It’s just a little environmental issue…
First it was the sad Indian and a single tear.
Then it was needles on the beach.
Then it was plain old trash on the beach.
Then it was a seagull split open like a plastic-filled piñata.
Then a whale full of plastic bags it thought where jelly fish.
A turtle washed up full of plastic too. It too thought they were jelly fish.
Then a shark with license plate in its gut. Or was that movie? Doesn’t matter.
If enough people in the public remember it, it must be true.
Then, for reasons known only to world, an exploding whale on a beach distracted everyone for fifteen full minutes.
But still the plastic marched on.
Then it was plastic oceans.
Cruise ships bobbed offshore like floating buffets of denial, gently discharging their blessings into the sea.
Then it was rivers in South America, India, China.
Rivers that industry once turned blue and green now looked like children had been taught to swim through melted crayons and chemical soup.
On and on the absurdity grew.
What earlier civilizations left behind as artifacts — pottery shards, glass, coins, tools — modern mankind would leave in a much grander assortment:
bottle caps, grocery bags, shampoo lids, mystery fragments, vape guts, neon straws, patriotic Solo cups, six-pack rings, takeout forks, and one Greek yogurt container destined to outlive the republic.
We do not merely use plastic.
We produce it as though our species has accepted a sacred obligation to laminate the Earth.
We celebrate it.
We package our lunch in it.
Our holidays.
Our children’s toys.
Our medicine.
Our grief.
Our convenience.
Our celebrations.
Our garbage.
It consumes us as we consume it.
It is glorious.
It is forever.
It is the crackle and shimmer of late empire.
And then — after all this — one kid got mad about some trash on the beach.
This was an offense too far for Gloria B. Blue.
Yellow-haired and quivering with patriotic concern, Gloria came clomping down the street in sensible holiday wedges, chasing the teenager while hurling reusable water bottles at him.
Each one said:
HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
Thunk.
“But you shop at TARGET!”
Thunk.
“You drink STARBUCKS!”
Thunk.
“You’re hurting the clean image of your community!”
Thunk.
“You didn’t get the boards’ approval! Or the towns’ approval! Or MARKETING’S approval!”
Thunk.
“We have ORDER here, you ANARCHIST!”
Thunk.
“ANTI-CHRIST!”
Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.
“YOU are the problem, buddy!”
Thunk.
“Stop bullying my poor lobbyists with your unpatriotic tears!”
Another bottle sailed past his head.
“SATAN WORSHIPPER!”
Thunk.
“HITLER’S BABY!”
Thunk.
“SNOWFLAKE!”
Thunk.
“VEGETARIAN!”
She ran out of reusable bottles and began throwing her shoes.
“FOUR EYES!”
One wedge bounced off a recycling bin.
“COMMUNIST!”
The other flew past a parked SUV.
“SOCIALIST!”
She hopped after him in one stocking foot.
“SOCIALIST-COMMUNIST!”
She did not mention any of the other possible -isms because nobody had bothered teaching the public most of them.
Honestly, you can shimmy and wedge an -ism almost anywhere if you need to get a job done.
They are a lot like fractions.
The second wedge disappeared beneath the SUV.
The kid, still holding a grocery bag full of beach trash, stared at her.
And there, in one perfect American tableau, stood the whole magnificent machine:
an entire civilization wrapped in plastic,
furious at a child
for noticing the trash.
That afternoon Gloria flew first class to a prison.
There were cameras.
She knelt.
She prayed.
She placed a loving hand on the shoulder of a recovering drug addict and announced that he was one of Jesus’s miracles.
Everyone applauded.
There were photographs.
A statement was released.
Redemption.
Compassion.
Grace.
Unlike that troublesome kid on the beach, who had committed the unforgivable offense of becoming angry at industry, waste, and capitalism.
Mess with her babies.
Those were much more complicated matters.
You did not get angry about those.
You prayed about them.
You surrendered them to God.
And then you left them safely in the capable hands of His chosen servants:
the industrial leaders of the world.
Gloria smiled for the cameras.
Her yellow hair shone bronze in the dawning light of—
3:33 P.M.?
Oh.
Wildfire smoke.
Somewhere offshore, a plastic bottle rolled gently in the surf.
Farther inland, others melted in the fire.
The bottle in the surf turned once.
Then again.
Its festive lettering caught the strange orange light while taps was played in the distance.
HAPPY HO🔥DAYS
