Stars in the Ocean

I pushed my child, Aster, who I named after my human rescuer who had saved me from an infection when I was young, towards the ocean surface. For the last breaching.

"He's dead." A member in my pod reminded me.

"I know."

I remembered the night he was born. Blood swirling in the water around me and sharks being chased away or killed by my other pod members. After he was born, I immediately pushed him towards the surface of the ocean for his first breaching. In the sky were the brightest stars I had ever seen.

Day after day, I brought him to the surface for fresh air. Sometimes, we would come upon a boat filled with humans.

"Mum, look, dolphins!" A child would point at us from the boat and my child would dance happily beside me. "They recognize us, Mama." He would say.

Aster loved to breach at night. He liked to admire the sky full of shining stars.

"Why do aunts and uncles call you 'Star', Mama?" He asked me one night.

"This is because I saved a human once, sweetheart."

Hearing this, Aster's eyes twinkled brightly under the twilight. "One day, I'm going to save a human, just like Mama. And I'll be a star in the ocean too, just like Mama."

"You will, sweetheart." I nudged him affectionately at the side. I would never forget how his eyes gleamed with such determination that night.

Thoughts came back to the events happened at dawn. We were going for another breaching when we saw things human called plastics floating near the surface of the ocean. All members in my pod agreed to swim further to avoid them. But Aster did not know how dangerous these things could be.

"Mama, look, stars have fallen from the sky." He called excitedly. I knew how happy he was to found a sea of stars in the ocean. I needed to lead him away from them.

"Come, Aster, swim along." I said, swimming in the opposite direction of the plastics. When I realized he was missing, it was too late.

He was caught in a tangled mass of plastics and was unable to breach, to breathe. When my pod members and I finally got him free, he was dead.

Heart broken, I brought him to the surface for one last breaching, just like what I did for his first breaching. His body was now very heavy. When I broke the ocean surface, a boat came, and plastics were thrown overboard, adding "stars" in the ocean.

I looked at the merry humans on board with blurry eyes. My feelings towards humans was now very complicated.