There was a man named Lazarus, the son of a fisherman, who lived on the shores of a once-pristine island. The waters had once been as clear as glass, the reefs vibrant with color, and the fish abundant and fat. But those days were long gone.
Every morning, Lazarus would recline in his sun-bleached beach chair, its legs buried deep in the warm sand, gazing out at where the horizon should have been. But there was no horizon anymore—only an endless procession of steel behemoths. A twenty-mile parking lot of bunkering freighters, supertankers, cruise ships, tugboats, ferries, and oil tankers, all waiting to feed on the monstrous peninsula of oil storage and berthing ports. The air reeked of diesel and sulfur, while the water, though still shimmering in the sun, carried a sickly sheen.
One day, overcome by the heat, Lazarus stood up and walked to the shoreline. The waves lapped at his feet, warm and familiar, whispering promises of refreshing relief. He dove in.
At first, the water embraced him as it always had. But as he swam farther, that embrace turned sour. A slick of oil clung to his skin. The sting of chemical discharge burned his eyes. Beneath him, the reef was silent—no fish, no movement, only the bleached skeletons of what had once been. Lazarus struggled, coughing, his limbs weak from the poison seeping into his pores. He cried out, but no one listened.
Far above, on the highest deck of the grandest yacht in the bay, the shipping magnate feasted. His table groaned beneath the weight of delicacies flown in from a world away, and his wine glass brimmed with the finest vintage. He laughed and toasted his guests as his fleet filled their bellies with crude oil and sent their filth into the waters below.
And then, Lazarus was gone.
When death came, it bore him away to the cool embrace of the unblemished deep, where the currents flowed pure, where whales still sang, where the ocean’s heart continued to beat strong.
But the shipping magnate, in his time, also met death. And when he opened his eyes in the afterlife, he found himself standing upon the very shore he had defiled. The sand burned his feet, the air choked his throat, and the water—oh, the water—was as black as tar, boiling with the waste of his empire. He saw Lazarus far off, resting in the arms of the ocean’s forgotten gods, and he cried out:
“Lazarus! Have mercy on me! Dip but a finger in clean water and cool my tongue, for I am tormented by this poison!”
But a voice answered him:
“Did you not feast while others choked? Did you not build your fortune upon the ruin of the sea? The waters you abandoned are the waters you must now endure.”
And the magnate wept, but no tears fell—only a drop of oil.
Author’s Notes:
Inspired by a visit to the island of Lazarus off the coast of Singapore and the biblical parable.
Assist by ChatGPT.