The Keeper of the Long Green Line

I was eleven when we moved into Uncle Raman’s old office block at the edge of the palm oil plantation. Dad managed the estate, and the building—a squat, weathered structure with peeling paint and a corrugated iron roof—was our new home. It had no running water, so every drop we used came from the main supply at the estate’s processing shed, a fifteen-minute walk down a red dirt track that cut through rows of silent, stoic palms.

My parents, ever practical, rigged up a long, black plastic hose that snaked from the tap at the shed, under the barbed-wire fence, across the field, and up to a rusty drum beside our back door. It was our lifeline, a constant, reassuring trickle that filled the drum throughout the day. But one Saturday, at two in the afternoon, the trickle stopped. The drum was empty, and the hose lay limp and dry.

Mother, her face tight with worry, had gone to check the tap at the shed, but it was fine. She came back, muttering about a leak or a blockage. She turned to me and my younger sister, Ani. “Go and check the line,” she said, her voice frayed. “See if it’s kinked or torn. Be careful, and check all the way to the shed.”

Ani and I set off, the sun a white-hot coin in the sky. The hose led us away from our house, past the boundary fence, and into the edge of the plantation. The air was thick with the smell of oil and damp earth. We walked along the hose, our eyes scanning for breaks. It looked intact, but something felt off. The usual drone of insects had faded, and the leaves of the palms hung still, as if holding their breath.

Then we saw it: a clump of mud and roots where the hose ran under a fallen frond. We bent down to inspect it. The hose wasn’t torn; it was just lying there, but the mud around it was wet, as if something had been recently disturbed. Ani touched the hose and yanked her hand back. “It’s warm,” she whispered.

I touched it too. The plastic was warm, nearly hot, even though it was shaded. We followed the hose a bit further, and the warmth grew. And then we noticed the line was moving—not flowing, but pulsing, a slow, rhythmic bulge that traveled from the shed toward our house, like something was pushing through from the other end.

We walked on, our hearts thumping. The pulsing grew stronger, and the hose began to swell in sections. Then, up ahead, we saw a figure kneeling over the hose. It was a woman, dressed in a faded yellow sarong, her back to us. She was muttering in a language we didn’t understand, her hands moving over the hose as if she were coaxing it. As we approached, she turned her head, and I saw her face—it was a mask of exhaustion, with sunken eyes and skin like old parchment.

“This water,” she said, her voice like dry leaves. “It belongs to someone else now.”

Ani gripped my arm. The woman smiled, a thin, brittle smile, and gestured for us to come closer. “You want water?” she asked. “I’ll give you water. All you need.”

She placed her hand on the hose, and the pulsing stopped. Then, a dark liquid began to seep from the end near her, not water but something thick and syrupy, with a metallic smell. It dripped onto the ground, staining the red dirt black.

“That’s not water,” I said, my throat dry.

“Better than water,” she whispered. “For the soil. For the roots. For the ones who wait.”

She pointed toward the shed. The line of the hose continued, but now it seemed to wriggle on its own, like a serpent. I realized then that we had lost sight of the shed; the palms had closed in around us, and the path was gone.

We turned to run, but the hose snapped taut, blocking our way. The woman rose, towering over us, and her form wavered in the heat. “You came to find your water,” she said. “But you found me. I was here before the palms. I will be here when they’re gone. The line is mine now, and it will feed my family.”

She took a step forward, and we stumbled back. The ground beneath our feet began to soften, and dark roots burst through the soil, wrapping around our ankles. We screamed, but no sound came out. The last thing I saw was the woman’s face splitting into a grin that stretched far too wide, and the hose, still dripping with that dark liquid, wrapped around our wrists like fetters.

We woke up lying beside the drum at our back door. The hose was attached, and water was trickling out, clean and clear. Mother came out, her face bright. “Ah, the water’s back,” she said, and she didn’t question why we were lying on the ground, or why our clothes were stained with black mud.

We never spoke of the woman again. But sometimes, when I walk past the shed, I see a patch of the hose that is always wet, even when the tap is off. And sometimes, at the heart of the longest stretch of the line, I think I see the hose pulse, as if it’s still carrying something we were never meant to receive.

We’ve moved away since, but every Saturday at two in the afternoon, I find myself looking at any hose or pipe, and I remember the line, the long green line that led us to her, and I know she’s still there, waiting for someone else to come looking for their water. And the house, the office, the plantation—they are all part of her territory now, and the line will never let us go.