Conditional Reality

My hometown fell out of a turtle’s brain about two hundred years ago. People moved into the town. Life was slow and steady for many generations. Then the turtle, who had moved on, died. The town descended into chaos with citizens neglecting their jobs and their children. That was about when I was born. As a child I heard all about the turtle. The turtle was wonderful. The turtle loved us. And so on. I moved away as soon as I could. Eventually I found the turtle’s corpse. Bugs lived in it. I shook them off and kept the shell.