I was watching the morning news. They had a live picture streaming of the oil spill in the bottom corner of the screen. I sat there for four hours watching oil as it pumped more and more toxic into the Gulf of Mexico. The reports coming in at time informed the public of the oil already hitting the current and showing up in the Florida Keys! They say 25,000 gallons are pumping out five times a day and the flowing can not be stopped. The last safety valve was destroyed! There will be no way to stop it!”The reporter is sending vibrations of religious terror at the concept.
I sat back in tears as I added the math up in my mind. 25,000 gallons at five times a day…that’s 125,000 gallons everyday! I looked down at my cell phone for what date it was…this was day THIRTY! I turned off the television set. And I walked over to my dog’s urn. Standing still, shining bright, Maximus: Born October 1993 died April 2009. I shed a tear for a long lost friend. As I opened the door to walk outside I am baffled that my house sat at the end of a long forgotten beach and not in the city. The sun casting a light on the shining sparkling ocean water and I hear its waves splashing against the rocks nearby. The sound is so soothing it makes hairs raised on the back of my neck. The sand was as white as snow and I noticed how my feet would sink into the pit of sand and the tiny cold rocks felt good against my skin. I hear a bark coming from a distance. Tears instantly fill my eyes as then a shadowy figure emerges. I can hear a bark and the silhouette turns into the form of my former dog. “Maximums? Max…is that you?” I ask in disbelief. It could not be. I knew I was not dreaming, but in front of my eyes my dog jumped up and tackled me. The lovely act brought back memories of the past and I felt like a ten-year-old boy again! Max took off in the opposite direction running as fast as he could. He was flying like an angel now. As I stand up to chase after him screaming his name. I noticed something that to this day I wished I had not given attention to. It awakened me to something far more terrifying, something far more real. With each step I took, as my foot laid on the surface of the white sand, my foot would sink down into something…wet. Noticing something had changed I looked down and pulled up my leg from the sinking sand. To my shock it was covered by a black liquid dripping from my toes, dripping back down into the dark sunken hole of a beach that was now surrounded with darkness itself. I looked at the ground and noticed that the beach was soaked in oil. I called out the name of my dog…something was wrong. “MAX!” as he comes walking back, I notices his limp and slow painful walk with a look of agony in his face. He collapses at my ankles. Dying…I stared into his wide open eyes, his dark black eyes, and he is now lying still…dead and covered in black oil. I am alone. I am dead and alone, surrounded by a black ocean, an ocean of oil. Greed would splash as waves formed on the horizon of a toxic sky. Black clouds hover by, thunder creates more death and drips of acid rains down on me! The sounds of oil splashing against the rocks now make me want to vomit.
I sunk my head into the abyss of an oil filled sandpit. Shamed by our own humanity, we sink. The beach swallowed my body but could not contain my soul. As I open my eyes to a lucid reality…I realize that my nightmare was only the beginning.
Copyright © 2010 by Joshua James McCollum
