This system runs on leaks. Faulty pipes and all that.
Water droplets into buckets and buckets into gutters.
No one “knows” the system, but it’s not an airtight secret.
Condensation forms on the outside of the metal.
It’s drawn out.
I walk through the halls, whispers abound and ricochet off the walls.
Plumbers are in short supply.
Water leaves its pipes eventually
But the metal erodes indefinitely.
Water brings sediment with it
And the bolts turn with no apparent agenda.
If only we could tell the pipes to stop leaking.
If only there were no pipes at all.