Quit It! #AtoZChallenge

“Quit it, can’t you?” Megan asked. Blake was always on a quest, it seemed. 

“I’ll quit when they do.” Megan sighed. She loved him, and she loved his drive, but all she had wanted was a relaxing walk on the beach. Wherever they walked, though, Blake’s inner crusade drove him. It was a beautiful thing, and one of the reasons she fell in love with him, but sometimes – just occasionally – she wished he could put his passion on hold. 

He picked up another bottle from the tide line. “Isn’t all that garbage going to get heavy?” Megan asked. 

“They’re empty water bottles. Not a lot of weight to them.” He crushed the bottle so it took up less space and dropped it into his plastic bag. “You could help, you know.” 

“You’re right.” She nodded and looked around as they slowly strolled up the beach. “It’s just - it seems like a fuile task.” 

“If people would quit trashing our oceans and beaches, I could quit doing this.” 

Megan walked up to the dune line where she saw a pair of bottles lying under a shrub, and carried the bottles back to hand to Blake. “I don’t know why people are so careless. It’s not that hard to carry your trash to a can up the beach.” When he was on his own, Blake sometimes collected all kinds of trash to toss later. If they were together, he stuck to the left behind plastic water bottles, and they’d visit a recycling center on the way home.

“It’s laziness,” He said. “And ignorance. And apathy. Too lazy to carry trash an extra few feet. Too ignorant to recognize the harm they are doing. Too apathetic to care.” 

“Do you really think these occasional walks make a difference?” 

“They do for this stretch of beach.” 

A little kid ran over from where he was building a sand castle next to his mother’s beach blanket. He handed them an empty water bottle and ran back. The mom raised her head from the blanket and waved. “Thanks!” She called out. 

Megan smiled a little at that. 

Blake looked at the empty bottle he'd been handed, bemused, and shook his head. “Who knows? Maybe we’re actually setting an example for little kids, too!”

Megan put an arm around his shoulder briefly as they continued walking and scanning for bottles. Cleaning up the beaches after the sloppy crowds wasn’t so bad if she could spend quality time with the man she loved.
  
Thank you for visiting my #AtoZChallenge! My theme is "Audience Participation" (read about it, here) and now it is your turn. Each day will be a new story based on suggestions from your comments. Suggest anything: a word, scenario, character, location... I will be keeping a list of suggestions, so if yours isn't used tomorrow, it may show up later. 

Today's post was inspired by the prompt "Left behind water bottles", suggested by Liz A. (of Laws of Gravity), given in comments on my "K" post (here)