Ode for Winds

(During Offices)

Annie was angry. I had no idea what she was angry about, so that meant it was me. I mean, usually I'm the perfect sounding board for all things Annie finds offensive in the universe. Except for when I'm the cause of her ire.

Then I'm supposed to telepathically understand what I need to do to fix whatever's wrong.

And I just wasn't in the mood to do that much work. So I took a little vacation.

If Annie's not talking to me, she doesn't talk at ALL. Which meant that she did not offer a vote on what was for dinner.

I still offer her a bite, of course. She's still my responsibility, even when she's my foe.

She took one bean and some beef and a sip of soda and she was done. I had three bowls of chili and two cans of Coke.

Then I put on some music and lay across the sofa. Work had been a little disappointing so I just let Walter Carlos play on. Oh, wait, it was Wendy Carlos, now. Good thing I didn't make that mistake out loud, Annie might have pounced on it.

The borborygmus started. The official name for the sounds of gas and fluid gurgling through the intestines had stayed with me since 8th grade Vocab.

I'd said it sounded like a character in Lord of the Rings, probably a high ranking goblin. This, of course, was in 1975, when knowing LOTR was even geekier than knowing Star Trek references. People just looked at me funny.

Annie claimed it sounded like a form of divination. "Borbormancy, seeing someone's future from mapping their stomach gurgles. Like reading tea leaves, but louder."

Now, years later, I was reminded of some of her earlier efforts. "Your life's path is long and winding, with many pauses to smell the, um, roses."

There were others, varying widely depending on her mood. And if she was angry with me.

Which reminded me, I hadn't seen her for a few minutes. How was I supposed to be reminded that she was angry if I couldn't see her ignoring me?

That's when I heard the tapping.

She was on the back of the sofa, just above my gut. She'd fashioned a little paper and stir-stick podium and held a toothpick as a baton.

Her arms were raised until she saw I was paying attention to her. Then she conducted An Ode for Winds.

I was quite impressed. The borborygmy was rather extensive at this point. I could feel gurgles in my stomach and all around my belly. She never dropped a beat.

I'm not sure how she did it, but she was always pointing directly at every growl, bubble, simmer and pop as it all moved around.

It was quite entrancing. She probably heard the fluids start to fizz before I felt them, but I didn't think of that until later. It just seemed like she was perfectly in tune with my body. Like she really was my familiar. Or I was hers.

Then pressure started to build. I'd spent years becoming really sensitive to certain things my body did, so I could take steps.

Annie had trained me well, she had a mining-canary routine that brought the house down. So I knew what was happening.

And as my miniconductor reached the crescendo, I grabbed her and lifted her town to my belt buckle. She kicked and slapped. "And for the big finish…"

"NO!" she wailed. "Please don't!"

"Aha," I said, moving her to my face. "You are talking to me."

"No," she said slowly, "I'm begging for my life. It's not that I'm talking TO YOU." The pointed back towards my lap. "I'd beg any threatening asshole."

"That's remarkably close to violating the Agreement," I said.

"And farting RIGHT AT ME violates international ethics concerning helpless prisoners."

"Sylphs did not sign the Geneva Convention," I pointed out.

"Because there weren't any when the Convention was written!"

"Oh. I thought it was because sylphs can't master dipping an ink pen and writing with it before it dries out."

"Something else the overmassed take for granted," she muttered.

I pet her hair. "Come on, tell me what's wrong."

"You're ignoring me."

"Annie, I am staring at you, talking to you, listening to you…." I sniffed. "You are the center of attention for eight of my orifices. Seven of them on my head!"

"There's an image…."

"There's one more, but you usually don't want to deal with one of its two functions."

"BRAIN BLEACH!" she shouted, hands to both ears.

I relented and lowered her to my chest. She spread out over my heartbeat like a soft wax figurine on a dashboard. Which reminded me of a soft wax figure. "Do you remember-?" I started to ask.

"And the whole car smelled like crayons until Dad sold it," she said sleepily. Then she snored. I was surprised at how quickly she'd lost all tension. That usually meant she'd been holding it in for a while.

So I rolled her up in my shirt pocket and tried to remember the last time I'd ignored her. I skipped over the bit where she thought that the proper response to cruel and unusual punishment was to inflict MORE cruel and unusual punishment. That was an argument that led to both of us ignoring each other at the top of our lungs.

While I thought, I also stepped gently out to the porch to let rip an outrageous gaseous emission. She slept through it, so I cast my mind back a further week. And by 'ignored,' obviously I was looking for ignoring Annie by Annie's standards.

See, I can't really consider it 'ignoring' someone if I make sure where they are before I take any step, I never leave them without access to food, water and heat, or at least insulation. And they're always in my mind when I order food.

Okay, sometimes I order to SPITE her, but she's always part of the process.

But to her, not getting Annie's way is treating Annie like a paper doll's ironing board. It leaves her flat.

Ahahaha. I'm going to have to remember that one. For when she's awake.

And not pissed at me for… Oh! Oh, yes.

The supermarket had had a promotion for RC Cola. Among other things they did to make that battery acid seem palatable was to offer it in adorable little cans. Eight ounces or so.

"Almost sylph-sized!" Annie had pointed out, with a belated, "Master" tacked on at the end.

"That's a barrel of crude to your scale, Annie."

"Hmmph!" was all she said. Come to think on it, that was all she said until dinner. Then less and less each day until now.

Lucky for me, I'd actually managed to smuggle an 8-pack home the next day. It was in the fridge, behind the eggs.

I tiptoed to the kitchen and started stacking up paperback books to make a throne. A dinner napkin draped over it granted respectability, while a folded washcloth padded where her behind would rest.

It was a big throne, deep enough to qualify as a love-seat. That was on purpose.

I lifted my pet gently from the pocket. She started to wake so I put her down on the cloth and rubbed her back. She smiled and went back to sleep.

I rubbed a bit more, then set up a little altar before her throne. She woke at the sound of the pull-tab being opened.

"Hubbaha! Whazzit?"

"YOU," I accused, "think I think of you as a burden, not a joyful accessory to the pageant that is my life."

"You make me wear clothes that don't clash with your outfit," she pointed out, still rubbing her eyes and looking around.

"That's because your beauty is so great, you don't need to accent yourself any further against the backdrop to your exquisiteness which is, in a word, me."

"Aw," she said with a smile. "You can come up with the cutest bullshit when you want… To…? Is that for me?"

"Lord knows I never buy RC Cola for me," I smiled. "I merely had to recall that I wanted to place it in an appropriate setting to fully engage and demonstrate-"

"Yeah, yeah," she said, hopping down the tiers. "Straw?"

"It was at the back of your throne," I reached. But she'd already run back and snatched it.

She drank like a desert crash survivor, then quivered in ecstasy. "Ooooh, Master, you're too good to me."

"Nice of you to notice."

"Of course, it'll go flat far too soon," she mused. I pulled a package out of my pocket. It was a rubber stopper designed for the can's drinking hole. The cardboard declared that it would double the life of any carbonated beverage.

"I'm not sure how long doubled is," I said, "but anything's better than nothing."

"Yes," she smiled adoringly.

"Because without it, it'll get flatter than a paper doll's ironing board!" I giggled.

She stared up at me.

"I… We don't have any paper dolls."

"I know, but the-"

"And paper doll clothes are, well, paper, Master. They're already flat."

"Yeah, that's the irony of-"

"You don't iron flat paper, Master. It's already flat. Paper dolls have evening clothes and wedding clothes and beach clothes and dancing clothes and church clothes but never an ironing board. See, the pleats are only DRAWN on the clothes."

She tried to play it dead-pan, but there was a twinkle in her eye. I let her have it.

"Shut up and drink your oven cleaner," I griped. She blew bubbles in the sludge and smiled up at me.



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