Komla woke to a stillness that felt unnatural, even for the humid dawn of Porto-Novo. He was 29, a fisherman like his father and his father before him. The sea was in his blood, its salty tang a constant companion to his senses. But this morning, something was different.
He rose from his mat, the woven reeds cool beneath his bare feet. Stepping outside his small house, the air hit him, thick and heavy, yet missing something vital. He usually heard the distant crash of waves, the cries of gulls wheeling overhead. Today, silence reigned.
Komla walked towards the beach, a familiar path worn smooth by generations of his family. He expected to see the lagoon, its surface usually reflecting the pale sunrise, busy with boats already setting out. Instead, his breath caught in his throat.
Where the lagoon should have been, there was only mud. Dry, cracked earth, stretching out to the horizon, baked hard under the rising sun. Fishing boats rested at odd angles, half-sunken in the suddenly solid ground, like toys abandoned by a child.
He ran to the edge of the former lagoon, his heart hammering against his ribs. The mud was still slightly damp in places, but the water itself was gone. Vanished. As if it had never existed.
Panic began to tighten its grip. He looked towards the ocean, expecting, needing, to see the familiar blue expanse. But the horizon was a hazy line of brown, stretching further than he could see. It was the color of dried earth, the color of absence.
He stumbled back, shouting for his father, for his neighbors. "Father! The water! It's gone!"
Others emerged from their homes, blinking in the strange, silent light. Confusion morphed into disbelief as they followed Komla to the now-empty lagoon bed. Murmurs turned to shouts, then to cries of alarm.
"The sea! Where is the sea?" a woman wailed, her voice cracking with fear.
Men ran to their boats, touching the dry hulls, the useless nets. Their livelihood, their very lives, were now stranded on baked mud.
Komla stared at the empty space where water should have been. It was impossible. Oceans did not simply disappear. Lakes did not vanish overnight. Rivers did not cease to be. Yet, here was proof, stark and terrifying.
Someone mentioned the Ouémé River, a vital artery of life in Benin. A group of men, including Komla, rushed towards it, their hope clinging to the idea that this was just a localized event, a nightmare playing out only here.
But the riverbed was as dry as the lagoon. Cracked earth reached towards the sky, the once-fertile banks barren and desolate. The men stood in stunned silence, the reality sinking in with brutal force.
The sun climbed higher, beating down on the exposed earth. The air grew hotter, drier. The usual humidity of the coast became a mocking memory. Birds cried out, confused, searching for water that was no longer there.
Word spread like wildfire. From village to village, town to town, the news was the same. The water was gone. Everywhere. Lakes, rivers, streams, even puddles. Vanished.
Radio broadcasts, initially filled with static and confusion, began to carry reports from other countries. The same story, repeated across continents. The Great Lakes were empty basins. The Mississippi River was a dry scar across the land. The Mediterranean Sea was a vast, dusty plain.
Panic erupted globally. Governments scrambled, but what could they do? There was no explanation, no warning, no way to bring the water back. Scientists spoke of unprecedented evaporation, of impossible atmospheric conditions, but their words were hollow, devoid of comfort.
Komla stayed with his family, huddled in their small house, the heat becoming unbearable. They had stored some water, but it was a pittance, barely enough for a few days. Neighbors began to argue, fear and desperation turning them against each other.
"We must go inland," Komla's father said, his voice hoarse. "Perhaps there are wells deeper in the country. Perhaps some water remains underground."
It was a slim hope, but it was all they had. They packed what little food and water they possessed, joining a growing stream of people heading north, away from the desolate coast.
The journey was brutal. The sun beat down relentlessly, the air thick with dust and the stench of dying fish and exposed seabed. People were already weak, dehydrated. Arguments broke out over scraps of shade, drops of water.
They passed through villages that were once vibrant, now ghost towns, abandoned by those who had sought water elsewhere. Skeletal remains of boats lay scattered across the landscape, monuments to a lost way of life.
Days bled into nights, each one hotter and drier than the last. Komla saw people collapse by the roadside, their bodies too weak to go on. He saw mothers weeping over silent children, their tears drying instantly on cracked cheeks.
They reached a town that had once been near a large lake. Now, it was just another dry basin, the town deserted, buildings baking under the sun. There were wells here, old and deep, but they were all dry. The water table had vanished with the surface water.
Despair settled over the group. Hope withered under the relentless sun. Komla watched his father weaken, his breathing becoming shallow and ragged. His mother's eyes were sunken, her face etched with a sorrow that went beyond tears.
One evening, as the sun dipped below the horizon, painting the dust-filled sky in shades of orange and red, Komla's father spoke, his voice barely a whisper.
"Komla," he said, reaching out a trembling hand. "You must... you must remember the sea."
Komla took his father's hand, his own throat tight with emotion. "I will, Father. I will never forget."
His father smiled weakly. "Tell the stories... to those who will listen... of the water... and the life it gave."
And then, he was gone. Komla closed his father's eyes, a single tear escaping and tracing a path through the dust on his cheek.
His mother did not speak, did not weep. She simply sat beside her husband's body, staring blankly at the empty horizon. Komla knew she would not last long.
He buried his father in the dry earth, a shallow grave under a merciless sky. There were no prayers, no rituals. Just the scraping of dirt and the heavy silence of a world without water.
The next morning, his mother was gone too. She had simply succumbed in her sleep, her body giving up in the face of impossible conditions.
Komla was alone. Completely, utterly alone. In a world that was rapidly turning to dust.
He wandered aimlessly, driven by a primal instinct to survive, even though survival seemed pointless. He saw others, lone figures like himself, moving through the desolate landscape, ghosts in a dying world.
He came across a group of people huddled around a small fire, cooking something that smelled acrid and unpleasant. They were desperate, scavenging for anything to eat, anything to drink.
"Any water?" Komla asked, his voice rough from disuse.
A man with hollow eyes shook his head. "Gone. All gone. The world is thirsty, and it will drink us dry."
Komla sat with them for a while, sharing their meager meal of roasted roots. They spoke little, their words weighed down by despair. They were waiting, he realized. Waiting for the end.
But Komla could not wait. He had promised his father to remember the sea, to tell its stories. But who would listen in a world where water was just a legend?
He walked back towards the coast, drawn by a morbid fascination with the place where his life had begun, where the sea had once been. The journey was harder now, his body weakened, his spirit broken.
When he reached the coast, it was even more desolate than before. The mud had cracked further, forming deep fissures in the earth. The boats were now half-buried in dust, monuments to a forgotten era.
He walked to the edge of the dry seabed, looking out at the vast expanse of cracked earth that stretched to the horizon. It was a graveyard of the ocean, a testament to a catastrophe beyond comprehension.
He sat down on a piece of driftwood, the wood brittle and dry. He closed his eyes, trying to conjure the memory of the sea. The sound of waves, the smell of salt, the cool touch of the water on his skin. They were fading, becoming distant echoes in his mind.
He opened his eyes and looked up at the sky. It was a clear, cloudless blue, mocking the parched earth below. The sun beat down, relentless and unforgiving.
He thought of his father's words, "Remember the sea." But what was the point of remembering something that was gone, something that would never return? What was the point of stories in a world without listeners?
A sudden sound broke the silence. A faint, rustling sound, like dry leaves skittering across the ground. Komla turned his head, searching for the source.
Then he saw it. A small whirlwind of dust, swirling across the dry seabed, moving towards him. It was not strong, just a gentle eddy of dust, but it was moving with purpose.
As it came closer, Komla saw something within the dust cloud. A small object, glinting in the sunlight. He squinted, trying to make it out.
The dust cloud reached him, swirling around his feet. He reached out, his hand brushing against something hard and smooth. He bent down, digging through the dust, and pulled it out.
It was a seashell. Small, white, perfectly formed. A seashell from the ocean, now stranded miles from the vanished water.
He held it in his hand, turning it over and over. It was a fragile thing, a relic of a lost world. A world that had been vibrant, alive, filled with water.
He looked out at the dry seabed again, at the empty horizon. And for the first time since the water had disappeared, tears welled up in his eyes. Not tears of panic, or despair, but tears of grief. Grief for the sea, for his family, for the world that was gone.
He clutched the seashell tightly, a small, dry token of a vast, wet memory. He knew he would not survive long in this dying world. But as he sat there, alone on the dry seabed, under the merciless sun, he made a silent vow.
He would remember the sea. He would remember the sound of the waves, the taste of salt, the coolness of the water. He would keep the memory alive, even if he was the last one left to remember.
He would tell the stories, even to the dust, even to the empty wind. He would be the keeper of the sea's memory, until the dust claimed him too.
And in that desolate vow, under the scorching sun of a waterless world, Komla found a strange, heartbreaking purpose.
He would be the last fisherman, fishing in the dry dust of a vanished ocean, with only a seashell as his catch, and the memory of water as his only solace. The world had evaporated, but his memory of the sea would not. It was all he had left.