It was a late Sunday morning. Lou, the turtle leisurely crawled towards one of the palm trees on the beach of the Island of Selflessness. When he was half way there, he slowly turned his head back towards the water to see how far he had already come. "Uff", he thought, but kept moving steadily towards the land.
"Bark", said Bark, who lived on the Island of Selflessness.
"Ah, my friend Bark. Nice to see you. How have you been?", Lou said. Bark was nervously walking up and down the beach while he spoke.
"Good. Wuff. How are you doing? How's the water? Anything new? What brings you here, King of the waters? Wuff.", Bark was laughing a little.
"Good, my friend. I'm doing very good. The water is cold and wet, and all in all, it is a wonderful place for a swim, don't you think?", Lou spoke, as always, very slowly.
Barks paws touched the water as he went further down the beach. First he barked in shock, but then he quickly got used to it.
Lou was starting to turn and tried to change his direction back towards the water while he spoke: "It is time to write a field guide to the heart, don't you think?"
"a field guide... Wuff.. to the.. Wuff.. heart... Wuff?"
"Our home, my friend. Yours and mine. I think it is time to explore and write down."
Lou had finally managed to turn around. He took a deep breath of exhaustion.
"Push me down into the water."
The turtle crawled into his shell and Lou came up to use his nose to gently but impatiently push his friend down to the water.
"ouch.... ouch.. ouch... Ok. that's it. Enough. Stop it."
Lou slowly put his feet to the water. "Thank you."
"Wuff, Where will you go?"
A smile came over Lou's wrinkly mouth as he started talking again: "First I will visit the Island of Insecurity, then I will go to the Islands of Hatred. I will go to the volcano of Rage and visit the monster. After that all that is left there is Connection Island, the mainland, where the heart of heart lies, and lastly, the Island of dreams."
"Uff.. That sure sounds like a long.. Wuff.. journey."
"Yes and I will meet many friends on the way. Do you want to accompany me?"
"Wuff.. of course."
Bark suddenly jumped up in shock.
"Whaaaa... Wuff.. What is that?"
A small Island had appeared very close to the shore of the Island of Selflessness.
"An Island of Sympathy.."
"Wooow."
"Let's wait a moment before we leave, to see if it's stable."
The dog did not like the idea of waiting. His selfless nature however kept him from leaving without his friend.
A few seconds later the Island started disappearing again. It sank into the water with rapid speed and was soon completely out of sight.
"What was that?"
"They appear and disappear quite randomly."
Lou started swimming straight ahead. Their next stop, the Island of Insecurity was merely 20 metres away. Softly and calmly, the waves of the ocean were pulling them slightly to the left. Lou didn't have any problem with that, Bark however had a little bit of a struggle before he reached the new shore.
