KEEP THE PADDIES WET

You like to eat, don’t you? You dislike having an empty stomach? Being so weak and frail that you can barely stand up, let alone move about your hut? Of course you don’t want to be hungry. The settlement doesn’t either, nobody does. We all want to avoid it at all costs, which is why I’m asking you to keep doing what you’re doing.
So keep the hose pointed in the right place, keep it right there. Make the canal full, make it flow, make it so: keep the paddies wet.
Don’t fuss about where the water comes from. Don’t worry about the current stopping or pressure lacking. Trust me, trust the others. We will handle the rest. It’s not up to you to deal with such things, it isn’t in your control. We will keep the water running.
Just keep the hose pointed in the right place, keep it right there. Make the canal full, make it flow, make it so: keep the paddies wet.
Why do you look up at the sky, young settler? Is it because the clouds are a sickly green, or that the heavens are no longer blue? Do you think about where the ozone might have gone, or do you simply focus on the heat and the humidity and the pressure of the sky bearing down on your skull, pressing down on your spinal cord like an anvil from Hell? Keep thinking and the water will disperse. The fields will shrivel up, our settlement will expire.
Best keep the hose pointed in the right place, keep it right there. Make the canal full, make it flow, make it so: keep the paddies wet.
Ebb and flow, don’t think. Thinking got us nowhere. Getting to tomorrow is all that matters now. If we make things right, if we get another chance, the ones that come after us will think for us. But not now, not now…
Just make the canal full, make it flow, make it so.
Keep the paddies wet.
