Toby
As Giles asked Toby about his “sixth sense”, Toby shrugged nonchalantly and finished the bite of Chinese food in his mouth, figuring out how quite to respond in the time it took him to swallow. “Not that I’ve found out yet. I’ve not gone that far admittedly, only Florida or so, but I always seem to figure out what I’m supposed to be doing with enough time and space to think about it. And now I feel like I should go to Woodstock, and I feel like you ought to come too. Once we’re there, I might have a better idea of what we want, might not. I guess we’ll see”. With a noncommittal shrug, Toby ate the last forkful of his meal, enjoying the flavours in his mouth. It wasn’t the best food he’d ever had, but it was good for a truck stop.
With the pair having finished eating now, they disposed of the waste in a bin, making their way out of the truck stop and heading to a nearby bus stop, where Toby used a crumpled $20 to buy Giles and himself bus tickets to take them around the edge of the city. The ride was relatively quick and, whilst not the most direct route, it avoided much of the traffic that seemed to plague the rest of the city. The pair made good time and as Toby looked at his battered wris****ch he saw that they had twenty minutes or so leeway to make their connection.
Not a long while later, the pair stood outside the connection in question, Toby opening the door up so that Giles could enter before clambering in himself, closing the door behind them. The truck appeared to be some kind of furniture haulage, with large wooden boxes with arrows directing the way up that they should be and labels marking their contents. The wooden crates were sturdy and, making their way to the furthest point into the truck storage area, Toby swung himself up onto one of the crates, motioning for Giles to join him. They were more than capable of taking the pair’s weight and it made for a more comfortable seat than the floor, Toby found. Pulling his tennis ball out of his pocket, he threw it up in the air above his face, catching it as it fell back towards him. The laconic motion brought him a sense of pleasure, and he continued with the action as the truck’s engine trundled to life and the truck, complete with the two of them began to move off. Another eleven hours or so of journey lay ahead of them before they reached Woodstock. Before things descended into complete quiet, however, Toby decided to pitch a question to Giles. “If you were going to be a hero from a story, who would you be, and why?”
The question thrown out there, Toby followed it with the tennis ball, his eyes lazily tracking it, reaching up again to grasp it as it near completed its descent into his face. If Giles wanted to give a long reply and to start a discussion, that was fine to Toby. If he just wanted to sleep, that was fine to Toby. They had eleven hours. For now, the world was fine.