Water and Other Luxuries

On his knees and occasionally his hands, the boy wished for rain. Driest summer on record, but then again so was the last, and the one before that, too. The uneven, splintered boards on the floor of the brokedown farmhouse were becoming soft and polished by the dusty window at which he prayed. Not to God, for the boy was certain He had forgotten them. He prayed to the past. Conjuring memories of sanguine moss on the rocks of Sanity Creek, which had always run rusty red. He had never thought to ask his father why, for the water from Sanity Creek was the only kind the boy had ever known. It used to meander along the sunken edge of the property, and became lush in the summers of the boy’s youth. He remembered scaling the large boulders on the periphery of the creek and stripping away the moss in sheets. He would pile the moss into a riverside bed, where, beneath the canopy of the willow, he rested in the hottest part of July afternoons; the luxurious hours after chores and before cooking. The morning milk bucket transitioned to his afternoon toy. The boy filled it with ruby water and poured it on the banks, forming small, artificial tributaries to Sanity Creek. He would end the afternoon with an opulent swim in the deep, scarlet pools that populated the creek. But, as the rains became infrequent, the pools lost their depth. Now, the boy noticed, even the wet months only muster small puddles where he used to dive in. Dust and wind had long since rusted holes in the base of the tin milk bucket, which hadn’t felt fresh water in years. It hadn’t experienced milk, either, for the cow wilted when the boy’s father could no longer spare what little water the creek still produced. This year, the water ran out in June. It was now July and the boy was sweating on his knees once again, wishing to go back in time, wishing that the rains would return, along with his father’s 3 tooth smile. 

As the water reserves waned, the boy’s chores became as rigorous as they were senseless. His  father began assigning menial tasks, the benefit of which he could not comprehend. Most of the new chores involved digging. Two shovels lengths in depth, every one, and the shovel was almost as tall as the boy. Digging for water, he supposed at first, but his father’s precise demands for the placement of the holes followed no logic or reason. His father had never laid a hand on him when the water was plentiful. Now, however, if he did not produce holes at a satisfactory pace, his father would punish him viciously. His last punishment, which came after his father decided that each hole was to be completed in just three days rather than five, had left the boy on the dirt floor of the farmhouse basement, in a puddle of his own blood. His father had not notified him of the policy change before the broadside of the shovel collided with his kneecap. The boy decided that his father was going to kill him before the summer’s end. One less dry mouth to satiate. 

His father’s cotton cough appeared in benign, infrequent bursts, but quickly turned to constant retching fits. The boy found it hard to focus on praying when his father’s hacking echoed through the rotting walls and even vibrated the floorboards in some instances. His father stopped measuring the holes, and resorted to merely asking him if he had finished each to the proper specifications. His father was soon bedridden. 

As the days combined and weeks began to lumber by, mucus gave way to blood on his father’s handkerchief. White silk now resembled the shade of old Sanity Creek. His father insisted that the boy wash it and he told him he would. However, he decided the handkerchief was not worth the water. He scrubbed it with a dry brush, but the color remained. The boy returned to his father with an ordinary cloth. His father did not notice the difference. This was the first time, he thought, that he had ever knowingly disobeyed his father.

It did not take long for him to stop digging all together. His daily tasks reduced to feeding his father and brushing the dust off his father’s blankets and peeling scalp. The boy began to make decisions for himself. His allotted daily water grew to three cups from just one; his father’s remained unchanged. He stopped speaking to his father, for moans and mumbles were all that his father was able to muster in response. The boy’s loneliness overtook his thirst as the seasons began to change. He resumed digging.

He focused his efforts on a single hole, deeper and deeper every day. Three, four, five shovel lengths deep into the basement floor where he had once been beaten. The boy spent the mornings digging and the afternoons transporting the loose earth from the basement to the front porch where he would toss it to the wind, which howled constantly. The days became shorter, the nights grew colder, and the hole reached ever deeper into the crumbling earth. The basement provided enough shelter to make the extra work worth it. The wind whistled throughout the house. His father shivered between bloody retches. 

On the day the boy stopped praying, his shovel collided with steel. At the bottom of the basement hole, which now featured a well crafted, winding stairway to the surface, he uncovered a trap door. It’s rectangular latch was secured shut with a massive, rusted lock with a keyhole large enough for him to stick his finger through. He pressed his ear to the door. The faint sound of dripping the boy heard drove him to swing his shovel at the lock. Over and over again. Each time, sparks flew from the lock, momentarily illuminating the base of the dim, dusty hole. The cacophonous sound from each steel collision echoed throughout the house, and made his ears ring. The boy swung the shovel for hours before the lock finally cracked. He released the lock and heaved the trap door. 

The voice solidified from the viscous darkness that filled the void beyond the door’s threshold. The wind halted and everything was still as it greeted the boy, strong and deep, just like the darkness from which it bellowed. He no longer heard the dripping, but requested water nonetheless. Before long, a bucket appeared, filled with fresh water, more transparent than anything he had sipped from Sanity Creek. The boy consumed it and asked for another. The voice obliged. Another, and another, he drank until he felt sick. He thanked the voice, for it had saved his life. The voice assured him it could grant any wish he could dream of. 

Without fail, the bucket returned to him bearing gifts. A small chocolate, a diamond ring, and as many marbles as he asked for. The voice gave the boy whatever he wanted. Perhaps more valuable than any gifts, the voice engaged him in conversation. He told the voice about Sanity Creek and the rain and the dust and his father. The voice only asked questions, but never answered any the boy had regarding its origin.  This did not bother the boy, for he had been granted a friend. One who was endlessly interested in the boy’s life and circumstance. 

Soon, the voice became interested in his father as well. The boy became annoyed, as the voice’s questions increasingly became focused on his father. However, he would answer any question if it meant even one more sip of the crystal water of which voice seemed to have an endless supply. The voice never repeated a question. 

One day, the voice’s questions became requests. A bloody handkerchief in exchange for another bucket of water. The boy obliged and happily consumed the delicious water to which he was now addicted. Returning to the muddy sludge that was left at the bottom of their storage barrel was unthinkable. Another bucket? Another request. This time a lock of grey hair. The boy asked why. The voice did not respond. He once again asked the voice for  justification of the request, but the voice remained silent. The boy shouted into the darkness on the other side of the trap door, and received not so much as an echo in reply. Panicked by the prospect of losing his companion, he rushed up the winding dirt staircase and grabbed a dull knife from the kitchen. He returned to the bottom of the hole with a lock of his dying father’s hair. 

The next day, the request was a rotting tooth. His father moaned slightly as the boy shoved pliers in his mouth. An eyelash, a dusty blanket, a toenail, and a wrinkled ring finger. The boy’s routine became centered around ceremoniously disassembling his father in exchange for water and other luxuries. The boy’s father did not notice when the boy dragged him down the winding dirt staircase into a pit from which he would never return.