Julia – Jacob Sirota

April 22, 2026

My younger brother got into a car accident while driving his pet turtle, Julia, to the vet. Someone cut him off, and he swerved into a light pole. He was fine, had no injuries, but Julia, who was resting in her carrier in the front seat, was flung out of the window. She landed right in the middle of traffic and got run over.
        He announced the news of her death on Instagram. But he did it in this really odd, confusing way: he posted a photo of the wrecked car, its hood lodged into the light pole, and wrote a brief letter addressed to Julia in the caption—except it didn’t include her name, or the fact that she was a turtle. He wrote:

“I can’t believe this is how we said goodbye. I’m sorry I couldn’t do better. I know I’ll see you again someday and make it up to you.”

It made it seem like he was eulogizing his car. Most people, though, assumed that he lost someone in the accident. I got a ton of concerned calls and condolence texts from relatives and people we went to school with, some people I hadn’t heard from in years. Once I cleared up the situation they seemed relieved, sometimes disappointed, even, that it wasn’t as tragic as they were led to believe.

My dad called me a few hours after he made the post. “You need to go speak to your brother and have him delete that shit,” he said. “I’ve been getting calls nonstop. Your grandmother almost had a stroke.”
        “Oh god, okay,” I said. “I’ll go over there.”
        “Please make sure he’s okay. I can’t have him go off the rails again. And over a turtle?”
        “Well, he’s had Julia since—”
        “Who’s Julia?”
        “The turtle.”
        “Just go speak to him please.”

I drove forty minutes to his college campus. I stopped to get a box of donuts from his favorite bakery. I’d also bought flowers, but felt awkward about it at the last second and decided to leave them in the car.
        When I walked into his place, he was sitting on his living room sofa playing PlayStation. It was Grand Theft Auto. In the game he was at a strip club, watching a woman in a red thong spin around a pole.
        “Hey,” I said. “I brought you these.”
        He looked up for a moment, still immersed in the game. “Oh, great,” he said. “You can set them down there.” He strained to project his voice, like he’d been inside his head all day and was just now remembering the world outside it.
        I took a seat next to him.
        “Sorry, one sec,” he said, “I just need to finish this mission.”
        “All good. I can just watch.”
        In the game, an option to pay for a private dance appeared on the screen for $300. He paid for it. The woman led him to a room lit in purple neon.
        I got annoyed watching it, so I took out my phone. I checked on his post. There were a few new comments. “Sending you so much love,” our aunt wrote with the broken heart emoji. “Praying for you bro,” commented his roommate, who was in his room just a few feet away from us.

He looked over and noticed his post on my phone. He gave a tight-lipped smile, held it for a moment, and sighed.
        “Did you get a chance to read it?” he asked.
        “I did,” I said. “It was really sweet.”
        “Thanks.”
        I should’ve just ripped the bandaid then. On the drive over I’d planned exactly what to say—I was going to offer to take down the post and write a little apology clarifying everything myself. But when I sat down next to him, I just felt this heaviness. It hit me that he had to actually search for her body on a six-lane highway. I couldn’t get the image out of my head.
        On the TV, the stripper was dancing on top of him, fully naked now. He pressed a button to compliment her.
        “People are so fucking stupid,” my brother said suddenly. “So stupid.”
        “What do you mean?” I asked. “What happened?”
        “People who saw my post are asking me the most absurd shit. They’re like, ‘Do you have car insurance?’” He shook his head, still focusing on the screen. “I’m like, what?”
        I fell quiet, trying to figure out how to say what I needed to say. He could tell I was holding something back.
        “What?” he said.
        “It’s just—you didn’t mention her name, or anything. Of course everyone’s confused.”
        He kept staring at the screen.
        “Grandma thought you got into a serious accident.”
        “I fucking texted her already!”
        “Why didn’t you just post a photo of Julia on there?”
        He paused the game.
        “I was going to,” he said softly. “But then it felt so…inappropriate, I guess. Having her face on there.”
        “Yeah,” I said. “I get that.”
        After we talked for a while, he agreed to let me take down the post and write an apology. When he handed me his phone, I noticed that he had a new wallpaper. It was usually an old photo of us with our mother. But now it was Julia, swimming in the little pond in her tank, her flippers extended out and her head high. The photo was taken on a bright, sunny day, and because the tank sat near a window, the surface of the pond reflected the sky, mirroring the expanse of clouds: it looked like she was flying.