Dear Fish, Stop Plastic #PlanetOrPlastic

Dear Fish,

"Momma, what is this fog?"

Mona pulled her child close, letting the tendril of silvery white fall onto the seabed.

"Not fog. Plastic."

They came falling through the ocean more frequently now. Like droplets of rain before a thunderstorm. Mona knew that she and Luc couldn't stay in this part of the Pacific anymore.

She guided her son through the soft currents, bathing them both in sunlight. Her feet curved over spindly brain coral and soft, slippery rocks. They were travelling through a coral reef, a warm, shallow blanket of water adorn with the ocean's most dazzling beauties. Sea urchins doused in brilliant red dye proudly flared out their sharp spines. Limpets squatted like little ridged umbrellas on smooth rock, gossiping gleefully away. The crabs scuttled over bright pebbles and disappeared into the nook between a giant clam's luscious turquoise lips.

Luc tickled the hundred-fingered sea anemone with his own small fingers, giggling when it pretended not to let go of his hand.

Mona stopped Luc before he stepped on a bag. A plastic bag ruthlessly shrouded over hermit crab. The crab struggled frantically underneath, but no matter how much it twisted and turned, the plastic twirled in the same dance, trapping the poor hermit crab underneath.

Luc and Mona shrank away from the plastic, knowing that there was nothing that they could do. If they dared to touch the plastic, it would wrap itself like a grapevine around their hands and never let them go like it twisted around the hermit crab and never let it go.

Luc clutched Mona's bare hips, "Momma, I want to go," he cried.

Mona picked up her son by his wrist and dropped him onto her back. When his legs slithered over her waist and his arms warped themselves tightly around her neck, Mona continued past the Hermit crab.

They stopped at a deeper part of the reef where the seaweed grew tall and had itself adorn with plastic forks and black socks, toothpicks and bottles. There were coat hangers and candy wrappers, clothing tags and plastic bags.

Luc had once asked her, "Momma, do the fish not love us?"

Mona sat down at the edge of the kelp forest and watched the bubbles that escaped her lips rise up and up and up to the surface of the water where they disappeared. This was her home. The luscious green plant behind her was where her son should sleep today and where he should have slept yesterday. This was a place riddled with the negligent nature of the fish who ruled over their lives. Who could destroy her Luc's oceans if it pleased them.

At the time of his question, Mona didn't know what reply to give.

But now as her fingers glided over the slick kelp, she said, "They do,"

"They just don't know how to show it."

And she hoped, for Luc's sake, for the hermit crab and for every other creature's sake, that what she said was true.