They Look Like Big, Strong Hands, Don't They?

[I love my imagination!]

One afternoon, I was upstairs folding laundry on my bed. Now, you have to understand, I wait till no one has any more clean clothes before I do laundry, and then I do it all in one fell swoop. So I had a huge, honkin' pile there to be dealt with. But things were goin' OK; I was chillin,' probably listenin' to NPR, and thinking about Giant Robots, as usual.

Well, I looked out the window, and saw to my amazement that Megatron and Starscream were strolling casually along the middle of the street outside. There wasn't any human pandemonium yet; the cars that came along the road tended to take one look and decide to take a route in the opposite direction. So Megs and Screamer had the place to themselves, pretty much.

I was frankly astounded at how well they were getting along. But as I had lately been toiling on my story in which those two slaggers find a way (albeit posthumously) to get along, I simply took it as a sign of progress.

I hadn't seen Megatron in a couple of months, and I had missed him badly. I'd grown accustomed to his constant snark. And I missed feeling his presence at my back. I'd been focusing a lot of energy on Starscream, and though I was slowly learning to get along with the little twit (even now, I am almost unable to talk about him without using derogatory terms, may he forgive me), he weren't no Megs.

I know it seems odd to lean on Megatron. But he and I have been through a lot together. And I do. So perhaps you can understand why I dropped the shirt or whatever I was folding, and scrambled to the window.

It was open, to let in the spring breeze. It gets fragging hot up there if you leave it closed off. In real life, there are screens on our windows. But in this day-dream, we conveniently didn't have them. I shudder to think what the kids would get up to if we had second-floor windows with no screens, but that's beside the point.

I leaned my hands on the sill, and stuck my head way, way out the window. I knew the neighbors would hear me and think me insane, since I wasn't sure just how visible the big guys were being to other fleshies at the moment. But I didn't care. At the top of my lungs, I called out, "Hey Megs!" (I know he hates it when I call him that, but I just can't seem to help it. He hasn't slagged me for it – yet – because he knows that nicknames mean love.) "Megs! Scre—Starscream! Hey guys! Over here! It's me!"

I never for one instant doubted that they would know who I was. I was currently writing their lives, after all, trying to make good things possible for them. Besides, they tended to hang out with me in my room and talk to me about things. Starscream would watch in fascination while I took care of my baby. And I often slept curled-up on Megatron's chest, while he recharged at night.

So I waved, and called, and after a show of rolled optics and a whispered conversation, they turned up the drive, and stopped by the window. And that's when I realized just how big they really were.

You see, my imagination tends to ignore scale. So Starscream could fit into my room if he sat cross-legged on the floor. And Megatron would only be about as tall as I was, since I was usually being Prime whenever he was around.

But there they were, in the flesh, real as real. And they were huge. I was a little unsure about actually crawling out the window, so I pelted down the stairs and out into the driveway.

And I looked up. And up. I had never fully realized just how massive those guys really were. It was awesome. And terrifying. I suddenly hoped they liked me as much as I thought they did...

As I was standing there squeebling, Ol' Megsie reached down (and more down), with one of his huge black hands. All of a sudden, I realized that clambering into the hand of a 30-foot tall transformer was not going to be as simple or as easy as I'd assumed. I was going to be lifted very high up, and completely powerless to keep myself from falling.

But I did it.

The whoosh! upwards was terrifying, but exhilarating. I tried not to wriggle too much – Megs has a short temper, and I was not about to antagonize him while I was 30 feet up in the air. But it was awesome.

I'm not sure what they were planning, exactly. It seemed like another one of Megs's usual crazy G1 plots-du-jour. (But of course I would never have called it that to his face!) But they let me hang out with them while they scouted out the area.

Before I could get too dizzy with vertigo, Megatron walked back to my house (It didn't take very long) and set me down again in the driveway. I knew they had to go, but I was really going to miss their hugeness. I had to go, however, when my next door neighbor peeked her head out and stared at me looking terrified, and asked me what the heck was going on. I told the guys farewell, and not to destroy too much, and headed back inside.

I finished folding my laundry.

With a goofy smile on my face.