She
looked up from the bread and smiled. “You don’t know my name, do you?”
I took the seat across from her and
laughed nervously. “What makes you think that?”
“You paused for a very long time,
and after you completed your thought, you said nailed it out loud.” She munched
on some more bread and lightly touched my hand.
“I know your name,’ I said quickly
as I pulled away slightly.
“Then what is it?” I hadn’t expected
her to put me on the spot like that.
Slyly, I lifted the ketchup off of
the table and handed it to her. “Is your name Ketchup?” The girl who I thought
was named Ketchup, let out a huge gasp.
“How did you know?” She grabbed the
ketchup and held it to her chest, letting out short burst of laughter.
“That isn’t honestly your name is
it?”
“No. That is the dumbest name I have
ever heard. If you were going to just pick something off the table, at least
Pepper is a name.”
Everything shifted to grey again,
and space extended. “I always liked Ketchup, but she didn’t seem to like me.
Companions are overrated after all.”
“Warren,” I muttered, but I wasn’t
sure what that meant.
Warren, whose face was just a darker
version of mine, moved in a flickering pattern from one side of the restaurant.
He vanished and reappeared in three feet succession. His previous form left a
visible watermark in reality. Once he was beside Ketchup, he flicked her ear
with his golden gauntlets. The girl’s ear flickered off of her head, and
reappeared a few inches above her. “Oops.”
Warren grabbed her ear, licked one
end, and stuck it back to the side of ketchup’s head. “She doesn’t taste like
her namesake. She tastes more like iron.”
Warren slightly shoved her, and she
flickered into the interior of the booth. He sat directly opposite of me, where
Ketchup had been. He slammed his fist onto the tabletop, and it smashed through
the floor. I had suddenly remembered something. “Anthony told me to avoid you,”
I said.
“Did he now? That seems like
something that he would do. Did you give you his, “I’m good, he’s evil’ speech?
I love that speech. It’s as if he thinks he’s superior to me, but he really
isn’t.” I shifted uncomfortably, rubbing my shoes together. Warren snapped his
fingers, and the shoes appeared in his hand. At least, I had thought that they
were the shoes, but they took the shape of earmuffs. The design was the same at
the very least. “Be careful, these things could take you to the end of your
time…line.” I swallowed hard, I was vaguely reminded of Warren’s malice. “You
know jokes are hard to make. Jokes are all about timing, and right this moment,
that is sort of your thing. Even if I thought of something, I wouldn’t know
when to tell it.” He moved closer until I could smell his salty breath. “I
guess I don’t understand personal space.” He laughed incredibly hard, but I
remained stoic. “Can’t really break my own personal space.” He nudged me and I
shifted just barely to the left. “You’ll get that in due time.”
I scoffed. “I’m not impressed.”
Warren stopped laughing suddenly,
snapped his fingers, and my head started to swell like a balloon. “Don’t get
such a bug head.” He laughed uncontrollably, then suddenly he smashed his hands
into his knees, and the table sprung back up. “See, do you want to hear what is
really happening, because I could tell it to you straight unlike the Anthony
guy.”
“Anthony is my friend!” I yelled.
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