"Water is for Washing" is a

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...

short story A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest ...

by American writer

Robert A. Heinlein Robert Anson Heinlein (; July 7, 1907 – May 8, 1988) was an American science fiction author, aeronautical engineer, and naval officer. Sometimes called the "dean of science fiction writers", he was among the first to emphasize scientific accu ...

, first published in '' Argosy'' (November 1947). It is based on the premise that an earthquake had catastrophically shattered the range of

alluvial deposits Alluvium (from Latin ''alluvius'', from ''alluere'' 'to wash against') is loose clay, silt, sand, or gravel that has been deposited by running water in a stream bed, on a floodplain, in an alluvial fan or beach, or in similar settings. Alluv ...

separating the

Imperial Valley , photo = Salton Sea from Space.jpg , photo_caption = The Imperial Valley below the Salton Sea. The US-Mexican border runs diagonally across the lower left of the image. , map_image = Newriverwatershed-1-.jpg , map_caption = Map of Imperial ...

from the

Gulf of California The Gulf of California ( es, Golfo de California), also known as the Sea of Cortés (''Mar de Cortés'') or Sea of Cortez, or less commonly as the Vermilion Sea (''Mar Bermejo''), is a marginal sea of the Pacific Ocean that separates the Baja C ...

, precipitating a

tsunami A tsunami ( ; from ja, 津波, lit=harbour wave, ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other underwater exp ...

moving north to transiently drown these lowlands. In his notes, Heinlein said that he had a dream in 1946 in which he conceived of the entire story.

Plot Summary

At the beginning of the story, Heinlein uses the character of a bartender in

El Centro El Centro (Spanish for "The Center") is a city and county seat of Imperial County, California, United States. El Centro is the largest city in the Imperial Valley, the east anchor of the Southern California Border Region, and the core urban are ...

to establish the danger of the quake and inundation: Heinlein's perspective character is a traveling businessman who had picked up two chance-encountered children and a

vagrant Vagrancy is the condition of homelessness without regular employment or income. Vagrants (also known as bums, vagabonds, rogues, tramps or drifters) usually live in poverty and support themselves by begging, scavenging, petty theft, temporar ...

while driving frantically to higher ground, and the dramatic arc centers on the efforts of the men to survive and save the youngsters from drowning.

Publication

When the story was first published in Argosy, the editor removed the final two paragraphs. At the time, Heinlein was upset about this, as he stated they contained "the story's major symbolism." However when the story was later (1959) collected in one of Heinlein's anthologies, ''

The Menace From Earth "The Menace From Earth" is a science fiction short story by American writer Robert A. Heinlein, first published in the August 1957 issue of ''The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction''. Plot summary The story is set in the near future, when t ...

'', the paragraphs were not re-added. The manuscript, and therefore the removed paragraphs, was believed lost until Heinlein biographer William H. Patterson, Jr. discovered them in a misplaced manuscript in the

UC Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California system. Located on Monterey Bay, on the edge ...

archives.

Relationship to other Heinlein works

Although not tied directly to other of Heinlein's works, "Water is for Washing" is one of several short stories that take place in contemporary Southern California with no change in the political, social, or technological environment. Heinlein had settled in California after being discharged from the Navy and incorporated his environment into his fiction. Like "Water is for Washing,"

"—And He_Built a Crooked House—" '—And He Built a Crooked House—' is a science fiction short story by American writer Robert A. Heinlein, first published in '' Astounding Science Fiction'' in February 1941. It was reprinted in the anthology '' Fantasia Mathematica'' (Clifto ...

and "

The Year of the Jackpot "The Year of the Jackpot" is a science fiction short story by American writer Robert A. Heinlein, first published 1952, and collected in one of Heinlein's anthologies, ''The Menace from Earth''. In the story, a trend-following statistician finds r ...

" both take place partially in the desert areas east and north of Los Angeles, and involve earthquakes as plot points.

Reception

Robert Wilfred Franson describes "Water is for Washing" as packing "a neater punch than many whole novels of natural disasters and human reactions to them....As usual, Heinlein mixes a physical life-and-death challenge with considerations of knowledge, self-discipline, empathy, and spirituality." James Gifford describes "Water is for Washing" as "unusual" and "barely science fiction." He comments favorably on the attention to detail, both in the location and its temperature. He also points out that not many reader notice that the salesman and the tramp are never named, unusual for Heinlein. He draws a link to "They," in which the major characters are also not named.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Water Is For Washing 1947 short stories Short stories by Robert A. Heinlein Works about earthquakes Works about tsunamis Works originally published in Argosy (magazine)