Brackish metallic saliva sting Bob's tongue as he tried to choke down the disgusting bile pooled at the back of his mouth - a strange taste that had a slight engine coolant piquant.

With forced determination he inched his eyes open.. just a little.

The buzzing in his head throbbed coming from somewhere behind his light stabbed eyeballs. Laying there on hard earth, no he guessed, sand - unpleasant - sticky sand, whatever it was, he began to take inventory on his working parts and the amount of itchy grains that had infiltrated his very being.

Tiny stabbing particles were being blown toward him stinging his entire body. The fly bites and searing of the mounting sun found him pretty certain that he was operating commando and sunburned in places, well, places that rarely saw the light of day.

His returning senses reluctantly wrestled with the chaos, not unlike firing up a generator that had been long forgotten and rusted for decades.

Hearing added little - from nothing at first - to soft cotton - to the distant sound of water?

Bob inched up on his now screamingly painful sun baked elbows and was confounded by the sight of..