Parched
We are driving through a field the colour of an old yellow dog, searching for a slough—a black water mirage relayed to us by a drone, before it too fell from the sky.
Tufts of stubble and straw crumble under the tires of our tired old Chevy, one of the last internal combustion vehicles left on the planet. It belches black smoke from a rusted-out muffler. Its timing belt squeals like an overworked mule.
That summer the world had turned into a massive fire pit, evaporating all surface water into one, threatening, anvil cloud. For weeks, the cloud hung heavy and dark over the landscape, holding its precious moisture hostage, as a punishment, as a warning. We prayed. We pleaded. We said we’re sorry, but everything was too far gone. The cloud floated away to someplace else.
The slough, we find, is a sad puddle banked with dried reeds, their stems snapped at an acute forty degrees (we pay attention to numbers now, not like before, when we ignored their alarming predictions).
We flutter like birds in a bath.
We wash the filth from our faces.
We fill our bottles with murky water, and swallow our pride.
Author: Kathy Seifert
