His parents had always told him it was a gift. When he was a baby, the spirits had sauntered from the floor of the ocean to bless him, touch him, give him guidance.

He had grown up in the mangroves, covered in sand and fragments of shells washed up on the shore. Oxygen was what his lungs needed, but water was his home. Many say he was lucky to have survived the flood during the year of his birth - that it was a simply luck that his crib had flipped and created a pocket of air while his house flooded. His parents found him, floating on his back, soaked, but alive. They knew it was the work of the spirits.

He was the provider for his family. He was a fisherman. The shorts he wore were his family's gift to him - they had saved for a year. Touched by their generosity, he had vowed he would provide for them, nourish them, take care of them.

The water was his home, the creatures their sustenance. He had never failed them. He would dive. He would catch fish. He would return to shore, hands full, ready to cook, sell, and provide for his family. It was a day to day process. No money was ever truly saved, but they survived - day by day.

After a recent series of storms - the fish had disappeared. Gone into hiding, shaken by the thunder, startled by the lightning. His family had grown hungry. He had grown hungry. Diving was no longer easy for him. Rather than his lungs clawing his insides for air, it was now his stomach for food. Hunger always beat the need for air.

They had provided him with so much. Given him so much. As he floated there on the surface, his lungs burned and his stomach seared - it was a struggle to even tread water. Thinking of his family, he took one final deep breath.

Below him he saw a flash of silver through the pillars of light breaking the surface above him - darting under some coral.

With a few elongated kicks, he descended.

He would not fail his family.