In a future world without enough clean water, how does Alex survive? By joining the wrong side
…I don’t want to be one of those women who sits and waits
for her man. I sit and wait. I am one of those women. He’s
probably coming to tell me he’s married, has kids, just wants
my friendship. Stuff that. I fantasise about blackmailing him,
asking for half his water rations. I’d probably chicken out…
In a future world, only a few hydrospheres, like Aotearoa NZ,
have enough drinkable water, nearly all sold overseas.
Alex is a mnemopath, a professional memory machine, at the main water
trading bureau, WaiOra. Her job isn’t noble, selling water overseas
while locals die of thirst. But she needed a job, and the extra
water allowance.
Her humdrum life, struggling to earn enough water to live, is
upended when her great love comes back to Aotearoa NZ, after
fifteen years in China. Alex’s world is transformed to one of
excitement, danger and a relationship she has to hide.
Vividwater paints a disturbing view of the future where decades of
drought have changed the face of Aotearoa NZ, and the people who
live there. But even in a society dominated by ruthlessness and thirst,
there is still hope and glimmers of innocence. The echoes of the past
that can redeem us live on in the most unlikely places.
Vividwater 