Totakeke On Tour

Mog Anarchy

One

The small Dalmatian sighed deeply and glanced up at the night sky. A few months back, the sky had been filled with shimmering stars, that seemed to sparkle down on him like spotlights. And at that time, he had been covered with those dazzling spotlights on every stage he came to perform upon. But slowly, the stars began to fade. It happened slowly, just a few vanishing; like light bulbs blowing out. But after a while, Totakeke found his following fading like the stars in the sky.

And now, the sky was completely black - asides from the gloomy clouds of depression that hung above him like a time bomb. Totakeke shifted uneasily on the wooden box he had seated himself upon. Memories flooded back. Times when he had been simply happy enough to seat himself on a wooden crate in front of the train station, strum his guitar and howl out soft melodies to anyone who was kind enough to listen. Times when Totakeke had been overjoyed to hand out a few bog-standard Aircheck recordings to anybody who wanted one. The record media had used him as a gimmick - and sold hundreds of compact discs by the day. Now they were all reduced to 50 bells in the bargain bin.

Totakeke had never been used to crowds of thousands screaming his name, dozens of song requests by the minute - or even asking him to sign their socks. As soon as they'd found him, Totakeke was enduring this day after day, week after week. And at first, the fame depleted slowly, trickling away like the sands of an hourglass. The change was so small, Totakeke had not noticed it.

And from behind a cloud of darkness, a small shape was clearly visible. Several stars joined together to form the shape of a large K. Beside it was another.

"K.K. Slider…"

That very constellation had been discovered by Totakeke himself, back there. While gazing up at the wonderful skies one night, with Celeste by his side - he'd caught sight of it. And it was not logged in Celeste's star book; so she gave him permission to name it. Upon closer inspection of the stars, they'd found they both resembled the two initials of Totakeke's stage name.

K.K.

From then on, the K.K. Konstellation - as it was often referred to - sparkled directly above the town hall, visible for miles. Totakeke looked up at it, and sighed once more.

He longed to return there.

Totakeke turned to his left, and gently stroked a string of his folk guitar. He remembered the very day he'd purchased it from Thomas Nook. As just a puppy, he'd been given a small parcel of bells to buy whatever he liked.

As soon as he lay eyes upon this wonderful instrument, shining in the window of Thomas' shop, he knew he could fill the yearning that had been within him for ever.

From then on, Totakeke would sit under the cherry tree on his front porch, playing his guitar for hours. Tom Nook - the son of Thomas would often come and listen too. And on various occasions, the village nerd - Blathers Owl would also sit in on the concert.

Totakeke was very small as a puppy, and wore a blue headband around his forehead to brush his unruly fur away from his eyes. Tom was a round and tubby cub as a child - always eating ice cream. He would always sit in on Totakeke's performances with a tub of chocolate ice cream, and afterwards, take Totakeke down to the stand to buy himself another one, and buy his friend one too. His favourite was always vanilla.

Blathers preferred strawberry - and Tom would buy him one too when he was there. Blathers usually shut himself away in his garden shed with a pile of books, and would study from dawn till dusk. As a fledgling, Blathers was as talkative as ever, and wore huge oval spectacles with thick frames and even thicker lenses. Everyone called him 'goggle bird', but Blathers had never been the sort to fight back.

Totakeke sniffed hard, remembering all his happy childhood memories with the Raccoon and the Owl. They'd been inseparable from childhood - and they only left each other at the end of high school. Blathers went on to study at university, to gain his curator's license - and yes, became the very thing he'd hoped to be. Tom went into the family business, setting up his own shop in the same town as Blather's museum, and also turning into a greedy landlord too - selling tiny houses to unsuspecting humans at outrageous prices.

Totakeke however stayed in their hometown, moping around the forests. Two days after Tom and Blathers left the town, Totakeke wrote a song describing his true feelings about them - and how depressed he was that they left. It then became a secret riff - entitled 'Two Days Ago'. Every time he had been requested it - which had been very rarely, tears had came to his eyes, and he sobbed his words in a melancholy way.

Totakeke leant back on his box, and tried to think of some more childhood memories. He remembered playing in the middle school band - a featured soloist, while Phyllis the pelican wailed along - well, she called it 'singing'. Baseball in high school… He'd been one of the greatest pitchers the team had ever had. Tom played in the outfield, waddling furiously to catch anything that flew his way. Blathers was the scorekeeper…

He smiled as a memory of the prank they'd all played on poor Pete back in 8th grade. He was one of the main messengers, and would always bound into rooms, hollering messages as loud as he could - never caring of the disruption he caused. Totakeke and Tom had performed the oldest prank in the book - placing a wastebasket full of water above the door. Pete fell for it, the basket tumbling down onto his head as he passed on a message about the annual all grade prom night. He had got a soaking mid-sentence.

When Pete found out that Tom and Totakeke were behind it - revenge was given. Tom ended up looking like a giant duck - honey and feathers plastered to his fur. And Totakeke was the one who got suspended from a tree with a noose tied round his ankles, while Pete's cronies pelted him with dodge balls. But that's another story…