There’s Something in the Water Honorable Mention
Day One:
Terrible news this morning.
Ma wanted to turn the television off. She said it was horrible and we shouldn’t be watching it. She also said we needed real water, clean water, so Pa had better go buy us some. Liam offered to go instead. Ma said it was too dangerous for her baby boy to go out in this part of the city at this time of night, but he got away. Pa went with him.
We stood at the window with bated breath. Ma had gotten over her fit, but she was still mighty worried. She clutched at my arm to steady herself, and I didn’t tell her how tight her grip was. Frank had one hand on her shoulder and used the other to draw back the curtain. Nobody said anything. While the news was running, Pa and the boys had filled up every available container in the house with water from the taps and the shower. Ma had worried that even that water might not be safe to drink, but the boys assured her that if what the newsman said was true, then the bad water hadn’t spread yet. We still have bottled water, but not all that much. I don’t know. I wouldn’t want to live off of juice and milk and soda. Like Ma, I’m sort of scared of the stuff that’s coming from the tap now.
Liam got in and out just fine. Pa didn’t have to go rescue him or anything. We couldn’t see Liam from the window, but Pa stood on the corner where he knew we could see him and looked down the street with his thumb up at us to say it was okay. Ma didn’t rest until Liam came back into view with all the water he could carry. She retired from the window and sat down. Frank and I kept watching. It seemed like Liam didn’t pay the man at the store for some reason, because Pa looked down the street again and then got all worried. He took some of the water and ran with Liam towards our building and out of sight. I didn’t see what the matter was until the shopkeeper ran into view, all angry and bearing a gun like a crazy man. I always said that man seemed a tad wound up, but the boys never believed me. I shot a pointed glance in Frank’s direction, but neither of us said anything to Ma out loud for fear we’d worry her.
Pa and Liam got back. They didn’t really say why the gun guy was after them, but it’s no matter. We have water. It’s going to be fine. I told Ma that, but she doesn’t like this at all. She left the new water far away from all of the tap water the boys collected.
Day Three:
The authorities still haven’t secured the breach, and the bad water is on the move. They say it’s coming, if it’s not here already. They say maybe the breach happened earlier than they thought, and that’s why it’s already past their safeguards. I’m starting to wonder how they’re planning on stopping it.
Life continues as normal. Instead of tap water, we drink from bottles, or we have milk or juice or soda. Ma’s trying to make sure we don’t drink too much, just in case we need our stores to last. I think maybe she’s going a little overboard, but who knows? Liam still thinks we’ll all be fine. Frank thinks watching the news isn’t helping. We should expect to hear of progress made in the next week, for sure, and we can check for updates, but that’s all we need to do.
I don’t know how Pa feels. He doesn’t really voice an opinion. Most of his time at home is spent comforting Ma, who counts how many bottles of water we have left. It’s only been two days since that first major report, but it looks like she’s in it for the long run. I’m with Frank, at least on the time aspect. Nothing is going to happen for about a week, but it can’t be longer than two weeks or so. Ma’s preparations are going overboard.
Day Five:
The water reached the city early yesterday morning. Yesterday, Ma closed off all of our faucets and told us we couldn’t even take showers. Today, it’s the same. No showers. No sinks. We have a bucket to wash our hands in. It’s all icky, but Frank says it’s just the soap and a little bit of grime from our hands when we wash them. I want to dump it out and get a new one, but I don’t want to dirty more water in case we need it. Ma keeps reminding us not to touch our faces after we wash our hands, just to be safe. The newsman says the problem in the main won’t be resolved for many days.
We can’t go to the closest store for milk or anything because of that man with the gun, so Pa risked going to another one that’s kind of close. It didn’t have anything to drink in it at all.
School is canceled because of some rule, like they have to provide running water in the toilets and sinks and the water fountains. I’d ordinarily be glad, but being stuck at home is boring. Mom won’t let us go out much. She says she sees crazy-looking men wandering the streets while she stands at the window. I wonder if maybe one of them is the gun man.
Day Eight:
Well, it’s been over a week.
The newsman was saying that there have been a bunch of reports of people drinking the water even though everybody keeps saying not to. He reiterated that nobody should do that and reminded us that we were supposed to stock up. The hospitals are filling up with people sick from drinking it, but he said the doctors are lucky that the turnover rate is so quick. The doctors can focus on other patients because those who are afflicted with the water shock die quickly and suddenly and free up space.
It doesn’t sound to me like anyone’s lucky at all.
Day Nine:
If someone gets water shock, they vomit. They get thirsty again. They die. The newsmen say it’s a parasite. We’re watching more programs now, not just the normal evening news. Ma’s hoping to hear something to lift her spirits, but mostly everything does the opposite.
We don’t have all that much water left. We’re starting to pull food out of the freezer, and that should last us. Pa said it would all be fine. He told me not to worry about the food because he has it covered and can make my meals for me so I don’t have to think about it.
There are dead people on the street. Ma said so. She pulled the curtains closed and blocked off the windows and told me not to look outside. I looked outside. She was right. I shouldn’t have looked outside.
Day Twelve:
We hadn’t thought much about how our neighbors up and down and across the hall might be doing. We haven’t seen them except a few times at least a week ago. We heard them screaming through the walls today. There was a big crash, and a smaller crash, and a bang, and it got pretty quiet for a while. The other apartments nearby made not so much as a single sound after that. Everything was quiet except the street outside and the sobbing from the room that shares a wall with Frank’s bedroom.
Day Fifteen:
I’m going insane. It’s been two weeks, more than one of which I’ve been cooped up inside this tiny apartment, and we have practically no bottled water left. We’re running through the food in the freezer alarmingly quickly, too, even though Pa’s trying to ration it. Two ravenous teenage boys are doing most of the work in eating it all.
What happens when we run out of water?
Ma says she won’t drink the tap water we collected at the beginning of this all, what feels like ages ago. If we bring it up, she simply says she won’t and then the conversation ends. The boys don’t have any objections to drinking it. I guess I don’t, either, not really. Ma probably wouldn’t let me if I tried, though.
The newsmen say the authorities are trying to clean out the water main. Ma and I are staying away from the windows. Ma even took the time to board up the one in her and Pa’s bedroom. The boys have been sneaking glances out of some of the other windows. They say it’s horrid what’s going on down there. I don’t want to know what they mean.
There’s something wrong with the family that lives across the hall from us. The mother and father were shouting at each other. The mother demanded that they go to the hospital, but the father said it was too dangerous outside, and had she seen the state of the roads? Then the mother left with the daughter, and the father couldn’t do anything, and he punched the walls and cursed for a full minute before he yelled his wife’s name and ran out after her, dry heaving. We kept our door locked up tight. We saw through the peephole into their apartment, but we didn’t try to go in. They wouldn’t have any clean water in there.
Day Sixteen:
I’ve found myself wishing that we had someplace to go. The roads were all jammed up a few days into this ordeal, but we knew about what might go down long before it became so difficult to leave. Plenty of folks got out before they were trapped by the masses dead or dying in the streets. There’s no way out.
Plus, it’s official now: We have no more bottled water.
Pa drank from one of the buckets to prove to Ma that it’s safe. The boys had some, too, when they got unbearably thirsty, even though Ma didn’t want them to. They’ve been rationing even more these past few days so that Ma and I can drink what they don’t. They say they feel fine, so the water they drank is probably safe, but Ma made me wait to have any. The water main should almost be cleared by now. We’re sure it’ll all end soon. It has to.
Day Seventeen:
I’m so thirsty.
We’re all thirsty. Soon we’ll be hungry, too.
Pa and the boys threw up. They kept throwing up. They won’t stop. They dry heave over the toilet, and Ma won’t touch any of them. She made them throw out all of the tap water, and her fingers shake when she holds me. She keeps whispering that it’s going to be okay, over and over. I don’t think she knows she’s doing it.
I’m so thirsty. I’m so, so thirsty.
Day Eighteen:
Pa and the boys were gone when I woke up this morning. Ma said they were at the hospital. I didn’t say anything, just nodded. So thirsty. We ate. We didn’t look out the windows. We didn’t watch the news.
Ma turned the water back on so to fill a pot and boil it. She said she’d keep it on the stove for hours to be safe, but almost as soon as it was boiling, she took it off the heat to cool. She held my hand when she drank a sip after it cooled. Her lips were cracked, and she tried to stop herself, but she downed the whole glass. She lifted the pot and upended it over her glass, which tipped over and rolled to the floor. She looked down at spilled water and reached for the sink. She’s strong. Persuasive.
I tried to stop her.
I swear I tried to stop her.
Published 8/7/26