The male seahorse with his pouch full of growing babies waited patiently. The shrimp floated closer, unaware of the predator looming in the nearby seabed. Another few inches and it would be within striking range. His muscles tensed in his strong neck. The mouth ready to snap. However, from the corner of his vision a new assassin bobbed into the killing field, one more dangerous than an orca or a great white.
A plastic spear bobbed in the water. A weapon from man. The land was not enough for him. He was intent on destroying the ocean as well.
The seahorse gave up its hunt and laboriously swam to the thin pink stick, the color of blood as it diffuses in the water . After considerable effort, he grasped it by his prehensile tail. Today it was a stick, tomorrow it would be a hollow stick, or a tiny net without holes, or a small vessel, or some other reprehensible hunk of plastic. He went to the end of his territory and passed it to his mate who with a sigh of regret would carry it on much farther than he until she passed it on to another denizen of the sea. This would continue on and on.
Eventually, schools of fish that stretched for miles would gather in the middle of ocean, each with their own parcel of plastic. There whales, squid, and octopi would bundle the trash together. They would shape and compress it until it was thick as dirt. The job was endless, but still the creatures worked without fail. They had no other choice.
Maybe man would be happy with their offering which grew in size every day. Maybe with this new land, this floating island, this Plastica, it would stop their needless dumping of waste in the world's oceans.
