Before They're Gone

Gone.

I feel like I'm choking as I look at the ID card of the majestic blue whale before me, laying on its side.

Name: Ellie

Adult female

Date taken in: 6/12/18

Reasons: vinyl balloon in baleen, suffocation

Death: 6/13/18

My finger traces the side of the picture as I peer into the baleful eyes of Ellie, the noisy din of the aquarium rescue center drown me, receding to background noise as I stare at the picture. Horror tears me up from inside as one word flies around my skull, vibrating until it's pain fades to a horrible ache. Gone.

I move on autopilot to the next picture, and see a little turtle with plastic rings from a six-pack choking it, little pieces of plastic embedded under its shell. It's sweet, sad eyes make me feel faint, and I can't bear to look at this one's ID card, knowing what it'll say. But I do anyway.

Name: Shelly

Young

Date taken in: 3/29/18

Reasons: suffocation, injuries due to plastic embedded in shell

Death: 3/29/18

Additional Notes: died of lack of oxygen in bloodstream due to suffocation minutes after found.

Something wet springs in the corner of my eyes as I move from picture to picture.

Annie, the ray who was trapped in fishing nets. Noreen, the whale who choked on plastic bags. Rosie, the seal who choked on a plastic toothbrush. Two things they all have in common, death, and one-use plastic.

As I stop as I see a relic from Rosie, the seal. A single, bent bright pink plastic toothbrush glares up at me accusingly.

I recognize it. It looks just like mine.

Suddenly, the wind is knocked out of me as I stare at that toothbrush, my heart pounding as I realize, I am not innocent. We did this.

My head whips around and suddenly, I'm drowning in the amount of plastic I see everywhere.

A saleslady at the giftshop thanks customers while handing them their purchase in a plastic bag.

Careless teenagers throw away plastic drink cups, their brightly colored straws winking at me.

A toddler drops a neon green plastic dinosaur, not even noticing as his mother sweeps him into the crowd.

Staff sip from plastic water bottles and shoot them, laughing, into the trash, ignoring the green recycling bin beside it entirely.

I can't breath as I watch the oblivious crowd, and something shifts in me as I look once more into the eyes of Ellie. But something strikes me as I look into her eyes, and it's not sadness I see anymore, it's pity. Pity for us, pity for me. We are ones who created this mess, and we are the ones who will suffer. And as I look out the window behind me, I see not the beautiful rippling sea and the supposedly pristine beaches, I see the long forgotten plastic relics. And I realize, this needs to stop. We need to save our oceans and their creatures.

Before they're gone.