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// August 2 
// Story: The Last Phoenician 
// by Razzle Dazzle 
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Sunday, August 2

Dear Journal,

Today shit went down.

I went to bed at about three in the morning yesterday, and when I woke up, Jessica was just rising too. We brought breakfast back into our room to talk about how to present it.

“So I don’t think this will go over well,” I said between bites of canned food. “It just seems complicated.”

“And we’ll need a unanimous vote. Everybody is going to have to work on this, and I don’t want to force anyone to do this if they don’t want to.” Jessica replied.

“I think you need to give a speech.”

Jessica groaned. “No, I can’t give speeches.”

“Yes, you can. Like it or not, everybody here looks up to you. You’re our leader.”

He paused. “Okay, I’ll do it.”

I moved up close to him. “Great.” After we shared a small kiss, I went out to start breakfast for everyone. Levi came out and wordlessly helped me, still exhausted from a long night. Nothing interesting happened during breakfast. Afterwards, though, I gathered everyone in the main room to hear Jessica’s plan. Everyone sat down, some on the sofas, some at the table in the open dining room. Jessica came out of our room, walked over to the center of the room and started speaking.

“I need to talk to you about something very important. This could be a game-changer. So far, we’ve done some great things in the past month. We have power, we have food, and we have a secured area. But the most important thing we need is water. Right now we’re rationing bottled water, but that won’t last forever. What I want to tell you is that I’ve found a way to get running water again.

“I talked with Ben last month about this. He told me that the canals had filters that shut off with nobody to maintain them and, farther upstream, there are four dams that went offline. If we can get the dams running again and the canals’ filters working then we’ll have running water. Then it’s a matter of shutting off water mains to the rest of the city so we don’t waste anything. What I’m trying to say is that it’s possible, but it won’t be easy. We’d all be working hard to get this done, and I don’t know how long it would take. It could be a month, or two, or more. But it’ll be worth it.

“We need to start to prepare. We have everything we need to keep ourselves alive, but it’s time to look ahead. There’s going to be a new generation coming soon, and we need to do this for them. We need to do this to rebuild the city. Without water, we’re not going to last long. Doing this would mean that we can start a permanent colony and that we can handle however many new ponies show up at our gates. Water means that we will be here for a long time.

“But, like I said, this is going to be difficult, and everyone is going to have to work to do this. When we vote on this, it has to be unanimous. If we do this, it will require all of us to work together. And I think we can.”

When he stopped speaking, the room changed. It was like every emotion he had ever felt was ingrained into the air for us to feel. A light shone on Jessica’s flanks, and when it faded away, he had the image of a red quill on both flanks. He looked at them, confused, before turning back to the rest of the group. “Well, that happened,” he said. A few people laughed, but the mood still lingered from his speech. “We still need to vote, though. Who says yes to the project?”

Everybody raised a hoof.

The rest of the day was mostly Jessica planning the project even more while I laid on the bed, thinking about the future. I’m still in a bit of shock about being pregnant after being a guy for twenty-eight years. And people, or ponies now, are showing up out of nowhere, so we’ll keep growing. I just wonder what the city will look like in twenty, even fifty years. I wonder how much we’ll grow. I wonder how much we’ll save.

The future’s going to be crazy, that’s for sure, but I’ll make it through.

-Scott