So the turtle considers. After giving the situation some thought, it becomes pure scientific logic to the turtle. What can be more valuable than ones life, or the lives of your loved ones? The turtle asks the scorpion if it too has a family. "Certainly I have, and their well-being is more dear to me than anything else in this world." The scorpion pulls out a worn picture of his family and points out the family members to the turtle. The scorpion talks in a gentle voice, and by the look of its posture, it seems very sincere. "Please," the scorpion begs, "please help me to get back home." A desperate look spreads across the face of the scorpion as its thoughts wanders to its home soil. "There is no-one here but you to help me," the scorpion continues to argue. Touched by this concern for family matters, the turtle finally agrees to carry the scorpion across the big wide river.
Once in the water, the waves are tough on the newfound friends, but the turtle keeps the pace up with great effort not to let his passenger down. Halfway across, the turtle suddenly feels the scorpion's terminal sting in his neck. "Why, why," it gasps as the venom paralyses it, "why did you do it?" They both begin to sink into the dark waters. "Damned if I know. Guess it's just in my nature," the scorpion replies. In the last trembling moments of the turtle's existence, its life starts to play back like a movie in fast forward. As the movie reaches its last frame, it freezes on the old adage "to try is to fail - not to try is to surrender" as the river swallows both of them in an inevitable act of nature and the soul of the turtle rejoins its creator.
See the analogy?
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