The Clean-up

I reached down to grab yet another corpse the sea had brought to shore. This time, scribbling down 'turtle' on the paper we'd been handed to specify which species we had found, probably to make even more statistics about how much we knowingly destroyed the planet. And then to continue not doing anything about it, while having a feeling of satisfaction simply making statistics and barely talking about it.

I moved the turtle around in my palm, my eyes wide at the sheer beauty of it. It was a dark shade of green with beautiful patterns on its shell. It looked pretty young as if it still had a long life ahead, had the plastic not captured its attention. Its cause of death? a simple red straw that probably came from one of those small juice boxes for kids.

Funny how something so basic meant to help kids enjoy a simple snack could turn into a murder weapon.

I turned over the ragged paper, my handwriting all over it with yet many other kinds of animals. I'd even managed to pick up a seahorse, its head stuck in a cup holder.

Not many people had come out for the clean-up, even on this beautiful day, reminding me of how selfish the human race had become.

A few parents seemed to be telling their kids the truth about the cause of this vast marine cemetery, covered in garbage. A pre-teen who clearly understood this wasn't in any way normal started crying at her parent's words. Her wails only getting louder when she came across the corpse of a horseshoe crab that was hard to ignore on the sand, unlike the other dead marine animals her parents had tried to hide from her sight.

Even as the beach was kept hidden from tourists, it was still open for everyone to see. It mainly remained ignored by most locals who unseemly turned a blind eye to what used to be a popular hangout spot, and beautiful tourist attraction.

This had been a long time coming; while many people didn't believe such a cherished spot could deteriorate in a couple years, it had stopped attracting new generations and had been left abandoned, hastily becoming a cemetery for everyone to lay their selfish eyes on and ignore, as they'd always done.

We easily gave away what we had polluted and turned to trash.

No one seemed to deem the place worthy enough for any eco-friendly regulations.

While this economic thirst is degrading the world one plastic wrapper at a time, decaying life as we know it, we continue to infect our home.

We forget we're animals and there's only one Earth for us all to share, not to dominate and destroy.

How many animals must go extinct for us to step up and take responsibility for our actions? We must save these beautiful creatures that reside in what covers the majority of our planet, our magnificent oceans.