Having almost no sensation of how much time his train of thought had passed since he named the known universe, Skip was suddenly unsure if it was appropriate to get off it and start thinking about something else.  If his train of thought had already run forever, then there really wasn't much point in bothering to get off it now.  If it had only been an infinith of a nanit and he switched already, he would probably be diagnosed with the worst case of attention deficit disorder in the history of Okuaka the moment someone thought up Western Psychiatry.  He quickly decided that his train of thought had run from 7:01 on the morning of January 3rd, 1011 B.B., to 7:02 July 5, 1377.  When he finally got off, there was someone quite unexpected waiting for him: The first person Skip believed he had ever encountered.
           "I see you lost your tot again.  You're forty-nine minutes late, Skip.  Gof, what the hell's gotten into you lately?  As if being promoted from tabloid columnist to friter of the greatest Okuakan frwoa that will ever be written isn't enough to fuel your ego, you seem to think your tots are now worth quite a bit more than the rest of ours.  I tell you Skip, listen close, mind you.  You're a tot!  Just a tot, I say!  A fluton!  An insignificant spec of dust on a stray book in an ancient abandoned library.  You're the stray thought of a drunken beatnik.  The frangle of a bored secretary who decided to insert the word 'Skip' in the header of every email ever sent anywhere, so god will know not to bother inventing electronic communication and computer secretaries and run on metaphors.
           "Skip, you're a passed out pop star crack addict who read the dismal sales figures of his new album, got drunk and passed out, and decided to hallucinate he's the greatest tot that ever thought, because clearly he had too much potential for a tiny dirt rock of carbonites to appreciate.  You're a fluke!  A cell phone error!  An infinitely distractable nanite who decided to build a time machine and go on an unauthorized vacation to the dawn of time instead of the electronic pro-life paper he was supposed to be aborting.  You're a tot, Skip!  And your own tots aren't worth an extra forty-nine minutes of thought any more than anyone else's are.  Perhaps less.  You're a tot just like the rest of us!"
           "But who the hell are you?"
           "Writer's block and amnesia to boot!  Ha!  Perhaps that's what you could call 'irony' since you haven't decided what the word should mean yet."
           "Nor do I even remember coining it to begin with.  You see I was just on... what did you call what I just got off again?"
           "Your tot.  Your Train of Thought.  Your Dawn Of Time Train Of Thought.  Your 'dot tot.'  I swear Skip, late and lost dot tot or not, you still can't seem to absorb the simplest shorts.  You Dot Flutonians have the absurd notion that eternity will always be around, so you speak like you need 3 words when 3 letters will do.  Nerld is a step closer to the end of the known universe than Flutonia, so I'm sorry if our rushing around to get ready for the middle of it disturbs you."
           "No, I meant... I meant I'd never heard the word before, but it seemed to make some sense in my mind the way you said it, but I'd forgotten the exact word.  'Tot.'  'Dot.'  'Billennia.'  Skip continued to roll the alien words off the something-or-other near the top of his body, both of which had seemed to solidify into a much better idea of what they were since he'd stepped off the train.  He decided the something-or-other should start with a 't'.  Tot?  No, tot's taken, Skip thought.
           "Jokes and hoax and wolf cried folks!  Are you really saying that you lost your mind again?  If the most brain fried friter in the history of everything can't even keep his mind for a few kilonanits, that sounds like a good enough final plot for your dot tot frwoa to me!"
           " 'Frwoa...'  Strange word.  What does it mean again?"
           "Gods of Florbb, you've really lost it this time.  Do you remember where you put it?"
           "What?"
           "Do you remember!  Do you remember where you lost your mind!  Did you have it on the train?  Did you put it in your brain?  Or did you loose it before then?  I don't suppose you remember how to narrate?  We've been talking quite awhile and a hovering freader will need some loose description of the train station we're walking out of before they loose their minds themselves and drown in solid dialogue!"
           " 'Skip hadn't felt much in the brief duration since he could remember having felt anything, but he was quite sure he now felt something new.  He tried to coin a word for the feeling, but fell flat on his face.  Literally.  He'd tripped over a little round object.  It was a bland color.  Gray-ish, he decided, with a bland blend of darker dullish gray splotches placed... sporatically.  He was very confused as to weather the spots were randomly placed, placed in a strict mathematical pattern he couldn't decipher, or dotted by a god who himself couldn't decide between either of the former.  Then, having said "confused," Skip decided that's exactly what (and where) he was.  'Confused.'  This caused Skip to frown, and--realizing he was still confused--skipped over over ten billenia of linguistic evolution to coin the phrase 'confrused' like way way way way too early for anybody's taste.  Skip definitely felt confrused.  The short man in the polka-dotted dress he'd been walking beside since he got off the tot smiled for the first time since he'd known the stranger,' "  Skip narrated.
           "Ha!  So you haven't completely lost your mind, good.  And you confrused two words into one, I must say I'm flattered that my endless bickering on the matter has finally worn you down to your very first Pert Prose Picture moment.  Perhaps you're more malleable when off your rock!  Maybe we should sit down and go over your proposed plot proposal to the council before you come back to your senses and reject all my thoughts on the matter for the fifth time before your final request for a sixth extension!  The worflii stepped over a puddle of bored mud as he narrated this useless event on the whim that someone somewhere might give a damn.  Come on, let's go the r... the Royal Roundabout, and order a few drinks.  I'll explain everything.  I'm sure this is quite confrusing indeed if you really have lost your mind again.  You'll have to thoroughly convince, me, though; I'm still not sure you didn't just hit a breakthrough in your improvisation skills and are faking the whole damn thing."
           Skip decided he didn't have to do something called 'fausing,' and followed the still-unnamed short man who'd called himself a worflii through the vast and timeless streets of The City At The Dawn of Time, which he'd just now noticed was there."

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