The Water Farmer

Strolling through the field, I kicked at the dirt and watched the dry dust fly up. Should I even call it a field anymore? Years ago, that soil was fertile from spring floods every season. It would produce a crop of corn a mile wide and stretch five miles down the road, green as green can be. I picked up an old, yellow stalk and watched as it crumbled in my hand like ash, falling into the cracks of eroded soil beneath my feet. I walked over the levee and down to the river. The old Missouri was just trickling along down its center. I could tell where the waterline used to be. It was definitely over all these rocks and stagnant pools, fish skeletons littering up the place. Standing at the lowest point in the river valley, the river itself, I looked up at the hills surrounding me. They used to be full and bright green this time of year. Now they’re dried up and naked as jaybirds. It looked more like winter than the middle of spring, if winter made you want to take your clothes off and drink from the river. Yeah, we needed good steady rain, one that would last us for days, not those thirty-minute storms that dump water on us in buckets with winds that tear the shingles and siding right off our houses. I’ve had my share of those.

The sun hung high overhead without a single cloud blocking its intensity. One hundred ten degrees on a Midwest May afternoon has become common in the last two years. I couldn’t have stayed out there much longer. The air wasn’t even moving. I stumbled across a deer that collapsed on its way to the river on the way back to my truck. Poor guy couldn’t make it. I took my hat off and wiped my brow. I throw my hands on my hips, looking around trying to figure out what to do. I tried to get the

deer back on his feet, hoping he would take off over the levee. He took a few steps before shaking and falling back down. My truck was closer than the river. I didn’t want to drag him over the levee, so I took out my Buck knife and slit his throat. No sense in letting it suffer, or letting the meat go to waste. I waited for him to die and dragged him back to the truck.

Back at the truck I gulped down my water. It was warm but refreshing. I popped the cooler and sat back to sip a cold one before leaving. The way things were looking, my days as a farmer were long gone. Ever since those ice caps melted, the climate has been so arid you can’t grow anything anymore. People had to move inland, many of

them were still looking for permanent residences. I had developers coming around inquiring about my land. I decided it was time to give them a call.

After tending to the deer, I found one of the developer’s cards in the desk drawer. I gave him a call. From what I gathered from him is that I won’t be getting what I would

have had I acted sooner if I get anything at all. People were struggling because of the rising costs of food and water. A lot of people were losing their jobs and their homes. The price of everything was through the roof and the system was starting to crumble. That night I decided I would drive into town for a beer or two, see what the locals are saying.

I got into town and the first thing I noticed was that the fast-food chains had shut down. They were completely boarded up. As I drove through town, it appeared that everything except Walmart was out of business. It’s not a big town, mostly family-owned businesses, so it really pulled the heartstrings to drive through and see so many people's livelihoods uprooted like that. What was worse yet was the drive through the park. A city of tents had been set up from one end to the other. All that

happened within the last three weeks since I had last been in town.

The next day I started cleaning out my pesticide and fertilizer tanks and converted them into rain collectors. I was going to collect as much rain as I could the next time it rained. I spent the evening hunting, adding three squirrels to my freezer. My home

was paid off, having been in the family for several generations, so I didn’t have to worry about losing it. Electricity I knew I couldn’t keep on forever, so the following day I headed into Walmart for lamp oil and candles. I chopped wood in case I had to start cooking over an open flame. In a month and a half, my power was shut off along with the water.

No rain had come, so my collectors remained empty. I headed into town to see if I could buy water, but the Walmart there in town finally closed too. It had been boarded up, but it was broken into and vandalized. I took a drive through the neighborhoods. Houses were abandoned and boarded up. Some looked as if squatters may have moved in. Others looked as if nobody ever moved out. Outside of some lay dead bodies. They probably died from dehydration or starvation with their families having no way to properly dispose of the bodies. At the park it was worse. Bodies were piled up at the entrance. I smelled the putrid stench of death a mile away. I

stopped in at a church that had its doors open and talked to the pastor there. He said the city sends dump trucks around for the dead and they were buried in a mass grave outside town. He warned me of a new virus that had worked its way out of the north. The CDC was calling it Pulmo Sangius. It attacks the lungs, eating away at them from the inside, causing internal bleeding, and you drown in your own blood. There was a pandemic going on. I guess if I had turned on my radio, I might have known that.

The good thing about being a farmer and owning so much farm equipment is that I still had a large supply of diesel fuel. I loaded my truck up with five-gallon buckets and drove down to the river. I scooped up as much water as I could in the buckets and drove back home where I boiled the water. It was a long, slow process, but after a

few trips I had filled a quarter of one of my collectors.

I was sitting in my truck listening to the radio while I ate my dinner. From what I was gathering from news sources, it was the same around the globe: Mass migrations inland combined with intense, unpredictable meteorological events have led to poverty, starvation, and disease. Now nations are threatening war for territory, wanting to monopolize the world’s natural resources. I’m hoping it really doesn’t come to that. Just then a bright flash of light filled the sky. A bang of thunder came out of nowhere. Then a blanket of rain poured from the sky. It was so hot that night, ninety-six according to my thermometer, that I leapt from the truck and stood in the rain with my arms spread and my mouth open. I let the rain wash me clean. It had been a long time and it felt so good. So much rain was dumped so fast that in an hour all four of my collectors were overflowing.

The next day, I hooked up a collector to the truck and hauled it over to the park in town. Most of the tents were blown over and heavy with water. People were cupping the water out with their hands to drink. They were excited to see the giant container filled with fresh water entering the park. I also had sacks of smoked up jerky of various kinds: rabbits, squirrels, raccoons, deer, and opossum. Everything that I had been saving up I brought to share. I felt like celebrating the rain and didn’t want to celebrate alone. For one day, people gathered together and ate and drank. They talked, laughed, and some even sang. Children played and the adults smiled for the first time in ages.

Unfortunately, that was one day, and one tank was all I was going to spare. I felt that was mighty generous giving there's no telling when it might rain again. The more I thought about it, what’s the point of staying alive if there wasn’t anyone to share life with. I had to admit, I hadn’t realized how lonely I was until I spent that day with the folks down at the park. I looked down the road and saw all that land where my crops once grew and got an idea. I took a ride into the park and talked to an older man I met there the other day by the name Jeremiah.

“I have a five mile stretch of land along what’s left of the Missouri River. If you guys want, I’ll run you out there to set up your tents where you’re closer to water. You’ll have to boil it and let it cool, but warm water is better than no water. I also have some fifty-five-gallon drums in storage we can clean up and you guys can have as rain collectors for when it does rain, whenever that might be,” I told him.

“That’s an offer we can’t afford to refuse. Let me have the day to spread the word. Come back tomorrow, Jesse. We thank you.”

I left there and went to Walmart. It was looted, but I wanted to see what was left. Glass crunched under my feet as I walked into a mess. Mainly what they took, though, was the food and the medicine. I was surprised to find a few guns and ammo still in the cases. I grabbed them and got me a new ax. That was all I could carry. I figured with the new guns, plus the ones I had at home, I could get those people hunting. I could tell from my visits they were malnourished, close to starving to death.

The next day I started moving people onto my land. They were down to approximately a hundred people from what started out as closer to two thousand. I found that number mind-boggling considering they were all squeezed into that park. It must have been like living in a can of sardines. Anyway, we got everyone moved and settled by end day. I took all the meat I had left down there (it was going to go bad anyway) and we had a big cookout.

We lived happily among each other for quite a while. It was communal living. Whatever we had we shared. People contributed to fetching and boiling water, hunting, patching up clothes and tents, chopping wood – there were ways to contribute. I even hit it off with a woman named Mary who came to live with me at the house. Those were the good days.

By August, the temperature was normally around a hundred seventeen degrees. Foliage was completely dead and animals were becoming scarce. The animals we did find were mangy and emaciated. There were still some squirrels around, some raccoons, plenty of coyote and carrion birds, but deer, turkey, and rabbit were long gone. We would go days without anything to eat. Then, when we did get something, splitting it among so many left each individual with hardly anything to eat.

Slowly, we started withering away due to starvation. Talk picked up concerning eating the dead. For some of us, that was unthinkable. To others, it was survival. One day a woman died. A fight ensued for the corpse between those who wanted to eat it and those who wanted to bury it. Those who wanted to eat it ended up dragging it off and the camps were separated.

Once those who ate the dead got a taste for human flesh, they didn’t wait until people died. Once they got hungry enough, they would resort to murdering someone from the other camp in their sleep and dragging them off. Me and a couple of guys who had guns went to confront the other camp, who had their own guns. They denied any such claims. Instead of starting a shootout, we left, deciding to set night watches from then on out.

Mary eventually gave way to hunger and passed on. I mourned her that day and buried her that night. When I woke, her grave was dug up and she was gone. My stomach dropped and a lump formed in my throat. Something snapped inside my head as if my brain broke like a bone. I approached the cannibal encampment on my own in my anger. I received a good beating for my accusation and was told I was lucky they didn’t make a meal of me.

The numbers at the camp kept dropping, either due to starvation, heat, or murder. The cannibals were thriving. Jeremiah and a young man named Dawson came and lived with me. They were the final survivors after the deaths of two other men. Of course, the cannibal encampment took their bodies. They grew stronger as the rest of us grew weaker. They got Dawson first while we were getting water to boil. They got Jeremiah while we were out hunting. It was like they were saving me for last.

Once again, I'm alone, and now scared. I haven’t eaten in two weeks. It’s been two days since I’ve had a drink. They'll come for me soon. My windows and doors are barricaded. If I'm going to die, I'm dying on my own terms. I thought community would bring purpose to this hellish existence. I thought I did a good thing by bringing people here, teaching them to hunt and purify their water. But survival can bring out the worst in people, stripping them of their humanity.