A Really Beautiful Day (Part 1)

During the half an hour break, Hana keep on hugging her gem-containing palm with starry eyes while watching Kuro practicing its electric generation. If only she could set it on a ring! It would've looked dazzling beside her wedding band. Hana reluctantly kept aside the gem in her pant's pocket as she wanted to continue preparing her filters.

She tried to plan out the water filtration system requirements in her notepad and all the materials that she might need to prepare; for example, a water reservoir as a receiver, filter particles, the freshly scored filter body, etcs, so that she won't miss out anything. Once this has been completed, she will proceed to design the layout.

While she was writing in her notepad, she silently acknowledged her oversight on today's activity, especially on material preparations and planning.

If she had sat down and planned properly first before embarking, she wouldn't have brought extra baggage to and fro but still did not achieve her objectives.

She should have focused on one task at a time and prioritize, as making the fish trap at the beginning was simply too time consuming. She was eager to have more food variety rather than water; her most basic necessity which was dangerously low at the moment. Her bad habit as a food addict probably contributed to this decision. She knocked her head lightly while sighing; Arash used to do this when she forgot her priorities.

She also overestimated her capabilities, forgetting that she was not used to perform high intensity physical jobs. Most of her time previously was filled with cleaning her 900 square feet apartment, trying out new recipes once a while, bf-ing their baby, teaching their kid worldly and spiritual information and reading web novels, with the occasional shopping spurs, online and offline. It was a super sedentary life.

Even when she was young, her aversion to sweaty activities (which will cause her to have smelly armpits) had prevented her from choosing girl scouts. She only chose Red Crescent Moon(1) to learn a bit about first aid and get the necessary curriculum credit for a pass. She always came out with reasons to skip the activities when it involved marching and the like.

She sighed when she was thinking about her uselessness.

[I need to step up my game. I want to live long enough to meet up with Arash and the kids!]

She shrugged and lightly slapped herself on both of her cheeks until they reddened, forcefully injecting some illusionary chicken blood into her veins.

[First things first, let's settled the pots!]

She scurried to her pots and checked them one by one. It turned out, only the pannikin felt totally bone dry. The other two potteries were not wet like before, but they were still not entirely dried up. It made sense as the pannikin was the smallest pottery she made.

Hana sighed. She knew she needed some more time to let the two pieces of potteries to be dried up first before firing them. If not, they might crack when being fired. Her hopes of using them by tonight were prematurely dashed.

[Well, at least I could slowly burnish(2) these pots first to make them nicer.] The dejected aunty lightheartedly commented in her heart to appease herself.

....

She successfully made two fires in record time this time around. All her training that she has done before has made her a great fire starter as she grinned proudly to herself. Regrettably, there's no one around for her to boast. Such a pity!

The first one was made on her usual fireplace, while the other second one was a bit further away. She fired her earthen pannikin and its cover with the fire built further away. She made sure to feed the fire well as they burned strong and constant. Only half an hour was needed for her to settle the arrangement for firing her pannikin. Now, she only needed to leave it inside the large fire while she minded her own business.

This time, Hana sat down at her favorite spot, while Kuro came and nestled on her lap. She just smiled and continue to swipe open her smartphone and informed her hubby briefly that she had returned. Old habits die hard. She still kept on reporting her whereabouts every single time without fail. She needed to let him know she had return to the cave safe and sound for today as early as possible. If not he would worry incessantly. However, she didn't wait for a reply, and continued with her work. There's simply too many things to do. Once everything was done, she would be able to leisurely chat with her love.

After that, she started inspecting the three chosen bamboo canisters. Both sides were opened due to her carelessness. She started wrapping one side of each bamboo with a clingwrap.

[How many layers should I make? Is three enough?] She pondered.

In the supermarket, usually the wet items will be wrapped with two layers. So she should choose three to be safe. However, she was worried that the weight from the filter particles will push down the clingwrap and in the worst case scenario, everything will come out from the bottom.

After hesitating for a while, she finally settled on four layers.

She made sure she wrapped each canister tightly and covered a large margin on the sides as well. After that, she made ropes from twisted strips of clingwrap and tied each wrapping for added assurance.

After all three canisters had been secured properly, Hana started pouring in bits of crushed charcoal inside one of the canister first. The charcoal's porous characteristic will act as a final defense; adsorbing unseen microscopic impurities and chemicals from the water.

Then she poured in large pebbles, a slightly smaller pebbles, course sand, and lastly fine sand in sequence. Each type of filter material was at the same height to each other. While pouring in all the filter particles, she made sure the bamboo canister was straight, so that they will set evenly inside, forming layers after layers. The first simple filter was done!

[Banzai!] She throwed herself some imaginary confettis! :D

Hana placed her first completed filter gently at the side of the cave wall and used some stones to make sure it did not roll and fall down. At the bottom of the bamboo canister where the clingwrap was placed, she lined with some fresh banana leave segments so that the clingwrap will not get damage and the surface in contact with the cave floor won't get dirty.

Next, Hana prepared the second filter with the same sequence and placed it beside her first bamboo canister filter. When the second one was done, she then realized the filter particles were not enough to make a third filter.

[Two is enough for now I guess.] Hana shrugged helplessly.

She left the last bamboo canister by the side of the cave wall for the time being.

[Well, what to do now? The pot that should be the receiver was already broken ni...sigh...]

She looked at the once biggest claypot she made which were in pieces now sadly. She knew now why the biggest pot was so easily shattered. It wasn't even leather-hard(3) dry yet, as it was still considered a greenware(4) due to its size. Maybe it was fate. She made a mental note to use the shattered clay shards to remake a new pot later. One should not waste as the material was quite limited.

[For the water receiver right now, I can only improvise. If I delay some more, I won't have clean water to drink by tomorrow morning.]

She was down to her final quarter bottle of water now. She had felt quite dehydrated since she had reduced her daily consumption significantly. She felt parched all the time now.

Hana pondered for a while, then she took out her notepad and pen. She started to sketch a possible water filtration system by finding answers for the following questions;

1. How to maintain the filter canister in a vertical position stably while being suspended?

2. How to let the filter water flow into a receiver pot without spillage and contaminated with outside particle?

3. Is it possible to make the receiver to have a simple valve so that it can turn into a dispenser?

For the first question, she knew, to let the filter stand stably, she needed to build some sort of skeletal rack for support. However, as she had never made one herself, she really wished that Arash was here so she could left everything to him as usual as she sighed.

Author's note:

(1) Red Crescent Moon = (lit. translation: Bulan Sabit Merah) it's the local equivalent of St. John where you learn how to treat people with first aid.

(2) burnish these pots = refer to smoothing the surface of the pots using blunt object by rubbing on surface of pots

(3) leather-hard = partially dried pots, leaving about 15% water content

(4) greenware = undried pots, still have very high water content, so it will be very fragile