It’s five a.m. I am parched. I hear the stuttered spray of the sprinklers start. The force of the water pushing the air out. Sputtering. Making it’s way to the surface. Then a generous flow begins. The water bringing life to all that it reaches. Or so I had imagined. Reckon it’s only an automatic timer. Doing a job. I clear my throat. Or try. I look up and out the window of the van, beyond the no parking sign, and see the water shooting out into the parking lot. Close. But missing the mark. The cold, hard pavement rejecting the offering made in vain. Not that it doesn’t want it. It simply can’t accept it.

The waterdrops, they merge into a stream as gravity snakes it’s way to a low point and pools in the center of the parking lot where it will evaporate before the day begins. Before my ma starts bitchin’. About my friends. Cuz the boys in the hood are always hard. You come talking that trash, we’ll pull your card. Knowing nothing in life but to be legit.* I legit wonder if the water boy knows he’s misusing the water. And that there are people out here… who are parched.

That mechanical sprinkler is really just a foreshadow of this truth:

O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is… -Psalms 63:1

Don’t let man dehydrate you.

Amen.

*Thanks, Eazy-E. And NWA.