“This region has a long history of indigenous settlement,” informed Claudia. “We found dozens of underground pit houses of the Obhinoqui people. Fur trappers lived out here in the mid eighteen hundreds, and a trade rail track was built as the main transport artery in and out of the valley. This area has been drained before, but was already protected by the government before our city expanded and moved into this region.” Claudia and Lazer stood inside a long agrotent that housed numerous water tanks and containers feeding into each other, or independently isolated. The sound of flushing and pumping was all around them, and a dozen people in protective clothing attended to various tasks. She knelt down next to a large container and put her hands inside, scooping up a quantity of water that filled the bowl of her palms. “What does this mean to you?” Lazer wasn’t quite sure how to answer, and was focusing more on what he thought she wanted to hear. She was a complete mystery to him, and he longed to impress her with something deep and meaningful. “It’s the substance of life,” he heard himself say. She looked up at him and stood up slowly, so as not to spill the water. “That’s right, Lazer.” She maintained eye contact, and he bathed in it. “Water is the most receptive of the elements. This life substance is what you and I are made of. It’s the ocean that our single cell ancestors came from before moving to the land. It’s what covers seventy percent of the Earth’s surface and keeps us all alive. It’s in the air we breathe. And this life substance will be the new oil.” She blew on the water in her hands as if to indicate that it was actually water, and nothing more sinister. “I don’t mean you’ll be filling up your cars at the water station anytime soon. But that may happen. I mean that the single most valuable commodity on Earth in less than twenty years there will be water. By 2025, more than half the population of the Earth will be water vulnerable. In the developed world, water demand will exceed supply by fifty percent. Access to clean water will be controlled and restricted to those who can afford this ‘luxury’; and in our lifetime,” she used the hand gesture again to indicate the both of them, “we’ll witness devastating water wars where whole nations will perish. People can go a day without food before they panic. But a day without water is an emergency, and people will eventually kill for it. It’s our nature to survive.” “Henry mentioned the water wars yesterday. I didn’t realize the extent of it.” “He told me about it when I was a little girl. I’ve lived almost my whole life in awareness of that reality.” “How do you know it’s a reality, and not a conspiracy theory?” “The whole city is funded in part by the world’s richest and most powerful governments. You think they’d get involved in a project like this so that we can develop eco lipstick or greener grocery bags? If this information is a conspiracy theory then it’s one that came right from the top of the tree.” “Okay, so you’re saying that this is how it’s gonna go down?” “The reality of water wars is that there’ll be millions, even billions of climate refugees wandering around the Earth beyond the scope of anything aid organizations could deal with. It would be equivalent to a fourteen-year-old girl trying to babysit her entire school. Most people won’t notice the transition to water until it’s upon them because we’ve evolved to respond to emergencies, like a gunshot ringing out or a saber-tooth tiger. The water crisis is not an immediate danger we have to react to straight away, so we can afford to ignore it. It’s sort of like admiring the green grass when a cricket ball is hurtling towards your head. Just ’cause you can’t see it doesn’t mean it isn’t coming. This city is water efficient, and our technologies are available to the world. But you may be surprised to know not everyone welcomes our solutions. There’s lots of self- serving interests out there.” She stared into her hands and blew on the surface of the water again to form a series of expanding circles, then gently released her fingers over the open container and let the water filter through. This made Lazer think of the way his father would often release a fish back into the river. “But we are preparing to help provide a secure, safe global water supply, even now,” she added, “because we recognize the true value of water. We should love water because water is love. I can prove it to you.” Lazer’s mute response was more down to him having the inappropriate response than not having one at all. “At the Meditation Centre, we are running an experiment by taking samples of water and meditating on them with loving energy. These are then frozen and compared to other samples of frozen water by photographing them at different stages of freezing.” Lazer didn’t have a clue where she was going with this, but he was entranced by her mouth more than what came out of it. “The water samples with the meditative loving energy make the most beautiful and spectacular ice crystals. What I’m saying to you is that the water is energy at peace. Energy is love, or the absence of love. That’s it. No great secret. It helps us to navigate through life by labelling things good and bad, winning and losing, black and white—in response to our subjective experiences of them; when in fact, sometimes we lose and really win, or win and really lose.” This was starting to make some sort of sense to Lazer, and he simply said, “That’s cool,” so that she would continue. “Now, here’s the fascinating part. Our bodies are ninety percent water. The water that was in my hands, which are water, was only separated from its source by my hands. Can you see where that water is now? Can you pick it out?” She pointed into the container. “Do you understand what I’m saying, Lazer?” “I get it,” he said, and he really did. “There is no separateness, and the fact that we think we are separate from each other, and from nature, is the problem. You are never going to die, and you were never born. It’s an illusion of our own devising. And just like water, we have to keep moving or else become stagnant.” “Still rivers run deep!” said Lazer smugly. He lifted it straight from a song he’d heard the day before. “Only on the surface. The undercurrents are strong.” “How is it that you can relate everything to water and have it make sense?” he asked. “Because it is sense. Right now we’re pursuing research into the positive effects of water at peace. Resident Zen Buddhist monks at our Meditation Centre have been performing regular blessings on water samples, which then undergo testing. Because water is ubiquitous and connected to everything, can you imagine what it would mean to bring water to peace and tranquility?” She smiled knowingly. “But that’s not the full extent of our research.” To have such a beautiful girl speak with such illumination was a completely unique experience for Lazer. That one decision to take the veritable fork in the road led him to this moment, with this girl, in this place. “We have less than two decades before a water crisis unfolds. The governments that fund our programs, they know all too well about this. But what if we could affect the outcome of things that have already happened?” Excerpt from the novel, Utopian Frontiers by Drew Tapley |
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