“None of us knew we could live more than 3 days without water. Until we had to.
As others toppled over, wasted, under-watered; the rest of us just looked at each other, dry-eyed though we mourned.
And how we mourned.
Almost everything we knew, gone in 3 days. All the water we’d ever seen, disappeared into the bodies of those who ended up dying anyway.
Babies. Fathers. Animals. Crops.
Those of us left were parched, yes. Thirsty, definitely.
But dying? Not even close.
Turns out some of us could go a whole year with just the water in our bellies. And when it all ran out of the lakes and streams, there were some of us had more in our bellies than others.
Not many of us, mind you. Not me. But some of us, for sure. And I’d bet good coin on one of them being the type to come up with Cola.
Cola.
We used to call Cola something different way back when water was as popular as dust in the desert.
Then, Cola wasn’t something you gave your kids except after a baseball game. Parent’s frowned at their kids drinking too much.
Nowadays, you’d be mighty battered to think anyone would frown at a kid and their Cola. Fact is, some of us would give ours up just so kids like you can have some.”
“Yes grand-ma-ma,” said the small girl sitting at the end of her Grandma’s rickety metal bunkbed.
The girl had heard all this before, but with so little to do she didn’t mind listening again and again. It was all a part of how she’d gotten her name, after all.
Cola. Cola Prix.
Cola’s grandma paused and took a rattling breath, readjusting the pillows that propped her up against a small headrest. All around them the air was thick with dry voices, snores, burps, and countless other kinds of human chatter. At least 1,000 of them were crammed into this bunker, with 17 more just like it lined all up in a row. The buzz was comforting, in a way. And of course, it was really all Cola had ever known.
For she was born there. And like her grandmother, would die there too. That was just how it went.
“Cola!” someone shouted amidst the rumbling chatter all around. Several people, men and women, looked for the caller, for the name was a popular one among many.
“Cola Prix!” the same voice yelled, and many of those faces turned away.
Little Cola, no taller than 4 feet high, stood from where she sat and crawled up to the top of her bunk, where she slept above her grandmother. There, her little nest was her domain, filled with things she should have and things she shouldn’t–but no one really watched the small ones too closely anyway. Especially not Cola, who had always been naturally helpful and well-liked, and therefore trusted, even with very important tasks (though she was barely 10).
From up on her bunk, Cola could see who called. The tops of heads parted to make space for a tall, bald head coming toward her. She covered her hand with her mouth to hide her smile, then put it down again. Grandma had said she should never cover her smile, even if it was a silly one.
And it was a silly one, for the person who came toward her was close enough in age to Cola, only he towered over her and everyone else so much that they’d had to give him a foot rest for his bunk. And he had no hair, which is often what made Cola giggle to see him coming.
This was Yin, a quiet type for how tall he stood. Even now his voice calling seemed to crawl barely above the din, but Cola had heard it so many times before that she could hear him whisper through it all, if she listened hard enough.
Yin strode up to her bunk bed, dipped to say hello to Cola’s grandmother, and then rested his gangly elbows on the top bunk before giving Cola a hard stare.
“You’re always trying to make me look bad,” he said, though already Cola could see he was teasing. Yin rolled his dark, almond eyes and picked up a plastic toy horse with all the paint worn off. Only pink, worn rubber remained, but Cola liked the thing immensely. So much so that she plucked the tiny thing straight from Yin’s hands and put it under her pillow.
“Not that one,” she said. Yin rolled his eyes again and picked at a loose thread in her blanket until Cola couldn’t handle it anymore.
“Okay okay, what did I do this time?” she asked, sighing so loudly that her bunk-neighbour gave her a curious eye. She waved them away and looked back at Yin expectantly.
“Our scores are up for the Outgoing,” he said, pouting, though a smile hinted at the edge of his down-turned mouth.
“Well it’s not my fault you didn’t study,” said Cola matter-of-factly.
Yin tended to take life as if it was a joke, and this had always puzzled Cola, who was much more serious, even as a youngster. She liked rules. She liked tests. And she had always known (because of her name) that she would end up working for the government there, which saw that everyone had enough Cola to drink, enough to eat, and enough to do. It was good work. Proper work. And work her grandma approved of.
“Yeah well, you only got 2 more points than me,” Yin broke and a full, teasing grin plastered his face. Cola swiped at him to try and slap it off.
“No you did not!” she yelled, laughing in spite of herself. For though it annoyed her greatly that Yin never had to try at anything to be good, she still loved him like a brother and was proud of him for doing so well. The news that she had also done well was little surprise to her, so this, she ignored.
“That means we’ll be in the same Outgoing unit!” she exclaimed, rattling the bunks. Grandma sniffed loudly from the bunk below, which almost sent them into a fit of giggles, but instead Yin waved for her to come down, which she did. With a wave goodbye, they followed their favourite path to the front of the tent, and out into the dust.
This is a short story in progress from my working short story collection called “THIRST: Stories from a Post-Water World”.
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Jessica Barratt 