Midjourney

Tim said, “what did you do with the locket, Phil?”

Phil, about half the size of the burly but lean man asking the question, fumbled noticeably for a few seconds, seemingly caught off guard and not knowing what to say.

“What, Phil? What did you do with it?”, Tim asked again.

Phil was still at a loss for words. Tim began to become impatient and was about to ask a third time, with decidely more force. But just as he opened his mouth to speak, he noticed Phil was finally getting enough wits about him to start to pantomime something. In Phil’s fluster, his gestures, with their unbottoned, flopping flannel shirt cuffs, were a frenzied and wild mess of meaningless motions. But Tim had always had a quick wit, even if people hadn’t noticed quite as much as they should over the years — a keen sort of gumption that somehow didn’t seem to match his thick, rough, red beard.

Gently reaching over, putting a heavy, cupped hand on top of Phil’s right shoulder, Tim observed, “Phil, has something happened so that you can’t speak?”

Phil immediately nodded his head with vigor, cautiously excited that Tim had at least figured out that much already. Tim knowingly gestured and nodded with a softened expression, helping Phil to calm a bit more.

“Go on, then. Try to tell me what happened.”