Another day passes. The corners of his mouth crack and his tongue is dry with fuzz. Pinky is listless. He has to set her free. He has to. He must! He opens his door, and there is a gallon jug of water on the floor, like a miracle. There are identical jugs up and down the hall, in front of every door. Someone has answered their prayers, a family member or emergency services worker, a benevolent kitchen assistant or a kind volunteer from the town, a savior, an angel, someone has saved their lives. The jug is heavy; Coop nudges it with his feet an inch at a time into his room. He bends over and wrestles with the textured cap, but it only scours his thin skin. He can’t lift the damn thing. Can’t open the damn thing. He twists and squeezes and grunts until the cap cracks open and his hand bleeds. He tips the mouth of the jug toward Pinky’s dish, but loses control. It glugs and slops all over the floor.
“Goddamn!”
Pinky pecks at the puddle. Coop sweats. The jug is half-empty already. Brooklyn B. would probably say it was half-full, with a sappy look on her face.
He hydrates himself just enough to wake up with wet sheets. There is no time to change them because Pinky is missing. She is not beside him in her usual spot. He searches for her, nearly slipping in yesterday’s spill. There she is—in the bathroom, lying on the cold tile. Desperate, he tries the faucet. It spits and gushes, then runs like normal. Another miracle. He refills the water dish but she pays no attention. He offers her a stale cracker, but she doesn’t take it. He chews the cracker and offers her the goop on the tip of his finger. She won’t even lick. Coop is dizzy. He has never seen her like this. Her eyelids are half-closed. He must try to contact the dactyl plant. They can tell him what to do. They can come and get her. Is it so bad to send her back there? Of course, it must be. He tries to find information about the plant on his ElderScreen, but it only shows him a ground-breaking ceremony with people in suits wearing hard hats and holding clean shovels. Pinky’s belly is taut and hot. She gurgles.
She needs to eat. And so does he. He forces himself to the dining room, where the other residents blather about the return of the water. He gags on a wet Brussels sprout and pockets a dinner roll dusted with mold. He hates to be away from Pinky for even one minute. He hates the architect of the building for designing an interminable zigzag between the food Coop needs to survive and the one thing he has worth surviving for.