In the nineties, everything is technicolor. In his pocket, his phone is set to ring as loud as possible.

The grass is this vibrant green, but so is the sky. Same with the clouds and the playground equipment and the schoolhouse in the background. Everything to his back is green, and everything in front of him is behind the scenes. Only thing that isn't green is his suit; his suit is teal. His mind is wandering, wading into trepidation, and this is obvious from his countenance, but his teal suit is smiling.    

A teal suit is a bold move - so bold that it has transcended itself in the cultural ethos. Anything can be a teal suit these days; that extra paprika you add to the potato salad for your midwestern family reunion, that new slang you risk using in a professional email. It's become a metaphor, like white whales or white bread - the real white whale is changing some white bread into a teal suit - that sorta thing. Funnily enough, Martin Deeney's teal suit is not a 'teal suit', but a punchline. 

The camera twirls up to his face. He's a matter of feet from thousands of eyes, his portrait hanging on the screen of every suburban home which contains a child under the age of seven. Posters, t-shirts, all that jazz. But not even his mother, and just thinking about her makes him sweat with worry, would recognize him, behind the costume or even through his goofy voice.

"Heeyyy kids!? Are you ready for an out-of-this-world adventure?!" Dinky giggles. There's this microphone speaker thing that runs from his hand to his snout, and all Martin has to do, is press a button, and he laughs. It's got like fifty different recordings to sound a little bit different each time. At first, Martin didn't get why he couldn't just do it - the working reason was that Shirley the gaffer had the goofiest laugh, and her's were decidedly better than his attempts - but now he can barely smile, and thumbing a button can hide that fact to an extent. He has every giggle memorized, so do the producers, and they all have their favorites, and each one is stuck in this random generator with the other 49 versions. Hours have been spent coaxing that petulant machine into producing the laugh which aligns most with the 'vision' of whichever intern got the nod to direct that day.  

"Cut, cut, cut it out." This week's director, Sam, weaves through the sea of props with exasperation coming like fire from a dragon in short, huffy-huff, breaths. She also happens to be most weeks' director, so Martin and she have quite the history of getting in each other's way. She's the type that focuses hard on the moral of each episode, as if cognizant folks were watching to slurp it up; it makes Martin feel slimy, arguing at kids like they are adults, and pretending to not realize the difference. Sunday school on Monday mornings: eight/seven central. 

"Out of this world? You're not an alien. Since when can't you just read your script?" 

"My bad," he says. There have been three distinct eras of his acting career, two of which involved some ad-libbing. First came the ambition, when he was still an unyielding young man, desperate to make a mark. Of course he tried to be a bit cheeky. Eventually that all wore away, leaving only apathy. The studio could've replaced him with the little laughing wrist robot then. Add recordings of "Be good kids," "Listen to your parents," and the ever important "Keep those hips in check," and nobody could have spotted the difference. Guess they needed someone to fill the suit. Back then, he was a big, ten-dollar-an-hour cotton ball. Now, he is the archetypal 'wily vet', which is to say, the wrong side of thirty (well, he's actually neither side of thirty). Pure boredom dictates that he at least attempt to throw a few jigs into the rig. It wouldn't be the worst thing that could happen if he didn't have to keep doing this job, which really provides some elbow room for chicanery. His leading role affords him some leeway on set, and he has the flexibility in life to work those edges, so he prods. And there's nothing he loves prodding more than Sam's ministry of propaganda. 

Today isn't the day to slow things down, but he guesses he let it slip. The emptiness returns to his stomach, and a ping of sweat tickles down his ear from his jet black hair. Depending on her tolerance today, she could turn this into five minutes of scolding, and with his mom and the phone being time-sensitive temptations, he shouldn't be risking five minutes so thoughtlessly. It's hard to stay mad at a big goofy-grinned dino mascot, though, so thankfully she lets it slide. Right back to filming then, their entire television world rewinds twenty seconds. "Heeyyy kids!? Are you ready for a prehistoric adventure?!" Dinky giggles. Everything after this will be happening twenty seconds late now, that's some decent slop he's created. Television loves little mistakes like this. If one of the crew go ahead and get their brains battered by some out-of-the-blue acme catastrophe, then suddenly he's a wee bit a murderer. Television loves funny coincidences like that. In his experience though, life has a way of negating all that, little resets all over the place. Days are made up of like, two-minute time spans, and unless you point a pistol down your throat, you can do most anything in those two minutes, and then after the reset, all that action has no effect. There are breaks where lost time is made up, and extra time is spurned, where fleeting transactions are forgotten and cheap transgressions are forgiven. Basically, according to his philosophical musings, small actions do not beget large changes. All the free will he exercises is in the form of petulant changes, and the stagnant results are of little satisfaction. One day, he's gonna think up something drastic. 

Coming out of law school, this job was an offer so out of the blue, that, failure or success, it was always going to be fun; more fun than sorting paperwork for pickpockets. Taking it certainly felt like something drastic. Turns out it wasn't near as much of a risk as he feared, but quickly turned stale. Now he's willing to take another risk to inject some juice into his moribund existence.

"Yeaaah!" squeal his costars. Costars.  Matty, Rose, and Shawna. These D.C. pipsqueaks are his contemporaries, and he wonders why he can't foster a meaningful workplace relationship. That's friendship, to clarify, none of that tabloid libel. Age isn't the only barrier either, he actually liked them better when the gap in that measurement was larger, well, by percentages like, but they're actually pretty old now. The literally snotty toddlers have metamorphosed into connotatively snotty pre-teens. Shawna slags off the food staff every day, refusing to eat anything with butter or cheese in it, on account of the cows, and the earliest Matty ever shows up to a gig is ten seconds after it starts. Rose is decent, to be fair, although that just means that she'll  crash the hardest of them all when the lifestyle gets to her. Child stars, man. 

"How about you?" he turns to the camera, "are you ready to help us adventure!?"  The pauses they implement always seem to last a few seconds too long, and few, as a word, has gone up from the three it meant, almost synonymously, years ago. He doesn't know whether that is an indictment of his psyche, or the future generation. It would be quick enough to check, but the ambiguity doesn't bother him that much. Even though his eyes could wander wherever they please, he submits to staring ahead, in solidarity with his larger, foam, ones. Actually, he was told to do so once, as a tip, because it stabilizes the suit, making it more realistic, and fostering deeper interactions with the audience. These are the kind of trade-nuances that separate him from the birthday party bozos who think they do the same work. 

"That's great!" he says, leaping with joy, and a flourish. Tech crew will splice in a few rainbows before the final cut. Notice how he presupposes the audience's answer? Martin reckons this is the best message the show teaches. Agency is an illusion. "Today, we are going to be making our way to the local dog park, to see some puppies and learn about the responsibilities of being a pet owner. Let's go!" 

"Alright," Sam says, breaking the scene, "Let's get the set changed and bring the dogs in so they can get settled." She gestures at the employees who have been dealt those hands, her finger wagging in circles the entire time. "It'll be a little while," she looks up to those on the stage, implicitly giving them a brief leave. Then runs both hands through her hair, splaying it out, obviously ecstatic to be doing another episode with animals. Last time she was in charge the set was amok with billy goats. 

Immediately after shoving off that infernal sauna of a headpiece, Martin wriggles an arm to his back pocket, excavating his phone by the antenna. It's completely blank when he flips it open - well not like broken blank, but no calls or messages since the last time he checked, which would've been just prior to the five minutes he has spent working on set. No news is good news, most likely, but it still shoots him up with dreadful curiosity. Dad has the gift of unemployment - retirement - so he gets to sit in with her over at the hospital rather than filming some dumb kid's show. This is the last episode of the seventh season, the one they're filming, and they get a three-month break after today. But when is her appointment? Today. Now he's relegated to stuttering correspondence through his father on a new phone which he, Dwight, has no idea how to use. As he makes his way off the stage and towards a little table off in the corner, he dials... 

Beep-beep-boop...boop-boop-beep...beep-beep-beep-beep. And then it rings and rings. 

"Martin?"

"Hey. Dad. How's it going so far?" Martin takes a seat. 

"So far?" he chuckles, "we just got to the hospital, golly... three minutes ago at the most. Mom is over checking in still." He pauses to think, but all the while hums, preventing Martin from taking over. "Look, I know you're worried about what they might find, but we can talk about all this later. You don't need to know right away, and nothing is going to happen to Mom today. Okay? The most dangerous part was me driving her here, and even that went fine." More laughter, "I think we... I think god is on our side today. I just got this feeling, and Mom, if you could see her right now, you'd understand it."

"Well, I wish I could. See her, y'know." 

"I know, Mart- Oh! She's done with the receptionists. I think I figured out how to work the speakerphone on this thing. Do you want to try that?"

"Oh. Oh no, that's okay," Martin says, keeping how adverse he is to the idea to himself, as to spare petty offense, "I can just talk to her alone for a bit—"

"Hello?! Hello?" The two on the other side of the call exponentially become frantic and impatient. 

Taking full advantage of the limitation of cellular communication, Martin expunges all discretion of his body language, unleashing a stream of crudity and stink eyes towards the potted plant on the other side of the studio. "Yes, hi." 

"What's up?" his mom asks. Bits and flits of ambiance slither through the speakerphone; coughs and snivels and soundbites of dire conversations. It's almost like he's at the hospital with them. But he isn't. 

"I just want wanted to make sure you got in alright and stuff." Even when the transition to speakerphone went shockingly smooth, he still wishes he was just talking to her, alone. Lying like this is awkward around witnesses, or the one witness, in this case. The truth would probably be bent a tinch more if his father weren't listening in.

"Everything is going according to plan so far... I just got checked in, so it will be a bit of waiting until we meet my doctor." Dwight Deeney offers small words of affirmation throughout her answer, tiny, useless, quips, which barely distance themselves from the background noise. "Thanks for calling in, though, sweetie. We'll let you know how it all went as soon as I get out, okay?"

"Yeah, thanks," Martin says. With all the content drained, the call withers to a scratchy silence. "Well, I better-"

"We'll call you as soon as we learn anything, yeah?" Dwight interrupts. 

"Sounds good. I better be getting back to work anyway. So - uh - good luck Mom. Love you two."

"Bye, love ya!" they say in chorus, then hang up. Martin reckons the final beep sounds like a flatlining heart, but he's a brooding pessimist in this moment, so his interpretations should be taken with a pinch of salt. There's another one, metaphorical cliches: pinch of salt, white bread, white whales, teal suits. 

"Bye," he says to the room. 

Martin snakes an arm out of his exoskeleton's and peaks it out from his collar. Using his other, he hands off the phone, which is then finagled back into his pocket. With a sigh, he gets up, grabs his head from the middle of the picnic table and slams it atop his sweat-frazzled hair. The pieces aren't aligned quite right, so his vision is even worse than the tunnel-vision it is meant to achieve. As he stumbles forward, he wrenches it into place, and as the eye slits are twisted into place, his gait approaches normalcy. 

Dogs have taken over the stage. Sam has left them to mingle without direction as she is preoccupied with corralling a more tempestuous creature: Matty. After three notifications of increasing volume, he saunters out of his changing room, showing Martin how the nonchalant bravado is done. If he weren't so busy looking down on him, Martin would admire the kid's pigheadedness. Rose and especially Shawna are taking to the puppies; scratches behind the ears, and some sly feeding. His dad would never let him have a dog, no matter how he pleaded as a kid. Apparently, he grew out of it, because it certainly hasn't been his dad stopping him since he moved out seven years ago. Seeing the girls like this with them make him remember all the reasons he put forth in his (un)persuasive speeches from his ottoman pulpit in the old living room. Sure, it makes him want to go to the pet shop right after work, but he won't. Not because he'll be visiting his mom either; just cause. 

"Alright! You two can have a seat," she says to the animal trainers, and when they duly oblige she continues. "All of you go stand by the gate, then Martin, you start with 'look at all the puppies' in..." she waits for us to take our positions, "three, two, one!" 

"Look at all the puppies!" Various croons of affection follow. Children and dogs gallop towards each other, meeting halfway in front of a superimposed spring setting. Dinky just stands there, hovering over the proceedings like an awkward goose, unsure what to do with his hands.  With his oven mitt hands, petting little puppies is dangerous, and petting the children would only feed into those awful internet conspiracies. Usually, he is left out of all the activities in the show, brought along just to talk over everything; a narrator with all the theatrics and persuasiveness of a televangelist.  

There's no acting going on, the kids are truly having a fun time with the animals, but the script says that he has to interrupt, and for now, he follows it. "They say dogs are man's best friend, and they're on pretty good terms with dinosaurs too." He presses the laugh button, "Bwaha! They can be a lot of fun, but they are also a big responsibility. Before getting any kind of pet you have to make sure you, and your parents, are prepared to care of them. Dogs like these need food twice a day, consistent walks, and frequent visits to the veterinarian to keep them healthy and happy. But the most important part of dog ownership is to always clean up after their droppings." 

"Martin," Sam says, then again and again. Her droning protests provide the background beat which inspires him to stray further into trouble. 

"If you don't clean up after your pets, you don't deserve nice things. Whichever of you three," he dotes, "cleans up the fewest droppings, doesn't get healthcare. And it's all your fault."

"Hey, Martin!" She smiles sickly sweet, and waits for attention, "I'm not supposed to tell you this, but -well- I just can't wait to see your face. And no way am I going to let Arthur steal this moment from me." Namedropping their boss, the big boss, means she's trying to be threatening. Kinda succeeding too. The scene has been paused and muted, and suddenly she's become captivating. "He's firing you."

"What?!"

"You're fired, moron. It was supposed to be kept from you until we finished this episode, but anything could be doing better than- than this. So why don't you go home and sort your life out?"

"Actually?" Martin looks at the crew, who are desperately avoiding doing the same to him. The head assistant, who is the only one who would probably know, and she offers up a curt nod, taking advantage of being behind Sam, to look pragmatic about it. So fake.

"Well then! That's great, just great. Have fun with three-quarters of an episode!" he says, still making use of the tone-deaf yet mellifluous voice of Dinky the Dino. Like a scene from Jurassic Park, he storms toward her. Then he throws off his head and leans into her ear, lowering his voice a decibel and an octave, "Have fun with three-quarters of an episode."

After walking halfway out, he remembers the suit, which he goes to take off. With the intention to sustain his dramatics, he tries to do so too quickly, winding up tangled and kicking and growling. When the foam finally cascades around his knees, he steps out of the teal puddle in a tank top, and what are basically boxer shorts. That's what he walks out in, calling behind his shoulder, "I'm going to go see my mom."