This Water Lives in Muña

Father Time watched the death of Mother Earth and in his sorrow became a drunkard that knew not whether to regress or progress, so in his confusion he mashed it all together and went to sleep.

It was an amalgamation of past and future. People atop hover bikes, using bows and arrows to hunt the mutated animals that still lived. Smartphone flashlights lighting up cave shelters. Skyscrapers, many miles tall now lying on the ground, covered in vines and pigeon droppings. Everywhere the skeletal remains of sentient droids.

Throughout it all was the smoke and dust and barren desert. As Gaia lay in her death throes, a final bomb was dropped that rumbled the entire world.

The rumbling woke a being that had been sleeping since the dawn of man. It was heartless, soulless, mindless. Yet when its mother called, it answered from deep within its temple.

It was not a robot nor a droid. It was a golem, an ancient construct built by beings long since dead. It was made of oxidised copper, of slate, of mud and bone and little fragments of gold. Life had been breathed into it by forces now dying.

It was short and wide and humanoid. It walked like a rock, one heavy step at a time with a rumbling cadence. An enormous boulder rolled aside as the golem approached. Dust and sand tumbled down from above and for a moment the golem was blinded by the harsh light of sun unfiltered by an ozone layer.

For the first time in three thousand years it breathed air.

And it coughed. A clunky, grinding kind of cough.

It sneezed and waited expectantly for the world to say “bless you” but no words came.

It looked left and right trying to find its brethren. The trees, the creeks, the shrubs and bushes. The spirits, the dryads, the satyrs and the chaneques.

All was quiet.

To the south were the remains of a factory with chimneys like the needles of a porcupine. Once those chimneys had coughed smoke so thick it had fallen down to rest on the ground. Now it was empty, covered in ash. To the north was a dry reservoir, a crater, the hollowed out carcass of what had once been a thriving lake. To the east was the temple from which the golem had emerged.

To the west was a forest.

Rumbling into motion the golem moved toward that forest. The trees were bald affairs, spines of a forest now dead. No branches, no leaves, no life.

The golem spoke to the trees. It waited patiently for answer. Trees never rushed.

Neither did the golem.

But no answer came and after a while it kept going.

It trekked through this world that had stepped back and forth so many times the future seemed to have collided with the past in a violent crash that blocked all lanes on the freeway of time. The golem passed enormous white mansions with curved windows. They were empty, but for the leavings of survivors. A campfire rested next to a hover chair. A cairn had been built in the jacuzzi.

Before long it stopped. The golem kneeled and put its forehead to the ground in an action reminiscent of prayer. It was listening.

But all was silent.

The golem waited, deep in thought. Its mind was made of rock and spirit and that little something extra found only in untouched nature.

The sun set. The sun rose.

Finally it heard something. It could not discern the words, the voice was too weak.

It walked in the direction of the noise. It reached an enormous lake, stagnant and sickly.

It stopped.

It tilted its head.

The lake spoke to it. Faint. Vague.

The golem listened. It nodded once.

With its long arms it drew a line in the ground, from the shore of the lake and away. The tiny little indent it had made quickly filled with water. The robot made the line a little bigger. Then a little longer.

A little bigger.

A little longer.

The lake said no more, for it had used up all its energy when it called to the golem.

The golem was not offended by the silence. It worked with the discipline of nature, unquestioningly helping its brethren.

Young Rico was the first to discover the golem. He was out in the early morning, limbs a little asymmetrical, breath a little wheezed, signs of the radiation festering in this world. He wore a homespun canvas shirt and a pair of Yeezys. The house they lived in had once been a billionaire’s private retreat: a four story mansion complete with heated pool, home theatre, anti-grav recreational room, even two elevators and a zipline. Rico’s family used the house as though it were but a fancy cave.

Rico carried with him a beautiful fishing rod they had found in the house. As they had not found any form of hooks or bait, Rico had fashioned his own, using a bit of foam as a bobber and a bent nail for a hook.

Bait was a tiny sliver of bark shaped to resemble a crude worm.

He hoped it would fool the fish.

Alas, no fish lived in that dammed up lake. Nothing did.

He stood in that post-apocalyptic world, preparing to cast when he spotted the golem—a stout little form on the opposite shore of the lake, digging in the ground.

Rico cast, watched the expensive wheel spin, saw the dirt cheap hook and bobber land. He kept looking over trying to understand what the little figure was.

And what it was doing.

Was it a droid? Perhaps one of those old farm-bots that used to tend to the millions of hectares of artificial wheat that had slowly sucked up the nutrients from the soil. Finally the little boy could take it no longer. He put his rod on the ground and ran over to study the creature.

It reached his navel and was blue and brown. It looked jagged and natural, as though someone had put it together out of rocks. It’s arms reached all the way down to the ground.

It was digging in the dirt with its heavy hand, making a little trench for water to run in.

The golem looked up. It locked eyes with the boy.

And it spoke to him.

Rico screamed, turned, and ran.

Ximenez, Rico’s father, scratched his chin. “Certainly doesn’t seem very… modern.”

Beside him stood Rico’s mother, Vera, and Rico’s grandmother, Marina. Behind Marina, clutching her skirts, was Rico.

“And you’re saying it spoke?” Ximenez asked.

Rico nodded.

Ximenez tapped the golem on its head. “It’s made of… stone?”

The golem frowned its crude eyebrows, waved Ximenez’ hand away as though he were a fly, and returned to digging the little trench. Already it had made a creek fifteen metres long, twenty centimetres deep. The water flowed slowly through it, pooling around the feet of the onlookers.

“What’s it doing?” Vera asked.

“Digging a river,” Marina said with a voice like charcoal crumbling between fingers. “Obviously.”

“But why?”

Marina shrugged.

“Is it a robot?” Rico asked, still hiding behind his grandmother.

“It’s a golem,” Marina answered.

“A golem,” Ximenez echoed. “Is it electrical?”

“It’s spiritual.”

Ximenez barked a laugh. “Spiritual? This little thing? It has no more spirit in it than the earth we’re standing on!”

“Exactly,” Marina said, and the golem chose this moment to pause its work and stare at the family.

It spoke to them in an ancient language.

“Did it make fun of me?” Ximenez asked. “I feel like it made fun of me.”

Marina scrunched her brow, took a step closer to the golem.

“It said hi.”

“You understand it?”

“You don’t?”

Ximenez shook his head.

Krrzt brk Mñak, the robot said.

“‘This water lives in Muña,’” Marina translated.

Ximenez scoffed. “That’s ridiculous. Water doesn’t live anywhere.”

“You know,” Vera began, “water was once thought to contain things like nymphs and spirits. Maybe they’re the ones living in Muña.”

“It also once contained fish but that’s a long time ago.”

The golem pointed at the stagnant lake. Then it pointed to the distance. Mñak. Krrzt brk Mñak.

“No,” Ximenez said. “This water lives here. Right here.”

Rzt grnk umá.

“‘The water wants to go home,’” Marina explained.

Ximenez waved his hand at the golem. “Let it do whatever it wants, so long as it doesn’t play with too much water. We need that lake.”

The golem whirred and returned to its project.

Ximenez wiped the sweat from his brow. He smiled at the crops, meagre though they were. Like every other family struggling to extend their expiration date, the little family by the lake tried to cultivate a world that had long since died. But flora wouldn’t grow, and the fairytale world of what once was lay six feet below, buried under radioactive dust, chemical waste, and the horrible specification of monoculture.

Gaia had been bridled and worked till she collapsed. Man’s present attempts at living off her were no more than the whipping of a dead horse.

Even so, Ximenez’ agricultural attempts were bearing fruit if only enough to prolong the suffering. He’d managed to saddle the river and thus his crops grew.

When he one day saw how far the golem had gone with its little diversion of the water, he frowned. When he saw Rico walking next to the golem, he shook his head.

When he saw Vera using a shovel to help dig the golem’s creek, he lost it.

“What are you doing?” he demanded of his wife. The creek had become a living brook, one with a life of its own. It bubbled along in the trench the golem had dug, and more often than not it could continue without assistance, remembering where to run.

“I’m helping,” Vera said.

“You’re emptying the lake.”

Vera shrugged. “The water needs to go home.”

“So what you want to do is completely reverse everything I have done? I redirected this river so that it might water our crops! I dammed it up to create a lake from which we might draw water and one day have fish! I made it so we could survive out here! I made it a home!”

The golem said something.

“What did it say?” Ximenez demanded.

“It said this is not the water’s home. It said this water lives in—”

“In Muña, yeah, yeah, I know.” He looked at the shovel in his wife’s hands, at the water rushing by his feet. It looked oddly clear, that water. “You’re crazy,” he said, and went over to his sparse crops.

The water laughed. The golem laughed. The boy and the woman and the old lady laughed.

The man pulled his hair out in despair. His crops were dying and they hadn’t been enough to begin with.

How was he ever going to keep his family alive in this world that was so against him? Not even the dam he’d built had been enough. And now… now the water was disappearing completely.

As the sun set he hefted a hammer and marched over to the waterfall made by that ancient, spiritual demon. He followed the rushing water, feeling every drop as were it bleeding from a wound.

The golem looked up as Ximenez approached. It had been in the middle of digging through a little knoll to guide the water further.

Ximenez drew his arm back and crashed the hammer into the golem’s head.

It was a sound like thunder.

They ran to see what was making the noise.

They saw the golem hold up its hands in a futile attempt at defending itself. They saw Ximenez pound it with the hammer.

“Stop!” Vera screamed. “Stop!”

Ximenez saw her, but he did not stop.

“What are you doing!”

She grabbed his arm, and he turned on her.

”WHAT I’M DOING IS KEEPING YOU ALIVE!” he roared. There were tears in his eyes. “We need that water for our crops!”

“What crops? You live in a fairytale if you think those crops will ever sustain us!”

”Me living in a fairytale? You’re the ones wanting to play water with a fucking robot!”

“Golem,” Vera said.

“What?”

“It’s a golem, not a robot.”

“Who cares!”

“I CARE!”

Ximenez dropped his gaze from her. Close by stood the golem, bruised but unharmed. “I’m trying to keep us alive.”

Vera sighed, put a hand on her husband’s cheek. ”You near sighted man,“ she said, not unkindly. “Just because the world became a wasteland you forgot who you are? Where you’re from? This world used to speak, Ximenez! But we chose not to listen and so it fell silent. I’m spreading my ears once again and you’re a sorry soul if you think it won’t bring any good.”

“What are you talking about?”

She grabbed him by the hand and dragged him over to where the golem had drawn its first little line in the dirt. It was a wide gap now, with rapidly rushing water. And there by the mouth of the river grew a little something. It was green, it had leaves, it had a stalk of sorts. Ximenez did not know what it was, but one thing was obvious.

It was alive.

”This water lives in Muña,” Vera said. “And gods help me if I’m not going to bring this water home.”

Ximenez did not sleep. He chewed his nails. He paced back and forth. He stared at the crops, the dead leaves, the little screens he’d hooked up to display all manners of things—all of them depressing. He walked over to where the lake fed into the little creek. He could see the silhouette of the untiring golem working far away, digging and digging. He looked over both shoulders to ensure no one was looking, then he put his ear down to the water and listened.

He woke them all up by splashing about. Vera came out, rubbing sleep from her eyes.

“What in the world are you doing?” she asked of her husband.

He was standing in the water, wet up to his chest.

“I don’t listen,” he said. “But you do. So now I’m shutting up so you can hear better.”

With that he heaved on a lever and the dam shifted, blocking off the water down to his crops, directing it all into the golem’s stream.

The golem heard the sound of the rushing water, looked up to see it come barreling towards it. It stepped aside and let the water flow where it wanted to.

Days passed as the golem guided the water farther and farther from the lake and the house. Rico and Vera and Marina followed it, digging with it.

Until one day they didn’t. The golem looked left and right for them. It asked the water where they were, but the water did not know either.

And for some reason this drained the golem. It could not cry, nor could it really mourn. The only way it knew how to express sorrow was through fatigue.

It collapsed next to the little creek. It curled itself up on the dead ground. Slowly the water began to satiate the earth and before long the golem lay in a tiny pool.

It lay there, a lonely child hugging the corpse of its mother.

It closed its eyes.

It had slept for thousands of years before, it would sleep for thousands of years again. Perhaps it would sleep till the sun swallowed it and it would never again wake.

Except a whistle penetrated its consciousness. It was the sound of Rico, whistling to himself as he dug.

“Are you done sleeping?” he asked the golem.

The golem rose, tilted its head at the boy.

“You thought we left you? We just had to go home and pack.”

Over the hill came Vera, Ximenez, and old Marina. On their bags were their most important belongings.

In their hands were shovels.

When they came close, Ximenez shuffled his feet a little.

“You alright?” he asked, gesturing to the small dents in the golem’s head.

The golem shrugged. Krrzt brk Mñak, it said.

“Yeah, yeah. Krrzt brk Mñak to you too. Now shall we dig or what?“

They dug the canal. They watched the water flow. They walked along it until it needed help.

At night they struck tents, and somehow the little golem always managed to find something they could eat. Hidden underneath roots, or mounds of dirt, or in dead shrubbery. Never enough to feast.

But always enough to survive.

They reached an enormous rift in the ground. It looked as though a giant had run its finger through the earth.

“What’s this?” Ximenez asked.

The golem spoke.

“It’s a river,” Marina translated.

“No it isn’t.”

“The Earth remembers what we forget.”

All it took was a little push for the water to flow into the crevasse. It eagerly filled it up and began running through it. In the distance something blue glittered in the morning sun. The water rushed towards it.

Marina gasped.

“What?” Rico asked. ”What is it?”

“Muña,” she said. “It means sea. This water lives in the sea.”

In the old riverbed the water rushed past. The golem said something.

“The water is home. Listen to how happy it is.”

The golem then turned on its heel and marched away.

“Where’s it going now?” Vera asked.

“Who knows?” Ximenez shook his head. “Probably to go hug a tree or something like that.”

Vera laughed. She began to follow the golem. “Well, are you coming with?” she called over her shoulder.

Ximenez looked at the river. He could have sworn he already saw little bits of green by its shore. He gazed out over the sea and he almost thought he heard something speaking to him.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever, I’m coming” he mumbled, and trudged after the little golem.

Beside them the water sang cheerfully.