Plastic Sea — What's Left, Page 4
By Inkroost · Published
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Transcript
High above a glittering turquoise sea floats Candyreef, a village of pink, cyan and yellow plastic crates and tarps, linked by bottle bridges to small rafts. Gulls scatter. A shout rises from the island's edge: 'BIBER!!'
Image description
Aerial view of Candyreef, a pink and cyan island of floating plastic on a turquoise sea, with a shout rising from it.
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.