A young man was walking along the shore and saw a beach upon which thousands and thousands of starfish had washed ashore. It seemed to him that if he did not keep his pace quick, the starfish oozed closer to his toes, although he never actually caught one of them moving. They seemed always to have just been moving. Red and puckered hands covering the beach. Silent mouths pressed into the sand.
A starfish is a hand and a mouth. A starfish is two things: hunger, and feeding that hunger. A starfish always wraps its arms around its meals, only embraces the things it kills. There is no mind to say “yes” or “no” or “I.” A starfish is a walking eyeless stomach. A starfish is one appetite with a thousand mouths.
Further along the beach he saw an old man with brown hands, walking slowly and stopping often, picking up one starfish after another and tossing each one gently into the ocean.
“Why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?” he asked.
“Why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?” the old man said.
The young man paused. “I’m sorry if I offended you,” he said. “I was only asking a question.”
“Asking a question,” the old man said. His eyes were closed, the young man realized, and his lips were moving constantly, soft and flabby, smacking against one another in continuous motion.
“The sun is up,” the old man said. “The sun is up and the tide is going out. The sun is hot and the sun has no pity and the red hands belong in the sea.”
“The red hands like you,” the old man said without opening his eyes. “It’s good when they like you.”
“Old man,” the young man said in the young voice living in his red throat, “don’t you realize there are miles of beach and starfish all along it? You can’t possibly save them all. You can’t even save one-tenth of them. In fact, even if you work all day, your efforts won’t make any difference at all.”
The young man looked down at his feet, and couldn’t see the sand for all the red that covered it. The beach wasn’t covered in red hands at all. There was one red hand, with many bodies. One hunger, many mouths. No plural. No many. No I.
The old man listened calmly and then bent down to pick up another starfish and threw it into the sea. “This isn’t saving. This is obedience.”
There was no sand to walk on. There was no place to go to.
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So very Tiptree!
Mmmmm can this be a new series: “Macabre yet Realistic Takes On Sentimental Chain Email Anecdotes.” pleeeeaaasseee.
I did not realize this was a take on a sentimental chain email I just thought Mallory wanted to write something horrific about starfish
Well that was even more horrifying than I expected.
STARFISHSTOMACHS.
whyyyyyy would you post that??
Also– sorry to respond twice here– my somewhat maritime boyfriend once took offense that I described the nature of starfish feeding as “stomach humping,” in the context that I was opposed to burial at sea because I didn’t want starfish stomach-humping my corpse. THIS was what I was referring to!!
1) Because I am rotten to the core.
2) I had never considered a sea burial but if I had been doing so, I would now stop.
Well, that and hagfish: http://vimeo.com/7825337
Those are the ones that are basically underwater snot monsters right?
I am now sold on sea burial. I want to be that blue whale corpse in Life, with David Attenborough narrating my decomposition.
That is also a very valid point.
I am a simple woman, of simple needs and tastes.
Hagfish.
You still don’t understand what you’re dealing with, do you? The perfect organism. Its structural perfection is matched only by its hostility.
Ahhhahhaaa!
A member of upper management at my workplace–*very* upper–handed out starfish pins with that story attached. I’m terrified.
😐
The old man replied, “My son, the times when you have seen only one set of red handprints, that was when they were carrying you. How did you escape their grasp?”
“Guess we’re not going to the beach for The Toast’s birthday party this year [throws sand toys in trash].”
HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO TAKE TO THE SEA NOW???
Mallory you ruin everything in the best way possible.
WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS (the summer camp I grew up at gives out the Starfish Award to people for making a difference, and in my dozen summers I have won it twice and it has always filled me with joy, but NO, I see that I was only recruited as A MINION FOR THE STARFISH AND THEIR HUNGER)
…I worked at a camp that did this. Girl Scout camp, by chance?
Yes indeed! Our other big award was the Keeper of the Ashes award (which, now that I think about it, has plenty of macabre potential too).
I never really thought about the cosmic-horror-story potential of starfish before today. Now, I fear I will never stop thinking of it.
So, this puts the two week marine surveys in which my coworker and I tried to stick as many starfish as possible to our faces in a different light.
Well that just made me audibly gasp in HORROR
Pics or it didn’t happen.
pleasedon’thavepicspleasedon’thavepicspleasedon’thavepics
There is, in fact, an entire “things on our heads” photo series.
For added horror, their bodies basically function through hydraulics using sea water, so when you pick them up and put them on your face they contract their soft bits by releasing a flood of seawater all over your face.
I take it back. Now I want you to pitch a story which is just the “things on our heads” photoseries.
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.
Because of this, I googled and found out that the original story by Loren Eiseley was 16 (!) pages long and had a much less motivational moral than the version I’ve heard in the past. It’s called The Star Thrower if anyone’s interested.
And whoa, the original is not actually far off from this at all apparently:
“I do not collect,” I said uncomfortably, the wind beating at my garments. “Neither the living nor the dead. I gave it up a long time ago. Death is the only successful collector.”
…
Thank you for the citation! I had no idea what this was riffing on.
He’s walking on starfish…he’s walking in amongst starfish…he’s walking IN starfish…
…the young dude was already dead and being eaten, wasn’t he.
The old dude is the young dude after he’s been trapped forever, right?
It’s like “Let the Right One In”, only with starfish!
Bad news you guys http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_star_wasting_dis…
You do know that cutting one starfish in half creates two. http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/ar…
You never look at the world in quite the same way again after Mallory Ortberg comes into your life.
Please more creepy/goosebumpy things! I love the way the story collapses everything – the characters, the beach, the sea – until there is nothing left but the multicorporeal grasp; everything has been subsumed and smothered by the red hands.
I had to dissect a starfish in high school. The red hands are horrible inside and out. Unfortunatly, they are not exactly eyeless. There are eyespots on the ends of those spiny fingers.
Oh my god I cannot even tell you the number of church homilies I heard growing up that featured the usual version of this story.
This version is obviously the best and the only version that should ever be told, especially at church.