer, but that she simply would not give up the chase. Though her mother may be a trusted authority, there was always a need to know, to possess that kernel of truth within herself, that would not permit the acceptance of anything on faith. There was always another "why?" lurking behind the resolution of the last one.

Many were the nights that she would pass in rapture as her mother would regale her with bedtime stories, brought to life from the tattered pages of any number of children's tomes which had been passed down through the generations. She made the attempt to read them herself, but nothing could ever compare with the flights of fancy that were loosed within her as she simply listened to the story, and did not miss the point. She especially treasured the picture book of myths and legends whose rich and uncanny characters could be quickened best by the voices her elder brother would give to each. As these figures leapt off the page to greet her wonderment, her pulse raced, her eyes watered, her imagination soared. There was no place she would rather be.

Though the exterior rarely betrayed any sign of emotion, her parents never doubted that a happy little girl lay underneath the mask. Companions were few, but always close and with a deep resonance between them; she had many best friends, but a special place was reserved for silence. Though curious, she was far from a garrulous and extroverted child, but rather more shy and reserved; even to the point that her earliest school teachers recommended to her parents expert testing to determine why she would hide under the desk and seem to be immersed in her own person except when a friend could rouse her from her preoccupation. The specialists could only conclude that there was no discoverable problem that made her so indifferent to the more mundane incidents of daily life, which surprised her family not a bit. She was just Sophie, plain & simple, and made perfect sense in and of herself.

Words held a particular fascination, and there could never be time enough to collect all of them. Often one would serve as something to latch on to, a vessel in which to venture over open waters and explore faraway vistas. Frequently were the times when her mother would catch her talking silently to herself, or so it appeared. What she was in fact doing was to repeat a word on her lips, and in her mind, over and over until something happened. Something always happened.

The first time she uncovered this facility was early on, and quite by accident of course. The greatest discoveries are never born of purpose. The word was "turtle". This modest word is ripe with significance, and admits of many interesting permutations. She may have overheard her father say something about "turtles all the way down", which at first struck her as an absurd, comical image, or it may have come from some other place entirely; she could not later recall whence it originated, but it is a trivial matter all the same...

Turtle.

At first, the word conjures up something familiar. An image of the animal, naturally.

Turtle.

Perhaps a real one swimming in the ocean; doing turtle things as one might expect.

Turtle.

Perhaps a cute, cartoonish caricature of one, splashing happily in the mud just beside a pond under a happy sun smiling down upon it.

Turtle.

What *do* they do anyway? What are their priorities? What pressing turtle things do they attend to in the day-in-day-out hurly burly of ordinary turtle life?

Turtle.

What an interesting sounding word.

Turtle.

It almost sounds like some sort of excretion. Something foul.

Turtle.

Or maybe an awkward gait.

Turtle.

Or one of those strange little baubles that are so dear to children, only for them to later forget about entirely once they grow through a few more stages in life, and put such childish things away.

...and so it went on and on down myriad inner passages and corridors, ever accelerating and cavorting from one dissociated thought to the next. After enough repetition, the word would begin to lose its meaning as thoughts piled up one after the other, the origin and signification of the set of phonemes growing ever more obscure behind a fog of other words...

Turtle.

...no longer a word at all, but an incantation, a formula, an invocation. The starting point from which she embarked having entirely lost its place within a contextual network of other words...

Turtle.

...with adequate persistence, even this network would melt away. Not only had all grasp on "turtle" been relinquished, but so too on any word whatever. Speech was well outside the realm of possibility, and indeed all internal lingual thought was no longer available. Nearly all her well-trodden mental paths were worlds removed, as she felt herself plunged in to a pre-verbal state not unlike that of the newborn babe...

Turtle.

...no longer confident she was even repeating the same mantra she started with, but quite certain she had long ago embarked on a new and wonderful course, she became utterly submerged in her own internal actuality to the extent that there literally was no external world to speak of, if she could even dream of speaking...

TURTLE.

...abruptly, as if roused from a deep slumber she found herself thrust in to a hall, the boundary of which she could not ascertain. It was utterly vacant, apart from a sole figure sitting on a throne. This figure assumed the aspect of a king, and with slender, crooked finger, beckoned that she draw near. Sophia approached in earnest.

Spake the king, "Whence come you, my child?"

The voice reverberated through all time. She remained silent, enchanted by the old man. He paused, looking at her solemnly.

"What would you ask of me?" he continued.

The time for answers had come. She considered carefully, and then inquired.

"What is there?"

She thought she detected the slightest hint of a smile threatening to break through the old man's staidfast expression. In a moment, she apprehended a much larger throne behind the king which she had not hitherto perceived, upholding another king likewise greater in all appearances. This superadded king replied in a booming voice,

"There is what you can know."

Undaunted just as though she was in colloquy with her father, her mind immediately bounded to the next relevant question, which issued from her lips almost without conscious effort.

"What can I know?"

As with the first king she now beheld a yet greater and more encompassing being which sat atop yet another throne behind the last, who answered.

"You can know what is right."

Seized by an insatiable thirst for truth, she responded without hesitation.

"What is right?"

A yet higher being answered from a distant height.

"What is right is what you must do."

"What must I do?" countered Sophia, unsure if this dialectic would ever end, and where it would lead.

"What I ask of you", came the reply from yet further on high.

Sophia abided in her old friend silence briefly, as the last voice echoed through ages. The cycle would be broken.

"*Why* should I *want* to do what you ask of me?"

A voice spoke thus to her, from both above and below:

"BECAUSE YOU CAN".