Which was so unfair.
He did catch up on his emails, though.He never had enough time in the office.
The newsletter was from a professional organization, and the article that caught his eye was a stub, barely more than an announcement.A new wolf sanctuary had opened in Grand Junction, Colorado.They were looking for a qualified wildlife veterinarian.
He got up from his desk.He put his hands on his hips, and then he dropped them to his sides again, fingers aching like he’d touched a live wire.He walked over to the window and then back to the computer.His pulse beat in the hollow of his throat.The window looked out on the house next door, but it didn’t matter, because he couldn’t see anything.It was like staring into a flashlight.
When he got to the living room, Jem was curled up on the sofa, scrolling on his phone.“Did you know that every job in the universe is stupid?”
Tean laughed, and it startled him out of that strange space.Partially, anyway.He sat on the sofa, and Jem stretched out his legs to put his feet in Tean’s lap.Tean ran his hand up Jem’s bare calf.The golden hair there was soft, almost downy.He scratched Jem’s knee lightly before reversing course down the back of his leg.
“You know you don’t have to find a job right away,” Tean said.
“That’s sweet of you, but yeah, I kind of do.We have this thing called a mortgage.”And then, with a definite tone, Jem added, “Youmade me get one.”
Tean laughed again.“We’ve got some savings.We can cut back on expenses.”
“If you say McDonald’s, I swear to God, I’m going to throw myself off a mountain.”Jem glanced over like he was about to say something else, but whatever he saw on Tean’s face made him stop.“What’s up?”
“Nothing,” Tean said.And then the words just slipped out of him: “Have you ever heard of ghost nets?”
The easy good humor that was Jem’s normal expression faded into seriousness.He rolled onto his back.Propped himself up.And then he shook his head.
“It’s—well, it’s not only nets.They call it ghost equipment or ghost gear.But the idea is that its equipment, mostly for fishing but also some other maritime industries, that gets lost or abandoned in the ocean.”
“Shit.”
“And because it’s plastic, it doesn’t break down quickly.So, it’s out there basically forever.And animals get caught up in it.”
“Like the plastic rings from six-packs.”
“Yeah, exactly.But on a different scale.Some of the nets are huge.And there are hundreds of thousands of tons of this stuff floating around out there.”
“What happens to the animals that get caught in it?”
“A lot of them die.They get trapped.They’re easy prey, or their mobility is so limited that they can’t get the nutrients they need.Bigger animals don’t necessarily have that problem, but it can be…worse.Whales just drag this stuff along with them.But it cuts into their skin.And it catches other stuff, so then they’re towing more weight.And the cuts get deeper.They get infected.They can lose flippers.They can die, too, eventually.”
“God.That is so fucked up.”
“It is, isn’t it?And do you know what’s even more fucked up?”
“Swear jar,” Jem whispered.
“You literally just said it!”
“What’s the more fucked-up part?”
Tean fought the urge to follow up on the injustice of the swear jar rules, and instead he said, “The messed-up part of this—the seriously messed-up part—is that it doesn’t get better until someone actually does something about it.Ghost nets don’t magically go away.They stay out there.They kill animals—we don’t even really know how many die from this.And then, even after those animals have died, the nets stay out there, killing more of them every year.It just keeps going.It’s like this perpetual motion machine of death, and you know the part that makes me feel like I’m going crazy?Like, this is proof that the universe is insane, and we’re all crazy too?”
And Jem, because he was Jem, said softly, “It’s our trash.”
“It’s our fuckingtrash, Jem.These massive killing apparatuses that we’ve set loose on the world, these things that torture and starve and maim innocent animals—it’s not some master plan.There’s no supervillain trying to take over the world.It’s just the shit we were too lazy to pick up.”
Jem sat up.He found Tean’s hand and squeezed it.
“It’s just—” Tean stopped.Shook his head.The sting at his eyes surprised him, and he had to blink them clear.“That’s not even what I wanted to talk about.Not really.But I wanted to tell you that I’ve been thinking about what you said.About how I’m the only one who can figure this out.How I have to figure it out for myself.And I’m trying, Jem.I am.”
“Not by yourself,” Jem said.“Not alone.”
