It took three knocks on Logan's skull before he was jarred awake, the dreams of sweet peace being too compelling to dislodge easily. During the night, the hurricane had increased in intensity and now a minor earthquake added to the distractions. When the wood stove tumbled over and sent glowing coals rolling across the floor to where fallen jerrycans of gasoline with ill-fitting caps were gurgling out their contents onto the carpet, the eagle scout and would-be hermit was forced to act. It was too late to remove a summer's supply of propane in convenient cylinders from the structure or even grab his trusty backpack. He paused after standing; someone had tied his shoelaces together! Logan did a kangaroo hop to the exit. Waiting only long enough to allow the swaying walls to release the door, he jumped for the porch. It was no longer there. No splintered wood greeted his feet only empty space, then soft sand.

Logan rolled across the ground; silica grit coated his naked body like a piece of choice meat being prepared for grilling. He played armadillo and glimpsed a kaleidoscope of images before coming to rest against the trunk of an unfamiliar tree. While upside down a loud snap had freed his legs. In a moment, his head cleared.

Sparks leap from flames as the rented cabin burned, lighting up the meadow and revealing his four-wheel drive gone missing. All the pines had been replaced with palms that sported clusters of apples hanging like huge yellow grapes. In the sky two pocketed moons were visible near the horizon. Yesterday's gravel road had changed to worn red bricks with makeshift patches of black asphalt. It certainly wasn’t Kansans.

Like a string of firecrackers exploding, a thousand rounds of rim-fire enlivened the catastrophe. Logan saw the barrel of his rifle, glowing deep orange against a backdrop of incandescent white, and bending with each tick of the inner clock that all humans carried with them. It disappeared into the flames. In moments the only thing left of his former life was a pair of swim trunks that had fluttered with him through the door, an overflowing garbage can, and a cheap toolbox the kind you can buy at a discount store during a dollar sale.

Logan stooped to admire the bracelets that had constrained both feet. One of them dangled a length of plastic chain. He grabbed his shorts before the wind could claim them. They were Prussian blue and had a wallet pocket if you wanted to carry identification while jogging. He put them on and immediately felt much better. I have equipped armor he thought; or at least his butt and balls were no longer in the breeze. He looked around him. The garbage can was his next destination.

Standing upwind from the pile of burning lumber and glowing coals the metal trash receptacle was only warm to the touch. Logan retrieved the loaves of stale rye bread he had disdained earlier and reclaimed two empty plastic juice containers for water bottles. He added a polycarbonate shot glass with a thick bottom and 8 feet of frayed hemp rope to the save pile. Aside from greasy sawdust, the toolbox held a hacksaw blade ground into a knife and a small roll of duct tape. It was not his grab-and-go bag with its carefully chosen gear, but it would do. Logan was thankful that his pragmatic philosophy asked only what and deferred all whys.

The lone survivor of the disaster, or what could have been its only casualty, covered the bottoms of his feet with layers of tape and tied plastic bottles onto either end of the rope to carry hanging from his shoulders. The improvised knife, strung with twine, dangled from his neck. He washed out and filled the water bottles from a broken pipe. Then drank his fill and pissed out a torrent of dark syrup. How long had I been sleeping he wondered? Logan removed the cumbersome remnants of manacles from his body. The fibrous nylon was no match for a metal cutting saw.

All the palms were planted in rows with dead and missing plants indicating the duration of time. He plucked a piece of fruit. As they had bird pecks and worm holes, he decided it was a safe bet. Logan sliced, smelled, tasted, and ate a small piece of surrogate apple. He claimed two reusable string bags for food storage and filled them with the exotic fruit.

The last thing Logan did was to extract the earthing rod he had pounded in earlier as a ground for his radio. Two feet of steel-bar felt good in his hand, and it had a point cut at the end. He stopped to look around himself. The sun now up, all the landscape was tinged light blue. Bats with long ivory beaks hunted small squawking animals in the crowns of the palms. The sky was cloudless but far in the distance a faint line of smoke functioned as a beacon. The patched road headed in that direction. Logan decided to follow it.

Twenty minutes’ walk and the pavement turned left and widened, following the river downstream. The valley was four or five miles across, constrained by steep cliffs that ended in high mesas. Up top, trunks of burnt trees silhouetted the sky. There was a sprinkling of new green shoots beside charred wood. Water darkened the face of the escarpment, and there were little creeks cascading everywhere. The holocaust of fire had spared the canyon floor, instead patches of mottled sand indicated where corrosive or defoliant had spilled from the clouds. Every so often, a structure appeared. But no humans or large animals moved about, and detritus covered the road.

Logan hurried, driven not by blind panic, but the primal need to cover distance for his own safety. Whoever had snatched him might return to complete the experiment. Stomach growling, he finally forced himself to stop and quickly gather food. He plucked small yellow onions from between the spines of tall black cacti. And gathered a red watermelon with green flesh from a tangle of vine, sprawling along the ground in an abandoned field, wanting to take over the entire world. There were also tubers, planted and self-seeded irregularly along fence lines. He dug them up using a flat board, knocked off clinging soil, and secured them in a mesh bag.

It was only midday, but he felt uneasy. The hovels of scrap wood or sun-dried adobe with their corrugated tin roofs that dotted the farmland were no protection. Logan searched for normal trees, the kind he could climb to spend the night in and found none. Around a bend in the road and back against the cliff was a half-dome of white concrete, the ritzy vacation home of a city dweller. Logan headed for it feeling like a bag lady fleeing a drought with his cargo of food and thumping bottles of water.

Halfway to the house were two timbers supporting a crossbeam high above the path. The lettering chiseled on it appeared Cyrillic or Latin. There was a rusty plow in the yard, more for decoration then use; and bags of parched and cracked clay on the porch. A hearty pound on the door produced no response. Logan cautiously turned the knob, went in, and bolted the door behind him. One large dusty room was a potter's studio, with kick wheel and ware racks, the other a small living space. Logan sat down at the kitchen table, unpacked, and began devouring his collection of strange fruit and stale bread, washing it down with tepid water. The enjoyment of his repose was interrupted by a terrible pain in his bowels. It sent him outside to the latrine. Returning, he lay uncovered on the floor and fell asleep. Tomorrow's dawn had come and gone by the time he was able to rouse himself. He washed and ate the last of the yellow fruit and dry crusts of bread for breakfast.

Logan decided to loot the workshop, or at least see if it contained any useful gear. The living space had furniture, including a bedframe and iron-stove but nothing a backpacker would need or could carry. The list of his wants was endless. He decided to drop it all and see what was available.

Hidden in the wall of the glazing alcove was a plastic quart jar of pink powder and another of greasy white. Logan was sure one was cobalt carbonate by its color and the other tin oxide by its texture. Those were the most expensive glaze ingredients available, so it made sense. He decided on stealing them to sell or trade. He paused to admire the large vases on display. Their thin even walls and restrained colors clarified the maker’s personality. Logan placed a bundle of old newspapers in the carry-bag for fire starting, alongside empty plastic bags saved for food storage.

Outside, Logan almost choked when he saw the tracks in the dirt. A huge nocturnal bird of some kind had visited leaving footprints as wide as two hands. And a big dog, or wolf, had followed, stopping to sniff at his shit. He decided to visit the adobe haciendas by day and see if they contained any secrets. Night would need a sturdy building or fortress for protection.