Plastic Sea (PT) — What's Left, Page 16
By Inkroost · Published
Log in to see this page
Page 16 of What's Left is for signed-in readers. Logging in brings you straight back here — and an account is free if you do not have one.
Transcript
Debaixo d'água, na água turquesa iluminada pelo sol, Roka afunda lentamente, de olhos fechados, com um braço atravessado pela boia anelar laranja e brilhantes fragmentos de plástico girando ao seu redor. Ao lado dele desliza o vasto olho leitoso de Maw, incrustado numa pele de placas hexagonais cobertas de cracas e plástico. Ele passa por Roka.
Image description
Debaixo d'água, Roka deriva inerte entre brilhantes detritos de plástico, segurando a boia laranja, enquanto o enorme olho leitoso do monstro passa ao lado dele.
About this chapter
In the dark at the bottom of the sea, something is counting. On Candyreef, a candy-coloured island of floating trash, Roka wakes to a water bag in the face from his street crew, lifts breakfast from the old woman who would have fed him anyway, and tells the kid who follows him that he doesn't owe anybody. Then the gulls lift all at once, and a Maw eats half the island. A day and a night alone at sea later, the Garden Ship fishes him out and orders him to walk its treadwheels for fish heads. Roka is nobody's slave, so he goes looking for something to steal instead, and breaks into a barnacled case dredged from the seabed. The silver dust inside climbs into his arm and says hello. It is polite. It is curious. It wants every human dead. And it has just started counting again.