The Last Bottle of Water

The last water storage tank still standing was heavily guarded by the local militia, according to rumors. Only members of their compound would have access to it. We knew it wouldn’t last long enough, but we didn’t know if they had any plans for when it started to run low. No one had ever made plans, even after people started warning that we would run out of water. Our obsession with instant gratifications, shareholder profits, and the selfishness of rugged individualism always got in the way of long-term planning. All we knew to do was fight and kill each other over what remained.

Our crew of six souls had been traveling through the mid-west desert, with the last of our reserve in canteens and bottles on our backs, since we heard of this storage tank’s existence. We were still talking about what we’d do when we get there. Try to establish a relationship so they would welcome us as comrades? Attack and try to kill them all so that we could control the water ourselves? As we imagined scenarios, we knew we’d just have to wait and see once we started surveilling them.

Johnny wasn’t handling the heat well. He muttered to himself, constantly argued with us, or asked us where we were going again. I didn’t have the energy to worry about him. I had to accept that he would probably be left behind. But I missed the charismatic, funny, thoughtful friend he used to be. I hate what this world has made me.

At night I dreamed of lying on grass with a sprinkler tossing cold water on my small, swimsuit-clad body. I shrieked and giggled and heard my older sister laughing as she jumped around, her feet sloshing in puddles. Our mother sat on the deck and watched us. “Have fun, girls!”

By day, I watched my feet trudging over dead dirt, through dead towns, past dead cars and dried-out dead bodies. Each hour, we sipped just enough water to keep us surviving. Except for Johnny, we were mostly quiet. Trying to save our energy and our saliva. Once, I threw a pinecone at him but I missed and he kept muttering.

As we finally approached the town, we saw the tank over the horizon and it felt like church. I had a momentary impulse to drop to my knees, but I stood with the others and we simply looked at it for a moment. Then we pulled out our paper map of the area and started reviewing and fine tuning our surveillance plans.

I heard Johnny say, “This is it.”

I looked at him and he looked back at me, his eyes clear and focused. “Don’t you see? Water! We don’t deserve it. We destroyed the entire world because we didn’t understand its value. And now that tank is all that’s left and we’re going to keep destroying each other over it.”

The rest of our group and I all exchanged glances. We knew this, of course, but we weren’t going to just give up on surviving as long as we could.

Johnny saw it differently. “We should just put the world out of its misery. Destroy this water and let the last of us just rot. Maybe something better will come along in the future.”

After a pause, Paul slid a magazine of bullets into his rifle with a click that broke the silence. “Not me,” he said. “We still have a chance here, and we’re going to take it. You can sit this one out if you want to.”

I loaded my own rifle and checked the pistol strapped at my waist, mainly to avoid feeling like I had to say something.

Johnny shrugged and walked away.

“Do you think he’ll do something to the water?” Rahim asked, but none of us thought he would do more than find a place to lie down and wait for the end.

We spent the next couple of days watching and learning the rhythms of the small group of men guarding the water. We found their compound and counted three women and two small children. The men wore patches on their t-shirts that identified them as the kind of right-wing conservative extremists who never have a welcoming committee for strangers. We seemed pretty evenly matched, and we had the advantage of surprise. We decided to just take the men out and offer the women and children a home with us.

We hit them just before sunrise, as they were rotating watch duty and we knew every man would be there for their morning meeting. They got a few shots back at us, including one that grazed my leg. Once we finished them off, I pulled out my first aid kit and then cleaned and wrapped the wound while my group went to the compound to talk to the women. As I stood up, I saw movement approaching the water tank. I pulled up my rifle but lowered it again when I realized it was Johnny.

He was slowly but deliberately walking toward the tank. I moved to join him, limping carefully. Suddenly, his hand drew something out of his pocket and he pulled his arm back and then threw the object. The water tank exploded loudly and pieces of metal rained down all around as the water poured into the sun-baked earth.

I gasped and fell forward with my hands over my head to try to protect it from the metal debris. I heard the shot that brought Johnny down but didn’t know if it was his hand that fired it. It didn’t matter. We were all done for.

I stood up and hobbled toward town. A small real estate office sat quietly before me, seemingly unmolested by looters. I smashed the glass of the front door and walked in and sat on a soft, red waiting room couch. I leaned back and closed my eyes with a sigh.

I must have fallen asleep. I dreamed of dancing in the spritzing water with my sister in our backyard. I heard our laughter and saw the sun breaking into rainbows all around us. I felt each drop against my skin.

I woke and caught sight of something familiar poking out from under the coffee table in front of me. As I leaned forward to reach down, I saw the magazines on the table with glossy images of homes and vacation spots on their covers under years of dust. My fingertips brushed the item under the table, and then I grasped it and lifted it.

In my hand, wrapped in the plastic that had played such a large role in the earth’s devastation, was the world’s last bottle of water.