Blue Explores
- Neil Oldman
- Sep 7, 2025
- 6 min read
Updated: Jan 7
In his 52nd year of life, Blue the sea turtle discovered how to swim behind the waves.
Blue had spent a lifetime riding the currents and figured he knew as much as anyone about the way things are. The endless pull of the tides, the secret places near the shore and in the deep, the light of the moon on vast flats of seaweed in the summer, he'd seen much. Life was beautiful but held no mystery for him any longer.
Blue was old but happy, father to many, brother to some, friend to others. He didn't know when his time would be up, but he'd lived a full life and wasn't afraid for what might come next.
On a warm morning in May, Blue was cruising for jellies in the shallows when he noticed something peculiar. The waves crashed ashore as they always had. They pulled back in a tumble of glittering sand and shell fragments. But then, when all their energy was exhausted, there came a brief flicker, a flash of vertical light, something he'd never seen before. He had the feeling that it had always been there, but how had he never noticed?
Blue floated patiently and studied.
He found that if he looked directly at the ray of light -- was it coming from above or below? -- he wasn't able to perceive the phenomenon well. But if he simply drifted and allowed the waves to move him, he could see it twinkling from the corner of his eye. In fact, it now seemed to him quite clear that this was not a thin beam of light as he'd originally thought, but something that spread wider than he'd suspected, wider even than he and his shell.
Blue floated there a long time, enjoying the rocking motion of the waters. His mind filled with memories of the pleasures of the shore, and of fine meals, and of remoras and crabs and octopuses he'd encountered. And he found that the more relaxed he became, the more he became aware that the light was everywhere, and that he was, by relaxing himself and letting the water guide him where it may, entering into it.
He noticed that the sun had fallen below the horizon. He had no idea how the time had passed so quickly, and he was seized by strange new compulsions. He was within the beam of light, looking out, and there was nothing else any longer to see. When the moment was right, he pulled the water with his flippers and propelled himself forward.
The next thing Blue realized was that the nature of color had changed, and it had become very cold. He found himself gliding high above a craggy landscape, with his flippers pushing gently against a thick ether. Looking down, he saw that shadowy puddles of a dark and oily substance spotted the landscape, mirroring an orange sky. All shades were in contrast and dappled.
Blue felt unnerved but not frightened. As he swam through the sky, he studied the terrain below. There were bodies that had never existed under any ocean. The formations of -- stone or hardened sand, he thought -- were too geometric, not weathered by the pressures and friction of the constant sea. There seemed to be no evidence of life, and as his mind began to accept that he had transitioned to a new country, he relaxed and began to enjoy the flow of weird imagery.
After what felt like weeks gliding and studying, appreciating in particular the bioluminescent plumes of gravel emitted upward from yawning, puckered membranes, it occurred to Blue that there might be other new lands to explore, and he realized that the light was still around him. He allowed himself to blend with it again, and he found himself sneaking through reality as though through a cave in a reef.
In this new realm, Blue felt himself buoyed by fleshy bubbles of blue and pink, which made little popping noises against his shell, though he could feel some of them passing through his body in some way, trying to communicate with him. The effect was disorienting as everything was a motion of round sound from all sides, an infinite field of spheres on all sides with no up, down, forward or backwards, gravitating to his form. He suspended, immersed and tickled by the experience.
As Blue entered the next dimension, he felt a wave of solace pass through him. He was again high above an alien landscape, but this one bristled with life. Far below, in canyons and on opaque seas of mercury, slithery organelles undulated like seaweed. All the way to the horizon and past, they danced in complicated rhythms, emitting what seemed to Blue to be empathic resonances, in which he gently swayed as he floated high above. They seemed to be unaware of him as he passed across their sky like a strange moon.
At his next destination, Blue found himself reduced to two dimensions, and he slid confidently across a flat plane covered with symbols which he somehow knew were there but could not see or describe. He became the mauve and lavender colors of the runes he passed over, experiencing with a new sense he couldn't explain or understand. The sensation of experiencing life as a hue was pleasant, like being comforted by a friend after a loss. Somewhere outside his soul, his cells vibrated with earthquake fervor.
He became with the light once more and was soon aware that he was passing through the circulatory system of some great beast, far larger than a whale, and that he was a healing force here, a medicine for an unknown ailment in a creature both vast and benign. As he swam through tunnels of sinew and ichor, fuzzy balls of skin accreted to him like barnacles, and as they dissolved and sparkled away, he felt nourished and renewed by symbiosis.
Blue continued his travels, gathering wisdom. He visited a dimension where humanoid souls marched down weird wire conveyors through a curtain of kelp-like tongues to gently submit their taste to an excited inclination of orange. He entered a kingdom of pure thought, which he experienced as music, a drone of shaking cymbals that echoed across creation from one distant shore to another for eternity. He immersed himself in the iris of a great squid-like eye, where he experienced each atom of physical existence as a kaleidoscopic mirror-version of his own flailing body.
Blue explored.
After many long years, Blue longed again for the comfort of the sea and chose to release himself from his learning. With a satisfied smile, he took a final sensory inventory of the flowing modes of chaos and order which now and always permeated his being, relinquished his body to the gravity of his astral form, shed his shell and skin, and merged for a final time with the light.
When Blue became aware, all was darkness. He was in a confined space, alone, but could make out nothing. He twisted and arched, but he found that he was hemmed in on all sides by strong walls. After some experimentation, he discovered that if he pressured against them and used his beak, he could push back on the barrier somewhat. From beyond, he heard a clattering of activity and became more and more curious. He struggled, clawing for freedom from the endless night.
Finally, he breached the wall above him. Immediately, the empty space in his cell was filled from above by wet sand falling and covering his body. He shook it from him as he squirmed higher, toward the light of what he saw now was a gentle moon. Beside him, many brothers and sisters also shook free from the nest and began their arduous journey to the shore.
Blue urgently waddled to reach the water, and as he touched the sea for the first time, he had the sensation of something heavy within him passing free. Something from the past, something very important but also no longer relevant -- but he forgot all that trouble soon as he swam with his siblings to the safety of a floating raft of seaweed under a bright silver night sky.
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Neil Oldman for the Daydream Misfit Blog
Poster prints of Blue Explores by Katty Pulsar in our shop
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