Varsha Mohan - Mason, Ohio
As a rising sophomore, Varsha aims to major in anything STEM related, and her dream college is Carnegie Mellon. In the future, Varsha strives to start a business and become an entrepreneur while educating people on significant issues like environmental pollution.
Seven p.m., Louisville, Kentucky.
Rhonda Williams held the water bottle between her fingers. She crushed it with her hand and tossed it out into the distance, where it seemed to descend into the sun’s gold.
She didn’t mind littering, just this once.
Just this once, it didn’t matter.
See, Rhonda had always struggled for money - just a few months ago, she was laboring two part-time jobs and still barely coughed up the rent.
Last week, however, it seemed as if a miracle had happened. She joined a corporation committed to saving the environment from pollution - a company all about environmental sciences.
It wasn’t much, but it was more than her last two jobs, and it paid for a family camping trip.
Deep down, Rhonda knew that it was rather hypocritical of her to litter.
But did it matter?
It’s just one bottle, Rhonda thought. One bottle won’t do anything.
Twenty feet away, Rhonda’s husband - Jack Williamson - leaned out the window, a Marlboro between his fingers. The tickling draft outside mixed with the gray cloud of smoke that left his mouth.
It’s just one cigarette, he thought, throwing the cigarette butt out the window, ignoring his son's mild cough. One cigarette won’t do anything.
Four thousand seven hundred sixty miles away, in France, Camille Martin lay her pretty pink towel atop the sand. The beach was barren, leaving her in her solitude and thoughts. Water kissed her feet, the sun hot on her head.
Camille reached out beside her and pulled a variety of foods out of a plastic bag.
Forty-eight hours ago, her father had passed away in his sleep. Camille had spoken to no one for forty-eight hours. She didn’t want to.
Camille drew her phone out of her pocket and flung it into the ocean.
A banana peel followed.
Then, the plastic bag from which she ate out of.
Just one bag, Camille thought. One bag won’t do anything.
One bottle.
One cigarette.
One bag.
Just one.
Just.
Four thousand five hundred and seventy-six miles away, Amir Acharya lay on an all-too-familiar teal bedding. His mother stood next to him, taking his hand in hers.
Amir was only five years old.
Just a little boy.
He had his whole life ahead of him. His whole life, which was about to be taken away, in a matter of seconds.
Pollution, the doctors said. It was pollution, that had wormed its way into the little boy’s lungs and ripped him apart cell from cell while his family, his friends, watched it happen helplessly.
An incurable disease.
Aisha - Amir’s mother - was devastated.
Aisha never littered. She knew the consequences.
Aisha didn’t do anything wrong - nor did Amir. Yet, they both found themselves at the hospital, holding onto each other.
“Hold on,” Aisha wanted to say. But she couldn’t. It was time.
Just one last breath was Amir’s last thought.
His hand fell limp in his mother’s palm.
Aisha’s wails echoed, reverberant in the sky.
Her cries rang past birds who lay lifeless in a web of netting, past seals restrained by plastic, melding with the cries of one million other mothers whose livelihoods were stripped away from them.
Act now.
One bottle is all it takes.
One cigarette.
One plastic bag.
One child, that can make friends, go to college, make a career, and have children of their own.
Act now. Change now. Stop now.
We don’t have much time left.
