Once a sailor asked a dove, "How is it to fly?" And the dove answered, "I ask you because you are every day at sea, and with your strong boat you tear the waves in two. You have a brave crew and you are not afraid of storms. Meanwhile, I just fly — sometimes low, sometimes high — but I always meet only clouds and aeroplanes; nothing exciting. Tell me about your adventures instead."
So said the dove, and the sailor, who was the captain of a boat, began to tell of nights with the full moon, and of mermaids weeping on the reefs burnt with orange and red coral — weeping for their sisters, or for the fortunes of travellers — while the stars twinkled merrily high above in the firmament of heaven.
Years ago there lived a dolphin in the waters of the Atlantic, who sang and played with the other dolphins of his tribe, until one day he woke to find that nothing was the same as before. Everything in his neighbourhood had changed: plastic bottles and tonnes of tyres now filled every coral cave, the algae had sickened, and the dolphins were trapped in the deepest caverns.
"But what is happening?" "The sea has become sick — the ocean is infected," the mullets answered as they swam past, searching for cleaner waters.
"The sea cannot simply fall ill," the dolphin thought. "The sea is a living organism with the power of self-healing — it holds iodine, phosphorus, salt." And so he decided to rise to the surface, to see for himself exactly what had happened.
As soon as he climbed higher, he saw a terrible sight: plastic bags and bottles floating everywhere, tyres from cars, and great piles of rubbish besides. The dolphin swam back and forth restlessly, turning somersaults in his distress. "It's true," he kept saying. "The sea has fallen sick, covered in rashes and sores. I must find a solution — but how? I am so small…"
As he thought this, he saw a loggerhead turtle swimming carelessly nearby, searching for food. "I shall ask this loggerhead turtle," he thought. "She often rises to the surface to lay her eggs — perhaps she can help." And with a few hasty strokes of his tail, he hurried to reach her.
"What are you saying — has Thalassa fallen ill?" The loggerhead turtle grimaced as she chewed on a mouthful of seaweed. "Since when? Does she have a fever? Let's give her a good vacuuming," she replied, and continued on towards more fertile waters rich with plankton.
"Vacuuming? What on earth is that? These elders speak in riddles and never explain anything plainly. All their philosophies, and yet… we, the younger generation, are left lost, with no idea how to find a solution!"
"Lady Caretta-Caretta, I don't want tips or suction devices — I need help. The sea has fallen sick and is covered in rashes and sores. We must find medical help. Look around you, and stop chewing for a moment."
The loggerhead turtle stopped munching and looked about her, met by a macabre sight: plastic bags draped across every coral reef, plastic bottles littering the seabed, and car tyres blocking the very doorways of the crabs' and starfish's homes. Chaos reigned everywhere.
"Those aren't viruses," the turtle said flatly, and went back to her seaweed.
"Not viruses? How do you know that?" the dolphin wondered.
"I simply know. And I also know who is responsible for this ruin — it's probably the people!"
"People? What's that — some sort of swamp fish?" asked the dolphin in wonder.
"No, they are not swamp fish. People are people. They are different from us — they can stand and walk on two feet, move about outside the water, breathe air, and live by eating one another… and us too, the fish and other creatures. But they don't know how to hide their rubbish, or recycle it as we do — they simply throw it into the sea. They did this.
I have had my own troubles with them — I see how they treat me and my young when I come ashore to lay my eggs. They are monsters!"
The dolphin was frightened, but said with determination, "Monsters or dragons, I will go and fight them, and send their rubbish back to them." And he swam off angrily in an unknown direction.
Months later, word reached the dolphin family that a small grey dolphin had been caught in a fisherman's net and died like a hero. They said he had been found swimming on the surface, close to the coasts and the cities.
They said that every night he had carried plastic bottles in his snout and left them upon the beach. In the morning, the people who came to the shore found mountains of plastic bottles and bags waiting for them, and they frowned and shouted and pulled faces, furious that they could no longer bathe or sunbathe, nor bear the stench while drinking their coffee. So they went, at last, to the Municipality, demanding that the waste be cleared away, for some careless people, they said, must have dumped it on the shore.
The Municipality sent for the rubbish lorries, and three truckloads of plastic were collected — though no one knew quite where to take it, since even they understood that plastic does not break down easily, and takes thousands of years to decompose. Wherever it was thrown or buried, it would harm the environment regardless. Even so, the lorries were ordered to the tip, to be melted down.
Every night, the dolphin continued to carry whatever plastic bags or bottles he found scattered across the seabed and around his home. Soon he had gathered friends to help — the loggerhead turtle, and a pair of octopuses — and together they carried away bottles and drinks cans besides. But no matter how much they cleared, the next day always brought more: empty plastic bottles buried in the sand, tangled among their food. Only yesterday, the whale had nearly swallowed a fizzy-drink cap and a small plastic spoon. None of them knew where all this filth was coming from — until, one day, the loggerhead turtle, who had travelled the world, explained that it was human rubbish, thrown into every sea.
All the fish had abandoned their old caves for other coral reefs. The loggerhead turtle said that the seas no longer held any plankton, and that much of the algae had been poisoned.
"We cannot go on living like this, in uncertainty and misery," said the dolphin angrily. "We must show them that we live down here, with our families, and that the sea grows sicker every day."
"And what should we do?" asked the turtle. "They have already destroyed the forests and the air. They will never stop — now they mean to destroy the sea too."
"Should we act? Should we send these people a message?" "But how?" the turtle asked. "There are so many of them, and they do not speak our language. They cannot understand us."
"They can understand us," the dolphin insisted. "Some of them — the little people — understand us. I feel it. We must call upon the little people to help us, to stop throwing their rubbish into our sea. We will find a way. We must, if we wish to survive, and to keep our seas clean."
"How can you be so certain?" the loggerhead turtle asked. "Some time ago," the dolphin replied, "I travelled with my family to visit distant relatives — our dolphin cousins, who live upon a strip of land washed by the sea. There I had a strange encounter with a small creature — a person, I suppose, though I did not understand his speech, and he never came into the water. I would only approach the shore…"
"You're lucky to be alive. People usually kill dolphins and other fish, either for food or to make fertiliser from their skins. Monsters, I tell you — I know them well. I am forced to wait through long nights until they leave, so that I might lay my eggs and flee, leaving the unfortunate hatchlings to their fate. They are all monsters," the turtle went on.
"And yet I trust this little man. He never hurt me, nor tried to capture me. We played together often, and he even taught me tricks. I will try to find him, and send him a message," the dolphin continued, his thoughts turning hopeful once more.
"If I can reach the shore again, there will be a way to send him word. I will tell you — people spend hours at the sea, on the bright, sunny days. They lie there, turning sometimes to the right, sometimes to the left, upon great quilted blankets. I see them often," said the loggerhead turtle. "It will be your only chance to reach them — but only the little people. Here is what you shall do: find a glass bottle. There will surely be one near the coral reefs. Bring it here, and tell the seahorses and the cuttlefish to come to my home."
"But why?" the dolphin asked, surprised. "I have an idea," the turtle said meaningfully, and went on chewing her seaweed.
So it was that, once the sun's rays had faded, they all gathered in the loggerhead turtle's coral cave. She opened her desk and drew out two feathers and a sheet of paper, then asked the cuttlefish to blow their ink across the feathers as forcefully as they could. With this she began to write, page after page, and when she had finished, she folded the pages and placed them inside the glass bottle the dolphin held. Turning to the seahorses, she said in a determined voice, "Now you know what must be done."
The seahorses galloped off with the bottle fastened between them, swimming on until daybreak, when they reached a shore. With one acrobatic flourish, they flung the glass bottle towards the beach, where it lodged between some deckchairs belonging to a family at rest. A child, who had been playing carelessly nearby with his buckets, wandered off to gather stones and shells, and there found the bottle. He carried it at once to his grandfather. "Look what I found, Grandfather — a glass bottle with a message inside! It must be a treasure."
His grandfather took the bottle, twisted off the cap, and carefully drew out the note. He read it aloud:
"Here, in this blue land we inhabit, which you call the sea, we lived long before you were born — before you ever learned to walk, before you even knew what you were. We do not disturb you; you should not trouble us.
We demand: stop throwing your rubbish here. Stop throwing your plastic waste into our home, and poisoning our food. Stop — now."
DoubleSpeak 