This post was inspired by a writing prompt in the Worldbuilding community - Worldbuilding Prompt #761 - Water Sources
It's part of a series of posts I've written intermittently, set in what is now the distant past of my sci-fi setting. I'll list other posts from this environment at the bottom of the post. I hope you enjoy it !
Image created by AI in NightCafe Studio
"Go and fetch water, Teli," his mother said, in her normal tone that conveyed she expected to be obeyed immediately.
Teli nodded, went to the corner of the room and picked up the bucket, making sure it's cover was firmly in place. At the door, he put on his inner coat and grabbed his dust-mask, then he stepped into the porch to put on his outer coat and give the mask another precautionary shake.
As he walked through the town's streets, he wasn't the only one dressed in this way. Despite the pleasant weather, everyone was swaddled up like him, every inch of skin covered, hats and goggles on and masks in place.
It was two hundred years since the mushroom blight. The most valuable lesson a child learned in school was to be afraid of Ray-Day-Shun the Silent Atlantean Killer and guard vigilantly against the dust he used to kill small children in their sleep.
Most of the Settlement was covered with an intricate roof of clear plastiglass sheets salvaged from the ruins of Sohnt and held up on spindly painted iron with bitumen filling their gaps. The roof did a remarkably good job of protecting everyone from the rain. But people covered up out of caution and as a matter of tradition.
At the settlement gates, Teli nodded to Dema-Dir who was on guard duty that day. A gangling youth three years older than Teli, the two were friends even though Dema had shown a clear interest in his older sister Uniara. But Teli was okay with that, he quite fancied being the one to lead his sister up the aisle to wed his best friend. He'd have preferred if Father had done it, but he'd been a scavenger in Sohnt, and had died young of radiation sickness.
Once outside the settlement inner wall, Teli strolled down the path towards the well. On the way, he passed the settlement's ancient tractor, stopped at the end of a furrow. He waved at Sevi-Dran, who was winding up the spring for the clockwork flywheel. Teli was proud of this, Grandpa Mir-Zont had created the mechanism when the steam engine broke for the last time. It had kept the tractor working ever since, even if it did have to be laboriously wound up every hundred yards or so.
The well was just outside the low outer wall of the settlement, the one that was really just a windbreak to reduce the amount of dust going onto the crops.
Teli knew the drill. Putting the bucket he was carrying down, he made sure his gloves were fully tucked in, then used the brush roped to the well to carefully sweep the lid clear of any wind-blown dust.
Grunting with the effort, he lifted the rust-coloured heavy steel plate of the lid and hitched it in place with the iron hook at one side. From there he could access the well's bucket and handle, normally hidden under the lid to keep radioactive dust off.
Being careful not to disturb the leather ring that had been pushed into the narrow slit where a rubber seal had once been, Teli turned the handle to lower the well's bucket down the deep shaft. He heard the glug as it reached water level, and started winding it back up. Finally, he was able to tip it's contents into the bucket he'd bought with him; it took three dips before his bucket was full and he could re-seal the lid.
An hour later, Teli returned to the house with the filled bucket. His mother waved the radiation detector over it, giving a satisfied little sound when it didn't show anything up.
Other teenagers would just dip their buckets in the river, and their laziness would lead to illness and even death in their families. The river ran past Sohnt, and settlement elders said that it would be uninhabitable for at least another thousand years.
She didn't say it but she was actually proud of Teli, because he only took water from the well, where it had percolated in through the purifying deep earth. It was the only way to get pure water that was safe to drink and to wash with.
Other posts in this series include;
Worldbuilding Prompt #312 - After the Apocalypse - The Mushroom Blight
Worldbuilding Prompt #626 - The Best Currency is Life
Worldbuilding Prompt #662 - The Last Tractor
Worldbuilding Prompt #754 - Rising From The Ruins