Tainted Wanderers

• Matthew Hooper, Grade 12
• Short Story
• 2017

The wanderer put his hand to his face and flicked off the moisture, but his skin still glimmered as shiny as a glazed ham against this desert sunlight. His companion, equally as exhausted and sweaty, slowly caught up with him.
For a moment they stood motionless, their gaze cast towards the far horizon they had been following for endless days. With deep-seated anger, they pushed on.
Every hill they climbed was followed by the same brutal picture of more endless hills. Then, just as they reached the top of what seemed to be the largest sandy hill yet, they both screamed in excitement.
They ensured themselves that dehydration and hunger had not eaten away their eyes. Their vision held no lie, however, and they realized that they had found water.
Although murky and smelled of some strange odor, the man jumped straight in, engulfing his entire head into the water.
"Go easy, you might get sick." The woman shouted, hoping that, even submerged in water, he could hear her. He just ignored her and continued taking in immense gulps. She joined in, just as dehydrated as him and desperate to not miss out.
They were drinking at a formidable pace. The lake became smaller and smaller, but there was still plenty to hydrate a horse. Just then there was a noise: a man running in the distance, crying out "wait! Wait!"
"Look, over there," the woman said, pulling the man's head out from the water.
He sat there for a moment, water dripping off his hair and down his face. He licked his crackled lips and, without hesitation, went back to drinking. The woman creased her eyebrow.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"Keep drinking," he replied furiously, not bothering to look at her.
The woman cast her gaze to and fro both men, but took only a few seconds to join her companion in finishing what remained of the pond.
The strange man finally reached them, just as the last puddle was slurped and only wet sand remained. He looked at them both, and they looked at him. It was a standoff for a few seconds, then the stranger took off his bag off and started feeling around for something. The wanderers sat there frightened, a moment away from taking action, when they saw that the stranger was simply looking for a small mechanism.
"That water is, well was, tainted. I wanted to purify it for you. But now it's too late, and you have had too much. It runs in your systems now and I can't tell what's going to happen."
The wanderers looked at each other, open eyes and mouths. The stranger shook his head dismally and walked off. They did not bother asking him what his purpose was, who he was or where he came from. They knew it was too late for them to be rescued. When the shadows of night fell upon them for the last time, they fell asleep into the gentle night.