        Unfortunately, when he looked again, the scene had not changed.  Half of his mind was suggesting, quite loudly, that running away might be a good idea.  Screaming while doing so would probably be even better.  He involuntarily dropped the tripod and thermos in preparation for flight.  His heart began racing; if there had been so much as a gust of wind at that moment, he likely would have been gone fast enough to leave a cloud of sand behind him.  As it was, his hindbrain still hadn’t figured out what to do, so it was just preparing to do something, eventually settling on wait and see what develops.