“Boy I’m stuff, phew! Thanks for the pork chops flapjacks, Berry.”
Berry, MAT (Man About Time) thinks. That’s how he sees me currently. I can play along. “No problem [delete name].”
“What did you call me?” Toothpick truly couldn’t hear his own name being thrown back at him. It was part of the hypnosis of the role currently. He was fully Toothpick now, brother of beautiful, strong and handsome Elberta but soon to be more. The Temple of TILE wedding bells beckoned again after a brief lapse of trepidation. They’re so in sync! Of course they should get married. It was the way of the Deep South, their heritage. The Deep South of the Black Ice sim. He wonders how Boos and Bogota are getting along way down there. He needs to revisit the old homeland — hinterland. Invisible to most but straw enhanced Toothpick could see.
“I called you [delete name].”
Toothpick cocked one of his ears in MAT’s direction. “Say again?”
“Never mind that, um, Toothpick.” He really had a mild voice. Again, for someone so important. He knew a lot, being able to leap about time like he does. A man about it. But he often was a little confused; unfocused. Part and parcel of the gift.
“I am your neighbor,” MAT tested further.
“No. You live *here*” protested Toothpick, knowing that Berry moved to his Kidd Tower penthouse apartment in The City to start attending services over in the Temple of TILE and to, well, serve *him* instead of visa versa, with Master becoming, um, Slave. Sort of. Which makes Toothpick think of choppers. He points to the space where his two front teeth should be. “Lost ’em. In the war.”
MAT knows it was football and that Toothpick has a ways to go to remember who he actually is. Maybe the Monkey helmet would help.
—–
He gives it to him the next time they eat. “What do you think this is, [delete name]?”
“What?”
“Toothpick.”
“Oh. A, er, helmet?” He takes it out of the box; inspects; places it over his head, even.
“Yes but what kind of ‘Head’ protection?” So mild.
Sunklands 