A quick tale 139

Contrition

It's probably nothing. Well, that's what you tell yourself. You see, this morning when you came into the kitchen, you found that the tap had been left running. A steady trickle of water had been flowing down the sink all night. About 10 or 15 litres of water gone waste, you reckon. Enough supply for a small family in drought-stricken Africa to survive on for atleast a couple of days. With prudence, it could have even lasted them a week. But now, all that has gone down the drain. You sigh and tell yourself that it's just water. One strong spell of showers and the deficit would even out. You even put out a bucket out in the garden hoping to catch a few drops in the next drizzle.

Still, you can't seem to shake the image of water-starved children out of your head. Why me, you wonder. What about all those idiots who are using up water to wash their cars and shampoo their dogs and sprinkle their lawns? And who could forget that moron who left his tap running for days in the name of art? How come none of them ever seem to worry about dying Sudanese children? And yet, that evening, when they mention Darfur in the news, you switch channels and look away.