VI

Lenny paced, circling round and round. Dude! This wasn’t here yesterday.

Lenny stared at half a car, the rear half. Markings on the trunk said it was a Nova. Cut cleanly in half, it had been thrown violently across the desert floor, leaving tracks where it had rolled across bushes and boulders before coming to a stop in the middle of nowhere. The car had landed upright on its two rear wheels. The trunk was dented, but hadn’t opened.

Lenny wanted to kick it open, but he was barefoot. In fact, he was almost naked. Instead, he grabbed a big rock and banged it against the trunk’s lock. The trunk popped open. Inside he found a backpack, containing a file of legal papers, a bottle of SoBe Lifewater, and three candy bars. He started to toss the candy bars back when someone tapped him on the shoulder.

“Dude!” he said, startled, and turned to see Cheqipa, one of the indigenous people he had been living with. Cheqipa smiled broadly and answered, “Dude!”

These little guys could sneak up on you before you realized it. Cheqipa always popped up at the strangest times. He seemed to like Lenny, and Lenny liked him. Whenever Lenny had a question, Cheqipa was suddenly there to help. Lenny handed Cheqipa the candy bars.

“Is it time to go to the mansion?” Lenny asked. He talked to them even though he knew they didn’t understand what he was saying. Sometimes they talked to him too, with the same result.

Lenny pursed his lips, pointing his face in the direction of the mansion with a questioning look on his face. Cheqipa understood and stopped sniffing the candy bars to point in the same direction, adding, “Dude,” with a grumpy face to indicate the elders were waiting for Lenny.

The two took off at a casual trot, Cheqipa matching Lenny’s slower speed.

Lenny, a tanned surfer, had taken to wearing a breach cloth, like Cheqipa and the other men in the village. And like the others, he ran or jogged wherever he went. He had already had a long, blond ponytail, which he now wore in a braid down the middle of his back, similar to the long braids of black hair worn by the local natives. On top of everything else, he had started eating the same foods his hosts ate, including highly prized, oversized insects and reptiles.

Lenny had soon realized that many unusual creatures could be made into appetizing meals if properly prepared and cooked. Fortunately, these local people liked to eat and knew what they were doing when it came to cooking up all kinds of strange and elaborate feasts.

The young men of the village were skilled hunters and often ran to ground the gigantic animals that lived in this dimension. Lenny had watched them run in tag teams continuously day and night until their prey collapsed from exhaustion. Then, with only stone blades on wooden handles, the team killed and butchered their catch. Giant animals provided a lot of meat. With the largest animals, the villagers feasted for weeks, preserving the meat with salts from the dry lakebed.

Lenny smiled, thinking of his hosts trying to figure out what to do with candy bars. Many fruits and seeds had inedible shells or husks, so he figured they would easily get past the plastic wrappings. But what would they do with the chocolate, caramel concoction inside? Having witnessed their culinary skills, he was excited to see what new, creative dish they would invent.

After switching to an all-natural diet, candy bars no longer held any appeal for Lenny. The water bottle was another matter. Water, of any sort, was too valuable to waste, and a refillable container was a one-of-a-kind treasure.

With some guilt, he realized the bottle was one possession he wasn’t willing to share.