Short Story

by Ava Zeng

A lone plastic thank-you take-out bag floated melancholically above the surface of a previously unphased sea. It still held the remains of days-old spring rolls, paired with an odious spoilage of sweet and sour sauce. The bright yellow smiley face plastered on the bag began to turn into that of a frown, with the corners of its mouth slowly disintegrating.
As time progressed, take-out bags scrawled with Have a Nice Day and Enjoy began to appear in the sea.
Children squealed in pleasure as they raced one another down to the sea, flailing their tiny arms around in bursts of excitement. They had spotted the numerous plastic materials floating around in the areas their parents had prohibited them from venturing to, yet shrugged their shoulders as the bags came into a clearer view. Parents peered at the plethora of debris beginning to manifest on the surface of the magnificent body of water yet they too neglected its presence. They were simply uninterested and quite plainly ignorant of their surroundings, turning away at the moment the plastic bags came into view.
The naïveté of it all drove the parents to tell the small number of curious children that the plastic had mysteriously presented itself in the ocean with no provocation whatsoever. They too dragged their children down into the realm of obliviousness, shushing the reality of how the trash ended up in their play area. Fairytales were soon made out of this overlooked circumstance, with the theme of an unknown entity bringing the plastic to the sea. Had they educated themselves and their children on the truth of the bags sooner, there would have been a different outcome. Perhaps.
The bags made their way into the stomachs of turtles and fish, stumping uniformed groups of parents. The fairytales they fabricated soon became a seemingly logical conclusion they gripped onto, as they could not and would not face themselves. They had shifted the blame on fictional characters, ignoring their faults. They had been the direct perpetrators of such a misfortune, littering wherever they pleased. However, fairytales never last.
News began to break out of the ever-growing plastic bag crisis, as more and more marine life started to disappear in concerningly large quantities. Media began to cover the stories of the diminishing population of aquatic life within the sea, alerting the public to the consequences of their indecencies.
The parents slowly began to recognize their faults in the progression of this malicious dilemma, yet they continued to deny any active attempts to ease the spread of plastic bags within the ocean, latching onto their stubbornness and inability to see through the yellow smiley faces ingrained into the plastic bags. In their minds, the smiley faces equated to the permissible nature of this growing environmental catastrophe, allowing them to relax while the rest of the world proactively interfered with limiting their littering in hopes of containing the issue. By the time people took action, it was far too late. Hundreds and thousands of sea animals had suffered at the hands of the ignorant, as the parents had spent a better part of their lives entirely oblivious and indifferent about the situation.
As the children grew up, schools began to educate them on the extent of the plastic bag predicament and created contests for those who could collect the most litter. Urging the children to set foot into accommodating the presence of the sea population, teachers had done what the parents could not provide. This new generation became a savior of some sort, with their efforts appreciated yet somewhat disappointingly. They continued to spread awareness of littering and the devastating effects of the incapacity of the human mind, but they were never fit to be superheroes.
The plastic bag issue failed to entirely subside as a testament to the apathetic nature of the human consciousness. The children were unable to save the world, yet they attempted to bring back the area they had once splashed around in.
Tears plagued the smiley face as another fish ingested it, unable to defend itself to the impartial eye of the consumer.