A  disastrous lonely beach, dies under a blight of trash.  The ocean tries to massage the weary shore, but its wet fingers, spill more garbage.   An old woman picks up trash and puts it into her giant empty purse.  A man finishes his sandwich and throws an empty foil wrapper at her feet, “You realize your wasting your time!  Lady, no one cares about the environment anymore.”  His bouncing laughter seemed to drown in the sound of ocean colliding into the sand.

She slowly picked up the foil wrapper and put it in her purse.  As if speaking into the wet sand, her voice rolled, rhythmic like the old ocean, “My love for the Earth and nature, is not defined by the amount of other people.  If I am the last one who loves, then I will be welcomed to rejoin the soil as a friend and not rejected as trash rotting on top of it.” She hobbled along the shore, each step worth four or five pieces of trash.

The man walked a few paces towards his car the was bleeding oil beneath it, and then hurled his empty paper coffee cup into the ocean.

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Copyright © 2017 Zachary W. Gilbert