“But we don’t have money for plasma.” The old pre-owned wifey-poo was spouting off about the fuel gauge on the pre-owned, self-driving Oldsmobile flyer. They were both staring at individual paper checks each received that day from the Department of Not Wanting To Work, totaling four thousand smackeroos in unemployment wages.

Ernest grabbed a fruit chocolate pastry from the oven below the dash and took a bite. “I had a dream that I should buy a new peanut fluffer.”

“Are you sure it was a dream and not a commercial?” Said the wife with a sense of distraction.

The Oldsmobile craft bumped against the road as it landed, the dash chiming “Vehicle out of plasma. Refuel immediately.”

“It felt like a dream.” He said to Betty, lost in the numbers on the check, feeling really nothing except the thoughts of what he could buy.

“We need gas.” She said finally. “How do we do that?”

Looking up at the country side around them he came slowly out of his mental stupor. “I think…I don’t know actually. Hovercraft shop maybe? Don’t cars just use perpetual energy?”

Betty had a glossy expression, peering out the window and taking in the expanse of green fields around them which was foreign to the couple, considering neither have come this far down to earth from the floating city. “I figured you knew how this contraption worked.” She responded, crunching her churoburger. “What’s that thing over there? You think they got anything to eat? I’m starving.”

An old building with some lowercase “T”s on them sat on the end of a grassy area with a bunch of rectangular holes across the front yard. Ernest scratched his head and belly at the same time, having become the master of multitasking, and started to drool when he saw the hanging sign that said “Sale” over the front door. A man was in the field using an ancient tool to toss dirt around.

The sun was unnaturally warm when Ernest got out of the car. He wished he could afford a sun hat like his wifey-poo. They were lucky at least to find someone so close to where their car decided to run out of gas. “Hey.” Said Ernest toward the man. “You got any food, mister?”

A polite smile met the couple as the salesman turned to greet them. He was practically beaming. “Oh, hi there, folks. We don’t got nothing to eat here but we have plenty for sale.”

As he came closer, walking passed the rectangular holes, some having rectangular rock signs in front of them, Ernest smelled the familiar and salivating scent of meat. “What do you have? The old wifey and I have been traveling, exploring this fine country of ours and we broke down over on the road there.”

The man dropped the long spade looking device when he noticed they were frequently putting the checks to their faces. “Government checks, ah?” He licked his lips. “The government never liked to go paperless. Well! I think you’ll love what we have. This graveyard was passed down to my daddy from his daddy. We have tons of used models, from the 30 to 40-year range, some dating back to the pandemic times.” He winked slyly. “Gotta be careful with those ones though.”

“Oh wow.” Said Betty. “Old things are so niche. My mommy used to collect old credit cards. She loved the way they felt in her hands.”

“Bit of nostalgia, ah? I’m sure we can part with an older model –oh let’s say for half the price.” The salesman wiped his brow. “About the amount on that check there.”

Wow, this guy is a mind reader, thought Ernest. Or a check reader. “Mister, I don’t know what you’re selling but I’ll take it!” His pulse quickened with the prospect of owning something new.

The salesman, while keeping his eyes on the couple and smiling, walked over to a tarp about the size and shape of one of the rectangular holes. “This one’s fresh. Just pulled him out of the ground. Well preserved in a cryo-bag.”

Betty’s voice was higher pitched than usual, “Oh boy! Fresh and new!”

The salesman continued, “They make great companions for talking to. Great for babysitting and dog sitting. This one is from the year 2045 and has low mileage at 30 years of age. Minor damage with a bullet to the chest. Suicide probably. You won’t even notice the damage with the jacket he’s wearing.” With that the salesman unzipped the cryo-bag, unleashing the fresh smell of old meat on both their nostrils, which to Ernest was exciting, making his mouth water. The cryo-fluids spilled out over the grass. The white male body was sticky looking and had dreadlocks with a colorfully tie-dyed shirt.

Around the salesman’s waist was a square box and he pulled out a tube connected to it with a nozzle on the end. He plugged the nozzle into the back of the body’s head with passive indifference and pressed a button on the belt device. It hummed loudly and the body started to shiver, its grey eyelids twitching, reminding Ernest of the old days when people had to fill up their tires with air.

For a dead person the male was in surprisingly good condition. The dreads were frizzy but still intact and the male’s lanky body his muscles, though frail and desiccated, were visible under the gray flesh. After several minutes of this, and while peering at his check, Ernest finally looked up at the dead man standing before them, staring curiously.

“Uh hi, how’s it going dude?” Said the undead hippy.

“The neural plasticity fluid should be doing the trick to restore motor and language functions. Memory will slowly come back.” Said the salesman.

Having seen the product was fully functional Ernest peered back at his check. “Seems like a good offer but can we come down on the price a little?”

“Greed.” Said the scruffy, recently-un-deceased human male with a smooth slow voice.

A swift kick to the walking corpse came from the salesman. “Damn thing’s got a glitch. But as far as the price sometimes you gotta spend money to save money.”

Even the hippy seemed confused at this as Ernest scratched his belly and Betty said, “Do what now?”

“Saving money is bad for the economy.” Continued the salesman, waving his hands like a magician. “Once you spend all that money that money will go back into the economy, companies will then give that profit back to their employees. It’s a win-win.”

“Is that right?” Said Ernest.

“Of course it is!” The salesman was almost too enthused. “If you act now, I can even throw in the shirt and pants. Don’t want to get your car all messy with corpse juice.”

With that Ernest signed over both the checks, still not understanding the saving paradox and the reanimated hippy followed them to their car making polite conversation about the weather and their recently lost, rightfully earned wages. It was only when the car doors slammed shut that Ernest realized they didn’t have any plasma for the Oldsmobile and voiced his concerns out loud.

“Money is the root of all evil, dudes.” Said the hippy, his meat smell becoming vastly apparent.

They both looked in the rear-view mirror at him in the back seat, confused once more, their stomachs rumbling. “Say, what do we feed a dead person like yourself?”

“Uh, munchies usually.” Said the said dead person. “I’m not really hungry and –that’s weird– I can’t feel my heart either. Actually, I don’t feel anything.”

Ernest considered the thought for a moment and realized he didn’t feel anything either, except for the insatiable hunger for more food and consequently, more money. “That’s crazy…That’s crazy.” He stared off into the distance indifferent. “Hey, you got anything to sell?”

“Oh yes! I love stuff!” Chimed in the wifey with a guffaw.

The hippy scratched his dreads and pulled a piece out, carelessly tossing it to the floor. “Feeling empty inside reminds me of buying things too. Weird. You can only buy so much before you realize it’s all for nothing. I can’t remember the last time I bought something…Or anything else for that matter. People buy stuff that reminds them of their childhood. But you can’t keep trying to relive your childhood forever. The past is gone dudes.”

“Right, right. That’s crazy.” Ernest earnestly tried to find a feeling, any feeling inside himself and turned towards his wifey. Her eyes were glossy as she longingly returned the gaze. He ached for some cathartic release but only found that the hippy might have been wiser than perhaps either of them. “Wifey, do you think maybe there’s more to this existence than buying everything and going nowhere?”

“Nowhere?” said Betty with a kind of sweetness and innocence that he hadn’t seen in ages. “I’m sure we’ll end up somewhere. A retirement home. Yes…I suppose we are losing ourselves.”

The undead hippy spoke in an almost sing-song way. “We are all just being consumed by consumerism. Dead inside. Head in pride.”

He rubbed her cheek gently, not too hard, not too soft. “Should we…go on a trip? Like the one we promised each other after we retired? We can see the world and not have to worry about what antiques or devices we’re going to buy. We can leave all that behind and just…be free, our minds clear. Surrender ourselves to the flow of nature and just open our eyes to the inevitability that our lives are fleeting and that one day, one day even soon that we’ll be gone from this world? We only have a handful of moments left and there’s no knowing which of those moments will impact others, influence them to go do good, like this undead person here. Imagine what we could do, who we could inspire, if we just remove these self-indulgent, self-centered dependencies and turn our energies to others around us and spread our compassion for living and life, as it has been kind to us, to the rest of the nation, and if we have any money left, to the rest of the world. Imagine wifey, if we could be remembered for our deeds and not for the things we own. Imagine, if you can, that we don’t own anything, and yet we own everything, the world, the land, the sky, our hearts, our minds, the love we share, and this secret. My secret. The one truth that I’ve known since I was a boy. The truth that everything is just —“

“That’s crazy. That’s crazy.” Betty had turned toward the window, catching a glimpse of a food sign over the tree line. “I wonder what they have.” and pointed.

Ernest put his hands on the steering wheel and saw his entire life flash before his eyes, saturated with overabundance, spoiled behavior, and an emptiness that he couldn’t fulfill. “Yeah,” he finally said. “Me too.”