Water

Artwork by Xiu Chen

By: Disha Balu, 17, UK

Will there be life below water when I grow up? 

I swam recently, in the sun-soaked seas of the Mediterranean. With poor eyesight, I could make out the shoals of shimmering forms that weaved in between my limbs, evaporating into the depths below my kicking feet as I propelled myself closer. If I squinted at just the right angle amongst the sun rays, I could make out colonies of colours blanketing the beds below. Every time I rose up to where the waves broke, I found myself contemplating how bleak and void the surface seemed in comparison to the lashings of life that navigated around me. 

The sands themselves had very few lifeforms relishing in the gentle heat, the chattering seagulls and washing waves in perfectly orchestrated combat. I recall pinpointing something that glinted, something that did not dart away into the darker blues as I plunged towards it. It plummeted quickly, a mass of blinding silvers and I saw at once it was nothing more than a rogue plastic bottle with its viscous brown sludge still bleeding into the water. I sank further, what I mistook for rows of sparkling shells were, in truth, daggers of plastic – scattered for the creatures that danced around me. 

The swaying corals revealed themselves to be a tangled mess bound from jagged hooks, crinkled canisters and barbed straws and the vibrant playground before me darkened almost at once. I spotted a looming spectre, an undulating phantom casting shadows on the wasteland beneath me and I had barely just managed to swerve away to realise it was not a jellyfish but an ominous swarm of plastic bags. Perhaps even more perilous than anticipated, I tried feverishly to grasp it but it voyaged towards the darker depths beyond the bay, poised to sting another.