QAF Narrative No. 59
A Fictional Reimagining of The Long Dry Season
“Dad, come out a little farther!”
Steve looked toward his son.
The boy was waving from the lake. Sunlight flashed across the water around his legs. Steve lifted his foot, then settled it back into the sand.
A wave reached his shins.
His hand moved toward the dressing on his chest.
“Within forty-eight hours,” the doctor had said.
The room had been too bright. Somewhere overhead, a fluorescent light hummed.
Steve looked down at his hands.
“Forty-eight?”
“We’ll place a line in your chest. That will give us access for treatment.”
The doctor continued, but Steve’s mind had stopped at the word chest. He pictured a dressing beneath his shirt. Something to carry home. Something his son might notice.
How could he explain it?
He pressed his palms against his knees.
“Your kidneys aren’t doing enough of the work now.”
Two days. He tried to imagine them, but his thoughts kept spilling beyond the treatment, beyond the room.
Tomorrow, his son would still want to play.
Steve glanced up.
“And the machine?”
“It filters your blood, then returns it to your body.”
Blood leaving him and coming back.
He followed the doctor’s explanation until he could almost picture the route. What he could not picture was himself afterward, walking through his own front door.
His son running toward him.
Could he bend down? Lift him?
“We’ll place a line in your chest. That will give us access for treatment.”
The doctor continued, but Steve’s mind had stopped at the word chest. He pictured a dressing beneath his shirt. Something to carry home. Something his son might notice.
How could he explain it?
He pressed his palms against his knees.
Then the lake. The first cold shock against sunburned skin. Going deeper and letting his feet leave the bottom.
The doctor was speaking again.
“Treatment will become part of your regular schedule.”
Steve nodded.
He could make room for appointments. Remember times, take pills, arrive where he was told to arrive.
But what happened to the hours around them?
He pictured his son outside in the afternoon, turning to call him into a game.
What if he heard that voice and had nothing left?
He looked at the doctor’s mouth, trying to catch every word.
Forty-eight hours.
He breathed in slowly.
The light kept humming.
In the months that followed, bottles stood on the table. Five pills in the morning. Others with meals. Another handful before bed. Steve learned when to take each one.
Sometimes he held a glass of water and looked at what remained before setting it down.
On hot days, he let a little ice rest on his tongue and waited while it melted.
Some afternoons after treatment, he played with his son. On others, he was too tired. Sometimes he kept going until his body made him stop.
Then came a week among the pines at Lions Camp Dorset.
Gravel underfoot. The smell of sunscreen and charcoal. His son running ahead along the trails. After treatment, Steve stepped into the sunshine and looked toward the cabin.
He sat in a lawn chair, the sun warming his legs. Children were playing nearby. For a while, he stayed there and listened.
“Dad!”
Steve blinked.
His son was still in the lake, waving.
He lowered his hand from his chest.
The boy smiled and beckoned.
Steve looked down. He could see the sand beneath the water. The bottom sloped gently toward his son; there was room for a few more steps before the water reached his knees.
He drew one foot free and planted it farther ahead.
Then the other.
The sand held beneath his feet. With all the strength he could gather, he took another careful step toward his son.
YF, October 2, 2026
Note: This story draws on the author’s interview with Steve Visser and his book, The Long Dry Season: A Life Lived in Milliliters. Dialogue, interior thoughts, and connecting actions have been imaginatively reconstructed.
A note from Steve Visser, author of The Long Dry Season: A Life Lived in Milliliters.
Thank you, Yaser, for the care you brought to this piece. I can feel the attentiveness in every line, and I'm grateful my story found a reader so thoughtful.
I did want to say a little about what The Long Dry Season is really about, because it isn't quite what it might seem from the outside. The book isn't, at its heart, a story about illness as a dramatic event. It's an attempt to give language to the interior world of chronic illness; the parts that happen quietly, in the bodily reactions to treatments, in the negotiations nobody sees: the fatigue that rearranges a whole day, the rationing of everything you once took for granted, of a life lived in milliliters. I wrote it so that chronic illness patients might feel seen, and so that the people who love them might understand the parts of illness we struggle most to articulate, the ways support people see only the surface, and don't always realize how much we're carrying underneath.
Your piece reads the story through the lens of illness and fatherhood, and it's a beautiful vignette on its own terms. But where my book lives is in the interior space, and in hope and resilience at its core: the belief that naming the hard, invisible things can itself be a kind of strength.
I'm glad this became a dialogue between us. Both readings are true; they just live in different rooms of the same house, so to speak.
Thank you for making space for my work.
SV
You can find the link to purchase the book below:
www.amazon.ca/Long-Dry-Season
The Story Only You Can Tell
Is there a memory or life experience you’ve always wanted to put into words? In QAF Story Lab, I’ll help you turn it into a short story, with personal feedback along the way. With each writer’s permission, we’ll also select stories to publish for our audience of more than 2,000 readers.
If you’re interested, click the button below to learn more.
Special Offers from Our Partners
Explore a selection of offers from our partners and discover something you may enjoy.
QAF Narrative may earn a commission when you use these offers.
