Parched Apr 2026

I took the last good glass from the cupboard. Not plastic, not a mug. A real glass, thin and clear. I held it under the tap and waited ten minutes for a single inch of murky water to collect at the bottom. I lifted it to my lips. I did not drink.

The world had become a held breath. The sky wasn’t blue; it was bleached, the color of old bone. Lawns had surrendered, retreating into a brittle, yellow stubble that crunched underfoot like insect shells. The creek at the edge of town, once a gossipy, garrulous thing, had fallen silent. Now it was just a scar of mud, studded with the white, pleading faces of smooth stones.

And in that silence, between one heartbeat and the next, I heard it: the faintest, most impossible sound. A single drop of water, falling somewhere far underground. A promise. A lie. Either way, it was the first thing in months that felt wet. Parched

The crack started at the heel. A tiny, silvered fissure, like a dry riverbed seen from a plane. I ignored it. You ignore the small warnings when you’re busy living.

That’s when I understood. The drought wasn’t outside. The drought was the house, the town, the season. But the parched —the real, bone-deep parched—was me. It was the sound of a future that had forgotten how to rain. I took the last good glass from the cupboard

It was three in the afternoon. The air was a solid thing, a weight leaning against the glass of the kitchen window. I had my palm flat on the counter, and I watched the ghost of my own hand lift off—the heat rising in shimmering waves. The dog lay on the tile floor, his ribs rising and falling in a slow, dreamless sleep. Even the flies had given up. They clung to the ceiling, drunk on their own desiccation.

I just listened.

I remember the precise moment thirst stopped being a sensation and became a presence.