Father of the Sea

1

The little girl splashed and swam in the sparkling surf, squealing with delight. Little minnows flitted and flashed around around her small ankles but they could not catch her.

"Daddy, Daddy look!" She looked up at her father to make sure he was looking before taking a deep breath and plunging under water, her cheeks blown out like a puffer fish.

A chuckle sounded from above and the girl surfaced to see her father smiling proudly down at her. Tall and muscular he rose above the water, his jade green tail could be seen below though the crystal clear waters. Seaweed draped his torso and colorful scales of scarlet, violet, and gold adorned his hair and wrists. A crown of water hovered over his head and a pendant as blue as his eyes hung on his neck.

"Very good my little minnow," he praised, "one day these oceans will be yours and you can swim all you like." The girl gazed up at him with adoration, wondering when it would come time for her to rule in her father's place.

"All the crabs crawling on the coral, all the stingrays sliding through the seas, all the dolphins dancing on the waves. They will be your people. As far as the eye can see, a heaven of wonder, a rainbow of life."

                                  ~

The little girl, now a woman, could still remember the way the sun kissed her hair and the waves caressed her skin. From that day on, the girl had swum and explored every corner of her future kingdom, eager to learn all she could about the oceans she would inherit. She hadn't seen her father in seventeen years, ambition and curiosity crowding out her family. But finally, watching over a pod of orcas sail through frigid seas she was ready to return.

Swimming through the vast ocean, the currents guiding her along, she saw something that made her heart constrict.

Plastic bottles bobbing like bombs ready to blow. Food wrappers, their edges glinting like knives. Plastic rings hanging in the waves like a noose.

She sped home stopping at the place she'd last seen him seventeen years ago and waited. Up out of the water a man emerged. Scales no longer shown in his graying hair, water droplets ceased to shine on his skin. The seaweed draped across his body was decaying, contaminated with nets and plastic, and the man's eyes no longer held the sparkle of the sea.

"My child," the man, her father, stumbled forward onto the sand at her feet.

"It's up to you. Save your home. Save the creatures. Save the ocean."

With that he fell to the sand, his chipped tail dragging the surf. The waves giving their king a kiss goodbye. With his last breath, he dissolved into the sea, tears falling from the girls eyes.

She promised to avenge her father, the King of the Oceans until her last breath. To clean the oceans so that none would suffer the same fate.