It’s hot. It’s really, really hot. And dry. So dry that your skin cracks and bleeds and your hair falls out in clumps. You’re always thirsty, but there’s never any water to drink. Just sand – endless, merciless sand.
That’s what it’s like to live in a desert.
It’s like being in a furnace. Your throat is so dry that it feels like it’s on fire, and your tongue is swollen and sticky. You can’t think about anything else but water – cool, refreshing water. But no matter how much you drink, you can never quench your thirst. You’re desperate, and you’ll do anything to get your hands on some water. My son has never had a glass of water and he’s about ready to take The Test.
The man in the picture is me. I am a business man from San Diego. We are now in our 4th year without rain. The government is injecting the atmosphere with silver iodide, dry ice, or potassium iodide. The clouds do cry, only none of it reaches the land.
Here I am trying to figure out.
You see I have been reassigned. My special talent is problem solving. Only this problem has baffled scientists for years. No matter what intervention they use the sky’s do not follow. Sometimes is seems as if the heavens do they exact opposite of what the scientist predict.
But this has been going on a while now and bay doesn’t want to relocate again. So they send me in.
The first thing I did was go out and talk to the people. You can learn a lot from the locals. They know the land, the animals, the plants. They know when things are different.
“What do you think is causing this?” I asked them.
“God is angry,” they said. “He has cursed us.”
“Do you think there is anything we can do to make God happy again?” I asked.
They looked at me like I was crazy. “Of course not,” they said. “There is nothing we can do.”
Well, I’m not so sure about that.
I think there is something we can do. I think we can figure out what is causing this and stop it. And that’s what I’m going to do.
I’m going to find out what is causing the rain to stay away and make it come back. Because if there’s one thing I know, it’s that when people come together, they can do anything.
The desert is a difficult place to live, but the people who call it home are resilient and resourceful. They have learned how to survive in the harshest conditions, and they are never afraid to face a challenge. Despite the challenges they face, these people are some of the happiest I have ever met.
In fact if I every solve this problem I am going to retire, finally. Maybe I’ll take the old typewriter with me and meet all sorts of people.
The Breakthrough
