was sure why. Wherever and however they prayed, it was as dry for them as any other, as dry for each and every one of them. No prayers from anywhere would bring rain. The town had signed off on that with spiritual totality. It had ceased to believe in moisture.
Then a lay preacher, a self-styled Man of God, turned up on a corner of the main street and began to proselytize. This corner was opposite the bank, just outside the hardware store. The preacher was full of the sins of the townsfolk, and full of humanity’s evil, making a clear link between the dry and their neglect of God. He might have been run out of town by all and sundry, but his promise of rain, of water, eventually struck a note. On the first day he was ignored; on the second he was abused; on the third he was listened to. A crowd blocked the main street, and traffic came to a standstill. He plied his message a fourth and a fifth and a sixth day.
Where he went after he finished his preaching, no one knew. He arrived early in the morning and set off at sunset, subsisting on a bottle of water and little else. He never seemed to flag or weaken under the sun. His hat was gnarled. He always came from the north, and headed back that way. No one thought of going after him—at first. But curiosity and hope got the better of them, and at the end of the sixth day they started following him when his sermonizing came to an end. They followed him north to his bush camp about five miles along the road. And there they stood by him and watched his every action until he said: Return at dawn and I will show you the truth of water. The liquid science of God!
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