I dreamed I was the city’s water meter

Not a person, not a pipe—just a little black box on a wall in some forgotten basement, reading the flow of everything. I felt every flush, every shower, every drip from a broken tap like it was my own blood. The city was thirsty and I knew exactly how much it had drunk, but no one ever came to read me. Just silence, and the slow, steady pulse of need. When I woke up, my throat was dry. I don’t know if that was the dream or the truth.