Thinking of LA, of course.

Today’s word:

Drought

Well, I wouldn’t be too surprised if this word wasn’t a common one on the lips of people from the Western US or certain other parts of the world this year, but it is an unfortunate one to hear.
When mentioning drought, there is always a certain undertone of sorrow, fear, or loss. Is there anything more important than water? Even the long forgotten Pueblo people know the importance of water. Mayans poisoned the water of their enemies, tossing defeated and disgraced nobles into town wells. All societies have developed methods to obtain water, and when they didn’t, they died. So deep inside we all know what it means when there is no water, when there is drought.
The drought is one of the most comprehensive weapons of death. Civilizations can be laid low, crops turn to dust, and lives are swept away amidst drought. In the center, it all looks like hell. No sign of friends, no sign of animals, just rocks and sand as far as the eye can see. Here the blue sky offers no solace, for it only allows the burning sun to cast its gaze on the land below. Shadows are thin and temporary here, and off in the distance, weeks if not months away (provided one could live so long), snow capped mountains mock with their haughty promise of ice’s cool kiss. This land is pain. Every animal that somehow survives this tortuous land looks like some monstrous demon, covered in horns and plates. The trees look like tall warriors of hell whose curse and demand is that they not be touched. The rocks themselves hold the marks of water from long ago, but now they seem almost regretful, as their moist past is long gone. Welcome to the desert, where drought is description and not a temporary state. Those that survive are those that conserve, and their very structure reflects this. The heat is damnable, but at night a new terror rises. The darkness itself can literally turn water to ice, were there water to do so, and it drains the heat from all the land, until the sun rises to scorch it in the morning. The atmosphere is dry, and day and night your bodily fluids imperceptibly are stolen away by the air itself. This is a land that takes, and only the hardiest survive; it is a land defined by drought, a land without water, and a land entirely different from what many of us seek as our own.