1A/N: This short takes place after the 1980 movie "The Gods Must be Crazy".
Return to Sender
To someone born and raised in today's world, civilization seems like the normal way things operate. Or don't operate, as anyone who's tried to go to work in the morning only to find their car battery dead has found out. People will often rush about at breakneck speed so they can in turn wait for an hour in line, only to find that they've forgotten what the thing was they were going to do in the first place. People eat in a hurry, drive in a hurry, work in a hurry and if at all possible sleep in a hurry.
All this was completely foreign to Xi, and because HE was born and raised in the San tribe of Ju'/Hoansi Bushmen in the Kalahari Desert he had a very difficult time relating his experiences to the rest of his family when he returned from throwing the evil thing over the Edge of the World. His daughter Dani and his son Toma would ask him to repeat his stories again and again, which he would do faithfully and patiently. But when they asked him questions he often had to answer "I don't know" when queried about why some things were the way they were; he tried using other words, but sometimes even they couldn't relate to the rest what he had seen.
One thing was for certain; it was a confusing world away from the land and people they knew. Gabo - the oldest and wisest of the group - would nod his head; not from understanding of what Xi was trying to describe, but rather that the world didn't make sense away from their home and any attempts to understand it was futile. It was like man trying to understand the gods and especially why they had given them the evil thing. The fact that it was a discarded Coke bottle meant nothing to them, as they knew nothing of glass, cola or even the concept of recycling a deposit bottle; they only knew that it caused discord and unhappiness in the group when it appeared and had to be taken back before more misfortune befell the tribe.
...
"Did you get it?" Sali asked from the helicopter as the man in fatigues clamored into the open side door. Another similarly-clad man slammed the door shut as the old aircraft lifted off the ground, straining to gain altitude. The old helicopter groaned under the strain, the pilot swore at the controls and the door partially opened again due to a faulty latch. The noise level, already high to begin with due to the taxed engine, only rose slightly more from the wind noise outside.
"I did. I tried to hide it under my coat but it was too heavy so I just took it off and wrapped it around it" Jon shouted as he pulled the bandanna from around his lower face. He gestured to a pile that must have been his coat and the object.
"Serves them right. Anybody stupid enough to leave a bomb lying around in a museum deserves to lose it. And it will be put to good use when we bomb a hole in the prison where Boss is." Sam Boga was being held in a prison to the south while he awaited trial for his masterminding the killing of three cabinet members and wounding the President of Birani. In the meantime, the remnants of his band of outlaws had been busy trying to come up with a plan to free their leader and main driving force of the group; for the most part they were followers and not leaders and as planners they left a lot to be desired.
The helicopter continued to fly south at a low altitude to avoid detection from any distant observers. Sali asked Jon about the heist.
"They were still in the display at the museum like when we came through as tourists" Jon replied. "I grabbed a broom and started pretending to clean up just before the museum closed. About an hour later I managed to grab one of the bombs and make my way out of the front door - it was from the World War II display."
"An hour? We've been waiting here the whole time and I thought maybe you had got caught."
"No; it would have been sooner but some kid dropped popcorn all over the whole building and I wanted to clean that up first. Some people have no respect for other people's property."
Sali ignored the contradiction coming from the thief. "Show it to me."
Jon reached for his coat and pulled it toward the two. The motion unraveled the coat, turning the bomb over and rolling it toward the open door. Sali pointed mutely as he watched the bomb disappear out the window. Instinctively, he flattened against the floor and covered his head, grimacing. After a minute he relaxed, confused from the lack of an explosion rocking the aircraft. He gingerly slid over to the opening and peered out; only the varied vegetation of the Kalahari greeted his eyes for as far as he could see.
"We could go back and get it" Jon offered hopefully. Not necessarily hopeful that they would find it, but hopeful that at least a helpful suggestion of action would deflect some of the blame that would come his way. He looked out the window too. "It looks all the same down there."
"I have an idea" Sali suggested. "We continue in our mission and we knock down the wall of the prison by dropping YOU out of the helicopter."
Jon didn't like that idea at all.
...
Xi was out in the desert like he often was, gathering tubers that the gods provided to take back to his family. He heard a noise in the sky from one of the odd birds that never landed near his home. This one sounded different and nearer; he stared as a big bird the color of a dark leaf passed overhead. It was very noisy and it looked like it was swirling something around above it as it flew. Xi saw the bird drop something as it flew past, and the thing came tumbling down until it landed in a pit of sand nearby. Xi hurried over to the pit and saw where the sand had been disturbed as it was splashed away by the thing.
Now he didn't know what to do. The last time the gods had sent something from the sky it caused great discord in his small village and he had to give the item back. Would it make the gods angry to ignore this gift? Or was it a test of their intelligence whether they kept it or not?
It was a decision that was best discussed with the older members, so Xi carefully walked into the pit and started digging in the sand with his hands until he touched something hard. By digging and pulling he was able to drag out something that was just as hard as the evil thing, but much larger and heavier. It was also dark like wood. Although Xi was not a particularly large man, he found that he was just able to carry the thing by using both hands. It was round on one end, and the other end had short wings like a bird except there were four of them. Unlike the evil thing, there was no opening to hold water. Maybe someone in the village might guess what it was.
Back at the village, Xi called the others to look at the thing and they gathered quickly. He set it on the ground and they gathered around to look at it. Pabo tried to move it and it fell on his foot, hurting one of his toes. Another person used a stick and tapped on the thing, but nothing happened; the thing was very thick. Nobody knew what it was, but they remembered what happened last time and were very wary; there was only one of this thing too, and if it was useful soon there would be fighting too.
Gabo suggested that maybe since it was like very heavy wood, it might burn and they could use it for their fire. They tried, but as soon as the fire around the bomb was started a stray rhinoceros happened by; smelling the fire, he stamped it out for safety as they often do - accidentally kicking the bomb out of the fire in the process. Taking this as a sign, Gabo said that unless the gods provided another to share with the village, then Xi should take it to the Edge of the World and throw it off to give it back to the gods too. They went to sleep that night waiting for the sound of another strange bird to drop another thing near them.
The next morning proved that the gods weren't going to give them another of the things, so Xi rigged up a sling of animal skin and used it to carry the thing with him as he waved his goodbye to the village. It was going to be a long journey, but he learned many things from before and would not make the same mistakes again.
He had learned that there were animals called goats, and that if you saw a lot of them together then somebody got mad if you killed one. Other people would come and take you to big square huts where no one spoke words you understood and then they put you where the sun never shined on you. If you were lucky someone would ask you to do things for little pieces of things called paper, although he wasn't sure what they were for. Some of the people were very pale like the roots you pulled from the ground; Xi guessed that they stayed in the huts too long instead of being in the sun. Or maybe it was the way they covered almost all of their bodies with the thin stuff like spiderwebs material.
Instead, Xi stayed away from any groups of animals to be safe. But although he was pretty sure the other people weren't gods, he thought maybe he should ask them about the thing he was carrying so he looked for the two men who had taught him to ride the strange animal with the round legs that went around and around. The place where they used to be was empty now and nothing was left except dirt and grass and the big tree. Xi decided to follow the tracks left by the strange animal - the tracks that looked like two snakes that that didn't wiggle while they crawled side-by-side.
It was some time, but the tracks led past a square hut that had several people around it. Another of the strange animals was sitting in front of the hut by a square box that had a long rope leading into the animal. Xi had learned from the man M'Pudi that this was how you fed the animal, but he didn't understand how it could drink but not eat. He walked up to the people and started explaining why he was there as he pulled the sling off his back. The people made sounds he didn't understand, but when he showed them the thing they immediately ran away. Xi looked behind him but didn't see anything, so he guessed that the thing he had was evil like the other thing and it was a good thing he was doing.
Secure in that knowledge, he traveled many days until once again he stood at the Edge of the World. The cliff edge dropped straight away beneath him for a great distance before it disappeared in the tops of the clouds that completely covered the ground below and for as far as the eye could see. He spoke aloud and thanked the gods for the thing, but that it was much too fine a gift for his family and that maybe it should be given to someone else. With some effort he spun and heaved the thing over the edge, and then turned and walked away before it had reached the cloud cover. In a hurry to return to his home and family again, he barely heard the thunder that came from below and behind him. He glanced up but saw no clouds above or ahead of him; he had been in a great rainstorm once that had that sound and it meant that there was much water somewhere. Water was gift from the gods he understood.
The End
A/N: I didn't realize how badly this movie was dubbed until I watched it recently. I *think* I could have understood the original accents, but I can't guarantee it. This story ignores the sequel to the original movie; quite frankly, I don't remember much of that one. But the whole premise of the original movie was the introduction of an ordinary object (a glass Coke bottle) to an isolated people. I started thinking what other odd object could have been introduced and when I randomly stumbled upon an article on a pre-WW2 bomb the two came together; newer bombs would have been too heavy to carry but there was a model that weighed about 40 lbs...
