The Broken Tortoise -By Christopher Ekpo

The tale has it that one day, there was a feast in heaven for all the birds.

since tortoise was greedy, he also wanted to attend the feast but did not have wings to fly, so, he went to the birds and convinced them to give him wings which they did by contributing each to him.

Before they arrived the venue, he told them to choose the names they would like to be called at the feast. They all chose and he said his name was EVERYBODY.

This sounded funny to the birds who were naïve of the craftiness of the tortoise.

When the feast began and food was brought to everybody, tortoise claimed all the food because he was everybody.

the birds were all disappointed and angry and took back their wings seeing that they had been deceived by the tortoise and he was left without wings.

When the birds arrived on earth, they placed dangerous object on the ground knowing that the tortoise is falling down from heaven. And when he did, his shell was broken into pieces.

Here, the tortoise did something many of us today would not have done or will not want to do.

He picked up his broken pieces and moved on!
Till today, we still see the tortoise with broken pieces.
He is not ashamed. He did not sit down and blame himself or others, even when he was at fault.
This is what many are yet to realize, that even when they have done the ‘worst’ they can still move on.

Oswald Avery advised, ‘whenever you fall, pick something up.’

have you been broken?
pick up your pieces and move on