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The snickering and naggingly familiar voice instructed them in their new task:
"Follow the Egyptian passage to the tomb. There, find the bulb
to a mini-mag flashlight at the bottom of a canyon. The winner gets their choice of one nights sleep on a blow-up
air mattress or to keep the bulb."
The "Egyptian passage…what could that be?" Tobias asked as they wormed their way through a tall, narrowing
canyon. For a long stretch of passage, they were forced to walk sideways, heads facing forward, unable to turn
their heads or bodies. Julie provided the answer: "This is it. Think of those pictures of the ancient Egyptians
drew on pottery and on walls. All the people were painted flat, with faces turned one way or the other. That's
what we all look like!" Tobias chuckled and said, "Cool. I can handle this." Indeed, the passage
was easy enough, and the echoes were rather awesome as they reverberated unexpectedly from long distances.
They followed the passage to a tight turn that even tiny Maria could not negotiate (had she been in front of the
single-file line). They looked down to a lower level and saw a large, almost perfectly rectangular block of rock.
The tomb. Weeks of caving was showing through, as each contestant expertly wedged their bodies against the canyon
walls and slid down to the lower level. They then set about inspecting the area and started to search for the mini-mag
bulb.
The tomb was located in a small projection from a large room with a flat and dusty floor. Each contestant chose
an area commenced sifting through the dust on the floor. None really wanted the bulb itself, since LED's had taken
the cave lighting market by storm; but all longed for the night on a blow-up mattress. So on they dug, and sifted,
and sneezed. Tobias grew tired, and decided to stretch out on top of the tomb for a spell. He fell into a deep
sleep for about five hours while the others toiled.
Tobias was dreaming of blue skies, then of a very bright sun. He woke to a light shining on his
eyes. "Good," Maria decreed. "We thought we were going to have to ask Oztotl permission to bury
you in this tomb." Groggy with partial sleep, he sat up and scratched his head, and dug into his ear to remove
some dirt. Something in there felt too smooth to be a stone, so he removed it and inspected it…yes, it was indeed
the elusive bulb!
Tobias, having already slept, and always generous to a fault, offered the bulb & thus the award of the mattress
to Julia, who declined; then to Maria, who hesitated but also declined. He looked over at the eager twins, and
remembering how they had quarreled over a large rock for a pillow, knew better than to offer them such a prize.
Finally he looked at Roger, who said, "It's yours, bub; and you earned it as much as anyone else around here."
At the voting, attentions turned to the remaining contestants with more scrutiny. The meek, careless, complaining
and irritating people had been eliminated. Now the competent, kind, and/or meticulous were left. The twins had
survived partly because the males were all attracted to them, and partly because the only thing they ever agreed
upon was not to vote each other out. Perhaps oddly, the very able, calm and level headed Julie was voted out, as
she was perceived as the biggest general threat to the others' chances of winning.
Later that night, the remaining contestants slept on the dusty cave floor…and Tobias slept soundly in comfort on
his air mattress.
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