Sylvia Bishop - Chapter 4: TGI-Frank

Chapter 3: Link

            Frank was still distracted when I said goodbye the next morning, but at least he was still around, as it were. Before going to my workplace, I visited the small business that wanted a network overhaul and was pleasantly surprised to discover that they knew exactly what they wanted and it was a reasonable request – a rare occurrence in consulting practices. I walked away from a two-hour consultation meeting with a solid budget, a plan, and a promise to have it done in three weeks. I could probably have done it in two, but I like to leave room for errors and avoid working crazy hours when crunch time came. I’d made it through college without having to pull an all-nighter, and saw no reason to break that streak for a job.

            Back at the office, I spent some time clearing out my inbox. I set up an appointment for another lost-and-found request, and put together a quote for some basic IT troubleshooting for a semi-regular client who knew just enough about technology to mess things up. It was somewhat frustrating, but I couldn’t complain since he always paid his invoices on time, never quibbled about the hours, and did make the effort to learn more each time I went out. He was also extremely outgoing, and referred me to people at the drop of a hat. Since I abhor having to self-promote – an unfortunately necessary part of being in business for yourself – his customer referrals easily outweighed his tendency to poke at things he oughtn’t.

            It looked like he’d been at it again. One of the emails was a proposal from a small, local law firm that wanted a dedicated, on-call technician. They didn’t have enough work to warrant hiring even a part-time employee, but when systems go down at a law firm, there are a lot of expensive employees wasting billable hours. It was an attractive proposal, but I didn’t want it to interfere with my other work, so after a few back-and-forth emails with the owner, we set up a meeting the following week to hash out the terms. I’d rather not get called out of bed at 11pm because someone’s laptop went down in the middle of a drawn-out council meeting; if we could avoid that, though, it would be a nice boost to my business.

            By noon, I had cleaned up my email and voicemail inboxes, and had a quick lunch at a deli down the road. Unless I had an active case, Friday afternoons were set aside to bring my accounting up to date. Being self-employed is great, right up until tax time, and I’d learned the hard way to keep on top of invoices, expenses, and the joys of calculating taxes and deductions. I was deep in various tracking spreadsheets when my phone rang.

            “Thank you for calling Sylvia Bishop, how many I-“

            “Yes, hello? Is this the lost-and-found woman?” she said, barely pausing long enough for me to answer. “My son was supposed to be home from school at noon today, and he’s not home, he’s not answering his phone, and I’m worried sick; I don’t know where he might be! Can you find him before something happens? Please?!” All of that came through in a single breath, and I made a face, grateful she couldn’t see me. I glanced at my computer screen; it was barely two o’clock. 

            “Ma’am, bear with me. I need to get some information here.” I said. “How old is your son?”

            “He’s thirteen years old; he only had his birthday last month, which is why he has a cell phone,” she responded, sounding less frantic.

            “Okay, good. Did you already call the school and make sure he’s not still there?” Stupid question, but it doesn’t hurt to ask.

            “Yes, they said they aren’t aware of any extra-curricular activities going on today, with the early close, and none of the teachers reported a detention.” The fact that she knew enough to ask about detentions raised a warning flag in my head as well.

            “Do you have any reason to believe that your son is in danger, or is it possible that he’s at a friend’s house, or outside enjoying the weather?” I asked.

            “No!” she snapped back instantly, “He would never – I don’t let him go to his friends’ houses. They are allowed to do whatever horrible things they want, so we keep him home to avoid exposing him to that!”

            “Horrible things?” I asked, relaxing. Since the question of danger had not provoked a response, I suspected that this was not truly an emergency.

            “Oh, you know, video games and bad magazines and fantasy stuff that he’s not ready to be exposed to yet. Have you ever read what those games do? They have bad language, they glorify violence, and I even heard that there are prostitutes in them!” I smiled as she ranted, remembering the ‘glorified violence’ I’d indulged in the night before. Oddly, I’d never yet had the urge to act that out in real life, but to each their own, I suppose.

            “Ma’am,” I cut her off gently, as she was working herself into a frenzy again. “I have a few more questions, please. How does your son come home from school – does he ride a bus, or walk? Is it far from your house?”

            “It’s not far, less than a quarter of a mile, and this is a very safe neighborhood,” she replied. “Most of the kids walk home together, and it’s all houses here, no woods or places for dangerous people to hide in.”

            “And did you check with your neighbors that he left school with the other kids? Did any of them see any suspicious people or cars on the way home?”

            She sniffed. “Well of course I asked, but you can’t expect children to be reliable, now can you? They said they didn’t see anything, but the only reason my son wouldn’t be home is if something bad happened.”

            “Ok, did they confirm he left the school with them, though?” I pressed.

            “They said they didn’t see him, but they’re all so rough, and they probably weren’t even looking out for him. My poor baby doesn’t get along well with the neighbors’ kids, so he usually trails along behind them. Come on! Why are you wasting time asking questions! He could be miles away by now!” She was clearly working herself into hysteria again, but I believed it was unwarranted. A teenage boy with a new cell phone and an overbearing mother, off from school early… it was highly likely that he’d snuck away and would be home before dinner.

            “Ma’am, I’m sorry, but there is nothing I can do at this point. You have no reason to believe he’s in danger, he’s new to having a cell phone so it’s possible he’s forgotten to charge it or turn the ringer on after school, and, quite frankly, he’s at an age where he’s going to start rebelling against his parents. It might be a good idea to call his friends’ parents, just to be sure he’s not there, but until he’s been missing overnight, there is nothing I will be able to do.”

            “No! That’s exactly what the police said!” she practically screamed in my ear. “My little boy would never do that! He does what he is supposed to, and he would never sneak off to do those filthy-“

            “Ma’am,” I cut her off again, more firmly but without raising my voice. “I’m sure that there is a good explanation for where he is, and I’m sure you will be very proud of how he’s handled himself in the meantime, but as I said, there is nothing I can do at this time. Thank you for your call, and good luck with your son.”

She started to yell again, so I simply hung up the phone; one of the advantages of working for yourself is that you don’t have to take crappy customer attitudes. Would I feel horrible if her son actually was in danger? Of course. It was far more probable, however, that he’d come home on his own, and I’ve found that parents in those situations aren’t amenable to paying for the hours I’d already put in. Investigating questionable actions by adults made for a decent side business, but kids and parents were best handled by the police.

            The phone rang again immediately, but caller id showed it was the same woman, so I let it roll to voicemail. The voicemail speech-to-text service wasn’t exact, but it was enough to show that she wanted to get the last word in, so I deleted the message and got back to my accounting. By 4:00, I had gotten my numbers up to date and made the requisite deposits to the account I pay taxes out of. The last hour of the day was spent pricing up components for the small business overhaul, and I closed the office door at 5:00 feeling quite satisfied. Two appointments scheduled for Monday, finances sorted out, and a head start on a current contract was a good way to end the week.

            I realized as I drove home that I was mentally ignoring the lunch with Bast the next day. I knew if I focused on it, I’d get nervous about going out and being social, so I treated it like an appointment: I’d scheduled it, it was probably good for me, and the other person was expected to be competent at whatever the appointment was for – and from what I’d seen, Bast was plenty socially competent for the both of us – so all I had to do was show up and let things happen. Nothing to be concerned about right?

            “Besides, this time it’ll be easier, because you know you don’t have to hide things from this guy,” I reasoned, once again talking to the steering wheel. “You already know you have things in common, so there’s nothing to be anxious about, and it’s in a public place, so failing all else you can go wander along the piers. It’ll be fine.” As usual, I did not receive an answer, but my brain was willing to yield to reason this time, and I could feel myself relaxing as I exited the highway and wound my way through residential streets.

            I pulled into the empty parking lot at my apartment and was getting out of the car when  someone right next to my ear shouted, “Sylvie! Welcome home!”

            “What the-?!” I jerked back, banging my head against the roof of the car and landing again in my driver’s seat. I looked around frantically, but the parking lot was still empty. “What on earth was that?” I demanded of the nothingness around me.

            “Er, sorry…” I heard, a little further away and less forcefully. “I wanted to see if I could talk to you down here, but I wasn’t sure if you’d hear me.”

            “Frank? Is that you?” I asked, staring wide-eyed at the building. I could see him up in the top-floor window, but I swear, it sounded like he was right next to me. That thought made me pause, however, because I realized I wasn’t actually hearing anything. It was the same half-words, half-concepts communication that I used with Frank, but from substantially farther away than I’d ever even considered trying before.

            “Yes! It’s me! I think I’m getting the hang of this out-of-pot experience thing! I’ve been moving around all day, talking to everyone, and it’s so much fun! ” His ‘voice’ circled me, as excited as a kid on Christmas morning. I laughed and shook my head at his choice of words, then made a second go at getting out of the car, this time succeeding without further injury.

            “Well, congrats, I guess? How does it feel? And is it a problem if I walk up to the apartment? I’d really like to get out of these clothes and relax.” I didn’t know how much energy it took Frank to move around, or if following along while talking would be too much to concentrate on.

            “It’s all good; it doesn’t seem to take any energy to do this,” Frank replied, picking up on my concern and moving with me as I walked toward the stairs. “It is a little odd, because I can’t feel the sunlight on my leaves even though I can sense that I’m in the light, but it doesn’t seem like I need more nutrients or a bigger pot.” His voice turned sly and he added, “Although, you know, an extra misting wouldn’t be a bad idea, just in case?”

            I chuckled. “You literally got one yesterday. Any more and your roots will rot, and you know it, you fruit loop. Seriously, though, pay close attention when you get back in your pot after doing that, please. I really don’t want to lose you.”

            Frank was silent, and it was tough to tell if he was still keeping pace with me on the stairs, or if he’d gone back to his pot to check. There was no sense of ‘presence’ that I could discern, the way you can tell if there’s another human in the room.

            “I’ll be careful,” he promised, finally. I realized with a pang that I’d never even considered the thought of him dying. With proper care, he would probably outlast me, and he’d become closer to me than most of my family. I didn’t want to bring down Frank’s mood, though, so I kept that thought tightly under wraps.

            “Anyway,” I said, somewhat awkwardly, “How was your day? Did you learn anything, chatting with the downstairs plants?”

            “Yes, I did!” he enthused, happily returning to talking about himself. “The trees downstairs are very friendly, and were happy to talk about pretty much everything. The bushes are a little ruder, since they get more humans messing with them, especially late at night and on holidays, but I can’t really blame them for that. I made sure to point out who you were this morning so they could see that you’re not one of the ones who throw trash in them or sit there with your car on, dousing them with exhaust.”

            Frank rambled on, telling me about the local plant life he’d met while I let myself in, locked the front door, changed into house clothes, and put together dinner – more fruit salad and chicken. I could hear him following me throughout the apartment, drifting around the rooms he’d not been able to see before. Being used to silence when I wasn’t within reach of his pot, it was a bit odd for me to suddenly have a chatty roommate, but he sounded so enthusiastic about being the one with news to report that I let him talk himself out. I’d finished eating dinner and was cleaning up the kitchen when he finally wound down with a comment about the tenacity of the dandelions growing through cracks in the parking lot.

            “It sounds like your distance is a couple hundred feet away from the house – you got a good chunk of the area around here,” I said. Plants generally don’t measure human distances well, but again, Frank knew a bit more from our long socialization. “Did you feel any, I don’t know, limits or tensions as you got further away?”           

            “No, not really,” he replied. “I could sort of tell where my pot was, and how far away, but it didn’t feel out of reach.” Thank goodness for that, I didn’t have the faintest clue what to do with a disembodied plant, or whatever you’d call it at that point. “I didn’t go any further because I could tell from the sun that you’d be home soon, and I wanted to see if we could talk the same way,” he added.

            “Huh, and I think you proved that, though rather loudly at first,” I responded, rubbing my head wryly. Thankfully, it didn’t feel like there would be a bump, but it was still tender to the touch, and I owed Frank some sort of payback for surprising me like that.

            “Yes, well, new skills, new playbook, heck, new game, even!” he replied, sounding not in the least bit sorry. “Still haven’t heard anything on the underground about other plants doing this, so I’ve got nothing to go on except curiosity. You always tell me great stories about out there, and I want to experience it!”

            I paused, drying my hands on the dishtowel. That didn’t sound like Frank, who’d always seemed content with his pot and soaking up the sun in the windowsill. It almost sounded like, well, me – or my brothers – when we were teenagers, wanting to go out on our own.

            “How long have you been out of your pot today, Frank?” I asked, intentionally covering my concern with a veneer of intellectual curiosity. He’d been picking up on my unspoken thoughts more and more lately, and I didn’t want to come across as an overprotective mother – I remembered hating that when I was a teen.

            “Most of the day, actually. As soon as the sun came up and everyone outside was awake, I was out and about. I’ve been spending longer and longer time away, and there doesn’t seem to be any side effect. I can pop back in whenever I want,” he replied, though it did sound as if he were drifting back in the direction of the windowsill. I followed suit, in part to check on his leaves and roots, and in part to encourage him to re-incorporate.

            A sense of contentment came from the leaves I’d always considered as inherently ‘Frank’ as he settled back in, and I started running my fingers along his vines. There was some dust collecting on his leaves, but otherwise they seemed fine and healthy, no signs of problems from his mental – or would it be spiritual? – absence.  I walked back to the kitchen to get a damp paper towel to dust him with, and was surprised that I could still hear him from his pot, although he did have to push his thoughts out more forcefully, as if raising his voice.

            “I will say, though, there is something delightful about feeling the sun on your leaves that movement just doesn’t compare to.” I smiled, grateful that his experiments didn’t appear to have any negative effects so far, and took some extra care wiping down his leaves.

            “So what is it that you want to experience, outside?” I asked. If he really did want to extend his reach, it would be nice if I could support him in it, the way my mother supported my brothers and I when we wanted to learn new things.  

            “Everything!” was his enthusiastic reply. “I want to talk to the trees, hear their stories, feel the earth in all the seasons… well, maybe not winter, but all the other ones, yes! I want to see the squirrels and the birds up close, see if I can talk to other humans, maybe even talk to the really old trees up close and personal. Maybe even…” His voice got quiet and excited, as if he were telling me a secret. “Maybe even see the ocean. That much water all in one place? That has to be magical.”

            I chuckled. Now he sounded more like a kid learning about the possibilities in the world. It made sense, though, since his entire world prior to this point had been me and the few apartments I’d lived in, plus very occasional visitors who didn’t even believe he could talk. I’d probably behave the same way, if a whole new world opened up to me.

            “Fair enough,” I said, wiping down the last leaf. “Some of that I can certainly help you with by getting your pot closer, if you want. Please be careful while exploring, like I said earlier, and if you need anything, let me know.”

            “Thanks, and will do. I might take you up on that offer of getting me closer, you know. I’ve always wanted to talk to a redwood, or one of those old trees you were telling me about in Japan.” I shook my head, thinking how slowly those trees would talk. Still, I was not at all averse to traveling and experiencing different cultures and languages. That reminded me, though…

            “I’ll see what I can do, then. On a different topic, what was that thing yesterday about me hearing Bast and the magpie? You had me a little worried with your reaction.” I tossed the paper towel in the trash by my desk and sat down against the wall under Frank’s pot, taking comfort in our usual positions for communicating.

            “Well…” he paused, as if making up his mind to tell me or not. “So, you know how when plants come from clippings, instead of seeds, they can still remember the parent plant’s experiences?”

            “Yeah, I do. You said it was a little like really old memories, but clearer than a story someone else tells you.” We’d talked about that when Frank was young and had surprised me by remembering a conversation I’d had with his parent plant, years before.

            “I’ve got a pretty extensive memory bank due to that – probably a couple hundred years or so – and I’ve never heard of a human talking to plants and animals. Humans that can talk to us are pretty rare, as you know, and we tend to gossip a fair bit about you, see you as an honorary plant, that sort of thing. I’ve checked with the plants around here, and put out word on the underground, and it’s not only me – no one we’ve heard from has seen it happen before.”

            “Okay, that’s weird, but… I haven’t talked to animals.” I pointed out. “I heard something, sure, but it wasn’t like rational thought, or speech, or whatever.”

            “Yeeeah,” Frank drew the word out, sounding uncomfortable, “but I know you. You don’t leave things alone once you’re curious. You heard something and you’re not going to let it go until you’ve studied it and found out as much as possible.” He humphed, sulkily. “Even then, you’d probably still poke at it more, just to see if you can.”

            I craned my neck up to look at his pot, one eyebrow raised sardonically. “This from the plant who’s discovered he can move about and has spent how much time out of his pot lately?” I asked. He humphed again, grudgingly acknowledging the point, but wasn’t willing to rise to the bait.

            “Come on,” I reached up and touched one of his leaves, gently. “What’s wrong with me trying to find out about talking to animals? They’re a part of nature, trees don’t seem to mind them, and a lot of animals help plants with, er, fertilization, as it were. Don’t you want to hear stories from their point of view?”

            “No, not really,” Frank said petulantly. “They’re a part of the world, sure, and the trees don’t mind them because they can’t hurt tree trunks, really, but smaller plants? They walk on us, eat us, lay on us, rub our bark off. Nature, sure – maybe – but not friends.” I nodded, conceding his point. “And anyway, that’s not the point. The point is that you’re ours. You’re a plant-speaker. You’re our friend, our caretaker, our point of contact, and, most importantly, my companion. If you go off talking to animals, you’re not going to have the time to slow down and chat with us.”

            I rolled my eyes, knowing he’d pick up the emotion behind it. “Oh, yeah, you got me. I’m absolutely going to walk away and leave everything I’ve worked so hard on for the newest shiny thing dangled in front of me,” I shot back. “Come on, Frank, I’ve known you for how long, now? I’ve run my own business for six years so I could keep using my communication skills instead of languishing in an office somewhere all day. I’ve dropped exes because they couldn’t deal with you and the other plants in my life. Heck, I got this apartment so you could have the sunlit window you wanted, and I love it and I’ve made it mine.” He made a very good impression of someone coughing pointedly, and I smiled and shook my head, letting the negativity go. “Ok, ok, ours.”

            “All I’m saying that yes, I like learning new things and integrating them into my life, but I’m not going to drop you or the other plants just because some flighty bird starts speaking in tongues. You know my opinion on Disney princesses.” Frank started to chuckle but caught himself and turned it into a grumpy mumble, although I could tell his disgruntlement was fading.

            “Besides, it’s not like I do much of anything for you guys, like being an activist for Greenpeace or something, so I’m not sure what you think you’d be missing even if I did become feather-brained.” I sent a mental image of literally having feathers in the brain, driving the pun home. Frank chuckled again, and didn’t cover it this time.

            “It’s not that you do anything, really. It’s that you give us insight to humanity,” he explained, grudgingly, but at least he was willing to talk again. “Imagine looking at a colony of bees or ants or something that moves faster than you do and communicates in ways you don’t understand. Now imagine that colony was destroying you and your home and you had no way to react. Wouldn’t you want to figure out what was going on?” I nodded, and he continued.

            “That’s what you do. Simply by talking to us, we learn about you humans, how you think, why you do what you do, if you’re even considering what you’re doing to the world, that sort of thing. Understand that, from a tree’s point of view, your industrial revolution and population explosion wasn’t all that long ago. There’s a lot of talk on the underground about if there’s anything that can or should be done, or if we even need to do anything before you all wipe yourselves out. Talking to you gives us that insight we’re missing, even if it seems like ordinary conversation to you.”

            I sat for a minute in silence, digesting the idea of being an informal ambassador for an entire species. That definitely explained why Frank was so excited about getting out of his pot and talking to the other plants – he had a lot of information to share, picked up over his own and his ancestors’ lifetimes.

            “Huh.” I said, half to myself. “I’m kind of curious about what the talk on the underground is regarding things that could be done…?” I trailed off, but he didn’t seem inclined to reply, so I tagged it as something to revisit later when our emotions weren’t so high. “But anyway, no. I’m not going to abandon you guys, you especially. I can’t promise that I won’t poke at the animal speech, because you’re right, I’m curious about it, but you guys will always be my first priority. I do promise that.” I reached out to one of his vines that ended with an upturned leaf and hooked my smallest finger around it.

“Pinkie swear, even. Remember?” It was a stupid thing I’d taught Frank’s parent plant when I was young, but I’d noticed that ever since, both plants had always had an upturned end leaf on one vine. “I promised I’d take you with me when I moved out on my own, I promised I’d never leave you behind, and now I promise I’ll always make you my priority. And by you I mean all of the plants, not only you.”

Frank replied with the sense of an exasperated eye roll, but I could tell he was satisfied. “I suppose it’ll have to do,” he said, over-dramatically, and I laughed at him.

“I’m sure you’ll be fine,” I told him, “especially since you’re practically an expert on humans now and can share all your insight on the underground with your new-found traveling skills. Just don’t go getting all self-important on me, here,” I teased. Plants tended to equate age with respect, although I wasn’t really sure how age-from-seedling versus age-from-clipping was viewed. It was unlikely he’d be treated like royalty in the plant kingdom, but there’d been a lot of new territory lately, it seemed.

“Heh, yeah, that’s me, big-headed and pompous,” he responded drily, then sent a mental image of a face with its tongue stinking out.

“Mm-hm, I love you, too, Frank.”

“You know it. Alright then, if you don’t mind, I’m going to head out again. There are still a few hours of sunlight left, and I’d like to keep going!”

I chuckled at his enthusiasm – of course I’d have an outgoing plant, perfect for an introvert who lives alone.

“Alright, go on. Think you’ll be back around sundown?” Again, not that I’d know what to do if he didn’t come back, but it made me feel better to have somewhat of a schedule.

“Yup. That’s when things start to slow down, so good time for me to get some rest, too. See you then!” His voice was already drifting away as he spoke, but as before, I couldn’t feel a ‘presence’ once he stopped speaking.

“Well, probably best to assume he’s gone, then, before I become paranoid trying to figure out if I’m alone or not,” I told myself. I stood up and stretched, glancing at my computer. Usually, a lot of my guildmates would be online on Friday nights and we’d try to tackle some of the bigger dungeons and raids, but I wasn’t in the mood for more socializing. Instead, I picked up a book I’d been reading lately, about what happens to bodies after the owner dies. Frank wasn’t wrong about me being interested in everything, and the author had a way of making a rather odd subject humorous, so I spent the rest of the evening broadening my own horizons.