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cloudy waters cast no reflection
images of beauty lie there stagnant
vibrations bounce in no direction
and lie there scattered into fragments
* * *
Dip and dredge. Dip and dredge.
The pool isn't quite deep enough to swim in, barely deep enough to drown…
A person can drown in two icek'samlan of liquid. It could look like an accident—
And ruin the pool? Come now.
Dip and dredge. Dip and dredge.
Water is scarce. It's always been scarce. But now the people of Kardasia are truly beginning to understand what it means to be thirsty.
The salty sea is too thick, too polluted with the bodies of the dead, Kardasi and otherwise, to be cleaned with anything less than a full-sized reclamation plant. The Federation has promised one, in their infinite kindness, to replace the plants that once dotted the shore. Perhaps more than one, in time, as negotiations proceed.
For now, the Science Ministry has mass-replicated individual-use pocket filters. Each is a little cone, lined with netting and force-fields that can't be seen and chemicals of uncertain provenance. The Ministry guarantees that each one, if kept in good repair, can filter one person's supply of water for an entire year. And there is water. Scattered here and there, tucked into dips of ground and the corners where buildings have fallen together, thick, silty water drips in slow streams. One can wait with a filter and a container, counting the drips. It passes the time.
Of course, time is always short, and many are too sick, too hurt, too close to death to filter their own water, and a good source is hard to find…and so if one can find the water, others can find the food, and perhaps together all can survive…
Dip and dredge. Dip and dredge.
The line is long. It arcs away through the buildings. He can't quite see its end.
This pool is an excellent source, and as he squats next to it, he assesses its virtues. It's deeper than its fellows, and here in a pothole in a central street, it's easy to reach. Uncontaminated with body parts or seeping industrial fluid, it's discoloured only by dust and slow-flowing mud. It's shaded by cracked plascrete. It's almost cold. With each dip his fingers are chilled; they warm within moments as he lifts the filter, holds it high for the next person, the next, the next…
Dip and dredge. Dip and dredge.
There's little reward in watching the people. They're an endless stream of red-dust figures, shuffling slowly forward a step at a time, as if the entire statuary of the Kardasi'or Museum of All Our Times has decided to take a long-delayed drink. Instead, he watches the water, watches it ripple and break apart as he dips and dredges, dips and dredges, muscles and tendons across arm and back long past the point of pain.
It can't be said to cast any kind of reflection, not really. It's too thick and dirty for that. He can almost see himself in it, but not quite; nothing more than a soft outline, a shadow of dark hair (longer now, unkempt), the shape of his jaw (becoming gaunt? not yet). His eyes are shadows.
Once upon a time, this pool in the centre of Uq Hexagon would have been surrounded by architecture the likes of which were unequalled anywhere in the Union. Even Prime herself would be hard-pressed to boast stronger lines, more beautiful shapes anywhere in her myriad dotted cities. This pool would have reflected back the curved bow of the Financial Tower, wherein thin-faced women and harried men juggled numbers in their minds, valued the worth of things, how much this woman's labour could buy, how much this man's life could be exchanged for…
What is the value of one pUndt of water? What is the worth of a filter full of silt?
The vendors, then. Calling out as they wandered: flowers! Clothing! Treats from Hannarad, from Venarhond; come and buy, see what I have for you, and the sounds of them, the wheeled carts rattle-rolling as he sat on the stoop of the little tea-shop nestled into the side street and ate his lunch and closed his eyes and smiled—
No tea. Not enough water. No leaves.
Dip and dredge.
The feeds would have been broadcasting, of course. Full-strength and shouting messages of glory, strength, watchfulness, defense of borders, of self, of Who We Are. This little pool would have gleamed brightly with the reflected brilliance of the fervour of a Union that knew its strength, that understood the importance of a straight, clearly marked path to follow…
A path that has led us here.
He looks up at them for a moment, standing in line, eyes peering at him from dust-stained faces.
The woman in front of him smiles tentatively, her second tongue hinting at placation. What does she see in his face?
She extends her bowl.
He looks back to his pool, strikes the water with the filter, watches as its imagined reflections shatter into fragments, as it splashes up and out and then drips back down, inexorably down to mix again with silt and sand.
Now he lifts it up, purifies it, offers it to the woman who takes it, her eyelids flickering thanks, her short bow appreciation.
Next and next and next, dip and dredge, and how foolish of him to think of what this pool would have reflected. It was never here before the bombardments, after all. It was born of Dominion ordnance, midwived by changed weather patterns, and now he guards it, doles it out to those in need.
Kardasia never needed this pool before. Never wanted it. Silt and dirt and dust on the tongue…
Nor did she want me.
Well, now she has us both. Much good may we do her.
Dip and dredge. Dip and dredge.