§
“You should come over for dinner,” says Ale, a few days later, elbow-deep in the guts of a busted old engine.
Liam, helping out by lounging around and looking pretty, props himself up on his elbows and blinks. “You serious?”
“Sure,” says Ale. “What kind of boy do you think I am? Woulda made you buy me breakfast, after, if I didn’t have things to do.”
“I would have,” says Liam, before his brain can catch up with his mouth.
Ale grins. “I know you would’ve. Dinner instead, though. My place. Seven.”
Ale still lives in the same shitty little house Liam remembers, a rundown one-bedroom thing in what used to be the bad part of town. When Liam knocks a woman answers, pretty, careworn face. Through the open doorway, a riot of noise, a dozen chattering voices, tinny music being piped in. Cooking smells, garlic and heat. “You must be Liam,” says the woman. “Come on in. Ale’s in the kitchen.”
Kitchen is kind of a generous term, since all of the functional areas spill together in one big open space. There are at least five people squeezed onto a threadbare couch, talking animatedly; several other small clusters of conversation huddled in corners, blocking doorways, and Liam almost loses his footing when three small children barrel past him, squealing. Liam hunches his shoulders and squeezes his way over to Ale, apron-clad in front of the stove, frying something. “You motherfucker,” Liam says. “You tricked me into a potluck.”
Ale snorts, scraping a spatula around the edge of the pan. “You were expecting candles and long-stemmed roses, maybe?”
“You’re such a dick,” says Liam. “Holy shit, where the hell did you get ground beef?”
“My resources are vast and mysterious,” says Ale, using the spatula to fend off Liam’s attempts to reach into the pan. “I’m in the middle of a culinary masterpiece, man. Fuck off and go make friends with the locals.”
Liam pouts, but before he can shuffle off to obey, Ale snags a finger into his belt loop, halting him. Liam twists around to see what’s up, and Ale’s mouth is on his, insistent and warm, right there in full view of everyone, and oh. Oh. “Food’ll be ready in ten minutes,” Ale says and releases Liam, blushing and dazed, back into the crowd.
§
The water was always going to rise again. It’s not like it comes as a surprise.
Nobody else is dumb enough to live as close to the ocean as Liam does, but it doesn’t matter. They have some warning, not enough. Liam had always kind of hoped he’d do something heroic if he found himself in this situation again; instead he finds himself huddled alone on the roof of Tara’s building, clinging to the industrial HVAC, waiting to get swept away.
He doesn’t get swept away.
After, he goes back down to Tara’s apartment to survey the damage. He’s peeling seaweed off cans of oranges when the front door slams open. Liam jumps, wheels around to see Ale, shoulders heaving. They stare at each other for a long moment, both wild-eyed, until Ale exhales, slumping. “Man,” Ale says, with something that could almost be a smile if he didn’t look so wrecked. “This place is a goner. You’re gonna have to rip out all the carpet, at the very least.” He bounces on his toes a couple times, seawater squishing up between his boots.
“I’ve been thinking of putting in hardwood anyway,” says Liam, wiggles the can of oranges. “Hungry?”
They end up down by the ocean, slumped against each other, daring the water to come for them.
Thirstlands
Nick Wood
One thing I knew for sure: the rains were late here too.
I scanned the ridge of grey rock towering off to my left—there was no vast, unified surge of water pouring over the edge as I remembered only five years ago—just sparse, thin water curtains dropping from the escarpment into the sludgy green river over a hundred metres below me. Gone was the towering spray of vapour above, no water cloud sweeping overhead. Deep in the wooded Batoko Gorge, the sluggish river struggled through the trees. Good old Queen Vic—although she was long dust, her namesake waterfall here in Zambia was drying quickly too—this was no longer “Mosi-oa-Tunya” either, no “Smoke-That-Thunders.”
“Record,” I said reluctantly, closing my right eye simultaneously to activate my neural cam. Du Preez is going to hate this.
A black-uniformed guard with an AK strapped across his shoulder stood nearby, clicking on his digital palm-slate. The payment request bleeped in my cochlea; with a muttered command, I sent the amount in Chinese yuan from the Office account in my head.
No, Du Preez is going to go absolutely mad, absolutely bedonnered about this.
The guard moved on, accosting a young black man with an antiquated mobile phone cam. There were only five other people circling the viewing platform; none jostling for a view. I licked my lips, ever thirsty as usual.
Hell, I had no idea the Boss had joined me, watching through my eyes like a mind-parasite, tickling my cochlea with his electronic croak.
So I closed my eyes. In the reddish darkness of my interior eyelids I could make out a green light flicking on the right, virtually projected by Cyril “the Rig’s” neural cybernetics. The Office was online, the bloody Boss in.
But there was still only a dull red glow behind my left eye-lid. Where are you, Lizette? What are you doing right now . . . and are you okay? You must know I hate having to leave you; but I’ve got to pay the bills, especially the damn water.
“Blown away, I think, gone.”
I spat the words, each one drying my mouth further. Eyes closed, a faint tingle of water from the falls sprayed onto my cheeks—a tantalising tickle onto my dry protruding tongue. I pulled my tongue in before the sun could burn it into biltong steak. The water from my hip-flask sizzled sweetly for a brief moment as I swigged, but then the ever-present tongue-throat ache was back.
Always thirsty, I took a final frustrated gulp and opened my eyes. I stretched my arms and fingers across the wooden railings of the viewing platform, but I couldn’t feel any more faint spray. The sky was becoming darker blue—still clear, the bloating red sun dropping onto the horizon.
No, there was no “Smoke-That-Thunders,” no constantly roiling crash of water anymore—all that’s left is an anaemic spattering of water, me, and a few other tourists scanning the ridge for a riverine surge that would never come.
Beyond, the surrounding green GM bio-fuel fields stretch to the horizon, leeching the river. Over the horizon, in slums on the outskirts of Livingstone, I’d heard there were crowds of desperate thirsty, probably starving, people gathering to watch their food shipped overseas as biofuels for SUVs and military tanks. I had taken the long way round to avoid the sight, so I don’t know if that’s the case for sure—or if it’s yet another web myth. I’m not sure if even Cyril could tell me; I’d heard FuelCorps had censored the overhead sats. Anyway, there’s no market for video clips of that sort of thing anymore, not even from the last of the official news agencies.
Ach ja, shit, and the Boss too, of course. I winced at the sharpness of his tone in my ear. I had no energy to reply—he never waits for one anyhow—and swigged another guilty sip.
There was a bleep in my cochlea—a wifi neural kit was requesting contact. I ignored it; it wasn’t Lizette.
“Hey, have you got the latest C-20 model?”
I looked at a man in the khaki Smart safari-suit, skin reddened by the sun, despite the generous smears of what looked like factor 100 white sunblock. His accent was vaguely Pan-European, the wispy greying hair underneath his dripping pith helmet disguising its
original color. He grinned at me and tapped his head. “I’ve had the latest C-20 model inserted, no need for vocal commands, it’s all thought operated.”
“Mine’s an old C-12 model,” I said, scanning past him, along the escarpment and eastwards to the vast maize fields below, which looked as if they were encircling and attacking the shrinking strip of green riverine bush and trees. Perhaps I’d edit the clip later; momentarily too embarrassed to audibly cut my shoot.
The man went on talking, breathing hot meat and beer onto me, and I wondered briefly whether he’d heroically Safari-Shot drugged game before eating it: “My Rig’s compatible with the latest web designs from China and is wired into the optic nerve for six-factor zoom capability.”
“That’s good to hear, I’m afraid mine just does a job.”
It was then that I saw them, scattered on the edge of the riverine trees, before the fenced maize fields, as if they’d died seeking cover from encroaching razor-wire. I knew the Boss would kill me, but I had to keep filming—it was the biggest elephant graveyard I’d ever seen, and it had been months since anyone had last seen an elephant. Huge piles of bones, like stranded and stripped hull-wrecks of ships, some of them arching their white curves in neatly laid out patches—as if their death had been calm, deliberate, and careful to acknowledge an individual, elephantine space for dying.
Jan du Preez may only want Live Game—me, I take what I can get.
The man turned to follow my gaze and grumbled with disappointment: “Bugger. Just bloody bones, I thought you’d seen some real wildlife for a change. Did you know the C-20 also has full amygdala-hippocampal wiring that allows synchronous ninety-three percent recall of emotion?”
“Really?” I looked back at him. For the past few years it felt as if my own feelings were desiccating; the barest husks of what they had been—what must it be like to pull out old video clips saturated with the original feelings, rich and raw with young emotional blood? It’s been over two decades since Lizette and I had watched handheld video clips of us and baby Mark, now three years gone to an accountancy career in Oz. Three years on from the hijacking that left him without a car outside our gates but crying with gratitude he was alive, physically unharmed. Three years since I’ve been too scared to walk outside the house but weirdly okay to travel to so many other places. It’s been only two years, though, since Du Preez contributed to the Rig in my head—to “Cyril,” who has helped to sharpen and hold my most recent memories.
Still, I’ve been thirsty ever since. I’m sure they buggered up my thirst center at the same time they did the Rig neurosurgery. But the insurance disclaimers had been twelve pages long, the surgeons in denial.
The man opened his mouth again; sweat dripped off the end of his nose, as if his Smart Suit struggled to adequately regulate his temperature. I couldn’t resist a brief smile at the sight, but turned away, not wishing to say goodbye. Maybe old feelings should be left alone after all, left to dry and wither like fallen leaves.
“Command—cut!” I muttered.
So his Rig was better (bigger) than mine . . . big bloody deal. He’s not an African, just an effete tourist in a harsh land his skin can’t deal with, filtering it through his foreign money, fancy implants and clever clothes.
And me?
Red blinked behind both my eyelids when I shut my eyes, so I let Cyril randomly cycle a babble of blogs over me as I headed back to the car park, the public toilet, and the chilly airport hotel, before the early morning flight home.
Home—and Liz.
§
The last kay home is always the longest, so I tried to coax more speed out of the car’s electrics. The time, though, seemed to drag on for an eternity, inching past corrugated iron shacks. People milled on the right of the road on the approach into Dingane Stad—mainly men, concentrated near a bridge overpass, no doubt jostling in hope to be picked up by passing bakkies or trucks for a desperate day’s work.
One old man near the road held out pale palms to me—but I’ve always avoided paternalistic gifts and dependency; this is Africa. I kept my windshields up, my doors locked.
The fields on the hill were brittle brown and eaten to dust by scraggly herds of cattle, watched by boys with sticks in hands, with shoulder-strapped and cocked Chinese P.L.A. T-74s, that looked in danger of blowing off their legs.
Still definitely no rains here either—shit man, we’re lucky we have our secret backup, Lizette; a hedge against the soaring costs of privatised water.
My eyes blinked heavily with the alternating early morning sunlight and the spidery-web shadows of overhead pirate cables snaking down from Council Electric grids and pylons into the shacks along the roadside. The cables will be cut by officials come sunset tonight and will have sprung back magically by tomorrow morning. Crazy, man, absolutely bedonnered, holding an impoverished community to electric ransom, when there’s so much sun for free.
My car was on auto as it turned into the long and bumpy drive past neighboring sugarcane fields up to our small-holding, an old disused farmhouse we’d bought at a financial stretch called “Cope’s Folly,” in search of a “simpler” semi-rural lifestyle. Hah.
I closed my eyes and sent yet another desperate message, almost a plea:
The red light under my left lid continued to ache for moments.
And then flickered green:
Relief flooded me. So she’s still pissed off with me. That’s something, at least.
The black electrified gates swung open to the car’s emitted password.
Liz was waiting, arms crossed, gum-booted and disheveled in loose and dirty clothes, glowering. There was a barrow of carrots next to her—a good looking bunch, so no doubt due to go to the neighboring township co-op, as she’s done ever since we moved here and she started growing food.
We pecked cheeks warily, eye contact tentative, and I’m awkward with a complex mix of feelings. Lizette’s a big-boned woman, dark of skin, with wild hair that she shoves back with a red Alice band. Her black hair was greying quickly, which she flaunted with a twist of her band. I gave her a furtive glance. Even angry, her brown eyes were lovely. But the anger seemed to have dimmed, she was almost . . . anxious?
It’s not like her to be fearful—she still drives herself alone into the township when I’m away, despite what I always tell her about the dangers. Nah, I must be wrong. She can’t be nervous, not Lizzie.
She wheeled the barrow off to pack the carrots away in the shed. I stepped inside and through to the hot sunken lounge, with its big AG (“almost green”) Aircon against the far wall. My presence tripped the air-conditioner switch with a click; whirring on. The web portal was tucked away discreetly in the corner as she’d insisted when I’d had it installed for her, but the controls were on red, as if constantly locked, unused. But she’d sent me that response just before I arrived. A new decorative screensaver spiralled, a fuzzy grainy floating picture, hard to make out as I walked through to the kitchen to make cheese sandwiches for us and to grab a drink of water.
She was waiting on the single chair when I came back and she took the plate with thanks, putting it on the side table, as if not hungry. I sat on the couch opposite. She looked at the floor. Oh no man, was this going to be another rehash of the argument we’d had before I’d left? “Why can’t you demand to stay on local assignments, you’ve never been able to stand up to Du Preez, blah, blah, blah.”
“It looks like the garden’s been productive despite the lack of rain,” I said, breaking the silence, but putting my cheese sandwich down, suddenly not hungry myself.
She looked up at me and smiled. “Yes, our solar well-pump has helped, although I’ve been careful not to let the well drop below three quarters.”
I smiled back, relieved to see her relax. “A bloody godsend that was, you calling in the surveyor—you’ve always had damn good intuition, Lizzie.”
She grimaced and stood up, pacing restlessly over to the
web portal. What the hell did I say? Must be the swear words—she hated me swearing, never gets used to it, keen Churchgoer and all—“bledy” was the worst of it from her, and even that had only arrived these past few years.
Her dark eyes brimmed with tears when she turned to face me. She leaned against the thin computer screen, and the floating screensaver froze and sharpened beneath the touch of her fingers. It was a picture of a little barefooted black girl in a broken yellow grimy dress, looking up at the screen, face taut with pain. And it looked like it had been snapped from the CCTV on our outside gate.
“Her name’s Thandi,” Lizette said, “She came here yesterday morning after you left—her tongue was so thick she couldn’t drink. She was dying of thirst, Graham. Dying, man, vrek, out on her little feet, true’s God. I didn’t know things were this bad! She’s just seven years old, Graham, but I had to dribble the water down her throat; her tongue was almost choking her.”
“So you gave her tap water or water from the fridge,” I said, standing up.
She shook her head: “Nee, Graham, I gave her water from our emergency supply and called the village Traditional Leader to tell him about it and to find her mom. There are others like her, just down the bledy road, man. So I told T.L. Dumisane and said we could spare them ongoing three-quarters of our well supply.”
“Ach shit man, Lizzie, you didn’t, did you? That’s ours! Why the hell didn’t you ask me first? You’ve had free access to my head for three years now. And why didn’t you return my calls or let me know you were okay at least?”
“It’s hardly free,” she snorted, “I can only hear what you choose to tell me. And what would you have done and said, Mister Graham Mason?” She stood up tall and focused, as if suddenly sure of herself.
I hesitated, but just for a moment: “I’d have given her water from the fridge and told you to keep quiet about the well. You know we have to keep this a secret for our own safety, otherwise we’ll be the target of every water bandit and tsotsi in KwaZulu-Natal!”
Sunvault: Stories of Solarpunk and Eco-Speculation Page 20