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The little black fish was certain that this could not be true. Despite threats from its elders, and to the awe of its peers, off it went, down the waterfall and into a pond, where the only creatures in sight were tadpoles.

The tadpoles told the little black fish that they came from nobility and that they were the most beautiful creatures in the world. The world, they said with confidence, was the pond where they swam. Their mother, a frog, chided the black fish, calling it a “worthless creature” for leading her young astray.

Undaunted, the little black fish swam on, outwitting predators and overcoming many obstacles on its way to the open sea.

There the fish found a school of brave, indomitable fish like itself. So powerful was this school of fish that it foiled fishermen by dragging their nets to the bottom of the sea.

At last the little black fish had found its true place in the world. Before joining its brethren, it went for a swim along the water’s surface, where it could feel the sun on its back. The fish knew that it was vulnerable to predators there, but by now it also understood that its own mortality was a trifle. “What does matter,” the fish told itself, “is the influence that my life or death will have on the lives of others.”

Just then, a heron swooped and swallowed the fish. Inside the heron’s stomach, the little black fish heard someone crying. It was another fish, tiny and young, who missed his mother. The little black fish thought quickly. It would swim around to tickle the heron’s stomach, the black fish told its tiny companion. When the heron laughed, the tiny fish should leap out of her mouth. The little black fish would stay behind and kill the heron with a dagger made from a blade of grass.