A Really Beautiful Day (Part 2)

After pondering for a while, she finalized two diagrams; one, a simple rack made of stones and bamboo strips to suspend the filter securely, the second one, was a proper rack when she obtained enough items to build it.

For the other two questions on contamination prevention and making a valve, she will have to leave it to her competent engineer-hubby. Without the necessary tools and materials, she felt that she was not competent enough to think of a solution. Her habit of relying on Arash resurfaced without her realizing it.

Rummaging her bag, she found her small prized homemade chisel. With this she can start immediately.

[Let's test the waters first!]

Hana wanted to try making long bamboo strips from her leftover bamboo she salvaged on her first day.

The ones cut down just now were simply too large; her hands were full with making potteries. She didn't have enough time to process the bamboo completely into shorter segments. It was still there by the stream. She added a new objective to her to-do list in her notepad for a reminder.

The ones she already processed a day earlier were a tad bit too short and skinny; the bamboo she felled was smaller by half compared to the last one. It had smaller diameter and shorter segments; unsuitable for making a permanent rack since it was smaller than the filter itself. Hana knew she needed to redo the filter rack after she processed the leftover large bamboo tomorrow, hence, she already prepared a second diagram of a rack for it. But right now she must make do with whatever she had since she needed water to drink urgently.

She used a stone to pound on the back of the chisel to cut the bamboo vertically into two parts. Surprisingly it was not that hard. Cutting horizontally was harder. After a slit was made following the grain of the bamboo , she can tear them apart easily with her bare hands. She tried again by cutting each parts again into two using the same method. So now she had four strips!

"Aiyoo...this caveman method is so tiring...my fingers are sore...wuwuwuuu.." Hana whimpered wretchedly.

Shiro sighed in its heart.

[You just started!] He raged.

Just like that, Hana kept on grumbling like an old aunty while making more bamboo strips. She made ten quartered bamboo strips from two and a half canisters. The last halved bamboo canister was left as is.

Once done, Hana stood up to survey a suitable location inside the cave. It must be beside the wall so that it won't impede traffic. Hana won't forgive herself if she inadvertently kicked her prized filters. It took so much hard work.

Hana choose to place the filter on a rock about one feet high from the ground. She then placed the filter aside and proceeded to drag larger rocks to sandwich the filter on the left and right side.

"Urghhhhhh!!! So heavy! I hate this!" Hana blubbered unhappily again.

Watching this, the loyal little Kuro shaking its head and went near to Hana and started pushing the big boulder from between her legs. Hana suddenly felt the boulder became weightless and her foot tripped against Kuro tail!

"Aigooooo! Watch out Kuro!" She just realized it was her "just recently praised little pet" that was between her legs! She didn't manage to evade and fall down directly on top of Kuro.

Kuro realized his mommy was falling. It immediately slithered to the side haphazardly and jumped towards Hana. He coiled his lower body on Hana's left wrist and yanked her body together while landing on the nearly two feet rock they were pushing before.

Hana's falling momentum was broken. She was suddenly pulled to the front and fall face down on the rock!

"Wahhhh!!!" She was so scared that she screamed so loud in panic! Damn! It's better to fall to the side rather than to the front!

Hana's distress face was so evident on Kuro. It immediately slithered down from her wrist and coiled itself on the big stone to soften Hana's fall using his own body. It flexed itself and its tiny body bulked up as thick as a human arm. It suddenly looked like a fat black worm as compared to its sleek slender elegant body before.

As Hana closed her eyes in fright, she only felt like falling on a rubber-like texture on her chest. She felt relief before starting to open her eyes and bristled in fury. By that time, Kuro already changes back its slender body back.

[This little kepochiiii!!!!] (1)

She wanted to scold Kuro. A myriad of emotions fleeting through her face. She knew it just wanted to help. When she fell, it did help her prevent any injuries. Kuro was staring at Hana with his black beady eyes, acting cute as usual, conveying 'Praise me praise me' attitude.

Hana deflated and sighed.

[Forget it. It's unintentional.]

Hana rubbed Kuro's head and said, "Thank you for helping Kuro. Next time please tell mommy first before you start doing anything okay?"

The childlike snake nodded vigorously.

Hana knew that her pets were intelligent. The only thing was the problem with communication. They seemed to understand even complicated sentences from her, but she herself couldn't perceived what they said unless it was clearly shown using gestures. So, it was actually a failure on her end rather than theirs. She got no right to scold others when the problems originated from herself. She need to learn how to communicate with them more effectively as she sighed.

Together, they resumed pushing the big stone to Hana's intended location. Hana's work became smoother. She just needed to adjust the direction and Kuro will do the rest. Hana was pleasantly surprised with Kuro's strength. It was not proportionate with his size at all.

After a while, two larger stones were placed on the left and right side of the one foot smaller stone. One filter was placed on the smaller stone while being sandwiched by the side of the larger stones. She tied premade bamboo strips to the body of the filter horizontally; about three of them. Then, Hana collected appropriate sized stones and stacked on the left and right side of the filter, clamping the jutted out strips on both side.

When she felt that the filter stabilized, she started filling a little bit of water she fetched from the stream inside her water bottle earlier today. Then she can only patiently wait.

The water flowed into the filter and stagnated on top. Slowly it seeped through while being filtered from the fine sand. It went down layer after layer and finally passing through the charcoal section.

After a while, water seeped out from the tiny holes Hana punctured on the bottom part of the filter. It flowed through the half cut bamboo Hana placed as the water receiver and was collected into a random small plastic bag Hana acquired from her stash.

Hana inspected the water by shining her smartphone's torchlight. It was a bit cloudy with blackish specks as compared to before. Hana knew it must be the unsettled dust from the charcoal. She did not gave up and repoured the collected filtrate into the filter again. Like this, she repeated the same motion a few times more.

On the fourth time, the water became crystal clear! Hana was very happy!

[At last! My water filter is operational!]

"Banzai! Kuro, we did it!"

Hana carried Kuro and twirled two times happily before getting giddy.

For once, she felt today was a really beautiful day.

Author's note:

(1) kepochiiii =[k-po-chee] busybody. It derived from the word "kepoh" or "keyboh" which refers to chicken's anus. As it pass its motion, it kept on clenching intermittently like the mouth of busybody aunties who likes to gossip. Right now it had been generally accepted by everyone locally as 'busybody'. "-chiii" is just an addition that Mrs Mooncat loves to add which implied "little" to the word. Hence, it becomes "little busybody".