With a Whisper

“It’s shocking that no one’s noticin’ the shortage,” some journalist-person with tangled hair and red-edged eyes declares on the grainy TV screen, “The stores’r all running out!”

Samantha plops down on the living room couch, avoiding the spot where the springs have broken. Getting stabbed by the hidden rod of twisted metal isn’t fun, as she’s learned from experience. Three dusty fans circulate air through the muggy room, doing their best even in their old age to keep the summer sweat at bay. It’s not enough. Samantha’s shirt is already sticking to her back.

She twists the cap off a bottle of water coated in condensation, gulping down relief.

The stuff from the faucet has been coming out with funky colors lately. Her mom has tried talking to the landlord, but he says it’s fine. Says it’s just sediments. Good for the immune system. They put some out in a bowl for the stray cat, and they found vomit nearby the next day.

Samantha hopes that the cat’s alright. Anyways, it’s the bottled stuff for now.

“Now wouldn’t you agree that it’s wise, Ms. Bennett, that we not try to create a reactionary moment?” the round-faced news anchor raises an eyebrow, derisive. “There’s real danger in putting so much fear in people.” Samantha’s learned that whenever the news anchors look mad at the person they're interviewing it’s because the person is saying something actually important, and the news channels aren’t supposed to air important stuff. She tunes in. 

“There’s real danger’n what’s goin’ on!” cries the journalist, her red-tinted eyes flaring. Without context she looks wild, crazy even. “This isn’t some hypothetical. This’s been goin’ on for ten months, an’ nobody in power has said anything, but there’s just no way they don’t know about it!”

“I agree that there may be some questions we need to ask here, Ms. Bennett,” sighs the anchor, a slight smile creeping across his performative lips. Samantha doesn’t trust him, but that doesn’t mean he’s wrong.

“Doctor Bennett,” the journalist corrects him, probably not for the first time, “And the question, right here n’ now, at this very moment, is what are people gonna drink tomorrow? This isn’t localized, we’re talkin’ the largest aquifers on this planet, all undrinkable cuz’ of this… this poison chemical!”

“Interesting,” the anchor nods, impatient. “Well, thank you for your time, Ms. Bennett. We’ll follow up later. Moving on, we’re next going to talk to John Bigsley, a start-up genius

who’s been at the forefront of the social media boon. Be sure to stick around for that after the break!”

The anchor flashes white teeth and the channel’s upbeat anthem plays as the news cuts to commercial. Samantha isn’t watching. She pulls out her phone and searches for Dr. Bennett. The first two links aren’t even about her research: one of them is about how one of her colleagues was discredited for fraud findings, and the other is an op-ed echoing the anchor's sentiments about the dangers of fear-mongering. It’s only when Samantha scrolls to the bottom of the page that she finds the Doctor’s article, titled The World Has Run Out of Fresh Water TODAY.

Samantha shakes her head. That’s impossible, right? She’s drinking fresh water right now, the cold taste keeping off the heat. She scans the article. The Doctor claims that agricultural companies across the globe have been using a chemical compound to protect their crops that, it turns out, amplifies in intensity overtime when left in large bodies of water and is resistant to modern filtration techniques. According to Dr. Bennett’s findings the chemical has been in heavy use for the past two years, and has already rendered the world’s grandest sources of freshwater undrinkable. Governments have refused to act, presumably for fear of sparking sudden economic instability, Samantha reads, but the evidence is undeniable: over 95% of our freshwater has disappeared without our knowledge.

The phone drops to Samatha’s thigh. The ad break has ended, and the anchor is back and talking to the aforementioned John Bigsley, who is insisting that the synergy between data collection and advanced algorithms is forging a way to a future of convenience. A panel sits at the top of the screen, all of them smiling broadly. No one looks worried. Not one flicker of concern. Surely they’ve all read Dr. Bennett’s article. If there was any truth to it, it would be all they’d be talking about. Do they know something Samantha doesn’t? Maybe the Doctor is suspected of fraud like her colleague, and it’s just that no one’s been able to prove it yet.

For good measure, Samantha gets on her phone again and checks other major news outlets. The top headline for all of them is a follow-up to a terrorist attack that occurred in France yesterday. After that it’s a mish-mash of tech news, politics, and columns on healthy eating. Samantha lets her shoulders droop. If something so dramatic as the world running out of water had any truth to it, someone would be talking about it. The Doctor must actually be a reactionist or whatever.

Samantha wiggles to get comfortable, and the loose spring stabs her. Growling, she gets off the couch. It’s too hot to sit on the itchy cushions anyways.

Restless, she texts Raquel. The two of them were close until Raquel moved four states over during the winter. Now they talk sporadically, but nothing like they used to. 

Hiya, how’s life? New school still dece? Samantha sends. Then, nonchalant: seen this water thing on TV?

After a minute there’s no reply. Impatient, she tucks her phone away.

A stink bug crawls up the outside of the windowscreen as Samantha sits at the kitchen table and starts prodding at the puzzle pieces spread out in the center. Three-thousand pieces; a picture of a pair of fluffy orange kittens playing in a field. Samantha and her mom have only completed half the outline. She digs around for edge pieces, scouring up half a dozen before the apartment door opens and her mom hurries in with bags of groceries. Samantha’s mom is a short woman with heavy footfalls and a loud voice, who dyes her hair to keep it black and smiles even when she’s tired.

“There are two more bags at the bottom of the stairs, can you grab them?” Her mom pants, out of breath from three flights of stairs. Samantha nods and races down to grab the remaining food, then sprints back up to find her mom pushing cans of soup into the empty cabinets.

“I’ll have to run back out tomorrow,” her mom explains as Samantha gets the milk and eggs into the fridge as quickly as possible. “The store was out of bottled water.”

Samantha shivers, nearly dropping a carton of eggs.

“Did they say why?” she asks, trying to keep her voice calm.

“Just out of stock. It happens,” her mom shrugs. “I’ll go to the bigger market outside town next time.”

“You should go today,” Samantha insists, a gut reaction.

“Why?” her mom asks. “We’ve got half a case still, and honey, I’m tired…”

“I’ll go with you,” she refuses to let up. “But I really think we should. Just in case.”

“In case of what?”

“Please?”

Her mom takes a deep breath, and Samantha can tell that her energy has burned down to scraps. However, she gives a slow nod. Samantha’s urgency has reached her.

“I’ll carry it all,” Samantha assures. She’ll be happy so long as there’s something to carry.

They lock up the apartment and make their way back down the stairs to the parking lot. Samantha gets in the passenger seat of their tan Honda. The cushions always smell like wet dog, and there’s a layer of something sticky on the dashboard that she has to avoid touching. Still, the Honda is freedom: the power to go anywhere, and the one foyer-sized space on the planet that doesn’t belong to somebody else.

“Buckle up, honey,” her mom recites, turning the keys and sputtering the engine to life. They wheel out of the parking lot onto the road to the bypass, passing a teenager spinning an ad sign on the sidewalk. The fast food chains have updated their billboards again with new clever slogans, and there’s a long line at the minigolf course bursting with impatient children. The town looks normal. No uproar. No apocalypse.

The two of them park in the gigantic lot of the superstore that headlines the strip mall just outside of town. Massive red letters mark the amalgam’s different sections: pharmacy, groceries, electronics. It’s more than a store, it’s a warehouse that sells everything. At least, it’s supposed to.

Samantha drags her mom inside, racing to the back aisle of the grocery section where the bottled water is. Paper towels. Dish detergent. Sponges, diapers, and toothpaste. The first bad sign is that there’s none of the off-brand soda that usually fills a whole shelf. No one would have bought that stuff out. They pass along the entire aisle, but Samantha can’t find the bottled water. Her heart is speeding up now, and her mom is trying to calm her down.

“Honey, it’s alright, slow down. Let’s just ask someone.”

Her mom finds a store clerk and politely asks where to find the bottled water. Samantha can see that her mom still isn’t worried. Tired, sure, and worried about Samantha, but bottled water isn’t a concern to her.

“No ma’am, ‘fraid we haven’t gotten the new stuff in yet,” the store clerk explains with an apologetic smile.

“Did somebody buy it all?” Samantha interrupts, looking for an explanation. If someone else saw the interview on TV and rushed to the store to buy up all the water, that would explain why it was missing.

“Nope, nothin’ like that,” the clerk scratches his neck. “Just ran out and haven’t gotten the new order.”

“How long will it be?” Samantha asks, ignoring her mom’s look.

“Coupla’ days?”

“Can we pre-order it?”

The clerk laughs, and her mom joins in to try to calm her down.

“Sorry, she’s on a mission here,” her mom puts a hand on Samantha’s shoulder, giving her a meaningful glance that she should stop. “They don’t do pre-orders at supermarkets like this, honey.”

“Sorry ‘bout that.” The clerk nods, turning to leave as Samantha’s mom steers her away and out of the store. The automatic doors open to let them pass, and as they step into the humid air Samantha is struck by the sudden sense that the world has just forever changed. On the drive back her mom consoles her, playing the rational adult, explaining that they have plenty of water until the end of the week. She thinks her daughter is having a youthful flare, the kind of bizarre fixation characteristic of young teens. Samantha wants to believe her. She tries to ignore the gnawing in her stomach, and checks her phone. One new text from Raquel.

School is still dece, yup! Peeps are cool here :) And no, I didn’t, what was it?

Samantha isn’t sure if Raquel’s ignorance makes her feel better or worse.

When they get home, Samantha checks the news again. There’s still nothing about Dr. Bennett’s article, but there’s an alert on the site for the local news that the signs of a drought have manifested. The alert insists that no one should be concerned: that droughts are the perfectly normal result of inconsistent rainfall, and that the phenomenon is contained to the area. We suggest local residents refrain from excessive water usage for the time being, states the article, like filling outdoor pools or having water fights. Samantha shows the alert to her mom, who nods knowingly.

“There’s your explanation,” she nods as she cranks open a can of soup and pours it into a burner-scorched pot on the stove. “Happens once in a while. If it gets bad they cart in trucks of water from other parts of the state.”

“What if it’s not really a drought though?” Samantha chews her lip as the smell of salty butternut squash fills the small kitchen. Why would a drought mean a giant chain store wouldn’t have bottled water? Unless there was a panic buy, but the clerk had insisted there hadn’t been.

Her mom laughs. “Why would it not be? Young people, always caught up in conspiracies. I was the same way at your age.”

The soup is too hot for the summer, even after Samantha blows on it for five minutes. She used to like the taste, but they’ve had the same dinner so often that now it irritates her. Plus it’s too salty. She has to wash it down with an entire bottle of water.

After dinner she sends a reply to Raquel. Cool that school’s good! And just some doomsday thing. Btw we’ve got a drought here, all the stores are out of water. Wild… :(

Samantha snorts. Raquel probably won’t know what a drought even is.

That evening Samantha and her mom work on the puzzle. They manage to scrape together all of the edge pieces, and in a triumphant moment finish assembling them into a perfect rectangular outline. It takes hours, and by the time they achieve their goal Samantha realizes that her shoulders are sore and her mind exhausted. Being tired saps the worry from her, making her want to crawl into bed and sleep until the morning light tickles her eyelids. 

Maybe her mom is right afterall. She’s the adult, and Samantha doesn’t understand the world as well. She decides to put her anxiety on hold so long as her mom isn’t concerned. She drags one of the aging fans into her room and curls up under her light blanket, drifting off to images of orange kittens playing in a sunny field.

She wakes up to a reply from Raquel. 

That’s weird :/ we also have a drought :(