The Gift #PlanetOrPlastic

The Gift

It came from the Up-lights: the lights that dance above the reef and lather the world with colours and shadows. Colours for us to glow and shimmer and shadows to give us nooks to nest. Who knows what realm lies above them? What wonders they hold. I want to know and see but he coils his tail with mine and holds me back.

"The Up-lights are not for us," he says, "We are small; we belong here among the kelp and coral."

But the coral is white and brittle now and the kelp is tall and tangling.

The colours are fading, but the Up-lights, maybe there is hope there, in that world, someone to help the corals bloom. If only I could bring it back, just a small bit of light.

I wait for the night when all is quiet save the soft brush of the tide as it ruffles the kelp and spreads the sands. The Up-lights are sleeping too, but I know the are still there, twinkling above. I quietly leave the reef into the open abyss. I swim up and up and up and the water gets warmer and warmer. I look down and see the reef below, the small patch left surrounded by green that seems to consume the brittle bits of white coral, turning it to sand and pebbles.

How long before they reach the reef?

How long before they take those colours too?

I swim on until I see the Up-lights dancing above me. Maybe they know I am coming? Maybe they wanted to help? I felt a large current pass beneath me and then I was pulled away.

It was the flat gobbler that lurked about the reefs devouring small side-crawlers and creatures that dared to leave the confines of their nooks. She was hungry and I knew why: the side-crawlers have all but vanished, and so have we. Her movements are slow, and she is weak enough for me to wiggle my tail out of her wide mouth. Quickly, I swim for the Up-lights, knowing they are my only hope. I can feel the gobbler undulating after me with its wide, leathery flaps and sharp stinger. Without thinking I pass my tail through the Up-lights.

They feel so cold and thin.

But there is something floating there, hovering between our worlds.

This was it! The gift from the Up-lights; the hope for our home!

I grab it and pull it down.

The next thing I see is the gobbler's maw as its darkness envelopes me, but there, coiled in my tail, and caught on her mouth is the gift: it is long and round, light as plankton, but hard as stone; it is indestructible. The gobbler tries to swallow it along with me, but she cannot and spits me out. I wave it in front of her like a weapon. She watches it with tired eyes.

"This is the gift," I say.

"No," says the gobbler, sinking away. "It is the end."