The free and easy life of a footloose tortoise

A tortoise crawls along barren dust, slowly moving to a destination only God and the animal itself knows. You can see each leg rise, push forward then drop to the ground. The claws dig into the dry soil, leaving ruts where the tortoise passes. Onward at the speed of life the tortoise crawls. Free to go where it will and trapped by it's destination, it always moves forward. If you wanted to you could outrun it, be where it wants to be before it gets there. You could pick it up and move it back five feet to watch it scrape itself over the same ground. And yet it will continue like an implacable force of nature. In the distance, a days walk for the tortoise, a short jaunt for you, lay lions watching the curiosity slowly draw closer. You can see one of the lies get to it's feet and walk over to the intrepid, moving shell. The tortoise hunkers down for the storm of teeth and claws. But not even this beast can stop the tortoise for long, for soon the lion loses interest in the plainly inedible animal, and the tortoise continues it's walk, implacable as an avalanche and free as a hobo, compelled forever on the razor edge of concentration.  Singleminded in it's dedication towards traveling, wherever that may be to; perhaps the perfect traveler.