Last Drop

Olive rolled over and immediately felt the muscle ache in her lower back. Since things got scarce, she’d only had a few weeks of sleeping pain-free, and at this far in, the novelty had certainly worn off. Quietly groaning as she slowly moved to prop herself up on her forearm, she checked her watch. 2 days, 18 hours and 43 minutes. That’s how long it had been since her last full glass of water. It had to be her worst streak yet.

She sat up fully in bed and assessed the damage for today. Her dull, thudding headache persisted, and she noticed that her muscles felt a lot weaker than normal as she slowly twisted her shoulders and spine from side to side.

Today was a big day. It marked three years since the government had announced that they had officially lost access to clean drinking water. Olive remembered hearing the news on the TV clearly - at just 11-years-old she hadn’t understood the direct impacts at the time, but from the way her mum and dad had reacted, she knew it was cause for great concern.

“As we all know, this is a drought like we’ve never seen before,” the Prime Minister had begun. “You’ve been so patient throughout this process, and we appreciate the service of our hard-working sanitation staff and dedicated scientists working day and night to find a solution to this water crisis. That being said, I have difficult news to share today.”

Olive’s mum had abruptly stood up from the chair where she’d been watching the news. She was fixated on the TV, staring directly at the Prime Minister with sharp focus as if there was no one else around. Olive’s dad had stayed seated, expressionless, listening carefully for the next few words.

“As of 9 pm last night, we no longer have an available water source in Australia.” There was an audible gasp heard through the TV from the audience of reporters seated in front of the lectern. “After exhausting all options, we must now enter an official state of emergency.”

Olive’s mum had swiftly turned around, grabbed her keys and walked out the front door. Olive’s younger brother, Noah, had followed quickly behind her but was stopped at the car door.

“Stay here!” Olive’s mum had yelled firmly.

Noah, who typically complained about every ruling their parents made, widened his eyes and jerked back slightly in shock. He’d never seen his mum so serious about anything in his life.

As her mum reversed quickly out of the driveway, Olive had turned back to look at her father. He’d moved ever so slightly to cover his mouth with both of his hands. He hadn’t said a word - he was sat still in shock.

“Where did mum go?” 8-year-old Noah had asked Olive. She didn’t answer.

“We wish to strongly deter panic buying.” the Prime Minister continued. “There is simply no need to clean out the shelves when we still have a steady supply of produce and stock arriving for the time being. And we won’t tolerate any looting or other crimes being committed in desperation. That is not who we are. We need to remain calm.”

“Olive! Where did Mum go?” Noah’s voice was more panicked this time.

Olive turned to him and answered. “To the grocery store, I guess.”

“But he said not to panic buy.” Noah said this as a statement, but Olive knew it was a question. Noah had no idea about what panic buying really meant.

“Yeah, he says a lot of things” she’d answered. “Politicians always lie.”

Olive’s family had been living with the restrictions in place for over five years now. It had started slowly, with caps on shower usage times and laws around washing your car. But the restrictions had escalated much more quickly than any other drought restrictions had before, and all of sudden every household had an advanced water filtration system and composting toilet.

They’d always been a comfortable, middle-class family. Both Olive and Noah went to good schools, their parents worked good jobs and they even owned two cars. They had always had a great support system, but as soon as things started to get serious, people became ruthless. Only the very wealthiest people had access to the freshest, cleanest water. It quickly became apparent that there was nothing a person wouldn’t do for water.

On that day three years ago, Olive’s mum had eventually returned with a single bag of groceries. Inside, the only things she’d managed to get were a bag of potatoes, some broccoli and dried chickpeas. She laughed quietly to herself when she unpacked the chickpeas, as she realised that she couldn’t waste the water of rehydrating legumes.

Now, there wasn’t even a grocery store to go to. Without water, fresh food had become more and more scarce, and eventually, people had cleared the shelves of canned goods too. Soon people began to realise how important water was to everything, and it was when the car coolants stopped working that people started to loot the supermarkets. Now, people wandered the streets, usually armed with a homemade weapon, looking for anything they could get their hands on.

Olive’s mum had been doing just that when she came home one day with a gift for Olive.

“What are the chances," she said, “it must be a gift from above.”

Olive’s mum had found the necklace right outside the house while out searching for food and water. After closer inspection, she found it was a heart-shaped locket with an ’N’ engraved in a curved, handwritten script. It wouldn’t open because of the clasp being rusted through, but it was more than a valued good - it was a sign. It was an unusual occurrence to find anything with any value left on the street, let alone something with so much meaning to them both. They both begun to cry.

“Shhh, shhh, it’s okay,” Olive’s mum had said, “don’t go wasting water through your tears.”

Noah had not gone a few months after the government announcement before he became quite sick. He’d always been a scrawny, little kid, and it didn’t take long for him to feel the full effects of being dehydrated and malnourished. The hospitals had become completely overrun, and medication was being looted from pharmacies. Olive and her mum had done everything they could to keep him comfortable, but in the end, there was nothing they could do to save him.

Something changed in Olive from that day. She had gone from being a child to an adult overnight. She and her mum had become a team, but they talked as co-workers more than mother and daughter. Olive’s dad never stopped feeling numb, and only got out of bed to walk to the couch in a dazed state. His lack of exertion may have helped him, as he’d kept surprisingly healthy throughout the crisis, unlike Olive and her mother who were wasting away.

Olive groaned again and slowly got out of bed. She walked to the living room to see her dad already sitting on the couch. Her mum had been in bed for most of the past week because she was too weak to move around the house too much.

“Morning”, she muttered. “I’m going out to the backyard for a bit.”

He lifted his head and nodded once.

How could he not show any more emotion? How could he just sit in the same spot every day through all of this, and never offer any help? She considered this as she wandered towards the backyard to see if the unusually cold night had created any condensation on the buckets they kept outside.

After checking and finding nothing new, Olive sat on the cold concrete steps that led down from the back door of their house. She hunched over to stay warm, fiddling with her locket and looked up at the sky.

“Hope you’re having fun, Noah,” she said. She somehow missed him more and more every day. “I really miss not having someone to snitch on me to mum.”

With that, she felt the rusted clasp of her locket pop open. Looking down, she opened it wider and saw a tiny note scribbled inside.

“DON’T TRUST DAD.”

Olive frowned, confused. Who kept a message like that inside a locket? Or why would that be the first place you’d leave a note if you wanted to get a message to someone? What a weird find, she thought.

She got up to go inside and wake her mum. She was going to find this just as puzzling.

As she entered the house through the back door, she saw her dad, still seated in his usual seat on the couch, reach between the armrest and cushion and pull something out.

In his hand, an unopened, brand new, crystal clear bottle of water.