A father's sacrifice

Jazmyn Carmelle H. Bungabong 11years old Grade V Minglanilla Special Science Elementary School

There was once a seahorse couple named Henry and Merida. They had a hundred children at one point, but 99 of the little ones were eaten by a shark. So the couple was so protective of the one baby seahorse that was left.

The baby seahorse’s name was Pinky, a girl. Henry was a very responsible father and Merida was a very caring mother.  They were a great family.

Pinky loved to go everywhere. Her loving parents allowed her, but always warning her not to go too far. The parents were always mindful of the perils of the sea.

Pinky was a curious explorer. She liked to discover every corner of the sea. One time she wandered far enough and reached the surface of the water. She was dumbfounded to see many floating debris – garbage!

Now she understood where the strange materials that went down to their place in the coral reef came from. She felt that these posed danger to their place and their health. But little as Pinky was, she didn’t know what to do.

When the little seahorse girl went home, her father noticed that she was spotted all over with a foul-smelling substance. He checked and found out that it was engine oil from the ships above. “We agreed that you would watch her not to go too far,” he confronted his wife. “Who knows what this sticky dark thing would do to her?!”

That night Pinky got sick. Her parents tried the usual cures but it didn’t work. “See how harmful those things are?” Henry told his wife. Merida bent her head in agreement.

The next morning Henry went out to find a possible cure for Pinky’s illness. He went to the deepest part of the ocean to consult the seahorse shaman named Zecora. “Please give me medicine that can cure my sick baby seahorse,” Henry pleaded.

“How did she come to be sick?” Zecora asked. “Anything she had eaten or done?”

Henry hesitated for a second. “Uhm, I think it’s the sea pollution – the garbage floating on the water surface.”

“The same thing that pollutes our water down here,” Zecora figured out. “It’s a big problem really. And its effects are hard to treat. But let me give you something to try on your daughter. Let’s pray it works.”

Henry then hurried back home with the medicine Zecora gave him. But before he could reach their place, something flickering fell on his way. Dynamite! Then – boom! It exploded.

The nearby corals were pulverized. Henry himself felt he’d almost pass out from the force. He tried to collect himself and went home; his daughter needed the medicine badly.

He found his daughter much weaker now. Merida quickly readied the sick girl to take the medicine. As soon as Pinky had taken it, they all waited. Nothing happened. Pinky still felt sick.

Henry decided to go back to Zecora. Along the way a huge rock that had been loosened by the previous dynamite explosion fell right on him, pinning down his tail as he was trying to evade it.  He tried to muster all his strength to free himself.

Then, suddenly, another dynamite was thrust in the water. Boom! The explosion rendered everything blurred and chaotic. As things cleared, Henry lay dead.

The whole seahorse community mourned over Henry’s death. He was a good seahorse, a loving father and husband. He was, most of all, a great loss to his family.

With Zecora’s help, Pinky soon recovered from her illness. She eventually grew up to become a leader of seahorses. And she would always tell everyone of her father’s sacrifice: “If there was no garbage, I would not have gotten sick. If I did not get sick, my father would not have to go far for my medicine. If he did not go far, he would not have been put in harm’s way. My father would not have died.”