I wanted to get close enough so that I can see things a little better. So, I decide to sit on the edge of the pond with my feet inside on top of a rock where they're not touching the water. As I sit here, I'm looking directly inside the pond. The water, just like at Waller Creek, is dirty, polluted by humans. I walk over to the other side because a turtle caught my eye. He sits here on the wall of the pond with its hind legs and head in the air while he lays on his stomach shell, sunbathing. Alice Walker quotes in Slovic, "They are in fact completed creations (at least they seem to be, so much more than we) who are not likely to change: it is their nature to express themselves." I approach it. It turns and looks at me. It gives me this look with an attitude I didn't know turtles had. It's almost too funny to watch. It definitely has a character of its own. All this nature, all this beauty, destroyed by that floating cigarette bud that floats right past both me and the sunbathing turtle. Charles Darwin quotes in "Natural Selection; Or The Survival Of The Fittest," "Nature if I may be allowed to personify the natural preservation or survival of the fittest, cares nothing for appearances, except in so far as they are useful to any being." (X341) As I look even closer I see a Koi fish swim by. Its orange and yellow color give it a golden look from afar. Surrounding the rock that I'm using to prop my feet are millions of tiny fish. And only about 10 feet away to my left is a rock that sits rised above the pond water, where at this point three turtles are relaxing on. It really upsets me to see such fabulous creatures around our everyday environment and then to look into the water only to find a plastic ketchup bag, a candy wrapper, and a straw wrapper among other items sitting in the pond. Considering that these pollutants are only in my sight, I can't imagine what else is in here that isn't visible to me, yet these creatures consider this their home. To my left, I see a turtle shell sitting against the wall of the pond. I'm looking hard to see if it's just a shell or if it's a turtle resting on the bottom of the shallow water. The closer I get I can tell that it's just the shell of a helpless turtle that no longer exists. I can't help and wonder if it's the polluted pond that killed him or simply an act of nature.