 Why does the author focus on the water returning to smoothness after Ned's wreck?
A scream of brakes, the splash into icy waters, a long descent into alkaline depths ... Ned Vince was still dimly conscious when that black, quiet pool geysered around him in a mighty splash. Movement was slower now, as he began to sink, trapped inside his wrecked car. The icy breeze tore tiny puffs of dust from grotesque, angling drifts of soil, nearly waterless for eons. Still submerged in liquid, the corpse was submitted to a flow of restorative energy, passing between complicated electrodes.
 To demonstrate how time and progress move forward, without taking pause for the loss of a single or entire society
 To demonstrate how time and progress move forward, without taking pause for the loss of a single or entire society  To depict the difference between a 20th century moment and the future, when water has vanished from the continent  To illustrate the biological effects of alkali on the composition of the human body  To personify the all-consuming effects of nostalgia and fear in the last moments of a human's brief life