RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist on Nostr: ## #WordWeavers 2026.09.20 — How do your characters access water or whatever they ...

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#WordWeavers 2026.09.20 — How do your characters access water or whatever they need to drink?*NB: The semantics and slight misuse of language is consistent with how the narrators in the Reluctance Series use language and perceive their world.*

The leading cause of infant mortality is heat exhaustion and dehydration, a severe complication when infertility is a public problem. Everybody wears a machined metal flask on their hip or in a bag, any time they venture outdoors. Most people learn to keep it filled—often by finding themselves stranded and thirsty with an empty flask. The climate, sometimes in the same locale, ranges between desert dry and hot to wetlands hot and humid, the latter being much more deadly. People avoid the savagely fierce day shine [think "sun"], and drink often. Sweating and hydration comes up frequently in the stories. Heat index warnings can be daily events. Those who run Health Services know the best way to prevent service overload is prevention, so water spigots are everywhere in Home City and every municipality. There are laws against charging access. Despite electricity not being in use (except in telegraphy), sanitation, water purity, indoor plumbing, and sewers (or septic outside cities) is well understood and ubiquitous. To our eyes, the cities and towns look modern; urban sprawl is a thing. In rural areas, along roads and major paths, stand wardrobe-sized water kiosks painted a subtly blue absolute white. Isolated, in the middle of nowhere, the machines seem comically out-of-place, but are lit so they are beacons in the dark of day. They dispense water (and shade) freely, into cupped hands if that what you have, but if you want a replacement flask, the remnant-powered machines require a coin.

[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]

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