Plastic Sea — What's Left, Page 38
By Inkroost · Published
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Transcript
Panel 1: In bright sun, Pancar climbs out of a deck hatch dragging Roka by the collar; Turp follows. Roka keeps his right arm hidden in his jacket. Roka: 'Let go of me!' Panel 2: Deckhands glance over, then look away and keep working as the guards drag Roka to the railing. Turp: 'Nothing to see.' 'Back to work.' Panel 3: Pancar lifts Roka by the collar and swings him out beyond the red railing over the open sea.
Image description
Pancar drags Roka out of the hatch and across the deck while workers look away, then swings him out over the rail above the sea.
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.