Not Allowed To Save No One

“When I was a girl,” Evadine's Grandma had said once, peeling apples at the kitchen table, “a storm hit the coast. The whole beach was carpeted in little dead things. Crabs. Jellyfish. Various Fish.”

“A neighbor's little boy started throwing fish back into the water. One at a time.”

“His father laughed at him: ‘You can’t save them all. Not even a thousand. Why waste the time?’”

“The boy never stopped. ‘It matters to this one,’ he said. ‘And this one. And this one.’”

“When the tide turned, most still died,” her grandmother admitted. “But some lived. They had children. Whole colonies where there would have been none.”

She’d wiped the knife clean on her apron and looked intently into Evadine's eyes.

“Listen to me, Ev. You cannot save everyone,” she said. “But you are not allowed to save no one. Your choices' butterfly wings fan further than you can ever see. The Field remembers every fish.”