Approaching Day Zero by Tara Manshon

She remembered the rain, how it used to beat down on their windows, a gentle drumming easing her to sleep. When last did they have rain? Now it seemed imagined, as if she’d dreamed it up in a fit of madness. The heat made everyone mad. Her son had gone out and bought barrels of water for when the municipality ran out. After that, they were on their own. The heavy barrels lined her passage like an honour guard saluting her accomplishments. She bumped into them at night on her way to the bathroom. 

She looked at her garden, burning up in the sun. She’d prided herself in that garden. All the hours spent sweating out there, planting strelitzias and geraniums and arum lilies. They endured the first few months of drought, sustained by the grey water she gathered from the washing and divided into buckets: one for the grass, one for the fig trees and one for the flowers. When the allowance was cut to fifty litres a day, the grey water had to be saved for bathing the kids and more washing. It made her sad. After all her hard work to buy and maintain this house, it was like transporting back to her childhood days when she had to walk five kilometres to a well. She recalled the rusty pump and how it had blistered her hands. Although long gone, she rubbed at the memory.

It was like being poor again. She tried to make a game out of it when her grandkids went back to sharing a bath. 

“Isn’t this fun?” she said, splashing them a little. “More time to play together.”

“It’s lots of fun, ’Ma…” they both said. 

She knew they were lying and they knew that she knew, but they smiled and splashed in the dirty water half-heartedly, their hands growing old.

The water evaporated from their pool and each day she watched the level drop, her own measure of the drought. She worried about the azure tiles. They would fade in direct sunlight, but it cost a thousand Rand to refill the pool and what was the point when the sun would steal that money the next day? Gone were the days of lazing in the water and running through the sprinklers. Now when the children were hot – and they were always hot – they lay in the empty tub, their backs sticking against the cool ceramic. They opened the freezer and stood on tiptoe, leaning over it, breathing frozen meat and soup bones. 

She scolded them. “The stuff can melt, close the door.” 

They slipped away, sweating; they were the ones melting.  

She took them to the beach and sat under an umbrella, watching them run in and out of the water. It was hard to believe that it had rained so much during the winter. The sea came up all the way into the street. Cars washed away. She pulled her hat down and thought of her daughter in America who worked in tourism, about the questions her clients had asked about visiting. In America, water was free. They refilled your glass without you asking. You were full before your meal even came. That’s why they weren’t interested in the drought. It wasn’t their drought.

Afterwards, when the children were done playing and were white with salt and sand, she marched them over to the showers. A sign was pasted on the glittering wall. Please be courteous with the water. She turned the tap and waited. It sputtered and shook, but nothing came out. They drove home, the children scratching sand from their ears.

Originally from Cape Town, South Africa, Tara Manshon has lived in the United States for nineteen years and still looks the wrong way when crossing the street. When she’s not working or writing, she’s thinking about fries. Her work has appeared in 805 Lit+Art, Lighthouse Weekly and Monkeybicycle.

25 April 2025