Shinelle L. Espaillat, Water Wars, fiction by TahomaLiterary

“Water Wars” began as a way to vent about work. I had worked in spaces where increasingly inconceivable expectations were presented as perfectly acceptable, and in which the hierarchy participated in active, oblivious, trickle-down dehumanization. I had seen multiple work
spaces devolve from atmospheres of camaraderie to morale deserts, and the transition could almost always trace back to the installation of a certain kind of leadership: when the people who did the work assumed that the leadership would fail due to blatant incompetence. So, the story evolved to include an exploration of how quickly the absurd becomes the accepted norm.

Shinelle L. Espaillat currently teaches writing at Dutchess
Community College in Poughkeepsie, NY. Find Shinelle at
shinelleespaillat.com; @shinelle20 (Twitter); @shinelleespaillat
(Instagram)