Cruel Shell

Humans are so… silly. They’ve been debating with me for a while now. Some humans say there should be less of me and my brothers and sisters, but others say there’s not enough of us. Can’t they make up their mind? They said something about expanding our home out at sea. Isn’t that amazing? If it goes through, more of my brothers and sisters – maybe even cousins will join me – and all of us can bask together in the sun. Spread our glorious black spirit through the dunes and weave our essence through the waters. Think about what all of us can do, together; the amount of people we can help. It’ll be wonderful. Sure, they are taking land back from the ocean to do it, and the local wildlife will suffer because of it, but if that’s what the governmental humans want… they’ve done similar things in the past either way, so it’s not like it’s impossible if that’s one of their concerns. But other humans keep saying it shouldn’t happen; that wildlife and the environment are already suffering enough; that it’s my fault. But it can’t be my fault;I haven’t done anything. They are the ones renovating my home. You once held me in your hands like a miracle; warm, ancient, powerful. You cracked open the earth to find me, and I gave you everything. Light. Movement. Speed. But you didn’t stop. You kept digging, drilling, bleeding me dry. You turned me into profit, into politics, into war. Now you say l’m the problem. OK But I was silent while you built empires on my back. Now I’m loud. Now I burn. Now I rise into your lungs, your oceans, your sky. I was never meant to last forever. But neither were you, if you keep living like this. You call it transition, but the drilling hasn’t stopped. You say the future is green, but pipelines still stretch across stolen land. You want me gone, but you won’t let go. I’m not infinite. And neither is your time. Humans still try to take me out of the sea. Luckily my famous yellow and red seashells guide me back into the waters of Rotterdam. On a daily basis I get reunited with 1800 million liters worth of brothers and sisters of mine. My cousins the dioxins and pesticides usually come along with us on our trips. Everybody is always so focused on where I go for a holiday, all I do is visit the beautiful coral reefs and interact with the wildlife. Nobody bats an eye to my cousins, they are greedy and spoiled. They travel much further than me and have a way longer lifespan. Not only do they get to interact with the wildlife and their environment. They actually manage to hitch a ride inside of humans. The exact hypocritical humans that try to take me out of the sea. They must have formed some sort of bond I am not aware of. They get to explore the world through humans and all they have to do is pay the humans by giving them things like; cancer, kidney damage, reproductive abnormalities and much more. It’s unfair, I could do the same thing and so much more if I wanted to do so. In the 70’s I was much worse for your lungs. Years ago you made me much more toxic than I am today. Why am I still not clean? Why do you still blame me for the damage you made me do? I’m better now, I’ve dialled down more than 80% but it’s not enough. It’s never enough until I’m gone, and you can just have me in the back of your mind like a bad memory. I was good for once. For your economy, for your businesses and immediately you make me so much worse, increasing me and spreading me around much more than before. Your Onyx and Uniper distribute me like you’d be happy to see me. I float through the air, through your rivers, because of you. If you hate me so much, why did you ever even take me from the ground I was born in? Mother earth’s womb was much more comforting than the cold truth you hold me accountable for. And so one day everything changed for us. Human kind. I saw black smoke clouds rising from the station, wiping out the vast green that surrounded us. Dull noises that don’t belong to us buried the ancestral songs of my people. The elders said the spirit of the water takes away sadness, but my son drank black and vomited red. Mother said fire heals us, but I did not recognize those torches. The fish floated lifeless, looking like they forgot how to swim. They called it the lung of the Earth, but I was told it was better not to breathe at home anymore. They wanted more, more and more, so they took all our colors and mixed them. And now I see only black. Black, sticky, indelible, relentless, infinite human greed.