In a county in the southeast of England, there is a small house known as a terraced house, a classic English style, because it shares walls on both sides with neighboring houses. The house is white, two-story, simple, and situated on a dead-end street. It has a parking space in front, featuring an old car with slightly rusted bodywork parked on the curve that covers the wheels, adorned with stickers depicting reptiles and promoting the Turtle Sanctuary. The door of the house is narrow and also peeling. The front window displays a white curtain that looks like lace, closed. No one could ever imagine the surprise that unfolds within those walls.
There lives a man named Tony, a young man of about 42 years old, who resides with his parents alongside approximately two thousand turtles of various species, from small semi-aquatic musk turtles to dozens and dozens of terrapins.
It all began as everything begins: in darkness. Tony was a great weightlifting athlete, a competition winner who savoured the sweetness of victory until he started losing, not only competitions but also his way, gradually succumbing to a deep depression. The muscles faded away just like the hopes for podiums and medals, and in that process, Tony lost himself in a labyrinth of darkness.
The resolution also came as resolutions do: imperceptibly and not without complications. Tony stumbled upon a Facebook ad from a man who had recently acquired a turtle and was angry with life and the turtle itself because nothing had turned out as he had expected. Caring for turtles was complicated, and for that reason, he threatened Facebook users with throwing the little animal onto the street if no one showed up to adopt it.
Moved by an impulse, Tony clicked on the profile of the indignant man and offered to pick up the turtle. He had never owned turtles, but one can assume that the image of the little animal lost in this world, without direction or purpose, awakened Tony’s compassion.
Turtle and man connected immediately, discerning together a small point of light in the darkness. Off they went, Denis and Tony, who together witnessed how light can eventually defeat shadow. Then, a world of dozens, hundreds, of turtles of all sizes and species unfolded on the horizon, turtles that, without any intention, had been left homeless, stuck in drains, submerged in waters infested with plastic, traffic, and indecipherable highways, but tangibly lethal to their lives. At the terraced house in the southeast of England, even millionaires showed up in sports cars, clutching at the front with their arms species of turtles prohibited in England, acquired on the black market for astronomical prices, which had failed to sufficiently entertain their investors. The turtles multiplied in the terraced house, taking one room and then another and another, until they even reached the garden.
Tony has two thousand turtles in his home, swimming in aquariums, illuminated with ultraviolet lamps and divided by species. The garden has only a pedestrian space of about 80 centimeters wide that extends into a walkway crossing four enormous ponds built by Tony himself, in which hundreds of river turtles pile up and swim. Each pond and each aquarium are equipped with filters and water heaters, and all are kept immaculately clean. The terraced house smells good, is tidy, and all the turtles look healthy and content. A proud tuxedo cat struts along the wood surrounding the water ponds in the garden, respecting the turtles and seeming to even care for them. He is not skittish and allows one to pet him; he is sweeter than the average.
Tony is poor. He works as a mechanic and invests everything he earns in his home sanctuary. His dream is to acquire a vast piece of land to build an appropriate refuge for his two thousand turtles that other humans did not want or whose habitats other humans have invaded and contaminated. On the walls of the terraced house hang a few newspaper articles celebrating Tony’s work, and there are also multiple replies to the hundreds of letters Tony has sent asking for help from celebrities, organizations, and the government to finance his cause: “Thank you for your work, Tony… we greatly admire what you do… we regret not having responded earlier, but unfortunately, at this moment, we cannot provide funds…”
Tony is a talker. He wants to tell you every last detail of his story. He is passionate about his turtles, and one cannot help but feel moved by his humility and human greatness. Nothing surpasses in this world the anonymous heroes. Nothing. In this world of virtual platforms where so much nonsense is displayed and messages are so far removed from our human richness, the gold of Tonys multiplies in value. And so, in a terraced house in the southeast of England, Tony teaches us that true heroism does not seek recognition, but flourishes in selfless dedication and, at times, often arises from the deepest difficulties.