You Can--Go With Us

“Here you go!” The cheerful creature held up a rotting bucket of water to the older person. 

“Uh…” The person leaned down, took a big sniff and almost gagged, tearing away from the putrid smell. “Is that…slop?” The person sighed. “Ya’s, what did we say about giving people slop?”           

The creature shook its furry head indignantly. “It’s water! It’s what I get paid to do. It’s my job!” It yanked the bucket away, glaring at the person. “Why do you need to always make fun of what I’m doing? You are now growing up on slop because the government doesn’t understand us. It’s evil, and wants to take over the world. We don’t mean anything in its eyes. We—we’re not important, like slop.” It tried reasoning with the person. "All I've done is give people water from this bucket! A great job, and something!" It smiled cheerily. "Right? Think of the good things!"

“Please.” The person rested a hand on its shoulder. “I don’t understand why it’s got to be this way. Bombs going off, the government taking over and what are we to do?”

“Well, you’re the one in that stupid house--”

For the creature wanted everyone to drink its water, because it was a water-bearer. If the person shrugged her shoulders at the government taking over, the creature argued, she could stay in that dilapidated mess of a place for it cared.

“Stupid house?” The person raged. “It’s my parent’s home—”

“Yeah—the one they left to you to live in. It’s a dump! No one's—”

“A house my family lived in!” The girl cried, fists balled. “I don’t see my parents or siblings or pets anymore. They’re dead, thanks to the idiot that is the government! It blew my parents and siblings and pets up. They—the forces—are all out there, murdering everyone they know simply because they think evil is right. They don’t know—”                      

The person was silent. The dusty earth that was nothing but dirt and rocks and ashes and debris from the past bombings just reminded her of the government's hand on this world. The creature blinked, its mind going a million miles per hour. Shaking its head, it whispered hoarsely, “I’m sorry!”  It looked out to the desolate wasteland, some buildings half-destroyed in the wreckage and cell towers and playgrounds all decimated by radioactivity. Everyone, especially the person’s family, had fled for their lives when a white light had appeared in the sky, a warning to get ready—                     

The person shook her head. “Ya’s.” Turning around and heading back into the rotting house, she let the partially ripped screen door slam closed. Fixing herself something to drink, the person went to the refrigerator and cabinet and then pushed on the faucet. When water came out, she took a drink but immediately retched. The yuck in the sink looked like it tasted no different from the water having come out of the faucet! The puke-greenness of the stuff wasn’t even worth a second glance.

The person made a horribly disgusted face as she slammed the faucet off, checking other areas of the decrepit house already dilapidated as it is. She stopped and thought. If this place is disgusting, why should I care about it? It’s just going to get worse from here. I can’t fix anything. I’m not a construction worker, an architect, an interior designer or even a plumber. She dashed outside, taking Ya’s with her, its brown-sugary furred hand in hers.                                 

“Let’s go!” 

As they ran, tears welled in the person’s eyes at all the debris from the daily atomic explosions. The creature spoke up. “Can I get more water? Can't I just make a way?” Shaking its furry head, it lamented, “I don’t want to live like this anymore! I want new life--the bucket should provide that, but every time I pour it out, the water evaporates. The government is what needs to evaporate, and life will return to normal!”                         

“Yeah-just like my family needlessly did!”              

It jerked its hand away from the person, and she stopped, turning around.

“No! This world should be full of life and vigor. Why do you think I go around, giving water to everyone—”

“Well!” The person threw her hands up. Picking up her mud-soaked tennis shoes, she said, “Do you see this land all raked up by shelled atomics? Do you see the sky all red-orange—”

But the creature was the one to run off, it going through this horrific apocalyptic world in which the government air raided the world in hopes of birthing a new race—a race in which it’d obey the government. The people in the world hadn’t believed it, so it blew everyone away. The creature gave slop-water to villagers down the way, insisting that it was just doing its job--to which the villagers replied by doing other things. The creature narrowed its normally big round eyes.

I was born to serve--save everyone, even my enemies. No one can suck on the lollipop of hostility forever, right? The world is full of goodness. Nothing really is truly worth avoiding, right?

It helped these villagers escape the apocalyptic explosion. It returned to the person, as it wanted to give her water in hopes of mending the wound that was their friendship. But the girl wanted nothing to do with the creature. She wanted her family back. Lonely and afraid of what might happen next, the person returned to her house, covering herself in one of her sibling’s favorite quilt blankets from Mom.

Such a lonely soul couldn’t cure itself with loneliness.                

The creature met up with the villagers. It brought fresh, clean water to them, promising they’ll be prosperous. Some of them—mostly elderly people—celebrated they’d die knowing their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren will live without the government’s suffocating interference. Without a life of fear and sorrow and apology. Without constant surveillance.

The creature looked from time to time for the girl, but couldn’t find her. It hoped it’d be around for the person to see it giving refreshing water—something that would help the person not be so lonely. Not be so sad. But the person sat in her stupidly decaying home, the bent roof, the chimney leaking, especially when it rained. However, the person didn’t seem so distressed. Maybe she felt comfort, knowing there was something to hear? A leak is better than complete solidarity.                                            

The creature joyfully soaked in the pleasure of others drinking clean fresh water from their spring. Its smile could not be wiped away as it always reminded others to keep a look out for the person. When it pointed towards a house with the leaning roof and holed chimney, the villagers frowned. They struggled to see whether the person was really living there. Scratching their heads, they had meetings on how to rescue the poor person from that house.

“The recluse needs to come out of her home.”  

“We need to rescue her!”

 The villagers saw the creature go see whether the person would eventually come outside her home, even demanding she would. It didn’t take too kindly when it was disrespected, so it bothered her. The creature had some villagers help —it needed to serve water! It was its job. Yes, it was selfish of the creature to do so, but the water bucket was its only companion. “Serving water is my life. I must do it! Besides, the government sees all, so it'll see my services, right? My job will convince it, right?”

 The creature moved to the villagers’ part of the world, but they rejected him. Seeing someone on the ground, dying of dehydration and then seeing others sick and in bed from dehydration and others having fainted from dehydration, the creature, horrified, shook its head and dashed around, relieving all the villagers. But they all rejected it, saying some died of dehydration! 

The creature lost its position as water-bearer to the village. The villagers threatened that if it should come back, it’d be killed with a spear to the heart! The creature went away to the person’s house. Or at least up to it. it didn’t dare knock. The person saw the creature through her window blinds she pushed apart with her fingers. Then she pushed open the window.

“You belong somewhere else—like the government’s headquarters—”    

“Here’s some water.” The creature pushed a bucket of fresh water to the person.

“Murderer!” The person relayed how the village accused the creature of letting their people die.

“No—” The creature waved its hands, begging the person to understand. “Please—I didn’t! I just wanted to give you a bucket of water to drink, as it’s my job. The water came from a fresh spring.” It jabbed a furry finger at the person. “If you had come with me, you would see it for yourself and, therefore, get some to replace the yuck with!”

“Fresh water comes from a fresh spring?” The person’s eyes widened. “Fresh spring! We must get there!”

“No—they’re in the villagers’ area. I’ll be killed.”

“Let’s go.” The person grabbed the creature’s hand, whose other arm grabbed the bucket of fresh water and then stopped to hold its handle (the person confused, as they would be running). The creature tried making peace with the villagers. They raged, the person being another deceiver! The creature begged them, saying the fresh water—

“Wouldn’t bring our sisters and brother back from the dead!”             

The creature thought of this. He dashed away to the spring, filled some water in its bucket and then ran back to one of the dead sisters. Splashing some water on her, the creature waited. The creature nudged the person. The sister gasped, taking a huge breath. Giving all these people the purified spring water, the creature was praised by the village. Relieved, the village was grateful. So they weren’t dead—just severely dehydrated.

The person who returned to the house over there shook her head. “The freshwater cannot bring forth my family.”

Tears poured down her cheeks.

Encouraged by the creature, the villagers wanted to teach her their language so they could empathize with her, but she rejected them, saying she’d rather die than live a lonely life. She escaped, the creature begging her to stay—even if in her home.

“Water was just water. It didn’t do anything but quench my thirsty throat. Besides, the creature was serving me slop!”

 Her family pictures she took, packed in a knapsack. Her hugging sisters and tackling brothers. Her four laughing, coffee-drinking sisters and two hunting, fishing brothers and two toilet-lapping, shoe-eating dogs and two lounging cats. Her parents—Mom and Dad—smiled and hugged each other as she always took the photos, snatching it off the table and dashing outside towards the debris of what used to be the fun and chaos of such a family. The two dogs and cats always sat by each other, two by two, like Noah’s Ark.

But the person returned, the pain of leaving too unbearable. She was all alone in that house—the windows never washed again, the front and porch doors unoiled and the pots and pans either rusty, sticky or sappy. Her brother toasted the bread with honey before the white light’s explosion. The person sat there at the creaky table, sitting in a creaky wooden chair, the wood groaning under her. Tears were her only family right now. No one came to wipe them away.          

The creature soon left the village, looking for water for everyone--even the government's headquarters where assumed people would be working there--but especially for the person. Some say it died from one of the government’s explosions. Some say it befriended the person. Some heard that both of them died in an explosion set off by a government slave boy who had hidden the bomb way underground.   

No one knows.

One day, the slave threw a smoke bomb at the village, intending to hurt them enough so the government, who saw all, thought the villagers died. Amidst the smoke, the villagers escaped, one villager seeing someone run away assumedly back to government headquarters. The government then turned to science to clone its slaves to serve it along with its forces. Its others slaves, hearing that the villagers escaped, reported the earth void of life.   

 “Since the government is destroying the earth, what’s the point of returning above ground?" The villagers, joined by the person and the creature, pondered all this way below the earth’s surface after recounting this event.

She shook her head. “My house…”   

"The slave didn't get any of my water to take back with him!" The creature's shoulders sagged.

“So we’re here forever? We cannot do anything to save our village?” Some villagers slammed their staffs on the hard molten lava earth, roaring they’d sacrifice their own lives for each other if it means to be a villager in their homeland again. They raised fists, protesting against this new life underground.

“We’ll have to be down here—”

"No—I say we go above ground—even if it means seeing bombs every day! At least we’re in our village again—"

“And me in my house!"

“And me with my ability to serve--”

"Ya's, the government's not going to realize anything--"

"It will once I douse it--" The creature looked around. "Everyone's so moody and down! I just hope to cheer everyone up. It can't be that bad, right?" 

The heat was getting to everyone. Not wishing death to anyone, the creature told them they could safely collect the heat and lava from the center of the earth. Taking the bucket, it doused the lava with water the creature said magically came out of the bucket although the bucket’s empty, the lava becoming hard and durable. Testing the rocks and then telling everyone it was safe to gather them, the creature lead the happy return up to the earth. However, metallic uniform-clad people were above ground, too, saying the government needed some of this refreshing magical water.

A boy, dressed in rags, stepped forth, nodding. "I saved you, tribesmen and women."

"Saved? Then why are you here--" The villagers threatened the boy with a spear to the heart.

"Because--because they said no slave would go free if the government didn't have what it needed to clone its scientifically created slave clones! We--we needed to tell, or else!" The boy gestured that they'd all get blown up if they lied again.

"Give us this magical water!" A woman's silver eyes flashed. "Now!"

The villagers' eyes all looked at each other. A slave boy saving us? Tricking the government?! They were grateful, and the boy ran to one of the beckoning villagers. It ran into his arms, and he held him lovingly.

“Give us this refreshing water to make the world a magical place. It’s magical, right? So it can restore anything—even life itself. We need it to make the world a better place.”

Something about those peoples’ eyes was unusual. Everyone began believing the forces' words. The boy cried out that they worked for the government, but they all ignored him.

Then, bullets started hitting their victims. The person cried out and then collapsed onto the earth. When her hand touched a side of her stomach, it showed bloody, and the person gasped for help, clutching the wound. The villagers grabbed the creature's bucket and chucked the magical water at the forces. They were too strong. The creature dashed away, tears streaming down its face. The dying person cried out for the forces to stop this evil. When the creature returned, it poured some cupped spring water into the still person's mouth.

She gasped awake, coughing and sputtering.

“You truly saved me!” 

"Yes--let's go."

The creature just nodded, helping the person up. Her eyes welled with tears a little. While the creature fought with the person along with the villagers against the forces, the villagers cried out for the slave boy. The forces said he had escaped creating bombs to blow everything and everyone up here.

After the forces retreated, the person and the creature, the villagers ordered, needed to come with them back to its village, where they provided for them. The person looked at her house, and then dashed inside.

The creature saw her come out with her knapsack of pictures. Only then did she go with everyone to the village, the creature clutching its bucket.

That night at the village's campfire, the slave boy had returned. He said we slaves are programming the cloning to obey us—not the government. "The forces are wrong!"

“They’re discussing the cloning.” One government spy spoke into its earpiece to another.

"Return to base. The clones will turn against them.”

These forces reactivated the cloning so they would listen to the forces. They did. The wary group of friends attacked anything now. Until the creature splashed them with its magical water from the bucket, making it so they listened to the group only.

 “We can't ultimately end the government once and for all.” The creature said that night at their campfire after a day of warring. “If we go to their base, we’ll probably be cloned! The government is so power-hungry it’d do anything.” It whimpered. "We--I--need to do something!” It sighed, wrapping its arms around its bucket of magical water.

“Hey--my house is more than just a place of memories!”

“And our village will be destroyed!”

But the slaves were optimistic.

“Our slavery is not going to last forever. Why care what happens to us if we’ll just die?”

Everyone jumped. The slaves said they escaped, but the government was looking for them all.

While everyone else discussed tactics to fight the government once and for all, the creature and the person sat together, but the creature looked sad. The person hoped the creature didn’t run away. The creature said it’d be back.

The person spent the night worrying for the creature’s safety. She wanted to go with it, but everyone said no. The campfire was the last place she wanted to be. 

The government’s forces captured the group of friends, threatening them with a nuclear war if they did not bow to the government. Horses and other animals made of the magical spring water (along with their riders) joined the fight against the government. It wanted to use them to restore life, as the bucket had been destroyed in the government’s haste to recreate life for itself. But the magical creatures and their animal rides didn’t evaporate despite the ashes and shells and debris saturating the atmosphere.    

When the government saw the creature’s bucket of water—blown to smithereens like everything else—it told the forces to get the magical water from the spring. However, the spring had dried up due to all the creatures in the water coming alive. The forces thought about taking the watery creatures by force, seeing how the government wasn't succeeding. The riders told them they didn’t have to fight for the government. If it’s just blowing everything up, why serve something that was just going to blow us all up? When the forces failed to electrocute the watery creatures with their guns, they returned to the government to hatch new plans. 

The plants and trees turned into piles of ash. The sun’s furious blaze burned the very earth, the naked eye of this poor planet since the government had used up the other planets. As in decimated them to nothing, as they could not produce life on their very surfaces. The slaves, villagers, person and creature all threw ash bombs and other grenades at the governmental headquarters, destroying it successfully. Soon, the government released a nuclear bomb, wiping them all—forces included—out.

The government wasn’t remorseful, although it didn’t have the science to clone.

Still, it started planning to conduct a new life.

The good ones, especially the creature, who did more than just carry fresh water to all who drank it up in its perfect bucket of bubbling clear water. Everyone loved their afterlife life.  

The person reunited with her family, but welcomed the creature into its family unit along with the villagers and slaves. But the creature, she said, was her best friend, and the creature’s best friend was her. The creature continued serving water, cheerfully giving. It gave her the cleanest, freshest water.

They two were blessed the most—forever.