The Water Knife

by Paolo Bacigalupi

“If I could put my finger on the moment we genuinely fucked ourselves, it was the moment we decided that data was something you could use words like believe or disbelieve around.”

“There’s a theory that if we don’t have the right words in our vocabularies, we can’t even see the things that are right in front of our faces. If we can’t describe our reality accurately, we can’t see it. Not the other way around. So someone says a word like Mexico or the United States, and maybe that word keeps us from even seeing what’s right in front of us. Our own words make us blind.”

Angel snorted. “Fucking preppers.” “You have issues with them?” “Just when we pump their wells dry.” He laughed cynically. “Never could figure out why people would think they could survive all out on their lonesome like that. All of them sitting in their little bunkers, thinking they’re going to ride out the apocalypse alone.” “Maybe they watch too many old Westerns.” “Nobody survives on their own.”