The Chosen — 2026-01-19 (Patreon)

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Clean Water is a worldwide problem. Here are some agencies working on it:

UNICEF — https://www.unicef.orgUSAID — https://www.usaid.govWaterAid — https://www.wateraid.orgWorld Bank — https://www.worldbank.org

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Chapter 51: AS I LULL by Emma Knox

Even as night lingers near, yet still held off, I approach my bed hastened by my day, by my shift at the homeless shelter and by the registrar’s dictates, assigning me to attend certain classes at certain times. Between my nods my thoughts drifted in two parts competing: one toward my home in Mississippi, yet more so toward Rowan Oak in Oxford, where once lay the head of William Faulkner, and the other toward Africa, toward the home where now lie the heads of the people we have just visited.

In the end, the contest for my musings was won by the people I had most recently met—not as figures in history, but as living, breathing people, with days like mine and yet vastly unlike it all the same.

For there—and all around the world for that matter—live people wanting a peaceful and happy life—people who share their joys with those about them and who wish prosperity upon their loved ones. Yet I acknowledge how strickenly different they are from me, from us who live by switches for power and taps for clean water.

There they do not mark happiness by numbers on a ledger, nor does dismay come on the wings of dropped calls or lost connectivity. Their days do not answer to alarms and notifications glowing on screens.

They rise to the labors required of them, coaxing life from the ground, guiding livestock here and there, preparing meals… and then there is water—not found flowing from a tap, but fetched from wells and streams, carried by the liter to their homes—pure or not—yet needed still, despite the unseen risks sleeping within it.

I marvel at their strength to face life in ways that would have strained even my grandmothers and grandfathers. Their lives, even today, are echoes of things the people of the United States have all but forgotten. Yet they smile at the rising sun, scowl at the biting bugs, greet one another with respect, and live in the dignity of their customs.

It will be these memories that at last nudge me toward slee…

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