Plastic Waves

The dimmed lights lit up the room like a warm smoldering fireplace.

The sand glasses sitting on the kitchen counter had yellowed like an old forgotten photograph, and the jar of stamps rested in the dusty cabinet, along with the cardboard boxes filled with hidden treasures from the past.

Grandma sat in her usual floral reclining chair, knitting away in front of the hazy television. The smell of mothballs and sweet lavender danced around in Kel's dreams as she silently slept next to Grandma with her beautiful pink dress spread around her, caging her within her fantasy. Protecting her from the real world.

The television crackled as the clouds outside cried angry tears of acid. A drop of water leaked through the roof paint and hit the carpet with a gentle, muffled thud.

Grandma grunted as she dropped her knitting onto the stained coffee table and hobbled slowly to the laundry to get an old plastic bucket.

Kel trembled, blinking slowly as she awoke from her deep world of the dreaming, to the sound of rhythmic tinkering of water, dripping into multiple buckets.

Yawning, Kel sat up and walked over to the window, looking out into the littered streets and the hundreds of muddy tinged grey buildings that had attached themselves to the earth like stiff parasites. Shattered glass, Plastic bags and bottles had made a nest in every square inch of land they could get their filthy hands on. They formed huge, moldy, grotesque piles that blocked all pathways and roads. No one drove or walked along these roads nowadays. Everyone stays indoors, waiting for the world outside to decompose.

In Kel's eyes, the world had lost its colour. It was a dull lifeless world that she hated. She longed to see the beautiful garden flowers, the green lush grass and clear, blue seas that were in the paintings hanging on the walls. But deep down, Kel truly believed that, the utopia she longed for, was only an imaginary heaven that old people had created, to hide the grotesque, toxic world that they all live in.

A gust of wind kicked up a plastic bottle and it hit the window with a thud. The window chipped and Kel jumped back in surprise.

Grandma stepped next to her and put her thin, charactered fingers, gently on Kel's shoulder. Kel felt a build up of anxiety forming deep within her soul, as she felt the repressed earth's hatred.

'Would you like to hear the ocean sing?' Grandma whispered, eyes piercing the cracked concrete road.

'The ocean?' Kel replied, looking up at Grandma with her large grey eyes. She had only seen the ocean on television, which was, as far as she was concerned, a moving tidal mat of plastic trash that suffocated and killed any living creature that happened to find its way into it.

'Yes Kel dear. I've kept a treasure from the old, grand ocean's spirit; Its probably all that's left after all this destruction over the years.' Grandma answered with a strong, but shaky voice.

Kel's eyes lit up but there was a mist of sadness. Grandma smiled and shuffled to the cabinet next to the laundry. The young girl trailed behind her and watched intently as Grandma pulled out a dusty cardboard box and blew off a plume of dust.

Giving it to Kel, she said;

'Open it.' eyes twinkling with excitement like the rare night lights.

Kel placed her hand on the brown lid and looked up at Grandma with curiosity.

She took a deep breath and lifted up the lid of the stale box. A wisp of stale salted air escaped, and laying before her was a beautifully patterned Fig-shell. Picking it up, it rested comfortably in her palm.

'The ocean sings through it's shells.' Grandma said. 'Listen.'

Kel raised the opening of the shell to her ear, and listened attentively.

The song of the world she thought was just a dream sang its way into the dull world. It was the most magical sound that she had ever heard, and it brought all her fantasies to life.

Kel closed her eyes as a tear delicately danced its way down the side of her face.