The sands illuminated by light of the iridescent moon glistened wetly as waves lapped ashore in their cascading rhythm. White foam broke in bubbles and clams shifted uneasily in the tide.
The hard shells broke one by one, little cracks at first then rippling across to snap the shell into pieces. They emerged, small beautiful baby turtles, each bewildered by the vast expanse before them, a sharp contrast to the darkness that harbored them for so long. The moonlight across the waves was their only guide. Wide innocent eyes shone with this beacon of guidance and slowly they began to move. Hundreds, No! Thousands, No! millions. Slowly at first they crawled with fins slapping the wet sand. The waves came steadily on towards their feeble delicate bodies but stopped short, too short.
The turtles unsteadily at first now began to move with a purpose. The first one made it, splashing in the foamy sea, the retreat of the wave embraced it in its care.
The massive throng of movement across the midnight crystal-like sand glittered like stars in the sky above, that was when we descended. Hundreds. No! Thousands. No! Millions, at our disposal. We plucked them so carefree, their tiny fins slapping not on wet sand anymore but our greased palms. We plucked them from their shells, from the loving embrace of the ocean. One by one. Until there were no longer hundreds.....
