My Dehydration Phase

 When I was younger (about 13 years old I'd say), my mom used to tell me to drink water all the time. Then one day my teacher showed my class a documentary about some Mexican guy named Pablo Valencia who wandered into the desert and then was found dead of dehydration. The documentary described him as having "leathery purple skin and bloodshot eyes" when he was found. I started having nightmares every night about that, and I started drinking absurd amounts of water every day to prevent myself from getting "leathery purple skin and bloodshot eyes." My mom had to tell me to chill and ask me to drink less water.

But the weirdest thing about this phase was that it inspired a tremendous amount of creativity, for some reason. Back then, I was pretty active on DeviantArt. I still post there just to have a permanent record of my art but I'm not part of the community as much anymore. Anyways, here's a dehydration-related drawing I made from that phase:

Well I think this art is really persuasive if it were to be used as a propaganda poster or something. A propaganda poster to convince people to drink water? Anyways I have to admit "Once you become purple, there's no turning back..." sounds interesting. I have to give myself credit. I was a clever child back then. And the dehydrated person looks fantastic. This is me in the morning: 

Here is a link to the original drawing on DeviantArt in case u wanna leave a comment: https://www.deviantart.com/aztecatl13/art/Dehydration-512888187?comment=1%3A512888187%3A3746482703 

I also wrote an absolutely atrocious story. It was called "The Dehydrated Diaries." It was 52 pages long. It's terrible and I know that if I posted it online anywhere, it would be roasted. Basically, it was about a girl (based on me) who dehydrates herself on purpose because it allows her to time travel back to random ancient civilizations when she does. She can also revive the dead. It's honestly extremely cringe. Here is an excerpt. In this scene, the main character is watching a documentary about dehydration which was the same one that my teacher showed me IRL. Meanwhile, a Viking named Ragnar who she revived from the dead is cooking an eel:

As Ragnar cooked up an eel and filled it with goose eggs for our ‘feast’, I began to watch the documentary as I continued sipping my chocolate beverage. 

It was called ‘Blue gold’ and it was about water conservation. In it, they described how a man named Pablo Valencia almost died in the Mexican-American desert. 

Mexico was a place that I’ve always wanted to visit because of the Aztecs and the simple mention of the word ‘Mexico’ got me interested. I savored the Aztec chocolate. 

Suddenly, my smile faded and the warm sensation that thinking about Aztecs made me feel was gone. They described the man dying of something that I didn’t realize was so awful- dehydration. 

His skin became leathery and thick, hideously discolored to an unnatural purplish-blue because he wasn’t able to breathe normally. His eyes were bloodshot and soulless. Red, waterless tears streamed from his pinkened pupils. The man seemed to have no lips. Had they shriveled up inside his mouth or simply fallen off? Worst of all, his swollen, purple skin was covered in gaping wounds. Blood poured out from everywhere on him.  Who knew that dehydration could make you look like you suffocated,  got acid poured onto you, and got beaten down to a bloody pulp  by a guy larger than Ragnar?

“By the Gods!! That’s worse than what we used to do to the Englishmen,” exclaimed Ragnar, who had dragged his egged eel into the living room and was now watching over my shoulder. 

I shuddered.

Ragnar turned off the computer. 

“That’s enough internet for one day, child,” he said and handed me the eel.

 

If you are interested in reading all 52 pages of this story, here is the Google Drive link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3xDRXmpTFWuTGpHdDVZS3RsU0U/view?usp=sharing 

For a music composition assignment, I wrote a song called "the Dehydration Song" with lyrics. Everyone sang along when I presented it and I got a good grade even though music is my weak area. I never did well in music at school. It's the only song I've ever composed. 

Here is a link to the song on Noteflight. You can play the song here and sing along to the lyrics. Maybe you can even print out the sheet music and play it on your instruments, I don't know. Here you go: 

https://www.noteflight.com/scores/view/8a9125ea1cfface2fd2976988a15e1a7a80e96ff

It has comments from 2014, wow. 

The chorus of the song was:

Dehydration is everywhere,

Dehydration is everywhere,

Purple skin, bloodshot eyes, 

Dehydration 

Purple skin, bloodshot eyes,

Dehydration 

Okay to be honest it sucks but at the time I thought it was a bop. 

Anyways, the takeaway from this post is that being afraid is not always a bad thing. In my case, my fear is what inspired so much creativity including a drawing, a 52-paged novella, and a song. The best part was that it made me drink more water.