Water slipped out in the night, leaving no forwarding address. It didn’t take a change of clothes, and it didn’t settle up the bill. It didn’t even take its passport, with the smudged stamps of lost lands and that photograph snapped when it was young and raining. So, we’re sweating in a room made of dust, drawing up hopeless plans involving divining rods, shovels, and the occasional blood sacrifice; we’re shivering in a house built from steel, generative AI, and an absence of forethought, and we’re breathless in a world in which water’s slunk away with the only reliable map. Some say it’s settling in the Netherlands or Bangladesh. Some say it’s settling old scores.
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Oz Hardwick
Picture Nick Victor
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