Gary was born in a huge Poland Springs water bottle factory. The factory was large, with bottles emerging from hundreds of machines littering the floors. At first Gary was startled by all the commotion, but the soft humming of the machines started to calm him. He was just about to doze off when he felt himself flying through the air, landing with a hard thump on the floor of a large bin.

All of a sudden the bin moved. Gary looked around himself and realized there were hundreds of other water bottles with him. They all looked just as startled as he was. "Where are we going?" Gary said.

"We are on our way to a nearby store," a bottle answered.

"How do you know?" Gary asked.

" I was a different kind of water bottle before I was recycled, so I've gone through this before," the bottle said.

A couple minutes later the truck pulled up to a big yellow building. Stop and Shop the sign above said. This must be that store that bottle was talking about. Gary thought.

The bin was dragged out from the back of the truck and wheeled into the front of the store. From there Gary and the rest of the bottles were lined up on the shelves.

In the store occasionally people walked by, juggling their huge plastic bags or dragging some screaming kid behind them, but none of them reached for the bottles.

Later that day a tall brown haired guy lifted his extremely large hands and reached up to the shelf I was on. His hand brushed past the water bottles to my right and came to a stop in front of me. He picked me up and threw me into the cart he was holding.

The guy proceeded to go to the check out line. From there he carried me to his car outside. I was placed in the window cup holder.

As he drove away, the wind from the open window brushed against my face. I was dazzled by all of the things around me; trees, buildings, cars, and people.

The car came to a stop a few minutes later. As the guy lifted me up I got a view as to where we were. We were at the ocean. It was so pretty, I thought.

The man sat down on a rock near the water. As he sat he began to drink from me. I began to feel the water I carried, drain. When he was done I expected him to bring me back to his car, but he threw me into this horrible smelling basket on the way up.

I sat there in that large basket, waiting for him to come back, but he never did. That afternoon it rained and rained and rained some more. The bucket began to fill with water and the miscellaneous items around me became soggy. And then CRASH. The bucket fell over and I rolled right towards the waves.

The next morning I woke up surrounded by blue. The beach had disappeared.

For days I floated with the strong current. The huge circle motion made me dizzy. "What is happening. Why am I going in circles?" Gary asked a fish who happened to swim by. "You're trapped in the North Atlantic Gyre. It's like a big whirlpool. Hang on kid. You'll just have to wait until the current takes you out of reach. It'll be alright." And with that the little fish swam away, bobbing in and out of the waves.

It had felt like weeks since I had seen any signs of life. Maybe it had been weeks. After all I had already started to collect some algae. My once clear bottle was beginning to look a little green, and I smelled like sea weed. The salty stench still stung my nose.

It's huge mouth hung open just a few feet in front of me. Little fish swam away as it got closer and closer. I tried to move but I couldn't. With it's big mouth hanging open, I was swallowed.

As I floated in circles, at first I didn't see it. The waves crashed against my back in a lulling rocking motion. But I was woken from my daze when a large figure came into view. It was a whale shark.

It was dark inside the whale. There were bits of plastic and fish huddled in groups, scattered around its stomach. "Hi, I'm Todd" A voice said. I turned around and saw a little soda can. "Oh.. I'm Gary. It's uh.. nice to meet you, I just wish it wasn't in this situation."

"I know what you mean. I've been in this whale way too long." Todd said.

"Is there any way to escape" Gary asked.

"Only if you are able to get out when the whale opens her mouth. It's a hard task seeing as she doesn't do it for very long."

"Oh." Gary said glumly. He took a seat next to Todd and got lost in his thoughts, struggling to come up with a plan.

"Get ready," Todd said, awaking Gary from his thoughts.

"For what?" Gary asked.

"She's opening her mouth," Todd responded.

Gary knew this could be their only chance so he sprinted forward, using the whale's rough tongue for support. The current was strong and he struggled to stay up, but the fear of staying inside this whale helped him forward. When he saw the huge ring of teeth in front of him, he knew he had to jump. Gary pushed off the whale's tongue with all of his might. And then he stopped. He was out.