Swim it

Seachild

My kind lives in the deepest part of the ocean.

The people don't know we exist.

Mum says it's better that way.

She says that people are evil selfish creatures, that they're dangerous. If you see one, you run away.

My dad agrees with her partially. But when she's not around, he always tells me that there are good people. That they exist. It's just the bad people don't like them so they try and keep them away in another place.

But both of them definitely agree on this: They don't care much for the world around them.

"If their human muck can make it all the way down here, I'd hate to imagine what it's like further up the deep,"

They're arguing again. Mum doesn't like it when I go far up the trench, but dad thinks I need to know what the world is really like. He wants me to explore. Mum wants me to be safe.

I want to know why it's so bad.

I leave home and go outside. Their talks go on for hours, and I think if mum wins I'll never know what's up there. I want to swim up.

I go up, seeing all the usual rock and fish. There are species of fish down here that people don't even know about apparently. Most of us don't want to help people with their science. They think it's bad. I don't know, but I want too. I wave to some fish. They know me, I've been up here so many times that they know to not be scared when I'm here. They thought I was bad at first, but I showed them I was harmless.

I start seeing more unfamiliar rocks. I think I'm starting to get close to the part of the ocean that the people know well. Yeah, there are more things that are known to people up here, like dolphins and whales and seahorses and-

Uck.

Something has gone into my mouth and I can't breathe. I'm coughing and trying to scrape it out, this is gross and scary, I don't like it, I feel like I'm about to pass out-

Pock.

I manage to pull it out, coughing bits of white. Mum showed me this once. She said it was called plastic. It killed animals. That made me really sad. I didn't want my friends to die.

I look around, there's stuff everywhere. Plastic, bits of their 'technology', paper, I think. I don't know what a lot of this stuff is.

A baby seahorse comes close to me, something attached to its tail. A cotton-something. I forgot the last part of the word.

I detach the cotton-something from the seahorse and it swims away, leaving me alone. I throw the cotton-something away, looking up.

I thought the ocean was supposed to be clean. Why is it like this?

I need to go back home before my parents realise I'm gone. I don't want to. Not while my home is like this. But I can't do anything.

Is this what my home will be like?

Do humans value plastic over their planets wellbeing?