"Man, I can't wait to get back home!" Sanjaya exclaimed.
His best friend, and captain of the SS Odyssesy, Raoul, grinned at him. "Me too" he said. "Home to sweet old Earth with her green lands and glistening seas seas."
Sanjaya grinned. "Not to mention blue beaches and bikinieeees"
Raoul rolled his eyes at his friend. "Is-"
"Captain! We are approaching a land mass!" a junior officer interrupted. "What are your orders sir?"
Raul grinned. Finally! "Bring up the satellite imaging, stat!"
"Yes sir!"
The captain's excitement was infectious, and many of the crew sported wide grins. Many had tears in their eyes. After years of voyaging they were finally returning home. Home to Earth, with her beautiful mountains and glistening seas. Home to beaches and lakes, family and friends. Finally they were home.
"Satellite imaging- Planet 0001 Earth"
Gasps shot through the room. Raoul felt a cold hand clasp his heart. He glanced at Sanjaya and saw his horror mirrored on his face.
"Prepare for landing" he managed to rasp.
It had taken 5 years. 5 years for them to destroy his home. Their home. The plastics crunched beneath his feet as he walked. 5 years ago he had left Earth, and now it seemed that he would never return. The satellite imaging had showed a mass of white, leaving the crew horrorstruck and confused. That mystery was solved now.
More than half the Earth's blue oceans were covered in plastic leaving it washed in a ghostly white.
Raoul didn't know where they had landed. Neither did he care at this point. Sanjaya stood beside him, solemn and silent. Raoul shook with anger. He turned to his crew. "This...this is what they did to our home. All this time...they just..."
"No"
Raoul whirled around. It was Sanjaya. "No?" He said dangerously.
Sanjaya regarded him sorrowfully. "No... It's not 'them'. It was us. We ruined our home. We all take the blame in this. Space exploration? What was the point? We have no home to go back to. We... were so absorbed in...in glory, and fame and fortune that we forgot what was important. What we had to do. We left her to die when we could've saved her."
Raoul stood still. His friend's words at hit him hard. All that humans had strived for, was immaterial, insignificant. Greed, power, fame and plain ignorance had been their downfall. Our downfall. We focused so much on what we thought was important and left our planet, our home, to perish.
A small whimpering sound came from near Raoul's feet. He knelt down to the source of the noise. It was a small pygmy seahorse, small than his palm. It's tail curled around a this stick-like object. A cotton bud he realized. The tiny creature had shuddered suddenly. Then it was still. Raoul bent his head over it as tears streamed down his face. Only a few minutes ago he had been dreaming of returning home.
Now he realized he never would.
