Thousands of starfish had washed up on the beach, and a little girl was diligently throwing them back into the water, one at a time.
A man came up to the girl and said, "You'll never save all of them. What you're doing is pointless. It doesn't matter."
The girl threw another starfish into the water. "It mattered to that one."
The man snorted and walked away.
The girl kept throwing starfish, one after another.
To throw one starfish back into the ocean takes a trivial amount of effort, but to throw ten, or fifty, is much less so. The girl had not learned much of biomechanics, but she began to feel the strain in her back. Her skin had softened from the seawater, and the starfish themselves were abrasive. Her fingers had pruned. Her shoulder hurt. She was cut, twice, on her fingers, as the same storm that had stranded the starfish had also brought up broken shells and crab carapaces. The skin of a starfish was like sandpaper.
She tried switching hands, and could throw the starfish less well, and it wasn't long before she had mirrored all her injuries. She was bleeding, though the blood wept rather than flowing, briefly staining the starfish pink before they were tossed into the ocean.
It seemed as though there were just as many dying starfish as when she'd started.
After three hours, the girl was sunburnt. A passing man had told her that she should stop what she was doing, and had offered her some water, which she took, but he hadn't helped to throw the starfish back.
The girl's hands were cracked, scraped, and raw. Saltwater found the wounds, but she'd gone numb, and her motions became more mechanical.
"It mattered to that one," she thought to herself, "It mattered to that one," over and over, like a mantra. Her muscles ached, but the ache became familiar. When she'd started, her throws had been beautiful things, guided by purpose, but now they were sloppy and threatened to pull her off balance.
She did fall, more than once, landing on sand that was filled with jagged debris, and sometimes she was slow to get up. But she did get up, because there were more starfish to save, tens of thousands of them.
Night fell, and it was harder to see the starfish, but they were still in need of help. She was tired, and the cuts on her fingers had multiplied. The skin had been wet for too long, and in one place, on her palm, where she had gripped a thousand starfish to throw them, a piece of white skin had come off.
Still, she kept throwing starfish.
Her mother didn't find her until after midnight.
"Hi mom," said the girl. Her voice croaked. She had been saying, "It mattered to that one" under her breath for long enough that her vocal cords had strained. She threw another starfish into the ocean.
"You need to come home," her mother said.
"These starfish will die without me," said the girl.
"I know," said her mother. "But you need to come home, because if you keep doing this, you'll collapse on the beach, and like a starfish, you'll need to be rescued too."
The girl stooped down, back aching, and picked up another starfish. Many of them had died by this point, but there were still uncountably many that lived. The rough skin of the starfish grated at her tender skin, but she rose and threw it, arm protesting, and watched it fall down into the water.
Her mother grabbed her gently by the shoulders. "I'm bringing you home," she said. "It would be better if I didn't have to carry you, but I will if I have to."
"I don't want to be the sort of person who leaves starfish to die," said the girl, shrugging off her mother. But a part of her did want to be carried, because she'd walked for miles along this beach, one stooping step at a time.
"I know," said her mother. "But to survive, you have to be. Save as many as you can, but take breaks, get good sleep, eat well. Then go back and save more."
The girl swayed where she was. She was close to passing out, though maybe it was because her rhythm had been interrupted.
Her mother held out a hand, so they could walk together, like they'd done when she was smaller.
And it was then that she noticed the scars on her mother's hands, the calluses and rough spots, the places where cuts had healed. She had seen her mother's hands many times before, but had never asked why they were that way.
The girl slipped her hand into her mother's and began to cry as they walked back home.
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