The story of a plastic bagLands and seas cover enormous amounts of plastic. On the small island of Ivo in the Pacific Ocean, which once was beeming with life, the plastic bag meets, an emerald and begins telling her life story.This was in the distant future, long after oceans, rivers, lands and old willows.- Is anyone here or am I alone? - Asked Plastic Bag. - I see you. Well, I'm talking to you. There is no light, but you reflect it. Hey,you little one. How do you do it?- I am Emerald - someone answered unexpectedly with a strong and steady voice.- Emerald? Where does the emerald come from? Who lost you here?The emerald did not answer.
- What are you doing here, shiny stone? - Cried a plastic bag, breathed in lightly, or maybe it was a wind that expelled her and raised above dust and over the wasteland.
- Watch out - Emerald said. I do not know who you are but I deserve a little respect. If our world was still going on, I would be an extremely valuable object.
- Our world ?! - said the plastic bag with disdain. I think you mean the world of people. Well, I owe my existence to them, but nothing else. They melted some polyethylene granules so that I could be born, but they did not think that I would live forever.
- Plastic bag and eternity? You probably do not know Czeslaw Milosz, who once wrote: 'I see a greenish ocean. How foam flows into the rocky shore and in the white palaces of its setting. Emerald shimmering islands'. But what are you but a piece of plastic- called the Emerald choking with laughter. - You see, my dear, we are from completely different spheres. I am millions of times more valuable than you!- You are no longer an Emerald. There is nobody here who would want to pay for you, even one bitcoin - said Plastic Bag. - But even when you were worth a fortune, I was more valuable. Because I was special.- You? I am special. There are not two identical emeralds in the world. And people have produced millions of the same bags!- I was unique, repeated the Plastic Bag and sank into memories.
It got quiet. Nothing was happening and did not move, maybe sometimes the wind blew, night did not fall, day did not come, it was neither light nor dark, time ceased. When finally Emerald spoke, it is not known whether days, years, century or centuries have passed. - Well, tell me. - but I have to warn you, nothing will touch me. I'm tough.
The plastic bag lifted slowly and lightly and fell on the floor.- I will tell you, maybe you can draw some conclusions from it, like from any story in which there are not too many lies. Well, me and my innumerable sisters were made of polyethylene granules. When I first looked at the world, I saw people in masks and gloves and felt the knife cutting, that separated me from the belt of the revolving roller. Hot metal welded my sides and handles to wear. I became something fully integral, a separate being, an object. Together with my 999 sisters, I was packed tightly in a box and taken to the store. I was lying on top, and I did not even have time to look around when a man of Pakistani origin entrusted me with two bottles of red wine and found myself on the street of Barcelona. For the first time, I saw houses, cars, neon lights and lights reflecting in the hot asphalt. I was afraid to break and drop the bottles on the pavement, but somehow after the entry in the industrial elevator, I, two bottles and a man in the white cap who carried us, succeeded. We got to the 9th floor, to a large hall with paintings, canvases and many cans of full and empty paint. A man in a white hat took a bottle from me, drank half full straight and started painting. He painted all day, evening and half-night. In the morning, he opened the second bottle and straighten me naked on the canvas.- - Do you want to be the most expensive plastic bag in the world? He asked and then he started painting on me, which gave me a lot of pleasure. I was getting more colorful, on one side he painted a city, and on the other an animal with a one horn. When it was finished, it was already afternoon, he went out onto the balcony, lifted me high and looked at me with admiration in the bright daylight, and beneath us stretched Barcelona. Perhaps at this moment I realized the value of life, someone loved me. - You're my best job. You will hang in MACBA, you will see, he said, and at that moment the wind blew, it snatched me out of his hands, filled me with air, and lifted me above the city.
It also grabbed the white cap of this man’s head and for a moment we flew together: a white hat and me. I flew and flew until I landed on the lawn under a large pink house. That's where Antonella found me. The girl embraced me and said that she had never seen such a beautiful plastic bag and that she loves unicorns the most in the world. And I liked Antonella. We spent good years together, we almost did not part, we went to school together, to ballet, to piano lessons, to the library, I carried her books and notebooks, and when I was sleeping, I lay close to her, I looked at her on the chair. But one day it all ended. The new housekeeper of Antonell just threw me into the trash. Then I started to travel in the oceans, of course, avoiding those big containers with the word plastic, because I was not satisfied with reincarnation. I wanted to protect a picture painted by a man in a white hat, which was od course my own individuality. I had many adventures I spent even half a year in the belly of a whale until I found myself here, in the plastic mecca - on this coral island that became the destination of sea pilgrimages of plastic objects. There was already a mountain of plastic and it was hard to believe that once flowers were growing on it, and migratory birds and turtles found shelter in it. It was here, on the island of Ivo, that I saw the arrival of the plastics erosion, when it turned out that we PLASTIC, we are everywhere, in the air, water and land, in animals and people, and even in their food. We built rocks, islands, archipelago, enough to mention the rubbish islands, the first plastic state recognized by the UN. I looked at it with pride, feeling part of this wonderful undertaking in which we all participated.
- And then … Emerald rushed her into speaking again.
- You know ... - said Plastic Bag - It all ended. Even time. Apparently it is just still now but nothing happens, it is always gray, still and the same. I wonder if people will ever come back.
- You think about that girl, Antonella, I know, Emerald answered, and I'm thinking about my friend, an old man who bought me at an auction in Geneva, a green diamond. The most expensive diamond sold at the auction, over 34 million euros. Put in a gold ring. He really loved me. We lived modestly, in a 10-room villa in Costa Brava. Whenever we went to EL CELLER DE CAN ROCA, my friend, to protect me, would put a white cotton glove on his left hand. Therefore, the restaurant's regulars called him the White Glove. Only at home did he not hide me, he looked at me and touched me tenderly. And then one day he fell over in the bathroom and died, I slid off his soapy finger and hid in a crack of the floor. Later I had various adventures, I lost the golden ring, but in my mind I have only my friend, White Glove. You know, I thought we were similar to each other, you and I Plastic Bag. We both came here from the depths of the earth, you from the oil well, I from the earth mine. And we both survived and love.
The plastic bag did not answer. But she has a lot of time and maybe someday will.