Drops, Our Friends

Once upon a time, there was a cup. Beautiful and colourful with a gold rim at the top, it was
used every single day since it was made. It was stored in the highest shelf in the kitchen and
no one except mum ever touched it. Or so the Catherine told me.

It was a cold and snowy evening. The crisp air made my family feel uncomfortable and they
were all nervous about what is going to happen. My mum was panicking over how we are
going to all die and that she knew this would happen one day eventually. Our bottle was dark
green colour so it was pitch dark inside and the fact that it was evening did not help it much.
I thought about what my mum said for a minute.

“Mum, just because you never tried it does not mean it is going to hurt“

“Honey, it is far more complicated than that. “

I wanted to ask more but she looked at me and I suddenly knew I should not. I asked my older
brother about it.

“It is the vaporization our mother is scared of. You know, when people want to have a cup of
coffee or a tea they have to boil the water. But it is nothing to be scared of, trust me“ he said
and tapped my back .

“But if there is nothing to be scared of why my mother fears vaporization? And what it is,
after all?“ I looked at him and hoped he will answer my question.

“You know how our dad died, right?“ he screamed and everybody around was suddenly
looking at us.

“N-no“ I said, feeling ashamed of myself for no reason.

“Once a drop of water is vaporized into the air, it is gone for ever and it cannot return“ he
answered in a calmer way.

“But it can not just disappear. It has to go somewhere. “ I protested, but he was already gone.
I did not understand it. I knew there are 332,500,000 cubic miles of us in the whole world
because my mum told me that when I was little.
I do not remember what happened next, because it happened too quickly. My mum said
something about saving me and suddenly I was falling. I do not know how long it lasted , but
It must have been a pretty long time because I lost consciousness.

I opened my eyes slowly and with little hope to see something. I looked around and all I saw
was a strange place, it didn´ t look like my home at all. It looked like a kitchen floor, or at
least I thought it was a kitchen floor. I thought this based on the stories I heard from my
family members. Because once, five of my brothers went on a journey to examine the kitchen,
they went on their own and after some time, they returned back home but mum told me they
were not my brothers. I did not know what to think, just imagine it, some guys who look
almost exactly like me are telling me that they are my brothers but my mum keeps telling me
they are not. Of course I considered them my brothers, with the same appearance and same
crazy ideas they must have been my brothers.

With this in mind, sitting on the kitchen floor I looked up and around. After ten minutes of
detailed examination, when I was already starting to fear loneliness, I noticed it. My home.
On the highest shelf of all shelfs in the kitchen. It seemed so unreachable, so far away that I
told myself I will have to find a new home.

So I went on a journey all across the kitchen. I realised I was not alone, not at all. There were
more of them. Of those who looked pretty much like me, or anyone from my family. I
wondered if all of them were my brothers and sisters.

Determined to change my life I said

“Hey” no response. I tried again “Hey, you, my sister!”

Without even looking at me she responded in a harsh voice “I ain´ t got any brothers nor
sisters. You should know that too.”

Now she turned to me and said “We do not have family, we can only have friends. Even you,
do you think you got any family?”

In my mind, I immediately thought that yes but then I remembered the incident with my five
brothers and started to think when she interrupted my thinking

“I know many of them do this but I learned a long time ago it was a lie. The sad thing is that
most of them don´ t even know about it, I mean about it being a lie.”
“What being a lie?” I asked

“That they think they´ ve got family. Or there are ones like you, thinking that all of us are a
family. Haven´ t you ever thought about it? We are everywhere, I mean really everywhere.
There are even more precious places to be, for example in a human body or in a river. But
now we are sitting on a kitchen floor and just a few minutes ago you were thinking how
lonely you are. You are not lonely at all. We are everywhere and this world just wouldn´ t
work without us. But for now, you´ve got to remember one thing: we don´ t have family, we
are not beings, we are substances, we cannot have family.”

I had to respond somehow even though I couldn´ t find words so I just said “I think I have just
experienced the biggest confusion of my whole life.”

“I reckon you have. But don´ t you worry, you will discover plenty of other things too. Maybe
someone will tell you one day that you are composed of hydrogen and oxygen. You will find
out how much people pollute us and how unusable we can be sometimes because of the
pollution. But no fear, my friend, you nor I cannot do one thing about it. It´ s them, people,
who have to think about these issues, about our issues. Because after all, we don´ t even have
to care about it, it´s them who would die without us.”

I though I was starting to understand when she said

“It was a pleasure to meet you, my dearest friend, I hope now you´ ve got it all clear and you
would make something useful out of your life. In fact, I know you will.”

She was even going to say something more when a strong ray of sun shone on her and she
disappeared.

Now I thought I understood the purpose of my life, I was just a drop of water among billions
of others. But everyone of us was useful, so was I and I was going to enjoy being used by
some person, or animal, or whoever. I just hoped they wouldn´ t waste us as they are doing
now. And I knew I didn´ t need my family any more, because after all, they were just my
friends and I was going to find plenty of new such friends.