I have to help

I stood on the pier coated in barnacles, plastic bags and suffering.

Pearl, azure, emerald waves crashed against the sturdy wood, sweeping in more plastic and screams of the creatures below. The wails of the innocent animals which us humans mindlessly inflict pain upon for the sake of convenience. This is their planet too, we are ignorant and cruel.  

Some may say I am blessed with such a gift but it has become a curse. Being able to understand animals. But people today would not want to hear what they have to say. I can't answer every desperate prayer. No one else can hear them. At least that's what they think, they think I have a gift but I think its within all of us. No one else chooses to listen though.

But some seem to be waking up. Some seem to be paying attention to what they have contributed too. Some seem to be changing their own habits. Some seem to be supporting campaigns and fundraisers. I am part of that 'some'. 

I take a deep breath and pull my mask over my face and step off the edge. As much plastic seemed to swallow me up as water. Fear of what I might see consumed me and I opened my eyes which were squeezed shut in anticipation. A wave of upset washed over me as what was before me sank in. 

It was just what the campaigns show. But as far as I could see...

I knew I had to see for myself. I had to listen closer.

The innocent cries of a penny bronze seahorse rippled towards me as it drifted by my gaze, its tail intertwined with a contaminated cotton-bud. Yowls radiated from a small school fish below me as they squirmed beneath a plastic-twine fishing net wrapped in the seaweed sprouting from the seabed. I propelled myself down and lifted the net so that the fish could pass. Methodically I began to untangle the vegetation, bunched it into wad and put in my bag. Hours passed in the matter of minutes. Joy began to outweigh the upset, even though I know I haven't scratched the surface of the issue. But as my bag grew full with plastic and I watched fish, turtles, seahorses and starfish freed from the polymer demons plaguing them, I couldn't help but feel happy that I was making a different. Even if it is only miniscule. 

I can hear them screaming for help, it travels with the waves. I need to make a difference. That's why I will be here everyday. Recording everything I see. In hopes it will bring more awareness to the problems. Or at least help some of the innocent sea-life this epidemic is effecting. Because I can't bear to listen to their pleas any longer.