DROUGHT

I opened the door and got surprised when I saw Knight with his other girl in our bed. They were kissing each other, and they didn’t notice me watching them. I wanted to scream, but I stopped because Lucy was sleeping next door. I wanted to hurt him, but I didn’t. I just sighed, and he looked at me. He was surprised to see me watching them silently. My tears rolled down my cheek while looking into his eyes. I immediately closed the door when he caught me watching them. He hurriedly went to me when I went inside Lucy’s room.

“Don’t touch me”, I said.

“I am sorry” Is the only word that he said. I was crying, and my heart was broken. I saw his other woman run outside the room. I wanted to follow her, but again, I stopped myself. I became suddenly weak at what I saw. I feel like I am a statue. I don’t want to move, and I don’t want to talk while my tears continue falling. I couldn’t breathe, and I wanted to die.

“I am sorry,” He said again, and he tried to hug me, but I avoided him. His sorry would not ease the pain that I am feeling right now. He didn’t know how painful it was. He didn’t know how I wanted to die right now.

“Don’t touch me”, I cried. He tried to hug me again, but I didn’t let him. I feel so disgusted with him and, simultaneously, pity for myself. In an instant, I feel insecure as a woman and a human.

I don’t want him to come near me even if he wants to. He says sorry even though I don’t want to hear it. I want to be silent because my mind suddenly feels occupied when he crushes my heart. He is a cheater and a pig, and now he wants to hug me. How could he want to hug me after kissing another woman inside our house? I have just gone to the grocery for our dinner to cook him food that he wanted, and he will cheat on me with our daughter sleeping next door. He is an animal! A pig! a heartless demon.

“It is not what you are thinking”, A sentence that made me look at him without a word. I asked him through my stare. What do you think it is? Because I didn’t dare to talk and ask him why he did that because what I saw was enough. I don’t want to hear his reasons and excuses.

“I didn’t mean to do it,” He said, and I looked at him again without a word. How could he not mean it? He invited the bitch. Or maybe he did not mean to be caught? I saw his bitch run half-naked outside our house. I looked at her with a question how long is he fooling me? Why does he have the courage to invite that bitch to our house?

“Don’t touch me”, I said, but he didn’t listen.

“Don’t touch me”, I said again.

“DON’T TOUCH ME!” And then I scream in pain even though I know it is not enough. It will not subtract from the pain I feel no matter how loud I scream.

“DON’T TOUCH ME!” And I said it repeatedly until I woke seeing Lucy looking at me, and she was crying.

“Mom, are you okay?” Lucy asked me while looking at me; her cute face was right before me, making me smile.

“You keep saying don’t touch me when I tried to hold your hand. I guess you had a bad dream,” She said, holding my hand while still looking at me. I smiled at her and kissed her.

“Yes, baby, Mama is okay,” I said almost in a whisper, then hugged her. I looked at Ellie, and I didn’t wake her up. Thanks to my daughters, who keep me strong even though I am already crushed inside because of their father.

“I want winky-winky, mom, “Lucy said, and I carried her and put her on my lap.

She leaned on me and hugged me, and then closed her eyes. Winky-winky is her term for carrying inside the car if she wants to sleep. I don’t know where she got that word, but it is cute for me. Knight moved close to me, holding Lucy’s hand and looking at me. I pretended that I didn’t see him looking at me. I don’t want to build a bridge again with him. I don’t want to get hurt again because the pain he caused from the day I caught him is still fresh. I don’t know if I can still forgive him because I don’t trust him anymore, not just him but the people around me also. When I caught him cheating, I became scared to be friends with people. They are untrustworthy, or I have trust issues because of Knight. I don’t know, but I know that anytime soon. I will explode, have the courage to leave him, and bring the girls with me.

After an hour and a half of driving, we reached my uncle’s house, and we hadn’t gone down the car when we heard a commotion from the people outside his water station.

“What is going on?” My mother asked, and we hurriedly got out of the car and checked what was happening.

The people are waiting outside my uncle’s water station with their containers. They are waiting for my uncle to give them water. Some will pay, while most are asking for water for free. What happened in Buntod spread like a wild wife, terrorising people and making them panic for water.

“I don’t have enough water for everybody. I understand that you all need water, but I don’t have enough water!” He shouted, but they were not listening. They are twelve men and four women. They have their container ready to pay my uncle for water because they need water. I know they are scared of what is happening, but no matter my uncle wants to give them water, he cannot provide water for all of them.

“I am sorry,” My uncle said when he tried to close the gate—the man with a black dragon tattoo on his right arm. Stop him from closing the gate.

“Hey! what is going on?” Jasper said when he saw the man’s action. They looked at us when we went inside the house.

“We want water. We don’t know how long this phenomenon will last, I have kids, and we need water,” The man said, but my uncle shook his head because they didn’t believe that his water station had run out of water.

“I already gave water since morning. I am sorry, but I don’t have water left,” My uncle said, hoping they would understand.

Jasper looked at him and said, “As much as we want to give you water, the water is no longer enough,” on my uncle’s behalf.

“And who are you?” The other man asked him arrogantly.

“I am his nephew”, My brother answered nicely. He is keeping his calm.

“Get out of my way! We don’t need you! we need water!” The man shouted, pushing my brother to get inside our gate to get water. My brother instantly loses his calm, pushing the man back, and creating a commotion between him and the man. The others join too.

“We want water!” The woman shouted, throwing her money in my uncle’s face. My sister picked up the money and threw it back to her face.

“You are rude! The water is sold,” She said and angrily looked at the woman who threw money, which added to the commotion.

“Wara nan tubig... wara na”, My uncle said in their dialect. It means there’s no water.

My brother and the arrogant man start to fight, and the others jump in. Ice and Knight join. Until Eve and the woman fight as well. My mom and dad tried to stop the fight, and my uncle was shocked because of the water; people were angry and dying to get one. Lucy is already crying. I told Ellie to get inside the house with Lucy, which she did. I don’t want them to see any fight or violence. Half of me wants to join the fight, but something stops me because the other half of me wants to stop the fight. I end up watching them while telling myself that it is alright. Humans are animals too. They need to act one sometimes. Until we heard a gunshot, and they all froze and looked back. It is the police. Thank God the police came from nowhere.

“What is the commotion about?” The police asked and put his gun back in its holster.

“We want water, but they are not giving us”, The man answered. Still arrogant.

“I don’t have water. Since a while ago, people have been buying water from me after hearing the news about the drying,” My uncle said, and the police looked at him and looked at the man and said, “Get out of here. If there is no water. There is no water. That’s it” The man looked at him silently, looked at my uncle, and left. Same with the others and when they are gone. My uncle thanked the police and invited him to get inside. The policeman named Miller has been my uncle’s best friend since college. He closed the gate and hung the “WE’RE CLOSE” in his water station to notify the people that he was not selling water anymore. We all got inside the house.

“What can I do for you?” My uncle asked Miller. Miller smiled and answered, “Nothing,” and then he looked at my uncle and us.

“The drought”, He started, making my heart skip fast because I knew it was not good news.

“The drought will take long. That is what the experts suspected. Nobody knows how it happened. That is why the government will control the water because the dams are already dried,” He said, taking a deep breath and continuing.

“You better close your business now and save your water.” He said, and he secretly looked at me.

“Because the chaos of water will start”, He added and looked back to my uncle.

“What do you mean, a chaos of water?” I interrupted because I didn’t like what I heard from him.

“How long can we last without water? Two? Four? Eight? and what can we do to survive?” He asked and looked at me. I didn’t answer because I knew he would answer his questions.

“Steal. We will steal from them to survive. We have kids and elderly, and they will steal from us to survive because they have kids and elderly too,” He answered.

“Humans will last up to eight days without water and food,” he answers again. I am right in guessing that he will answer his questions.

“But we have food”, Ice said. He looked at Ice and said, “Well, let’s make it ten with food.”

He is right. We are still determining when this one will end. That is why we need to be ready for the possible scenario. Humans can not survive with just juices and soft drinks. We need water because it is the most important, and without water. The electricity may run out too. Good thing that we have solar panels. Solar panels surround my uncle’s house, and we get our electricity from solar panels, but how about others? I sighed, and I looked at Miller. A handsome policeman is the same age as my uncle but still fit, looking young. He noticed me looking at him. He smiles at me secretly, making him more handsome and hot. He looked at all of us and said,

“I guess that is all for today” He stood up and shook hands with my uncle while looking at me, making me blush and uneasy. I felt shy because I know I don’t look good. I don’t have make-up on.

“Take care, everybody,” He said.

“Close your business now and save your waters,” He told my uncle, and my uncle agreed.

“Thank you for letting me know,” My uncle said and accompanied him to the gate while I watched him at the front door.

He left, and my uncle hung the “CLOSED” sign at the gate aside from the one he put in his water station and locked the gate. Then he went inside the house. They all looked at each other silently because they were shocked by what they heard. They suddenly don’t know how to end the silence. Maybe they are thinking about what Miller told us. Does anyone know when our water supply will last? No one knows, But we all know that we need to conserve or hide our water supply from the government while hoping this weird happening will end today.

The government will take our water to maximize its use of it. We will wait for them to supply us. How ridiculous! It is our water, and yet we are the one who needs to wait to have water. That is the solution they decided to do since they couldn’t figure out what happened.

I watched him turn on his mobile patrol. He looked at me for the last time and left. His sharp stare is like undressing me; it makes me uneasy. I like it, but there’s something in him that I don’t want to give my trust. He is like Knight to me. He is a cheater and a liar, and it is easy for me to judge him even though I don’t know him yet. That is the effect of my husband’s infidelity, but I thank him for warning us about the drought. I must think about something I must prepare for if the drought takes long. We have children; Owen and Lucy need water as much as we need it. I saw the circle thing still there that made the sky darker. It feels like it would rain, but it is not because it covers the sun. It is bigger than the earth too, and why is it there? Nobody knows. What is that thing? Nobody knows either.

“What is that?” I asked myself, wondering while looking at the circle that seemed endless.

“Today is the start of the judgement, Lein. Prepare yourself.”

“Today is the start of the judgement, Lein; prepare yourself.”

“Today is the start of the judgement, Lein, prepare yourself” The voice inside my head is talking again while I look at the circle in the sky.

“Don’t trust anyone; they will just hurt you”, She said repeatedly.