There are always children with wild eyes to run toward my shell, as if I am an amusement park ride, and there are always former children to sweep them up with admonishments that I am too fragile to bear their weight. Perhaps I couldn’t, but we’ll never know if the crushing weight of a gleeful child would actually be the thing that gets this old dotard. I’ve seen their faces come and go and come again, century after century. Occasionally I hear them dawdle on about the world outside, and see their clothes and gadgets morph, yet, there has always been lettuce and there have always been berries. And now that I have seen a fifth George come and go, and watch the seventh crawl toward with conviction, I remain, everlasting, George the Tortoise.