Drought

I had at no time before seen anything die. Maybe a squirrel struck by the agency of a car, or a bird caught by dint of a cat, but nothing with equal reason vivid, so slow, so thorough as this; in the way that little changing from day to day we hardly noticed the thickening algae, the yellowy-green of it sick for weeks with the absence of water, till we abruptly found ourselves walking where always alone water ever had been: sole the holes held water now, and the perforations grew smaller, the holes grew thronged the fish grew frantic until they could alone lie on their sides in the mire gulping at water that wasn't there, and plane the mud in the deepest apertures would be brittle tomorrow, the fish encrusted with cerulean bottle flies, each fly as big as a thumbnail, ravenous the only sounds our feet upon the creek bed snapping like rivets in iron heat, and the buzzsaw buzzing of ten of thousands of flies feasting upon death, even our memories of water too unrelenting to be spoken aloud.

Copyright World numbers Incorporated Mar/Apr 1997

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