National Geographic Contest #planetorplastic - Pink Passage to Lisa

Pink Passage to Lisa#Planet or Plastic

Hirai, Kashima, Ibaraki Prefecture 314-0012, Japan

Her name, Yuki Hashimoto, 19, a Sales Assistant.

She lay on the grey sand. Her peeling paint on her nails upset her. Neiruenamerurimūbā. Enamel Remover from Daiso, the Dollar Store is produced. The hand then opens pink beauty bag, two Q-Tips appear. Two white, tight, fluffy cotton tops attached by a pink plastic tube.

High Tide.

Panic.

Hand throws in two Q-Tips to the ebbing tide. The water laps up the Q-Tips. They float away.

Yuki goes back to her car and stares at her phone. Her nails are still peeling.

Days go by.

Q-Tip one was caught on a fishing line by Tatsuzo Matsumara, 72, 129miles away on a small dock in Okuma, Futaba District, Fukushima Prefecture. He put the Q-Tip in his rain-soaked pocket.

Weeks go by.

Q-Tip two has endured schools of tuna, two Sperm Whales, eight small garbage patches and fifteen storms.

Fishing Trawler, Red Betsy, 85 nautical miles northeast of Adak Island, Aleutians West Census Area, Alaska, United States hauls in Wild Alaskan Pollock, Noah Granger, 49 notices something pink hit the deck. He scratches his head. A Q-Tip! Strange. He throws it back into the deep azure ocean.

Weeks turn to months.

Currents are up, down, and in wild swirls. Over and over the lone Q-Tip spins and sputters in the raging waters of the North Pacific Ocean.

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8:12am, Tolovana Beach State Recreation Site, Tolovana Park W Warren Way, Cannon Beach.

Lisa Lassiter-Rouge, 12, with blue rainboots on, a Mickey Mouse T-Shirt tucked into denim shorts, her brown curls messy under her Timberwolves hat whacks the dense sand near the edge of low tide. The plastic shovel that is in her left hand is part of her green warrior strength, her mother so proudly told her. She loves that notion. She walks splashing thin strips of water everywhere.

Then she spies pink. A pink tube with only one cotton bud thinly wrapped around the plastic head. Lisa recognizes it immediately. Her mom uses them all the time. There is a big container in the main bathroom, but the Q-Tips are white, not pink. She uses her shovel to scoop up the Q-Tip.

She squints.

"Where have you come from, little pink Q-Tip?"

If only the Q-Tip could say, from the hand of Yuki Hashimoto, Kashima, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan, roughly 4, 800 miles away with a small detour to an Alaskan trawler.

"Mom, check this out, a pinkQ-Tip!"