Good evening; I'm James Lipton, and I'm privileged to bring to you five of the most interesting persons it's ever been my pleasure to interview. To begin with, I need to explain that what you're about to read concerns the discovery of a home, a house, unique to my experience in every way. Quite apart from its apparent ability to be larger on the inside than on the outside - something that those of you familiar with the long-running British television series Doctor Who will no doubt recognize - it also seems to be able to choose its inhabitants, as well as to grant them, when inside the house, a metamorphosis into their true forms. I'm referring to anthropomorphic animal forms, what is referred to as "furry" in the vernacular. Neither wholly human nor animal in these forms, each is a combination of him- or herself and his or her particular animal expression.

To those unfamiliar with this concept, much less the idea that it actually occurs, I will suggest that you meet my guests today, to hear their story of how they came together, and how they have become... all that they have become. Welcome, please, the inhabitants of their own Natural Habitat.

Jybian

James Lipton: We welcome next the Siberian white tiger of the household, Jybian. I did my homework as best I could, but I could find nothing about your background, not even your birth name.

JYBIAN: Well, you know us cats - have to have some mystery in there somewhere. And T. S. Eliot said that we have three names, after all. The one I was born with is just one of those that I left behind.

James Lipton: How did you come by the name of Jybian Ethrie?

JYBIAN: It came to me in a dream.

James Lipton: I take it that this is part of your rather infamous, randomly chaotic humor.

JYBIAN: Actually, no. It really did come to me in a dream. I can't reveal the details of the dream to everyone. Let's just say that I felt that it was important enough that I pay attention to what was being told to me in the dream.

James Lipton: You sound a bit like our Cheyenne friend. Are you also Indian?

JYBIAN: No. Just random.

James Lipton: Well, let's see if I can coax at least a little bit of order out of you. You were born in Houston, Texas.

JYBIAN: Not my fault, I promise. I figure Houston was probably as happy to see the back of me as I was happy to wave goodbye with my tail. Okay, not my tail, didn't have one at that time. I did, however, stop at the Texas border long enough to get out of the car and moon the entire state.

James Lipton: A memory that I'm sure they all cherish. However, you did spend the majority of your formative years in the Houston area. Surely there are some good things that you remember about growing up.

JYBIAN: Oh, sure. My mom and dad are pretty cool. They're both tech nerds, even before being a tech nerd was considered cool. For a while, I was going to go to college and major in computer sciences, but I discovered that there was one major drawback to that idea.

James Lipton: Which was?

JYBIAN: They expected me to study everything, even the dull stuff.

James Lipton: I have the feeling that you weren't one of the best students in your graduating class at high school.

JYBIAN: Not if you believe my transcript. Lightfoot and I compared notes about going to high school in the early days of the twenty-first century - we graduated about the same time. I think his grades were better than mine, but neither of us did much work with the textbooks. For the most part, I'd sit in the back of the class and read other books. My dad got me hooked on Robert Heinlein, and my mom got me to read Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams. My career as a smart ass was already begun even before I got my diploma.

James Lipton: Didn't your teachers object to your reading in their classrooms?

JYBIAN: For a while, yeah. However, after about the fifteenth time that they asked me a question about whatever they were lecturing on, and I answered it correctly, they gave up and let me keep reading.

James Lipton: You spent some time after your high school graduation trying out various jobs, looking for some sort of niche.

JYBIAN: Yes and no. I had a kind of on-again-off-again, semi-volunteer job with a small game arcade in a nearby mall. I put so many quarters into those machines - before I got my own gaming systems, that is - that the guy there got to know me pretty well. He had a few pinball machines that weren't working, and I stood next to him when he opened them up to fix them. I pointed out a few mechanical things that he had missed, and he got to where he'd ask me to help him with stuff sometimes - emptying out the coin boxes, making sure there were tickets in the machines that were supposed to pay off in tickets, basic cleaning and maintenance, that sort of thing.

James Lipton: Did you like the mechanics most, or the electronics, or what?

JYBIAN: Actually, it was all about the games. I took computer classes in school - the one class where I actually paid attention - and I got to where I could understand a lot more about how the games worked. For a while, I wanted to design games, but that felt too much like work.

James Lipton: I take it that work isn't something that you find particularly fulfilling.

JYBIAN: Cat. Duh.

James Lipton: When indolence failed to fill your saucer with milk, what did you do?

JYBIAN: Ooo, good one! Yeah, my mom got pretty insistent about me either going to college or to work, so I tried to figure out what to do next. Dad left the situation pretty much up to me and Mom; you might say that he knew which side his bread was buttered on, but that would be kinky, and no one wants to think of their parents that way. Anyway, Mom gave me time enough to take some tech classes to get my A+ and N+ certifications - I was already half a computer nerd anyway, at this point, building my own boxes from scratch, so I figured I'd go ahead and get the certifications. That helped me get some work at one of the local help desk places in Houston.

James Lipton: And what was that like?

JYBIAN: About what you'd expect, actually. People don't really appreciate help desk personnel. It's not easy, trying to explain to people how to fix their computers when they don't know what they've done to get it messed up in the first place - and worse, they don't know enough to follow instructions very well, either.

James Lipton: Isn't that a rather condescending attitude?

JYBIAN: Work a week, a day, at a help desk, and you tell me. (sighs) But it was a job, and I got to learn a lot about various programs and operating systems. And yeah, I got to learn a little about people, too; you can't be condescending to people and help them at the same time. It was experience, and that's what I had to have before I could really pick and choose where I wanted to be.

James Lipton: And where did you want to be?

JYBIAN: Anywhere but Houston.

James Lipton: Well, you're certainly no longer in Houston. You're now working for the Last Hope Help Desk, here in town. How did that happen?

JYBIAN: I got lucky. The job description on the computer bulletin board that I frequent was right up my alley - just enough time to meet their experience requirements, and the location of the company is right where I wanted to be. I applied, and to my happy surprise, they took me in.

James Lipton: So you moved to town and needed to find somewhere to live. How did you happen to find the house?

JYBIAN: I got a note from someone on that same bulletin board. I had posted that I was going to move here and asked for some help regarding rental places. This guy told me about the house, that it had multiple rooms and a spacious interior, was in a good neighborhood, that sort of thing. When I asked about the rent, he said that he had heard that rent was pretty reasonable, even negotiable. You have to realize, this was the first time I'd been out on my own, so I guess I felt more than a little naïve. I figured I'd better look into anything that I could possibly get some help out of.

James Lipton: Who was this person?

JYBIAN: I'm not sure, really. Just a guy on the bulletin board. He said he lived here in town, and the address of the house checked out, so I didn't go much further with it. Come to think of it, maybe it was a girl; the name was something like "Phyllis," but spelled funny. I didn't think much of it.

James Lipton: So you got in touch with the attorney, I assume.

JYBIAN: Yeah, the guy Lightfoot mentioned. Nice enough, but a little odd. He told me about the same thing he told Lightfoot, except that there was one person already living here, and it might be good if we met first, yadda yadda yadda. I told him to give Lightfoot my number, and he called me, and we met at a café just up the road. I really liked him right off; he's got some of my crazy streak in him, and we shared a lot of the same viewpoints. Lightfoot is totally cool.

James Lipton: He's also a red fox, but you didn't know that yet - just as you didn't know that you're a white tiger.

JYBIAN: No, I knew that already.

James Lipton: You did?

JYBIAN: Sure. I just didn't know that I could actually become a white tiger. That's the big difference. As Lightfoot told you, the fox has always been a part of him, and the tiger has always been part of me. Let me tell you a quick story. I once visited a rescue facility for big cats, not so long ago, but before I came to the house. There was an old lion there, about nine or ten years, who was mostly blind, and although he was certainly comfortable and well cared for, he was a little tired and sullen. All of the cats were separated from mere humans by a double set of fences, one set about 18" inside the other. I went up to the outer fence and sat down, looking at the lion, who had his back to me. After a few moments, the old fellow raised his head and sniffed, then turned his head toward my direction. Slowly, he got up and walked directly to me, stopping on the inside of his inner fence, and he lay down with his head toward me, and he started to purr.

James Lipton: Perhaps I'm wrong - I was told that the big cats can't purr.

JYBIAN: Domestic cats purr both inhaling and exhaling; the big cats can purr, or make a purring noise, on the exhale. With lions, it's a big, deep rumble that you can almost feel through the ground. That's the sound this guy was making. The people in charge of the tour couldn't understand it, and I don't think they believed me when I said I was a tiger. If I ever say that to strangers, I only say it once; they can either believe it or not, and I don't bring it up again. It's a good way to get yourself put into a room with bouncy walls.

James Lipton: And in your case, that would deprive the world of a great source of comic relief. At this point, I'd like to ask Lightfoot a question: Were you worried about having a roommate at this point? After all, inside the house, you are your anthromorph self. Did you wonder about the new guy's reaction?

LIGHTFOOT: Oh, very much so. I also knew that it would have to happen at some point; there was no way that the landlord could afford to keep the house going for just one tenant, and it's a big enough house that it's designed to have several people in it. I wasn't sure if I was going to stop changing, or if I was going to have to explain to each new roommate just what was going on, and hope that they could cope with my "alternate self."

James Lipton: So at the time, it didn't occur to you that the house might perform this same action on everyone who enters it?

LIGHTFOOT: At that time, no. We all realize it now, but at first, none of us had a clue. Remember, the attorney didn't go into the house with me, but I didn't think anything of it at first; that joke about him being a shark came up later.

James Lipton: And so, Jybian, you and Lightfoot enjoyed each other's company, decided that you might be suitable as roommates, and then...?

JYBIAN: Well, Lightfoot invited me over to look at the house. It's a fairly short walk from the café, and I really enjoyed the conversation on the way. When we got to the house, I really liked it. I mean, think of it - I came from Houston, where two stories was the max for a house, unless it was a mansion, and attics are useless dead space above the real house, and don't even think that there might be a basement in that swampland town. The place is about 50 feet above sea level, and it floods frequently. So I'm standing outside of a house that clearly has an attic room or two, and looks like it was built nice and solid, maybe 30-40 years ago. It looked great to me.

James Lipton: So you went inside.

JYBIAN: Lightfoot let me go in first, and of course I see why, in hindsight.

LIGHTFOOT: His transformation was even more fascinating to me, because I could watch it happen. I don't really see myself change when I cross the threshold, although I set up a mirror inside the house once, to see if I could watch it happen. It's very quick - and since I wasn't expecting Jybian to change, it seemed even faster. One minute, a long-haired guy from Houston, and the next minute, a Siberian white tiger with quite possibly the most expressive tail I've ever seen.

JYBIAN: I'll take that as a compliment.

LIGHTFOOT: Indeed you should.

James Lipton: Jybian, how quickly did you notice your change?

JYBIAN: Well, you heard Lightfoot talk about how it took him a little while to notice? I'm a gamer. I noticed very quickly.

LIGHTFOOT: (laughing) Fibber!

JYBIAN: I did! No, really, I notice changes in the environment. It's the only way to stay alive in those "zombie apocalypse" games.

LIGHTFOOT: You were caught up in the size of the house, just like I was. Your first comment was about how that big living room would be great for gaming sessions.

JYBIAN: Well... okay, yeah, maybe, but I noticed right after that.

LIGHTFOOT: You noticed right after you turned around and saw me!

JYBIAN: Did not! (pauses) Well...

James Lipton: I sense a little contradiction here. Lightfoot, perhaps you could tell your version and we'll see how much of it Jybian agrees with.

LIGHTFOOT: Jybian stepped into the house first, and as I say, I was astonished to see that he changed. He had already started moving into the living room area, still not noticing anything different, and I stepped into the house behind him. I changed as well, of course, and - well, truth to tell, I was relieved, because I really did worry that maybe the magic wouldn't work with anyone else around. Then I realized that it was going to get interesting very quickly, because as soon as Jybian turned around to look at me...

JYBIAN: Yeah, okay, that's when I started to freak out a little. I think I actually jumped backward a little, and I think that was when I noticed that I'd changed too.

James Lipton: You caught sight of yourself at that point? Perhaps holding your arms up?

JYBIAN: Actually, no - I felt off balance, and it took me a moment to realize that the reason for my feeling off balance was because I had a tail. As Lightfoot said, my tail is pretty expressive, even when I'm not entirely aware of it, so it was swinging about quite grandly, probably out of sheer surprise. I caught sight of the tail out of the corner of my eye, about the same time that I realized that something new seemed to be attached to the base of my spine.

LIGHTFOOT: (laughing) He grabbed his own tail, a little too tightly, and made some pained noises. About that point, he noticed his paws, and he started to get the idea of what had happened to him.

JYBIAN: Lightfoot looked at me and said, "Okay, don't freak out." For a minute, I didn't say anything, but finally I said, "Is this really as cool as I think it is?"

James Lipton: You didn't have any other reaction? Fear? Disorientation? Lightfoot, tell us the truth.

LIGHTFOOT: No, Jybian is right. His immediate reaction seemed to be how cool it was. I was the one who was surprised! We finally started talking about it, and I took Jybian upstairs to look in one of the mirrors. He was incredibly excited by the whole thing.

JYBIAN: And why not? I've always identified myself as feline, specifically a white tiger, and now I really was one! It was without doubt the most fantastic thing that ever happened to me, and I was completely stoked. I could hardly keep up with Lightfoot's talking about it, at that point, because I was so completely fascinated by the "new me."

LIGHTFOOT: Eventually, he came down to earth, and we started talking about it more clearly. It only works within the house, I explained, and for the proof of it, we both walked outside again and returned to our human forms. At that point, I think Jybian was more anxious than I was to sign the lease.

James Lipton: Which, I assume you did post haste.

JYBIAN: I didn't wait for the post; I went down to the attorney's office and gave him a check that afternoon!

James Lipton: Just so. Well then, Jybian, what sort of problems did you find in your newfound shape?

JYBIAN: I don't think it took me very long at all to adapt. I was so excited by it that everything seemed like it would have to be a new learning experience all on its own. (pause) I will say that it was interesting trying to learn how to deal with a tail. Sitting in a chair wasn't much of a problem, until I discovered that slouching back on my ... well, in human terms, my "tail bone" wasn't easily done anymore. Sleeping on my back wasn't too much of a problem, as long as I put my tail down between my legs; if I try to move it to one side or another, it pinches at the base, and that's no fun.

LIGHTFOOT: Should I tell him about your chasing--

JYBIAN: Don't you dare!

James Lipton: Too late. I want to hear this.

JYBIAN: Oh, all right. (pause) I think I've found out why cats will grab their tails and bat them, as if they were trying to catch something that's not actually attached to them. I've caught myself doing it sometimes. You see, there's a certain part of tail movement that's actually involuntary - I'm not sure if it's balance, or a way of communicating non-verbally, or if it's just nervous energy. Once in a while, especially if I'm engrossed in something - like a really good video game or something - I won't notice the feeling that the tip of my tail, about the last three inches or so, has started twitching or tapping. I'll catch the motion out of the corner of my eye, and for some reason I still don't know, I get to thinking that what I'm seeing is not part of me. There's a feline need to pounce, that's all there is to it, and at some point I'll lash out one or both forepaws and grab the twitching thing. If I pull suddenly, then I'm likely to pull myself slightly off balance, because after all, I'm yanking on a cord that's attached to my butt! Being off balance, the first instinct is to right myself, and to renew the attack, which yanks again... Yeah, if I'm not really aware of what I'm doing, it looks a lot like I'm chasing my tail.

James Lipton: Does that cause you any problems?

LIGHTFOOT: Only when there are witnesses.