Things No One Wanted
Clearwater, FL
2014, Senior, Creative Writing
Somewhere in the Pacific Ocean a new island is forming. This phenomenon can be equated to the volcanic islands of Hawaii or Japan; however, it is unique. This island is about 19 million kilometers, but grows every day. Unlike typical volcanic islands, this one did not form from magma, but instead from the collection of particles picked up by ocean currents. “No one knows how much debris makes up the entire patch” and its depth remains incalculable as fibrous materials from the landmass sink further than the initial body.
Formally discovered in 1997 by a sailor, this island has been thriving ever since. Although this land is uninhabitable as of yet, perhaps sometime in the future, once it doubles in size, any number of populations may be able to live on its surface…
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The morning sunlight plays slideshows against the synthetic filaments of the ground. Both vibrant and utterly dull colors feature themselves in a magnificent attempt to create beauty.
Every morning I awake early to see this exotic yet pitiful performance in hope that one day the shards that made this land would dissolve and leave a world of flowers and grass and maybe even a tree if I was lucky. I know these fragments of nature exist somewhere. My grandmother passed these tales on to my mother who passed them on to me. She used to tell me wondrous stories of never-ending armies of trees and whole gardens of lilies and roses. That was years ago, though, before she passed away. Now those pictures of beauty and brilliance waste away like rotten fruit.
I stand up and wipe the muck off of my tanned body. The morning seems to be one of the few times when the sun is not unbearable. Years of intense sunlight have permanently stained my once pale skin a dark shade of brown. My mother always warned me to wear a hat outside or else my skin would turn to leather like hers did. But after she died, I no longer cared.
My bare feet crunch against the uneven ground. Like parts of forgotten memories, these pieces of forgotten items are brought together to form one incomplete thought. These items are Throw-Aways—things that no one wants. Wholly invaluable, these bits do nothing but provide a ground for the extremely underprivileged to walk on. The pain of stepping on the sharp edges of random items matches the pain of being utterly useless to society.
Even worse than the poverty-stricken populations of the Mainland cities, the destitute populations of the Garbage Patch have nothing of value to society. We are Throw-Aways and Throw-Aways are us. After the world surpassed its carrying capacity by billions, the masses ran out of space. How convenient it was to have a massive island forming in the Pacific Ocean. The Throw-Away Societies of both east and west graciously bestowed upon us thousands of pounds of plastic to form a new type of island: the garbage island.
The Pacific Garbage Patch is the island I live on although there are many more in different gyres of the world. The North Pacific Gyre feeds our land with garbage drawn from Asia and North America. Many years ago the patch had been twice the size of Texas. Now it was more than triple that size. It sinks far down in the ocean, combining with dead organic material and soil particles. Unlike years ago, this plastic is no longer mainly composed of tiny filaments and stranded plastic containers that simply suspend themselves in the ocean water.
After it was realized that we needed more land to harbor the exponentially growing population, plastic was intentionally added into the gyres. Project Plastic Island took place, encouraging people to “recycle” their garbage for the creation of the islands. Ugly melted plastic provided the backbone for this island while thick poles anchored it down. The island no longer floated on the water, but sat on it, allowing people to actually walk on it—even live on it.
But being as this plastic is not biodegradable, it frequently breaks into smaller and smaller parts over time. Fortunately for those who inhabit these garbage islands, there is an endless supply of plastic refurbishing the areas that are breaking away. Unfortunately for the wildlife around our island, microplastics block sunlight from reaching the plankton and algae below. As autotrophs, these creatures need sunlight to make their own food. Without it, they die. Needless to say, there are no plankton or algae where I live.
The lack of algae has a devastating effect on the food web around the area. Fish and turtles lose a valuable source of nutrients, so their populations decline. But that does not even take into account the thousands of animals that die from ingesting the plastic or choking on it.
I’ve only seen one animal in my entire life. It happened on a day quite like today. I watched the sunrise just as I did this morning, gazing at the labyrinth of plastic houses to perhaps find some meaning to my plastic life. Although I did not know it at the time, it was the morning that my mother would pass away. I no longer had the courage to watch her life sucked away through some unseen straw so I decided to leave her bedside. My hat sat in the chair in my place.
The plastic prodded my feet for hours as I ran from the makeshift hospital to the outskirts of the city. I yearned to leave this island if only to find a small square of grass to sit on—just one. Just one patch big enough for me to lie on. The grass could tickle my legs and arms and exhale fresh oxygen into my every pore.
At first, I did not know where I was running. But at last I found my destination: the end of the patch. At a very young age my mother told me it was dangerous to venture too far to the north, south, east, or west; I could end up running straight into deep ocean water. I listened to her until now. There was no point obeying someone whose rules would not apply in a few days.
The smell of salt overpowered my nose. Waves of royal blue and green turquoise painted the landscape a haunting shade of melancholy. So this is the sea, I thought to myself. Its furious waves languidly wrestled each other, daring any outsider to enter the brawl. A windswept chill sent tendrils up and down my body. I released a breath I had been holding for years. This is what freedom felt like.
I plopped down at the edge of the plastic and let my feet dangle into the unknown. The cool water drowned my tension and soothed the internal burns of my mind. I watched as something splashed at the edge of my field of vision. I turned my head slightly to inspect the creature. It squawked without warning. I jumped and scrambled back from the edge. My hand scrapped against a sharp piece of plastic. What was that thing? The creature squawked again. Quickly remembering the book of animals my mother used to show me, I reasoned this creature was a bird… But I did not think that they made a noise that ghastly. It did not seem to call out in a happy manner like I supposed they did. Instead of talking to its friends, it seemed to scream for help.
My terrified curiosity pulled me over to where the squawking creature floated. I bent down and inspected it in horror. A piece of plastic wrung itself tightly around the thing’s neck. The feathers around it had been rubbed raw; little patches of matted fluff clung miserably to life. Infected carbuncles shined like rubies around the bird’s body. Not only was the plastic suffocating the bird, but some foreign pathogen diseased it.
I almost threw up.
The poor thing. What was I to do? I could not do anything, I answered somberly. With fright, I looked towards the sea for help. What I saw was no consolation. My eyes focused on more and more disgusting pieces of plastic floating luxuriously amidst the bird’s bitter condition. Ugly raindrops fell from my lashes, drowning my cheeks. I ran. I ran to escape.
I never saw another animal after that. I never went to the edge ever again. I could not face another tortured, helpless creature. Perhaps I was too innocent then, but I did not believe the human population could be so extremely callous to the natural world around them. Surely, if a man could create an item that could connect almost everyone around the world or a machine that could soar over the ocean, a man could materialize a plastic that could biodegrade. Maybe it is not that someone cannot create it, but no one wants to supply the money to make it. It is hard to believe that not one person in the entire scope of the world can put this into effect. Every nation is part of the problem so every nation should be part of the solution. Not one person? No one?
This morning I dare to go back to the edge. Today marks the fifth anniversary of my mother’s death. I think I should commemorate the event or something. But perhaps going back to that awful spot is not the best idea. After all, the thing that killed that bird killed my mother. Plastic poisoning ate her once enthusiastic life until nothing was left but the plastic wrapper.
“Bisphenol A (known as BPA), which is used in tough polycarbonate products and epoxy resins that line tin cans, and a group of plastic softeners called phthalates” (Boggan) all proved to be her downfall. At least that is what it says on the many doctor’s notes and machine printouts detailing my mother’s suffering. Apparently “these chemicals can enter the human body in any number of ways.” The toxins are able to leach out of the containers from which we eat and drink and enter into the bloodstream, causing vomiting and ulcers and headaches and difficulty breathing and …
The doctor’s words are hollow in my mind. Even before we went to the hospital for a diagnosis, we both knew the symptoms very well—and the outcome.
Every day at least five people on this island or some other plastic island dies from the same condition. Money is the only barrier between life and death in this new world. Treatment is readily available on the Mainland; however, we live on the most poverty-stricken surface on the Earth. No one can afford it.
I, like every other Throw-Away, will live my entire life on this island, unable to find solace in beauty and comfort in life. We grow up knowing the exact cause of our death and slowly lose our life knowing there is nothing we can do but accept our demise. All I hope for is that I will wilt like a lily that once brought beauty into this world and decompose to fertilize the armies of trees that my mother once told me about.