My father tells me about his encounter with a leatherback turtle during his youth. They waited quietly for it to crawl up the beach to lay eggs. Once it started laying, everybody approaches noisily with their torch-lights. As big as a round dinner table, they touched it, climbed up it’s back, taking photographs with flashes. The turtle tolerates them as it could do nothing while it lays about a hundred eggs, physically exhausting, with tears running down his eyes and saliva from his mouth. The leatherback turtle is now classified as extinct on the shores of Malaysia

I have never seen a leatherback, but it was such an icon that I have seen it on school murals, documentary films, books and tourism pamphlets. I have seen its image so many times I feel like it’s a part of me, an ancient creature from my father’s past, so abused that it decided to leave us forever.