‘One frequently neglected aspect of the North American Continental Divide is that it’s nearly 10’ across in some places, meaning that there exists a strip of land that drains neither toward the Pacific nor toward the Atlantic Coast. Along this strip on a windless day, a traveler might collect a bottle of ‘Scaredy Water,’ named for its unwillingness to choose a side. ‘Scaredy Water Ponds’ are ephemeral even within their seasons, but the safest bet is New Mexico’s ‘Shiver Pool,’ named for the trembling motion of the windswept water and its deep cold.’
Scaredy water is supposed to be good for making decisions. That’s what the internet witches say. Drink it. Shower in it. Spill it on the ground and scry for omens. They don’t agree on how to use it. Just the purpose.
Autumn is actually the worst time to visit ‘Shiver Pool.’ There’s supposed to be a spring feeding it from somewhere underground but it’s supplemented by rain and snow to such an extent that by the time fall comes around, it’s more like a ‘Shiver Marsh.’ Still, the water collected there shows the tell-tale signs of ‘scardiness.’ It moves like loose jello and it shrinks from touch and it does both so slightly that it makes me doubt it’s doing either.
I fill a bottle with my hands safely tucked into rubber gloves from the first aid kit. I don’t want the stuff on me or in me but it’s bound to be something I can bargain with down the road. Once it’s sealed up and patted dry, I reconnoiter the area and, finding myself alone, pull the handgun from my bag.
It’s in pieces now, black and silver. It took me hours to get it apart, both because I was referencing videos on an amateurishly encrypted connection and because I was afraid it would go off at any moment, even after I had pulled out the bullets and the firing pin and a few other integral things. I’ve read that guns are heavier than they look but I don’t think that’s the case. Considering what they can do put together, the gathered pieces seem incredibly light.
With a new set of gloves, I plop the handgun into the ‘Shiver Pool’ and set up camp for the evening. I’ll let them soak there overnight and after they’ve dried a couple days and I after I’ve watched a few more videos about cleaning the pieces and putting them back together, I’ll have an untraceable gun and five untraceable bullets. If there comes a time to use it, I hope that the scaredy water treatment will work to grant me the resolve to pull the trigger or else that it will grant me the hesitation I need to overcome an obstacle more peaceably.
One or the other.
-traveler
