Dry: Part Three

It used to bother me; now I just see it as an early lesson in the inherent value of healthy competition.

I notice his slow, irresolute movements as he walks.

“It’s then ionized, for perfect pH balance to increase oxygen in your blood and maintain energy throughout your day. And just before bottling, it’s infused with antioxidant-rich goji berries that not only detoxify your liver, but improve immune function.”

It’s a question I don’t want to think about. I’ve compartmentalized it in a corner of my mind to keep me functional.

He’s pallid, and his face seems to sag, like his skin has grown tired of clinging to the bone.

Through the crack, I can make out the silhouette of a woman lying motionless in an all-white bed. There’s an acrid smell wafting from the room. Dark and decrepit.

And the smell now, it’s terrible. Bile and sulfur and all the fetid organic stenches we fight all our lives to keep at bay.

It’s what’s commonly referred to as a McMansion. An ostentatious home thrown up in an assembly line fashion while you wait.

“There are severe legal ramifications if you don’t get your foot out of my door.”

He somehow manages to flash a cool smile, even in his most emasculated state.

“Of course,” he replies, taken aback by the mere suggestion of impropriety. “I have all the paperwork.”

Dealing with irrational people takes focus, intelligence, and extreme discipline—you have to maintain a sense of true emotional stasis—as outlined in one of my favorite books, Transformative Power, by Pearce Tidwell.

Then again, if the state of things has really devolved to such a degree, my water must be worth more than ever.

One must never overreact to the spoils of one’s windfall.

Life is rife with many moments of misfortune, which we must learn to see as opportunities.

I hold on to the one positive in this personal debacle: At least now I won’t have to struggle to make a decision as to whether to stay or go.

“I’ll bring this ÁguaViva box,” I say, with an ingratiating smile.

And I can see by the look in her eye that she’s freefalling toward a unilateral decision.

It’s one thing to see rioting on TV in dense urban areas that are more prone to social conflagration, but quite a different thing to see homes with broken windows in an upscale community like Dove Canyon.

Not that the affluent are any better—I mean, human nature is human nature.

However, where personal space is at a premium, tensions are apt to spike much more quickly than in a place where one’s battle cry reaches maybe ten neighbors instead of a hundred.

There are shattered mailboxes, cars that have jumped curbs into hedges, and the kind of random debris that one generally doesn’t find in a turnkey community like this one. Not because people here aren't slobs—I’m sure a lot of them are—but they’re so obsessively worried about their property values that they’d rather die than allow the detritus of civilization to sully their curb appeal.

Not because people here aren't slobs—I’m sure a lot of them are—but they’re so obsessively worried about their property values that they’d rather die than allow the detritus of civilization to sully their curb appeal.

“Even if it’s going right through him, he’ll still get the benefits of the electrolytes. In fact, its proprietary formula is proven to improve quality of life.”

I’m on shaky ground here, because, considering the volatile nature of our society, if I get it wrong, I’m likely to offend.

She surreptitiously opens a pouch in her backpack to reveal a small water bottle.

“So, how. Do. We. Get. There?” Jacqui asks with a vague but persistent threat in her condescension.

Alyssa glances at me, and I offer her a small grin and a shrug. In return, she offers me a commiseration of raised eyebrows—which is one step before a friendly smile.

Thousands of thirsty people. Water barrels being carried into the gym, with a heavily armed entourage, and people trying to push their way through to those barrels with all the anguish of a baroque painting.

“Your attention please!” a voice blares over a sibilant bullhorn.

“Do you know the concept of social triage? No? Because I do. In a mass emergency, you help the ones you can, and the ones you can’t help, you move out of the way.”

Now when he hits the gas, we lurch forward, making sawdust of the little tree, and careen away from the school, leaving gawking people, and frustrated soldiers who don’t seem to be following us.

They sated themselves on stagnant water that had been sitting untreated in a dark tank for who knew how long.

It took a while for him to realize that such a semblance of peace was the biggest indication of how bad things had really become.

“It would help, but I’m pretty sure I have the waterways memorized. There’s a map with the aqueducts and drainage channels all marked up in our garage.”

The concrete is mottled salt-and-pepper, stained from the sediment of old storm surges, but Santiago Creek hasn’t had running water for a few years now.

“It’s okay,” I tell her, “we’re traveling a river system. We have to go down this tributary until we reach the main river.”

We find ourselves in a sprawling flood basin, which means we’ve crossed from Orange into Riverside County.

Nothing but a drainage culvert. All we can really see are the ribbed walls around us, flaking with dried moss, and the tunnel ahead lit by our headlights.

The air tastes acrid and burnt, and it’s heavy to breathe in. It’s smoke from the fires.

The scene isn’t quite like it was back at the beach, where the evidence of panic and violence painted a chilling story—and yet the abject nature of this abandonment is just as disturbing.

Food! I forgot about food. And now I can feel my stomach roiling, eating at itself. I’m hungry—but even if I’m given something to eat, it would be hard to chew, because my mouth is dry and raw.

The Water Angel is of the sagacious variety—wise beyond her years, which says a lot, considering how old she is.

There’s a nagging mother and her seemingly mute child, and an older couple who have been married for so long they’ve morphed into near identical androgynous versions of each other.

“Ooh, looks like we’ve got ourselves a classic Hobbes versus Rousseau philosophical quandary.”