Plastic Sea — What's Left, Page 13
By Inkroost · Published
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Transcript
The Maw, a colossal bone-white shark-like monster crusted with barnacles and fused plastic, erupts up through the far half of Candyreef. Its jaws open on a round throat of ringed teeth. Crates, tarps and shards of pink, cyan and yellow plastic fly into the bright blue sky while tiny figures run below.
Image description
A colossal white shark-like monster bursts up through the island, jaws open, as crates and plastic fly into the blue sky.
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.