W3: A Day Without Water

If my town had no access to clean water for a day, my life would be awful. Homes, streets, and public spaces would quickly become dirty and neglected. If this situation continues, my town will turn into something I don’t want to think about.

When I wake up from the bed, I go to the bathroom as usual. I turn on the faucet, but no water comes out. At first, I thought it’s just a temporary issue, but then I realized it’s worse. There are no alerts from the school or warnings from the city. The dryness in my throat is getting stronger and stronger. I lick my lips and realize even brushing my teeth is becoming a challenge. The panic at home started from the bathroom. Toothpaste gathered on the toothbrush, but there was no water to rinse my mouth. I end up using the remaining half cup of mineral water to manage.

The situation in the hospital is even more concerning. Staff members start wiping instruments with disinfectant. They have diluted the saline originally used to clean wounds. Even the towels for the patients are wrung out. Classrooms at the school lack their usual energy. The teacher canceled the experimental classes that required water, and the students held the kettles tightly. After the bell rang, no one rushed to the water dispenser. The stalls in the market slowly emptied. The stall owners were worried about the wilted vegetables. The cucumbers that should have been juicy became wrinkled, and the edges of the green leafy vegetables had turned yellow. I stood by the window and looked at the sky after the rain stopped. The sunset turned the clouds orange. At this time of day, the kitchens of every household should be filled with the fragrance of food, but today there was only a bit of smoke. 

The voice-controlled lights in the corridor turned on and off, and the sound of turning on and off the faucets could be heard on every floor. The doors of the houses that were usually closed were now open, and someone put the water used to wash vegetables in a bucket and placed it at the door for everyone to use. Even the steam from the breakfast shop has vanished. They realized today that they couldn't do business without water. The old people who went to the park for a walk gathered in the pavilion, swinging their empty bird cages. The floor tiles at the feet were cracked, and the automatic sprinkler has long since stopped. The lawn was yellow as if it was covered with dead grass. The garbage transfer station piles up like a small hill. The water tank of the garbage truck is empty, and even the hydraulic system that compresses the trash won’t operate. Several stray dogs sniffed around the garbage, hungry and thirsty.

Those things that we take for granted, like the water that flows when we wash our hands, the buttons that we press to flush the toilet, the waste water that runs off when cleaning vegetables, and even just a cup of warm water that we drink when we wake up in the morning, are all gentle gifts given by life. Water never exists in isolation. It is hidden in every pipe in the city, in every hot meal, in the half cup of water shared between neighbours, and even in the daily wrinkles that we never care about. This short water outage has made us see a simple yet profound truth, to value every drop of water is to value the life we often overlook.