Massive condom reef: if only

Happy Thanksgiving!  Now let's talk condoms.

Specifically, a two mile long mass of condoms aggregated together in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.  I first heard about this a few years ago on the Internets.  Admittedly, the idea of an enormous "reef" formed of human refuse, especially used condoms of all things, gave me a great deal to chuckle about.  Even if one supposed "marine biologist" said: "I pity any freighter, submarine, or dolphin for that matter that might run into it."

Too bad the whole thing is a hoax.

Even if humans flush millions of condoms into sewage systems every year, there is no "condom island" somewhere out there in the Pacific.  In truth, this Internet falsehood might be a play on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch which is horrible enough in its own right.  Yet the meme's utter lack of truth in no way stops the science fiction writer in me.

A story of ecological disaster has long been percolating in the back of my mind.  It would be an "eco-thriller" of sorts with humanity facing the consequences of its mistreatment of the environment, only the story would have a strong satirical bent, something along the lines of Kurt Vonnegut (whom I am liking more and more with each page of his that I read.)  I mentioned this concept once before as it would feature a sentient hurricane.

But what if I add in an aquatic, living mass of used condoms?  In all that trash flushed out to sea, gallons of bio-material rides along in the reservoirs of the little latex balloons.  What new lifeform might emerge?  You can see it, can't you?  Rising up out of the ocean?  The borborygmus of the thing echoing over the seas as a nautical witness, aghast in slack-jawed horror, can only cry out one phrase:

"It's alive...alive!"



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