…so I was taking this nap, right? And it turned out to be one of the best naps I had ever taken. It was one of those where you completely black out and your body just shuts down, and when you wake up and you’re aware of yourself again your body is just refreshed and ready for whatever bullcrap the world is prepared to throw at you. You yawn and stretch your spine and you’re ready for business.

That almost happened to me. I was sleeping and it was great and the bush I had found to nap in was keeping me warm and snug and there were no brambles to fuck it all up. It was bliss, just complete, blacked-out bliss. But then I started having weird dreams—if they even rate the term. Rather, I started seeing images behind my eyes that shifted and twisted, and colors too, light, airy colors that reminded me of the chiming of a harp. I guess my ears were hearing harp music somewhere and it was being translated in my tired sleepy-brain, but I was….sleeping, so I didn’t realize it at the time.

Gradually, I came awake. It was like ice melting on a hot rock, or paint drying, except the ice was the blackness of my deep slumber. I don’t know why I brought up the paint. Anyway, as I came-to and the world sort of materialized in front of me like a blurry Picasso, I heard voices, and one of those sons of bitches I most definitely recognized. I couldn’t place it, but it felt familiar, like something I heard when I was just a tiny thing zooming about the place without giving one happy fuck. It was a deep voice, or at least hinting towards depth later in life; it felt big to me, like the user was a big summbitch himself, and as I laid there half-asleep, half-awake, with all my memories and thoughts and subconscious notions playing in my eyes, I sorta half-way expected the visions of my biggest cousin were real things, which only made me miss him even more.

So you understand how I was feeling when I heard him say his own name :

*"Hototo.”*

I kinda flipped out, except it was extra special because it was coming straight out of my sleep. “BIG TOTO!?” I kinda shout-screamed, my voice cracking as I leapt out of the bush concealing me. Sure enough, there he was: just as big and grey and fluffy with all the horns as I remembered him. I had launched myself at him, and I guess if I had arms I would’ve hugged him; as it was, I propelled myself toward him with the general desire for closeness, as my sleepiness left all my cognitive reasoning sort of vague and whatever. The point is that I wasn’t thinking it through very well.

speaking