Zalyph

Zalyph was a conniving man who worked at an island desalination plant as an operator. It was his job, day after day, to ensure that his plant properly converted seawater into freshwater for the residents of the island.

It was a tedious job in a tedious era. After many centuries of industrialization, traditional sources for freshwater became exceedingly rare. Whether it was lakes, rivers, aquifers or private water wells, eventually the amount of freshwater to sustain the human population had depleted.

As the situation became dire, a method was discovered to convert seawater, which was still in salty abundance on Earth, into drinkable water. For centuries, humans had tried in vain to conquer the ocean as a water source but failed to create a mass-scale desalination process.

Once it was discovered, plants were built all over the planet. It became a major source of jobs. Freshwater was piped into cities, towns and rural areas. Private water wells were made illegal. Once enough desalination plants were built, it was forbidden to take water from rivers, lakes and aquifers.

Zalyph was born into this world. He did not like it though. So much about the society he lived in was focused on water. Most people worked in desal plants or maintaining pipelines or operated the distribution units in cities.

It was the only decent-paying job that unskilled people such as Zalyph could obtain. But he hated it. Entire years went by and he felt that all he was doing was pushing buttons and checking meters.

A fellow operator told Zalyph one day that he could enroll in college to become an engineer. This way he would have something different to do at the plant. Not only that, they told him, he could also get the plant to pay for his education.

Zalyph had never previously considered becoming an engineer. But he figured it was better than to continually have to push buttons for the rest of his life.

So he met with company officials, filed for a tuition waiver and enrolled into the engineering program. It was difficult maintaining a job while also attending to his education. Many times his supervisors caught him reading his books and doing his classwork while he was supposed to be monitoring salt levels on the intake pumps.

Enough time went by and he was able to finish his education. His co-workers celebrated his success. They enjoyed the fact that one of their fellow operators could now leave the meager position of operator to a better-paying profession of engineer.

But Zalyph, bitter from the years he spent working in a hydration economy, decided instead to leave. He quit his job and moved to a house in a rural area far from his desalination plant.

With money that he saved up from working, he purchased a house on a hill that was surrounded by pear trees. Zalyph moved in and was happy to have a solitary existence. Once he was settled, he launched a new engineering firm. His background in school was mechanical and electrical engineering. His firm focused on building pumps and other equipment to sell to farmers who had difficulty irrigating their crops that were too far from the desalination pipes. They relied on rainfall to feed their crops mostly. This way, Zalyph thought, their crops would be more guaranteed, providing more food for his country’s communities.

But such pumps and private water wells were illegal. So Zalyph had to disguise his firm as a consulting business. The government was suspicious of intent when he filed for a tax license to operate a company. He was granted one nonetheless.

So Zalyph lived out his days, feeding the crops from water in the ground.