Landing On


We all sat down with Wade and Julie to discuss what they’d do as their sylph-experience.

“Monopoly!” Mary shouted.

“Okay,” Wade said. He turned to Conrad. “They don’t like the way we play the game.”

“What, the money on Free Parking?” I asked.

“You guys don’t deal the property out at the start, do you?” Ray asked suspiciously.

“No,” Julie said. “They want to play ‘teams.’ You can’t play ‘team’ Monopoly. The whole point of the game is greed and screwing your loved ones over.”

Oh. I figured out what the problem was. “Yeah, we could do that,” I said. “We’ll let everyone choose if they’re teams or single. Film the whole game, just put an edited version on the show.” Conrad nodded.

All the sylphs chose to play as teams.

I teamed with Mary Ann and we won the dice roll to get the Doggie piece. Delli and Cher got the Top Hat. Mac and Mary got the Iron. Wade played as the Racecar and Julie got the Thimble. Conrad played with the Battleship and acted as banker.

Magic womaned the camera.

We set up and played the game for a few rounds, humans playing as they normally did.

Every time one of the sylph teams got a little ahead, Wade grumbled about being ‘ganged up on.’ No one really cared.

After everyone’s piece made it to Go at least once, we paused while Wade and Julie put on their helmets.

They stepped forward to continue, now as sylphs, still playing as individuals. Julie made some noise about ‘showing you guys how it’s done.’

They soon became believers.

Part of the way you play Monopoly is keeping track of all transactions, even if they don’t involve you.

It’s not that you assume they’re cheating, but people make mistakes. And you want to know if they landed on your property or went over it. What Community Chest card they picked up. How much money has accumulated on Free Parking (if you play that rule).

There’s a lot going on. Giants tend to take for granted that they can see the dice, wherever they fall, and they can count properties as the Doggie passes them by, and they can crane their neck to see what Illinois Avenue costs to purchase.

Also, you can usually look around to see who has the third railroad or the other utility, or might be interested in buying Vermont Avenue.

Try doing that when you’re only a little taller than the stack of bills in the bank!

Conrad had also figured out what the TV Trio’s problem was. He made a point to throw his dice on whatever side of the board was away from his Battleship.

Teams have coverage. You watch the dice and your partner watches the properties. You can scout people’s holdings and compare notes before offering deals.

And you both roll the two dice together, rather than having to pick up each up to toss one at a time.

We got some nice shots of the game. Mary catching Conrad making a math error in rent. Cher and Delli arranging green houses on the green properties. Wade taking exaggerated steps, Racecar held high, as he paced off his roll. Mary Ann and I standing together outside the jail, whispering before offering Julie a trade.

The whole crowd humming the Funeral Dirge as Mac marched across the board, from Go To Jail to the Jail. Mary joining him and chanting ‘Let My People Go!’ every turn.

Wade was still complaining about being ‘ganged up on.’ “You know,” he said. “We ought to have racks. Like the ones for tiles in Scrabble? Just something at each person’s pile that shows what they’re holding, and if they’re mortgaged!”

“Oh, poor BABY,” Cher replied. “You think you deserve to see stuff like that?”

“Stuff,” Mary Ann added, “that you’re used to seeing from your high vantage point as a human?”

“Imagine that,” I mused. “And maybe little chalkboards with everyone’s cash value for a quick glimpse?”

“And,” Mary added, “maybe some-“

“Maybe,” Conrad said, holding his wrist meaningfully over the center of the board, and looking at his watch, “maybe we could redesign the game later. When there isn’t a clock running?”

“Seconded!” Julie shouted.

“All in favor say ‘I get your point!’” Wade said.

We were in favor, but we didn’t say that. We all shouted, “Finally!”

“So,” Conrad said, “What else do you want to do with your time?”

“I have an idea,” I said. Everyone turned to me. “Did you guys ever tell them how we got out of the house that night?”

They hadn’t. No one had volunteered information and no one had asked. Everyone was treating it as the sealed record of a night best forgotten. But that was years past.

Conrad used the Monopoly box to lift everyone down to the floor. Then we trooped off through the kitchen. Ray glanced down curiously as we filed under his chair. Annie stepped to the edge of the table and waved.

We finally reached the back door.

“No,” Wade said. “I regularly check all the doors’ seals. No one’s getting out through that.”

“Right, right,” I said. I waved up to where Conrad was hovering over the assembly. “Conrad, could you open the garage door, please? And shut this one?”

“Sure,” he agreed, stepping carefully around us. He went out into the garage and closed the door behind him.

We heard the door motor whirr as it opened.

And wind started to whistle through the hole in the wainscoting.

Wade and Julie spun at the sound. It was faint, but clear to tiny ears, especially this close to the hole. They pawed at the panel and it fell away.

We all ducked down and crawled into the wall. There was a loose piece of drywall, then a drop down onto the steps down to the garage floor. We all assembled there.

“Oh,” Julie said. She was looking past her son’s feet and the tires of her car. The afternoon sun showed the vast expanse of the gravel driveway. “How close does the garage door come to the ground?”

“Conrad?” I called.

“On it,” he said, already pushing the button to close it. We started walking forward even as it rolled down.

The light cut off as it came to a stop. “But the rubber gasket folds easily enough,” Cher said.

“Uh huh,” Wade said, but he was looking up at the underside of the car. So he wasn’t watching his feet and walked into an oil puddle.

Hardly even a stain on the cement from a giant’s point of view, here it was slick enough to affect his traction.

Everyone else had seen the oil and watched him tip. Mac and Mary Ann had made sure they were close enough to catch him before he fell all the way over.

Magic caught the rescue and his thanks.

At that point, crawling through the gasket seemed anticlimactic.

Mac asked how much time they had left. Conrad estimated about 20 minutes.

Mary Ann turned to Wade. “Wanna go dance, Wade?” she asked.

Mary offered a hand to Julie. “Maybe The Hustle?”

“Or The Bump!” Mac offered.

We let Conrad carry the five of them, and Magic, back to the living room and set up the music while we walked along behind.

-----

Ray needed to pick up the amputated remote before the next visit, so he was going to fly home and meet us at Nolan’s and Kerri’s.

“Also it’s time to rotate through my inventory of sylphs,” he said.

“Aw!” I protested, grabbing at Annie. “Can’t we keep her?” I shouted to Conrad. “I promise I’ll feed her and walk her and give her big stupid people to snark at!”

“That would be me,” Conrad pointed out.

“Oh. Well. Um.”

“I almost never snark innocent bystanders,” Annie said. “Lurch, however, demands it or he wonders if I’ve had a stroke.” She pat my hip. “But it is time for Pet to come out and play. I have to get to my job.”

“You have a job?” I asked.

“Each of US does,” Magic observed. “Why do you sound surprised about Annie?”

“She just never mentioned…. What do you do?”

“I’m a hostess at Portion Control,” she said with perfectly justified pride.

So with heavy hearts, but more than a little joy, we drove them to the airport in the morning, marveling at Annie’s travel carrier. It was a wicker container in the shape of Noah’s Ark. It had room for a dozen sylphs, but fit under the airplane seat in front of you.

Well, a dozen if they were friends. But it would also hold five sylphs that couldn’t stand the sight of each other.

Ray promised that he and Pet would meet us in Ohio and marched off into the terminal.

We spent a day packing supplies, then took off for the Midwest.

------

Kerri’s comics were successful, but not rock-star successful. She and Nolan were well-off enough that he’d purchased the apartment building they’d lived in, but they still needed tenants.

They’d converted two apartments on the top floor into a penthouse and welcomed us to stay there with them.

Conrad accepted because he’s a wonderful person. He hates imposing on people, especially friends, but he knows I love visiting people, especially friends.

So he took the second spare bedroom and offered to buy dinner whenever he could

To all our surprise, Nolan and Kerri’s place was NOT the most sylph-friendly home we’d ever seen.

Part of it was that there were no ladders. Some sylph owners use a lot of parakeet ladders to help sylphs climb up to counters and table tops. Those would be more difficult than helpful for Kerri, of course.

Other owners build ramps. Some have elevators. Conrad’s good with his hands, so we have an chair lift and a slide for travel between floors.

Thing is, it’s almost a cliché how you can step into a house and instantly see that they own a sylph. It’s usually as blatant as the smell telling you that the house has a cat.

For Kerri, though, they had modest little davits mounted here and there, dangling knotted strings. Cranes and cords were carefully chosen to match the décor, almost invisible to the casual eye.

Witnessing Kerri drive her little cart to the kitchen, then swarm up the gold string beside the copper table leg… My shoulders ached just watching.

Magic, of course, just shouted, “Neato!” and swarmed up after her. Delli whimpered and made big sad eyes at her lover, and Cher carried her up on his back.

I sighed the sigh of the truly put-upon and followed them all.

Up on the table, Kerri had cushions set around a carved stone pot of some sort. Nolan carefully poured tea into it and she used a dipper to draw individual servings.

I almost said that Cher hated tea, but by the time I made it to the table top, he’d already been served.

He didn’t even grimace when he sipped at it. Had to wonder if he was being polite or if Delli had threatened him…?

“What’s that pot?” I asked.

“It’s a crucible,” Kerri explained. “Something they burned ores in for chemical analysis. Like figuring the silver content of a mine.”

“That’s so in character,” I said. I sat on the last cushion. Nolan set down a dixie cup of popcorn. Kerri passed it around and we each took a kernel.

Nolan and Conrad wandered off somewhere, each holding a can of Coke.

“What character?” Kerri asked.

“The Crucible? The Arthur Miller play and the metaphor? Through adversity, or being exposed to high heat, we find out what we’re made of!”

She looked at me blankly. I waved to her missing legs. “Adversity?”

“Oh, no they weren’t burned off,” she said. She sipped her tea. “We just found it in a little shop downtown, and it holds the heat in for EVER.”

I shut up. Either she really had no idea, or she didn’t want to talk about it. I nibbled my kernel.

Kerri said she was looking forward to seeing Pet once more. “Though it’s weird to imagine her without Annie.”

“It is,” I agreed.

“Are they codependent?” Magic asked.

“More like Yin and Yang,” Cher said.

“Be sure to enunciate that,” Delli giggled. “Don’t call either of them a Yankee.”

“Annie would hurt you,” Kerri agreed.

“Pet wouldn’t!” I protested.

“No,” Cher said. “Pet would just look at you like you disappointed her. Like someone she had truly loved had failed her at a critical point.”

“Much worse,” Delli said. We all nodded.

----

After dinner, we spent the evening mostly lounging around Kerri’s studio. Conrad recovered from the drive, we recovered from truck stop food, and Kerri sketched her sylph guests.

She paid special attention to Magic, having seen her on the news but not having met her before.

Magic posed as directed, as long as the poses didn’t make her look ‘slothful.’

My favorite was when Nolan propped up a cheese grater like one of those climbing walls. Magic posed near the top of that looking triumphant. I hung on below her, looking resigned.

Kerri sketched in a cliff face after she got our figures down.

When she finally took a break, lowering her pencil lead and shaking her wrist, Delli broke out HER sketches.

She never sees Kerri but she starts imagining a new look for the woman. The kilt was one of her successes. The extremely brief parachute pants, not so much. The less said about the barrel, the more betterer, as our owner would say.

Conrad and Nolan both insist that Kerri be allowed to approve or edit suggested designs before they’re actually constructed.

Delli screamed, “You’re stifling the creative process!”

Conrad said, “Yep,” and overturned a glass over her. Empty, but he did pause before reaching past the full one to grab the empty.

She sulked for about ten minutes, then banged on the glass. “It occurs to me that a delay will give my art time to mature,” she told Conrad when he freed her, holding her in his cupped hand. “And Kerri’s input makes the effort collaborative, so that’s better.”

“I can only believe the two of you will make GREAT things together,” he said, stroking her back. Delli smiled to feel his sincerity beaming over their link.

Tonight, she was offering ideas to further the kilt experiment. Kerri was interested, especially since she could just point, rather than have to draw any of her own ideas.

------

Kerri was telling us a story about one night out with Pet. They’d been friends since about a day before I met them both.

She just got to where someone named Tom shouted, “I still have beauty in my soul, assface!” when there was a knock on the door.

Pet and Kerri both squealed when the carrier was still a yard away from the table, and hugged for a full minute.

Then Pet moved through the Loudons, greeting, hugging, and talking a mile a minute about the Sylph Center, some refugees she was working with, Deliah, Sam, Amelia, Still Renee, Tom (of assface fame), and Usiku. She grabbed Magic for a hug before she realized they’d never met.

“OH! You’re new! Annie told me there was a new sylph at Electra’s house.”

“You mean at Conrad’s house,” Magic said.

“Nooooo,” Pet insisted. “ANNIE called it Electra’s house and she meant it. Conrad may live there, too, but…” She cocked her head. “You have met Annie, right?”

“I understand,” Magic laughed. She got a second hug for that.

“How’s Denise?” I asked her.

“She’s the same,” Pet said sadly. Then she… I dunno what to call it. She stumbled? She flinched? She looked over at where Ray was talking to Conrad and Nolan, kind of scared, kind of guilty?

Were they getting a divorce? No, she’d be by Denise if they were. She and Annie were close friends, but Pet and Denise were two halves of the same soul.

“Oh, my God!” Delli exclaimed. “What is it?”

“Is it cancer?” Cher asked.

“What can we do?” Kerri asked. Pet stepped back from everyone, wringing her hands.

“Is it a secret?” Magic asked.

“YES!” Pet lunged. I recognized that move, grasping at a topic like a drowning sylph grabbing for bath toy. Reminded me of the first time we met Magic.

Right now, our newest sister stepped forward to take both Pet’s hands in hers. “My last owner fell off a mountain and got a cut in his thigh. It became infected.

“It affected his whole life: Work, play, driving, cooking, keeping me out of trouble… It wasn’t anything to be ashamed of, but he was embarrassed. So I was forbidden to talk about it to anyone.

“If you’re not allowed to talk about whatever happened to Denise, you don’t have to.”

“Just know,” Delli said, “that we’ll offer our prayers for her, with blanks. Her guardian angel can fill them in before they get up to God.”

“Thanks,” Pet said. “I’ll tell her that.”

“Of course, any hints will be accepted,” Cher said magnanimously. “And the secret guarded with our very lives.”

“Yes,” Kerri drawled. “Knowing the vow of silence all hairdressers take when they are initiated into the mysteries of the tresses.”

“Oh, I trust him!” Pet said. “I just…”

“It’s not your secret to share,” I said with a nod. “Conrad’s the same way about gift giving.”

“OOH! Pet!” Delli changed the topic. “Have you ever felt chinchilla?”

-----

Conrad started to make noises about getting the encounter going. Nolan would have less stay-time in the remote, and he couldn’t have another session until tomorrow.

“Why is he limited?” Kerri asked.

“Technical problems,” Ray said with a shrug. Pet covered her mouth in a futile attempt to hide a great, big smile.

JUST before Kerri could press the blonde about what she might know, I stepped up to pat Pet on the shoulder. “We’ll honor that secret, too.”

Kerri huffed, but didn’t argue. She let Delli lead her away to get dressed for the taping.

When Delli and Cher were done, she came out wearing an adorable set of lederhosen done in the Cincinnati Bengals’ colors.

I was wearing a dirndl, done in Boise State’s colors. Black and orange, blue and orange, we kind of matched.

Nolan showed up in white. Ray had wrapped a paper towel around the remote and the stand.

We took our marks, Magic started the camera and Ray turned on the remote, backing quickly out of the way.

Kerri waited patiently for Nolan to reveal himself. He flopped and flailed at the towel for a bit, then staggered off the stand.

He tipped over and fell. Kerri rushed over to help him up. She was shocked when he didn’t go up all that far.

His remote had feet attached directly to the hips. They were a bit bigger than usual, just to make it possible for him to stand up at all.

He was also painted in the Bengals’ colors.

“You have no legs!” Kerri cried.

“Well, the whole point of this is to swing a mile in your shoes,” he said with a smile. That soured a bit at her silence. “Is it okay? I mean, I’m not mocking you, I really want-“

“Oh, Nolan, it’s PERFECT!” she said, leaning over to hug him. He hugged back, awkwardly.

“Okay,” I said, knowing we were pressed for time with the amputated remote. “What did you two want to do?”

“Well,” Kerri said. “I was going to race him to my reading perch, but it would be unfair to take advantage of him now that-“

Nolan turned and started swinging along on his arms, his torso coming up almost horizontal in his haste. Kerri knuckled along after him.

“And it’s Nolan in the lead!” Conrad said, standing beside the table we were on. “Kerri has the better technique, but Nolan clearly doesn’t feel pain from his hands.” Magic and I raced along behind the two.

Nolan reached the davit first, missed grabbing it, slid on the varnished surface and shot foot-first out into space.

I may have screamed. It’s hard to remember that’s a robot, not a sylph inside a costume. I mean, these things move JUST LIKE a sylph.

Kerri didn’t pause, though. I always thought she had a firm grip on reality. She ignored her master’s fate and grabbed the string.

I was worried that she was going to try to slide down it, but that’s painful when the rope is knotted. I was wrong. She started bringing the string up hand over hand.

Conrad knelt beside the table. “Okay,” he was telling Nolan. “You’re okay. That pain you feel is just what your brain is telling you you SHOULD be feeling. It’ll pass in a moment.

“Of course, a real sylph would be paralyzed by that fall. Since you’re supposed to be living JUST LIKE a sylph right now, you shouldn’t be rewarded for taking such a shortcut.”

Magic and I caught up to Kerri. She had about half the string up on the table. “Can’t slide down like a firepole,” she said quickly. “Have to go with the stuntman’s elevator.”

I had no idea what that meant, so I looked down on the floor. The remote was laying very still. Conrad had it pinned in place with one finger on the chest.

When Kerri had the end nearly in hand, Magic asked, “Are you going to rappel down that?”

The artist grabbed the next-to-last knot with both hands, smiled up at the camera and said, “No.” Then she rolled onto her side… and over the edge of the table.

I did scream that time. Someone I knew was plummeting over a drop even I would avoid, and I have legs to absorb the impact!

I threw myself down and watched her bounce once, twice, then dropped to the carpet. She shook her arms for a second, then took off across the floor.

Conrad judged the penalty delay to be complete and allowed Nolan to get up. He took off after her, at least eight inches to the rear.

Conrad scooped Magic and I up and walked to the bedroom door, placing us in the contestants’ path.

They ran (give or take) right past us and into the master bedroom. We followed. Beside Nolan’s bed there was a birdcage on a stand. Kerri grabbed the end of the string, stuck that in her teeth, and started to shimmy up.

Nolan caught up with her, with the dangling curve of string just out of reach.

He reflexively tried to leap for it, but he had no use of his leapers at that moment.

He swung his arms up and then tipped over into a faceplant.

Kerri laughed, dropping the bitter end of the string, and continued upwards.

Nolan got up, shaking his headpiece, then carefully grabbed the string. He started up slowly.

Conrad lifted us up to the cage. The door had been removed and the inside customized. There was a lounge chair and a couple of divans, and one padded shelf.

Kerri did her victory dance at the top, then we waited for Nolan.

The padded shelf stuck up at a thirty-degree angle. I couldn’t figure out what it was for, but Nolan went straight to it.

Kerri arranged a reading scroll beneath it. Suddenly I could see it. Kerri can’t kneel over a scroll reader and turn the handles. This lifted her up off the text and held her at the perfect height for reading.

She let Nolan read a couple of sentences.

Then she called out Conrad’s name.

In an instant she was looking at me. “I’m terribly sorry, Electra! Can I please borrow your giant?”

“Have at ‘im!” I said.

She had all the sylphs moved to Nolan’s bed, where he apparently read at bedtime. Then she had Conrad place a book, a big hardback, down on the cover.

Nolan and Kerri opened the book and slowly opened their way down to the bookmark.

He got to experience trying to read a human’s book from a sylph’s perspective.

It sucks, let me tell you. No place you can stand to see the entire page, much less both pages. The sheets want to close, except when you want them to.

The print is the size of your hand, which is handy for reading as you walk across the text, but that makes the sentences that much longer when you have to walk back to begin the next line.

And that’s if you can actually walk!

Nolan fell off the book twice, closed a page on his hand, and spent a few moments trying to make sense of a paragraph he was reading upside down.

“Okay,” he finally said, falling to the blanket and staying there. “I’ll make more trips to the sylph store for scrolls.”

“Thank you, Nolan!” she cried, swinging down to hug his neck.

“Mission accomplished!” I said. I turned to the camera. “That really is the whole point of this. Not getting more stuff, but for you biggies seeing things from our point of view.

“IF that leads to changes in how you treat, clothe or feed us, then that’s a happy bonus!”

Behind me, Kerri started to scream. “What’s happening?”

We all turned. Nolan’s remote was laying back, arms spread, and vibrating in violent spasms. Kerri screamed again. I wasn’t too happy, myself.

Ray showed up on the run. “Time’s up!” he said. He lifted Nolan grabbed the head, and twisted it around 360 degrees. The figure went limp.

We all screamed. I mean, all of us. Even Magic and Kerri, the two most grounded sylphs I’d ever met. Conrad squeaked in surprise and shock.

“What?” Ray asked.

“You… You…” Conrad stammered. “Don’t DO that!”

“What?” Ray asked. “That’s the emergency off!” He turned to go see to Nolan, out on the recliner.

I dropped to wrap an arm around Kerri’s shoulders. I held my other arm out for Magic. She dropped the camera and joined us.

Conrad picked us all up, gently carrying us out to the living room.

Loving master made sure Nolan’s eyes were focusing and handed Kerri over. He lifted her to his cheek for a cuddle.

Conrad held us close to his chest, sitting at the table. Cher, Delli and Pet came over. All five of us huddled together, shivering.

“What’s wrong with everyone?” Ray asked.

“Well,” Conrad said, “remember that 20-minute lecture you gave, on how wonderful the software was, converting our every thought to realistic sylph movements?”

“Yeah…?”

“It worked!” I spat. “That’s not a robot we were watching, following, interacting with. That’s another goddamned SYLPH!”

“So it’s got verisimilitude,” he nodded.

“Which MEANS!” Pet shrilled. “They watched giant YOU! Pick up a tiny SYLPH! And twist his head CLEAR AROUND!”

“Oh!” He dropped to his knees, but not near us.

He turned towards Kerri where she quivered in Nolan’s grip. “I’m so, so, so sorry, Kerri! I was only thinking of Nolan! His inputs were overloading his brain! That’s pretty painful. I was rescuing him, I never thought about how it’d seem to you.”

He formally apologized to everyone, in order of terror. Direct eyewitnesses, camera observers, and finally a big apology to Pet.

He didn’t SAY please don’t tell Annie, but it was a clear and present concern in his voice. Pet certainly didn’t promise discretion.

Good.

Fucker scared the SHIT out of me!



-----
Index

150. Dining On

152. Staying On