Originally appeared in CHEAP POP, May 2022.
He outlived several names to become the rarest creature in the world. In scientific terms, he was an endling, the last of his kind. The weight of his ancestry loaded his shell and sagged his skin into the consistency of damp leaves. His mission was to save his species, for which he was given a great deal of help. He was matched with two exotic females from the Wolf Volcano region of Isabela Island. In July of 2000, thirteen eggs were laid. By September they were lost. A second clutch of five eggs was laid a year later, but a tortoise pace and an inherent lack of ambition is no match for a backslide into nothing. His cause of death was labeled cardiac arrest, but no one had the wherewithal to believe a Pinta Island Tortoise could die from a broken heart. His remains look out over the Galapagos, preserved as Lonesome George waits for a mate that will not come.