Out of the Box (Out of my Head): Taking the Headcrew on a Field Trip

Part 1: Celestial Soup

So, I went to visit some of my best pals: Chromia and Hound, who live several states over. It was the first time I'd flown in over a decade. (This will be important later, but not now.) As part of the festivities, we went to an old restaurant in the middle of nowhere: a place full of what people like to call "atmosphere," owned by one family for ages, serving amazing food in tin cups on timber tables. We were all giddy just from being in the same town together; but this was the fourth or fifth day, so we'd gotten past frantic activity, and on to a steadier joy. So when the soup came, we were all willing to take the time to savor it.

You know how sometimes food tastes so good that you have to fall back in your seat and exhale in almost criminal fulfilment? Yeah. It was delicious. There we all were, in this grand old place, eating delicious food - a sensory valhalla - and I realized that the best person to fully appreciate all this was... Humanized Starscream.

The best thing about having friends who are in the same fandom (and who know you really, really well) is that you can invite your own imaginary friends to dine with them. And they'll half-see them along with you. So I made the suggestion, they agreed, and he pulled up a chair at the end of our small table. I told him he had to taste some of these things, and we all watched him roll his eyes in ecstasy and chew.

We spent the rest of that exquisite meal with an extra guest. He was so real that he participated in the conversation (It's his fault that "soup" is now a euphemism). He traded barbs with everyone, making clever remarks I hate myself for no longer remembering. I found myself gesturing to (and laughing with) an invisible person. And the best part was that the other girls were right there with me in the game: real and imaginary friends in a glorious free-for-all around the table.

The girls don't know this, but he didn't leave when we loaded up in the car and headed off to somewhere else. He actually curled up in the back seat beside me, and put his head in my lap so I could ruffle his hair like the cat he is. And that was nice. It was a kind of crazy time, and Starscream anchored me. I find it very satisfying to give the guy just a little love. He soaks in it so that you know that what you've done for him makes a real difference. It's empowering to be able to make someone's month just by ruffling their hair.

o0o0o

Part 2: The Flight Home

As anyone who's flown over the US knows, a huge part in the middle is just like a never-ending patchwork quilt: grids of square and circular fields of brown and green in all their variations. It's cool for a little while. But then you get incredibly bored with it. At least, I do. I was mountain born and raised: a Colorado girl until the day I die.

Well, my plane home flew over the endless quilt 30,000 feet below us. At that distance, you cannot even see freeways. Whole cities are nothing more than a sprinkling of dirty confetti. And it's flat, flat, flat, flat, flat.

I don't do well with flat.

But my plane stopped in Denver, and I switched to a smaller craft. On the way over, there had been thick cloud cover, so while I had reveled in the whipped-cream textures of the clouds below the wings, I had not seen what was beneath them. So when we took off and headed up over the slagging Continental Divide, I pressed my nose against the window and gaped.

The plane climbed right up the slope of the mountain range. I'd had no idea it would be like that. I mean, I know that those mountains are 10-20 thousand feet high. But I'd forgotten what that means in terms of flying over them. It means that you worry the plane won't get altitude fast enough. It means that what was waaaaay down there at 30,000 feet is right beneath the wings now by comparison. I could see everything: individual houses, even. Not to mention tiny ice-cold sky-lakes in between the peaks, as well as the shapes of the mountains, the scope of them, the spread. And don't forget, these were my mountains. These were my home. So I was on the lookout for places I recognized. About that time, I started whispering to Megatron. In fact, I blinking grabbed him by the back of the neck and smashed his face up against the plexiglass.

"Look at this!" I whispered. Out loud. After all, it was a plane; no one was going to hear me whispering. "Look at it, Megs! You cannot tell me that this planet is not beautiful. You can't tell me that this planet's not fragging amazing, even in comparison to Cybertron."

And he was like, "But Cybertron's my home."

To which I replied, "This is my home. All this out there. These are my mountains. They are part of my being and in my breath and bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, Megs. I love them intensely."

Megatron, as we all know, can get a little intense about things - especially things he views as his. But because of that, he can understand when someone else gets intense about their place, too. I was... I was so happy to show him the home I love, the home I haven't been back to see in more than 20 years, though I've flown so tantalizingly close to it. He gets that kind of loyalty. He gets that kind of homeland love. And even Megatron had to admit that those mountains had a kind of rugged organic beauty.

And all the way home, the whole hour we were flying over a land that is part of my DNA, he stared out through the tiny window with me, and we whispered fiercely back and forth to one another. Well, honestly, he mostly listened. He's a good pal like that.