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THE OCEAN-- we humans like to think it's a quiet, serene place where gentle waves lap against the shore creating the perfect melody to just take a break and relax. I remember our annual trips to the west coast when we would jump around in the salty water, getting covered in seaweed. I remember the way I would collect shells and chase around crabs. I remember the sticky feeling between my toes when water and sand mixed, how the sun's golden rays reflected at sunset, the blue and orange hues mixing together until the colour was euphoric.
And when that was all over, we would pack up our stuff and drive home, blissfully unaware that we didn't pick up every plastic toy or wrapper and that the ocean's waves would devour them through the night, only adding to the storm of pollution to come.
And when it finally did come, I was twelve years old. We were crunched together in the back seat with a cooler filled to the brim with sandwiches and sodas and we had our buckets and shovels, smiling. Only when we got there, the beach was fenced off and the water was filled to the brim with plastic, turning the once bright blue waters an ugly murky shade of brown. The crabs I once chased were nowhere to be seen, and each breath was hard-- as if there was the weight of a thousand rocks were pressing on your lungs.
Suddenly I didn't think of the ocean as that quiet, serene place anymore. It was toxic, filled to the brim with poison that we put there. Humans. Though I was just a child, I mourned for the loss of the beach, for the waters and for us as a species. For what we had become. All the things I had spent countless seconds complaining about-- the dryness of my throat when I swallowed too much of the salty water, the awful smell of salt and seaweed and the way the fish nipped at my legs, I craved to feel now.
I think I realized that day that it is not mankind's instinct to heal-- but to destroy. We destroy each other and the environment around us. We were not given to this world but cursed to it. They say that we're the smartest species and yet we can't even realize that our problems need to be fixed, let alone actually fix them.
I just hope it's not already too late.
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hey there! if you liked "The Recalling" please be sure to give my profile @emmaaveyard a follow and be sure to look out for my upcoming works :)
