STARFISH

Starlight flight, night’s departure parted clouds enshrouding the sun, revealing an obscene marine scene of starfish, convened ashore, thwarted, apart from the sea, bearing tidings of some strange tide’s betides. In their thousands, they lay astray from their nautical quay, strewn and marooned in a desiccating desert of dune and ruin under the sweltering swoon of June’s soon coming noon. Beneath the heat of the sky they began to die where they lie, dry and twisted awry, with no salve to save them from their graves and heave them to the weaving waves.

With dawn long gone and daylight drawn, a lone fisherman, his nets yet unwet, met with this threat, and bethought how with sweat and a steady mindset, he might abet, abate, or otherwise off-set the frightful plight of Neptune’s pets, now beset with fret. He came near the pier where, to his fear, it appeared the worst of the curse had occurred; but undeterred he stirred into the herd with the unhurried scurry of a hummingbird. From the burm of squirming echinoderms, left bereft by the theft of their breath, he lifted aloft a single star and hefted it water-wards, whereupon it wafted a draft until at last it cleft the depths of the soft salty sea.

And again another.

And again.

In an hour he had scoured but a small patch of dour sands, his hands showering the tidal bower with flower-flinging feats of willpower. Upon that time, in the scorching clime, chimed the insolent mind of a young boy.

“What sense,” the boy commenced, “To send so few stars thence, when so many more remain in pain? In vain you would maintain your straining arms, yet make no difference, as the rest will be slain where they were lain upon this plain of sand.”

“Without a doubt, within this drought,” the angler shouted, “more will be left without than will be thrown within. But, it will make no difference? Son,You air your err!" The fisherman raised aloft another star, “…For, it will make a difference to this one!”

And again another…

“And this one!”

And again.

The boy paused as the clause from the fisherman’s jaws gave cause to the laws of love writ in his heart; and, without applause, and in grateful awe, he reached down to pick up a starfish…

And threw it in.

JohnKluttz 07AUG2018