Plastic Sea — What's Left, Page 21
By Inkroost · Published
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Transcript
Panel 1: Morning glare on an empty sea. Roka lies limp in the orange float, eyes half closed, lips cracked, the yellow duck held loosely to his chest. A giant shadow slides over him and the water. Panel 2: From the water, the Garden Ship's bow rises like a painted cliff of red, teal and yellow patches, patchwork sails against the sky, red paddle wheels churning.
Image description
Exhausted and barely conscious, Roka lies in the orange float holding the duck as a huge shadow falls over him; the patchwork Garden Ship towers above.
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.