Thirst

Thirst.

The last dog still alive in the area was observing Karl carefully sipping from his glass of water sat under the porch of his porch. The dog was looking around constantly with wide eyes, searching for a new source of water. The last remaining drops evaporated under Karl’s tongue when he suddenly noticed the dog looking at an approaching figure and barking wildly. When Karl saw the source of the dog’s excitement he realized that an old man was approaching him begging for help.

“Can I help you?” he said to the man in front of him, doubting for a while cause it was evident enough what his unexpected visitor was going to ask.

“Water. Please!”

It was impossible to find clean water nowadays, the drought had dried all the possible sources of water and only a few knew where to find more. This guy looked like he needed it desperately.

Karl decided to give him a chance.

He went back inside, pulled two glasses of water, filled them both, and gave him one. Karl waited patiently, as the man drank it all in just a few seconds.

“You are a good guy,” said the old man, “but I’m dying from thirst and…”

Karl took a deep breath and offered him the second glass of water without even waiting for the man to finish speaking.

“This is the last one. I have a wife and she’s waiting for our first son. I can’t give you more water. I hope you can understand.” said Karl firmly to the old man. He and his wife, Astrid, were desperate enough to do anything to survive. He couldn’t allow himself to show any compassion for this stranger he had just met.

The old man looked at him and smiled sadly, “These are harsh times to bring up a child in. My name is Frank Wilson and my wife, Marie, died 3 days ago. May I know the name of the person who has given me two more days of life?”

“Karl. Karl Andersen,” replied Karl respectfully, “I’m sorry for your wife. I wish I could tell you where to find more water, but as you can imagine I can’t endanger the life of my family by sharing it with you. It’s the only source of water left for us in the area and we can’t afford to lose it.”

“Don’t worry about this old man,” replied Frank, “I have done my time already and in part, I feel responsible for this drought. My generation has wasted too much energy living a selfish life, uncaring about the consequences of our actions. We should have focused more on solving the global warming problem long before it came to this point. I have seen how my country slowly turned into a dry land of dust without moving a finger. I will never forgive myself for what we did to your generation. And I deserve to die in this despair, but you, your generation have a chance to survive on another planet, while we’re stuck here in the dust. Good people like you must live so that this kind of tragedy won’t happen again.”

A shiver went up Karl’s spine when the elderly man said that. He knew the old man was right. The man spoke the bitter truth.

“Thanks for your words, Frank. I hope you can find peace. If I ever meet you on another planet, I promise I’ll buy you a beer.” Karl had nothing else to say and was glad Frank didn’t insist on any payment for his last glass of water.

***

When the man left their house a few minutes later, Karl felt guilty and ashamed for being so rude to someone who was suffering. Karl could not reveal that he was a Redsas employee, the biggest space Corp in Europe, that operated the space travels between the Earth and Mars, and for that, he was granted a small reserve of water to maintain him and his wife, while he investigated on a new plant species.

Karl had always been fascinated by science, especially biology. In school, when lived in Denmark, his homeland, he was an outstanding student. And after high school, Karl attended a French university for his Ph.D. His work on plant adaptation was going well and he soon earned a reputation among scientists as one of the most brilliant minds in his field. It wasn’t long before Karl got hired by the Redsas corp. His passion was his job. And even though he and Astrid were struggling to survive from one day to the next, Karl was happy that they made it into the system where only the best-qualified researchers were allowed to board a spaceship to Mars, the new promised land after the earth got too hot and polluted to support life.

A week ago, he was told by a contact on Mars that he needed to hurry and get some results. The company was closing the passenger’s list for the next travel to Mars and no other travels were planned for the next five years. This meant that it was the last ship that would ever leave the Earth before it became uninhabitable.

The new plant was the fruit of years of tests and cross-breeding between different succulents species and tropical fruit trees.

It possessed the unique property of producing special water fruits from CO2. This research could save millions of lives. If only he managed to produce more than a glass of water every harvest.

Sometimes, when he thought about his life, sitting on top of a rocky cliff on the edge of nowhere, watching a few sprouts grow out of the rocks in a dry creek bed, he doubted himself. He knew he must be crazy to believe this was his ticket to a better life.

In those days the simple sight of his wife reassured him, she had been an active partner in all his research. She supported him by giving up everything for the sake of his job. And she didn’t complain or ask him any questions when he came home at night completely exhausted from another failed experiment.

Karl looked up again in the direction Frank had gone to see if he could catch sight of the old man.

There it was and with him a new group of people coming towards their house.

Frank stopped to exchange some words with the party. They seemed to know each other, the old man patted one of the younger men on the shoulder, and with a complicity gesture, he pointed Karl’s direction.

Karl didn’t need to look back, he knew exactly who they were and what they were looking for. They were English bandits, and Frank worked with them.

He should have kept his water for him. The English pirates were ruthless bastards. They abandoned their homeland, England, which was now an uninhabitable rock since the Gulf Stream had stopped flowing due to global warming. Lack of resources and isolation had caused all the inhabitants of the British Isles to flock to the continent like bloodthirsty pirates in search of treasures and they didn’t care if they had to steal, kill or rape innocent people to get them.

And their next target was Karl and his house. He had to act quickly, he was glad that Astrid already left, because there was nothing in the world worse than having your wife taken by these guys and raped in front of you before being killed.

He grabbed an AK47 assault rifle that was leaning against a rock wall near him and put it on his shoulder. His eyes followed the group of thugs as they approached. He didn’t want to fire and injure anyone. But if they didn’t leave him any choice he was ready to fire.

One of them spotted Karl and started walking in his direction. Two others moved towards the house from opposite directions.

He fired!

A warning shot. He wanted to scare them away and keep them from going any further.

The shots echoed in the empty silence.

He aimed at the lead guy and fired again. The bullet grazed one of the English pirates in the arm. He screamed in pain and stumbled backward.

They didn’t stop!

Karl aimed at another pirate and shot him in the chest. His body crashed back on top of his comrades and he fell forward onto the ground, dead. The others were stunned into silence and stood there with their mouths open for a while. Then they ran away.

Karl picked up the AK47 and reloaded the magazine.

He knew that he could not leave them to go. If not they will return with a larger group and kill him and his family.

He needed to stop them.

He chased them and took a shortage to arrive in front of them. He took position behind a rock, aimed, and fired again. Three less. He kept shooting till he had emptied the entire magazine.

Karl stopped and watched. A couple of the survivors started to get up slowly. They raised their hands and started talking: “Wait! Wait! Don’t kill us. We surrender. We will never come back. I promise.”

Karl didn’t expect them to do that and hesitated. He lowered his rifle slightly.

“Karl Andersen, I’m sorry but you have to surrender now.”

Karl recognized that voice. He raised his hands, dropped the rifle, and slowly turned toward the voice.

“Frank Wilson, so you were a pirate after all,” he said in a disappointed tone. Frank was pointing at him with a gun.

“Yes, and I thought you were a good guy. I think we both get the wrong impressions of each other. You’ve killed ten of my men.”

“I had no choice!” Karl said loudly. “They were coming to get me and my wife.”

Frank looked into his eyes for a moment then said, “Don’t worry I won’t kill you. We can make a deal. I will take those special plants you hide in the valley and all this shameful accident will end today. Then I will let your family go without hurting anyone.”

He was speaking with a cold tone. It was obvious that he was no simple pirate, but something even more deadly.

“No deal. I need to research this new species of plant. You don’t understand, with that I could save humankind. I could correct your generation’s error. We could invert the death of our planet.”

“My generation? Who cares about the errors from the past?” Frank asked in a mocking tone. “This drought has brought a new order of things. In this new world, only the stronger and the fittest will survive. I don’t care about the past, I will fight for my present, and take everything that this world has stolen from me.”

“But this isn’t fair!” Karl shouted and started walking slowly towards Frank. “You want to destroy this world to take what isn’t rightfully yours and then you’ll leave it for someone else to clean up the mess and rebuild it? Haven’t you learned anything? Let me finish my research, I am close to getting a breakthrough.”

Frank fired.

The shot hit on Karl’s right arm. The bullet tore through his skin and left an opening under his shoulder blade.

Karl fell to his knees.

***

There was blood all over. He felt pain as his hand touched the open wound. The blood didn’t stop flowing and he knew he would die soon.

Frank put away his gun and turned to him. He knelt and looking straight into his eyes he said, “I won’t kill you. You will die here, bleeding out in two days. With that I repay my debt with you for the two glasses of water you gave me. We’re even now,” then he whispered to his ear, “don’t worry about your wife. I will have a good time with her and raise your kid as a pirate.”

Karl, felt a rush of anger and adrenaline and his body started moving before he could stop it. He stood up and took two steps back. Before Frank was ready for his next move, Karl threw a punch as hard as he could at Frank’s face, took the gun from the old man’s belt, and started firing at Frank.

The shots were fast and furious. Frank dived to the floor to avoid the bullets but he couldn’t hide behind the rocks fast enough. Two of the rounds hit him in the thigh. A few seconds later a third one entered his abdomen and pierced his guts.

Frank screamed in pain. He grabbed his gut as he got on his knees. Karl aimed the gun at his head and said coldly, “Goodbye, Frank. Say hello to Annie for me.”

He pulled the trigger.

***

Thirst.

Karl’s mouth was dry and his tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth. It felt like there wasn’t enough water to quench his thirst, and his water bottle was empty. He needed more.

He had lost a lot of blood and his body was asking him for more of the precious liquid to recover. He knew that he must drink something, and he had no choice.

He opened a cabinet and took the last bottle of water. His stomach turned into an ache while he put the open bottle under his lips.

“I’m sorry Astrid. I have to survive. Without me, we will never be able to gain the right to board the last passage to Mars. I have to survive and finish my research.”

His wife would understand, she used to say the same thing many times during their marriage, it was like he could hear her voice clearly saying, “Don’t worry Karl. I will support you till the end, no matter what.”

He closed his eyes and drank all the bottle’s content before collapsing to the floor. His breath became short and labored. His body was demanding more. He tried to ignore his need for oxygen as he struggled for a breath.

He watched his wife’s photo next to him. He knew he wouldn’t survive long without water. If he died here, the only memory he would leave behind would be the image of a dead husband in a photo.

The guilt he felt was unbearable. Karl knew that if he had just been able to finish his research and give Astrid another chance for life, he would feel relieved by now. He should have made a decision when he saw Frank and his gun, he shouldn’t have fought back, or better yet he should have run away. No. He didn’t deserve any of this.

He had to survive, for Astrid who gave her life for him. She promised she would be by his side until she died. And she did. When they ran out of water, two years before in the worst months of the drought. The water level had fallen to its lowest point in history and there was nothing left for them to drink. So, she volunteered to die to give him a chance to survive and continue with his research. The idea terrified her at first, but she accepted. She was willing to sacrifice her own life to give him enough time to save the earth. She believed in him.

She was the most beautiful woman he knew. She never doubted his abilities. It didn’t matter if he didn’t finish his work on time, or if he had a nervous breakdown during the night. She stood by his side all the time never complaining.

She believed in him so much that she even let their unborn baby die to ensure he would be able to survive. Karl was deeply touched when she made the decision.

He had no choice now but to continue, the future of mankind rested in his hands. Their deaths would mean salvation.

Karl managed to stand up and watched outside the window. His sight was blurring and he wasn’t sure of what he was seeing.

Smoke.

His brain was telling him that smoke was rising from the field in front of him. He felt the room turning black.

“Astrid? Astrid!”

The plants were burning, and the two pirates’ survivors had taken their revenge on him.

Karl struggled to go outside and reached out for the fire extinguisher, then he realized. He couldn’t. The specimen won’t survive the chemicals used in the foam. They were too delicate. He could use only water to extinguish the flames and save his precious sprouts.

Water.

He just drank all the water left. The only thing he could do was look at how his research, his life, and his wife’s life burned into ashes.

He closed the curtain and waited for the fire to reach the house and end his vain life.

***

A month later the last spaceship left the earth from a port located in what was the ancient Champs-Elysees, in Paris—allowing the brightest minds of the company to leave the dying planet. It was time to board the ship and save themselves before it was too late.

One hundred and fifty miles from there in a burnt terrain, a small seed had survived the drought.

It had been buried under a pile of ash by chance. As soon as it touched the ground, the seed started to grow, even though it had been exposed to toxic gases and poisonous fumes.

That plant, Astrid, was unique. It grew with incredible speed and developed more and more leaves, flowers, and fruits in just two weeks. The heart-shaped fruits were full of water, rich in sugar and nutrients, and they were capable of sustaining life when there wasn’t anything left.

Unfortunately, there was nobody left to appreciate this precious food or to spread the word of the miracle to the world.

The only living being left to taste the golden hearts was a skeletal dog that was finally able to satisfy its thirst.