In the simplest terms, it was a plane crash.
That's how I landed stranded in the middle of the ocean. The big blue sea spread across my vision, bleeding into the clear sky. The only mistake in the painting was the plane next to me, with it's wing in the air and a steady stream of debris filing out of the broken windows. Gross. I fought the urge to scoop some of the little peanut bags out as the same words appear in my mind.
Don't touch the water.
We cleaned up the oceans, but that didn't solve the problem. Mountains of trash were left. Bottles, straws, forks, bags, you name it, it was in there. Maybe overnight we had a change of heart, but that didn't solve the problem. Out of justice maybe, we turned it on ourselves. Someone made a hand out of forks and straws, held it together with a bag and cable ties. It was flimsy and dumb, barely qualifying as anything other than art. Everyone said it was genius. Out of the plastic, we created bodies. Plastic parts for replacement limbs. Not functional, but it got rid of a fair amount of the plastic and we got the punishment we deserved.
I looked at my hands; made of straws and rubber bands. Something brushed against the bottom of my feet. Under my legs, a young turtle looked curiously at the crash. It paddled through the water beneath me. I wanted nothing more than to grab the trash and keep it from the creature's mouth. But of course that wasn't the case.
The turtle reached out and grabbed a bag, trying to scarf it down, not realizing it would wrap around it's head. I threw caution out the window and dove into the water. The splash startled the turtle but I was quick to grab the bag. The poorly made contraption began to come loose, so I did my best to work quickly. The bag seemed to tighten around it's thin neck. My fingers began to chip and fall apart. The creature held onto the bag and started to swallow. I ripped the bag away from it and squished the sides of its mouth. I pulled pieces of plastic out, and I didn't realize I was replacing it with pieces from my hands. I fumbled with its neck, the need for air becoming more and more prominent. The bag had wrapped itself to the turtle and I couldn't seem to untie it. I pulled myself for air, hands against the plane.
Before me, two stubs barely holding themselves together. A mangled fork, which was once the structure for my finger, fell off the nub and into the sea. There was nothing left of my hands and as I looked beneath me I saw the turtle struggling to breathe. Four words echoed in my head as I watched the turtle choke on the bits of my hands.
Don't touch the sea.
