Terminal Sushi

Dan Tedesco was CEO And founding partner of the world’s largest producer of raw plastic material. Companies use his products in everything from water bottles to aircraft parts. Along with being known as the world’s largest producer of plastics, Dan’s company was also the world’s largest polluter of non-biodegradable material. As long as people kept buying his material, he didn’t care what they called him.

What Dan had no tolerance for was anything that would lower the company’s profit margin, which in turn would lower his income. All this talk about polluting the planet with plastic wasn’t his concern. His job was to generate maximum earnings with minimum expenditure, and he was damn good at it.

Recently, several scientists developed a process that produced a new type of raw plastic material. This next generation of plastic was fully bio-degradable in less than five years. Dan had attended several presentations on the new process but had always rejected the idea. Producing this new plastic would decrease the company’s bottom line by five cents per hundredweight. This upsurge in cost would lower profit by several billion dollars per year and directly affect Dan’s income. Anything that damages his bottom line is absolutely unacceptable! The planet is a big place and the oceans are deep. Just keep dumping the discarded plastic in the deepest trenches and let nature take care of it.

Dan considered himself a Sushi aficionado and probably ate more sushi than anyone on the planet. He would judge each serving by color, aroma, texture, and taste, similar to how a wine expert samples a fine bottle of wine. It was easy for him to purchase only the best product available because his wealth and position afforded him that type of lifestyle.

Dan was fastidious about his physical fitness routine, spending several hours a day either in his well-appointed home gym or running along the beach, which was part of his estate. He followed this regiment religiously, which is why it made no sense to him that at forty-nine he suffered a massive heart attack. Even with all the best care money could buy, he only survived for several weeks before dying of heart failure.

During the autopsy, his doctors found Dan’s organs clogged, not with plaque but tiny flecks of plastic that had accumulated over time from his favorite food, sushi. The fish ingested the plastic from the discarded trash dumped into the ocean. Apparently, nature took care of the problem in its own way.

(Just a quick author's note. This is my 251st story posted on Vocal. I want to thank all of you who follow my musings regularly and those of you who have occasionally taken the time to see what I have to say. Writing has given me a different perspective on the world and the people I share it with. 251 isn’t a large amount compared to some of my fellow writers, but I’ll keep building my repertoire and hopefully, you’ll keep reading my stories., Thank you!)