Planet or Plastic

A lifetime together

He looked at her, tenderly letting his gaze sweep over her. She was right by his side in the anemone he found her in, three years ago. Suddenly she was there. And the moment he laid eyes on her, he knew, he was doomed. So he stayed. In this place. Their home.

The place, where some of the happiest moments of his life had happened. The moment when he first opened up to someone. The moment when he first confessed his love to someone. The moment when they decided to have children together. She made him the luckiest clownfish in the whole Pacific ocean with just one nod.

Again he glanced sideways. She was drifting with the current. Her body sensually swaying with the waves. The most beautiful clownfish he has ever laid eyes onto. But she was so much more than that. She was his partner for life.

The only thing that clouded their luck was that they still didn't have children. It was not like they hadn't tried. They often did. But nothing worked. Two years of trying and still there wasn't one single egg laying on the bottom of the anemone.

And well she never talked to him. Three years and not one single word. Yes, there were the nods, the tender gestures, the eye contact. But there never was the sound he was so eager to hear.

Of course, he wouldn't interfere with her freedom. He loved her. Whatever she was ready to give was enough. He wouldn't listen to his friends who told him to leave her. What use had a partner that didn't even talk to you, they asked. 

But clownfish mated for life and he accepted her as she was. Someday she will be ready to talk to him. He was ready to wait for her. No matter the time.

A shadow blocked the rays of sunlight that shone onto their anemone. Worried he looked up. Although they were safe in their anemone his greatest fear was that something happened to her. He would not let anybody harm her.

Suddenly something entered the anemone.  It was made of thin material, almost like seaweed. But he had seen this before. This wasn't seaweed. This was the sort of thing that had stolen his mother. The sort of thing that did not care about the poison in the anemone. The sort of thing that only disappeared when they reached their aim, to get one of them.

He didn't hesitate. One last glance back at her and he threw himself into the net, accepting of his fate. Better him than her. She would have a future without him. And she would have kids. One day.

Confused, the diver looked at the clownfish in his net. He almost willingly swam into it. He looked at the anemone, a black and orange tin was stuck in it. It almost looked like a clownfish. Angerly he took it into his bag. All this waste was polluting his hunting ground.