Annie CXIII: Talking

(Chronological index: Ray as College Senior) Theresa: Okay, boys and girls, it's Thursday, it's three and it's time for Doctor Thorton! Thorton's Three-clinic hours have begun. Unfortunately, Dr. Thorton is unable to be with us today. Fortunately, or at least coincidentally, one of his most popular patients had graciously agreed to grace us with her presence this afternoon. Welcome back to the studio, Annie.

Annie: Thanks, Therese.

Theresa: A.

Annie: A what?

Theresa: TheresA, not just Therese.

Annie: Oh. Sorry.

Theresa: Okay, we're going to let the sylph talk about whatever she wants, but first... Annie, were you fighting with your owner before we came on the air?

Annie: Fighting? No.

Theresa: It looked like fighting.

Annie: What? I didn't swing a chain, no one's bleeding. No, we were negotiating.

Theresa: What? Your fee for appearing?

Annie: No, my freedom of speech for the duration. I have partial amnesty. So I can't get in trouble if I say anything... Anything not normally shared in polite company.

Theresa: Really? You have to get permission to talk?

Annie: Sure.

Theresa: Doesn't that... Oh, that just seems horrible.

Annie: Well, yeah. To a person.

Theresa: Aren't you a person? You look like a person. You talk like a person.

Annie: (pause) Do you have a little sister?

Theresa: What? Yeah.

Annie: Ever take her on dates?

Theresa: No!

Annie: Because she might tell your date how much time you spent on the phone, talking about his date with that girl in Psych? Or maybe she might tell Mom, later, what base the guy got to?

Theresa: Eek!

Annie: Well. If I'm going to have ANY fun with my master, he has to be convinced I'm completely loyal to him, and not likely to reveal things to his dates or his parents or his roommates or his teachers or study partners or-

Theresa: I see.

Annie: Or like those dogs on all the TV shows. Would young boys take the family hound out to play if they thought the dog might tell on them for stealing apples or spying on sunbathing college girls?

Theresa: I guess not.

Annie: Right, I'd be in my cage ALL the time if I hadn't completely prostituted my freedom of speech to getting out of the house once in a while.

Theresa: Okay. I give. Now, what did you want to talk about?

Annie: I want to warn sylph owners to think about what life is like for their little sylphs.

Theresa: Being naked all the time, being cold, being hungry...

Annie: No, no. I wasn't thinking of the sylph condition. EVERYONE thinks of the sylph condition. It is THE most common writing exercise, what would it be like if you were a sylph, if you sylphed, what you do, who would you like to find creeping on your bedroom floor.

Theresa: Yeah, I remember those.

Annie: EVERYONE remembers those. Especially six years ago! After the furor, before the complacency.

Theresa: When have you ever found anyone complacent about sylphs?

Annie: Theoretically...

Theresa: So you'd rather teach us...?

Annie: Favors.

Theresa: (sings) Oh, Lord/Won't you buy me/A big Snickers Bar.

Annie: No, favors WE do for YOU big lugs.

Theresa: Like what?

Annie: Well, Murphy's law says that any item dropped on the floor will naturally bounce, roll or slide under the fridge. Or the piano. Some hard to get to, out of the way place.

Theresa: Yes.

Annie: Well, let me tell you, Sylph Murphy has found that when you drop your sylph on the floor to go find the marble or pencil or lipstick or heart medicine? It's rolled unerringly towards a spiderweb.

Theresa: Eugh!

Annie: Damn straight. And let me tell you, Snookums does NOT love you enough to wrestle Shelob for your mascara wand.

Theresa: Who's Sheila...orb?

Annie: A scary part of Lord of the Rings.

Theresa: Oh! That D&D book! Orcs and goblins and wizards and stuff?

Annie: (slowly) Yes... That... D&D...book.

Theresa: My boyfriend wanted me to read it, but I don't like books that thick.

Annie: (slowly) Well. Maybe some day, they'll make a movie about it.

Theresa: Maybe. So. Anyway, don't send sylphs under fridges?

Annie: At least sweep a broom through the space and shine a flashlight down there.

Theresa: Okay. So what else do owners do that drives sylphs mad?

Annie: Caraway seeds.

Theresa: What? Cook with them?

Annie: No, they get one caught in their teeth and send us in there to pry it out.

Theresa: And you...don't like that?

Annie: Let me set it up for you, sweetie. Take an inflatable wading pool. Weld 32 bowling balls to a lawn chair, cut off the legs and throw that into the pool. Fill it with corn syrup, moldy fruit-

Theresa: Ew.

Annie: Yeah. Syrup, fruit, used cigarette butts, shampoo and a few orders of Chicken McNuggets.

Theresa: That's disgusting.

Annie: Getting there. Now, shove the WHOLE THING into the back of a station wagon. And someone who up until that minute loved you says, I have a carrot stuck between two of my bowling balls. Would you slither on in there an dig it out?

Theresa: No!

Annie: Can't say NO! Or, well, you can. It just doesn't matter a damn.

Theresa: Has Ray done this to you?

Annie: Well, no. But we were on a date... And this bosom he was trying to impress got some meat stuck in her teeth.

Theresa: And he offered you?

Annie: No, no, I volunteered.

Theresa: That was brave of you.

Annie: Well, then he had to take me to the bathroom to wash off. And I got to tell him she smoked.

Theresa: That was the cigarette butts in the wading pool?

Annie: Yeah. I mean, if you're going to have company come over, tidy up....

Theresa: I don't think I could have done that.

Annie: I think next time I won't try to hard to avoid puking.

Theresa: Ew. I mean, really, ew.

Annie: Yeah....

Theresa: Okay, no living toothpicks. Important safety tip. Now, what else?

Annie: Okay, well, DON'T ask a sylph, how do I look?

Theresa: You'll tell them?

Annie: How the Hell should I know?

Theresa: Um...



Annie: Okay. Have you ever seen that New Yorker cover? The New York's view of the world?

Theresa: The World As Seen From New York's 9th Avenue.

Annie: Um... Yeah.

Theresa: Ninth and Tenth are in detail, Jersey is a smudge, the entire country is a blurry box over thataway, then the Pacific and other lands.

Annie: I'll take that as a yes.

Theresa: How does that fit?

Annie: Well, when I look up at a human face? I think... Nose. A really, really big set of nostrils, pointed right at me.

Theresa: So sylph owners should trim often?

Annie: No, no, it's the cavity. I can NOT understand why you people don't come with an echo.

Theresa: So, makeup...?

Annie: All it does is pretty up the setting for the nostrils.

Theresa: I can see where owning a sylph could be depressing.

Annie: Ever eat kibble?

Theresa: Well, no, BEING a sylph... Well. Next?

Annie: Oh, at least once in every sylph's life, the owner decides he's going to master Ye Olde Puppetry Schtick.

Theresa: Cliché?

Annie: It's so embarrassing. The whole point of a puppet show is that one guy's doing both sides of a conversation, and showing his creativity.... When the 'puppet' is making up her own lines? You're just standing there, waiting for something to do. You look stupid.

Theresa: Don't... Don't you and Ray have a puppet act?

Annie: Yes, but it's very fast paced. I keep it hopping, so Ray never has time to look like he's waiting.

Teresa: So he won't look stupid.

Annie: I take very good care of my dummy.

Teresa: That's sweet.

Annie: Enlightened self interest. If it's not worth his while to carry me around, I get left in the cage.

Teresa: Okay. So, what next? What's another no-no on the sylph owner hit parade?

Annie: I'm not a diver's watch.

Teresa: Exqueeze me?

Annie: Ray, and some others I've seen are worse about this, they'll be cooking and casually tell their sylph, 'tell me when that's been cooking for four minutes.'

Teresa: Like you have nothing better to do than watch the clock.

Annie: It's food! I have NOTHING better to do that help make food ready for feeding. But I can't usually see a clock.

Teresa: Oh. And there's no watch for sylphs.

Annie: There are. They go on like backpacks..

Teresa: But can you see the face?

Annie: Hmm?

Teresa: Well... If you're wearing a human-sized watch, isn't that for the human's convenience.

Annie: Exactly. And when Raymond would say, "This needs to boil for ten minutes," I thought he was making conversation.

Teresa: (giggles)

Annie: I never stand where I could fall into the pan, so usually I can't SEE into the pan, so the status usually isn't my problem. So...some time later, he's asking if it's been ten minutes, yet, I'm, like, how in the name of the Deep Old Ones am I supposed to know?

----------

Ray retrieved his pet after the show ended. Sensitive to his moods, she noticed he was strangely quiet. He scooped her up, pocketed her and walked out.

She waited and waited for any sort of response. Part of her mind reviewed every comment, trying to see if she'd violated the boundaries of partial amnesty.

She hadn't revealed anything more intimate than his body odor and boys were allowed to smell. Nothing about nose hairs. Not that would make the next girl kneel down to see up Ray's nose...

Although, too late, she thought maybe he'd have given her permission to entice girls to kneel down before him.

"Eh," she muttered. "Owning me's gone to his head enough as it is."

"What?" Ray asked.

"Nothing," she said sweetly. "Just thinking of things I could have said. You know how it goes."

"I do."

"You start talking, and think of three points you want to make, and you make two, and an hour later, you remember the third."

"I know, Annie. I said I know."

"Uh..... Huh." She slid down in his pocket and chewed her lip. Then she decided to make a litmus test. "Can, uh, can we go for ice cream?"

"No," he said. "You might get butter pecan-"

"I don't like butter pecan."

"And you might get a piece of pecan meat stuck between your teeth."

"Oh."

"And there I'd be, helpless to do anything about it."

"Look," she tried to interrupt.

"I'd be forced to force you to take responsibility for your own dental contamination."

"Master?"

"I have NEVER made you crawl into my mouth for flossing," he said. "Nor have I... Nor WOULD I ever... EVER let someone else use you that way."

"I know!"

"I've never even heard of anyone..."

"Some girls in the...bookstore."

He stopped walking with a jolt. "Really?" he asked, all indignation gone from his voice.

"No, but if it makes you feel like not shouting at me any more, then yeah, really."

He was silent for a moment, then started walking again. There was a small smile in the tone of his voice when he spoke again. "I wasn't shouting."

"From down here, Master, you had raised your voice."

"You're not even a foot below my voice box," he pointed out, beheading the joke before she could deliver it.

"Argh!" she protested.

"And I thought I gave you permission to talk about being my dice bitch," he said.

"Eh. After she thought LOTR was 'that D&D book.' I decided to give gamers some time off."

"Interesting that you should mention that," he said.

"Why? What's going on? Where are we going?"

"Susan's running a dungeon crawl. We're invited. If, you know, you're interested."

"Don't even pretend to ask disinterestedly," she said. "I KNOW you're going. And I'm sure you have Norallus' character sheet somewhere around your person?"

"Nope," he said. She refused to panic.

"Then Susan must have it already." She started to rub her hands together in glee. "I'm going to kill me some giants."

"I said dungeon crawl. No giants."

"Not in the game, maybe," she said. Her first target blithely carried her towards the apartment building.



Back to the Index