An Even Worse Self Insert

Chapters

2: I Never Had a Dream Come True
4: A Sinner Kissed an Angel
5: There! I've Said It Again
6: Moonlight Serenade
7: I'm Stepping Out with a Memory Tonight
8: Auld Lang Syne
9: Ferryboat Serenade
10: Der Fuehrer's Face
11: When the Lights Go On Again
12: Imagination
13: Buttons and Bows
14: Don't Fence Me In
15: Along the Santa Fe Trail
Jukebox Saturday Night 1
1: More Than You Know
3: They Say It's Wonderful

2: I Never Had a Dream Come True

"I never had a dream come true
I never had a sky of blue
I never walked a lane that had a turning
I never found the answer to my lonely yearning..."

I rarely ever remember my dreams when I wake up. I’ve had people tell me that they keep a journal, so right as they wake up they write them down, and over the years it helps them remember more and more. I was never the kind of person for journals, or keeping track of my own thoughts. Most of the time, I wanted the thoughts to just go away, so why would I want to keep a record of them?

More so, I get constant senses of deja vu. Something happens and suddenly I feel as though I remembered it, but I couldn’t act to stop the event, or change the outcome. I liked to think that I had actually dreamed the occurrence, my brain trying to warn me ahead of time about something. Clearly, my brain doesn’t know me as well as it thinks it does, because I never listen. I never react, or try to change anything that happens.

I just let nature take its course.

However, I do have dreams, aspirations in life that I’d like to have happen. For something to go the way I intended, and actually feel accomplished for doing it. Instead I have all these dreams pile up, and after several years the dream becomes nothing but rot and or rust, the value long lost and not worth pursuing.

“I like how this song changes pace.”

I looked to my left, Twilight Sparkle was sitting on my couch again.

“And hello to you too.” I said.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Hello…” Twilight tapped her chin with a hoof. “Come to think of it, I never did ask your name the last time.”

“Alex,” I said, pouring myself a glass of tonic water.

Twilight levitated a bottle of water between us. “I hope you don’t mind, but I helped myself to some water.”

I shook my head. “Not at all.”

“Thank you. I find it so odd and fascination that you people bottle your water into thin plastic containers.” Twisting the cap off she took a sip, licking her lips in thought. “And it tastes almost… artificial. Are there things added to it?”

“Chemicals to enhance it, so they say. I just drink from the tap personally.”

“Good idea. I’ll remember next time.”

I look back to my record player, taking a sip of my beverage as I watch the record spin. It has a slight warp to it, making the arm bounce slightly. Not enough to disrupt the music, but make it an odd sight to see.

“Is this a quartet?” she asked.

I just nod my head, listening to the lyrics.

“They’re quite good. Reminds me of the Ponytones.”

“This is the Ink Spots.”

Twilight let out a small laugh. “I know a pony named Ink Spots.”

“Oh yeah? Does he sing?”

Twilight shook her head. “No, he’s in the printing industry. Books, mostly.”

“Figures.” I said, looking down to stare at my aching feet.

Twilight hummed, bringing my attention back to her.

“You look tired," she said.

“I am. I just got home from work a half hour ago.”

“On a Saturday?” she asked, shocked.

“Yeah. I work weekends.”

“Why?”

“No one else wants to. My boss covers the morning, and I come in on the evening so he can go home and spend time with his family.”

“What about your family?”

I shrugged, then took another sip of tonic water.

“Do you have children?”

“None that I’m aware of.”

Twilight rolled her eyes. I laughed.

“Oh come on, usually people get at least a chuckle out of that.”

“Not my kind of comedy, honestly.”

“Let me guess, romance comedies?”

Twilight blushed.

I pointed at the mare. “Ahhh, see? Told ya.” I scooched myself into the couch more comfortably.

Just as I did so, the record player went dead with a loud clunk. I sighed, it always did this when I was just finally comfortable.

“Here, allow me.”

Before I could blink, Twilight’s magic played with the stereo.

“Hey hey now, easy does it there. That thing’s older than I am, and I’ve barely been able to keep it operational all these years.”

“Then why don’t you get a new one?”

“Because it still works.”

“Well, this still beats what we use. Manual crank players, what I would give to have something like this.”

“Well, when you get electricity let me know. I got spares, you can have one.”

Twilight stopped fiddling with the player. “R-really?”

I shrugged. “Sure, I have a dozen of them. Might need a little work and be as dated as mine, but so what?” I stood, pulling the lever back to start the turntable again.

“Well, it’s just, we’ve only met now twice. That is borderline Rarity generosity.”

“It’s just an old record player, not a diamond worth millions.” Once the player warmed up, I place the arm on the record and begin the song again.

“Well, still I really do appreciate the offer.”

I sat back down, the couch protesting my weight. “And I appreciate the company.”

“Likewise.”

Both of our attentions returned to watching the record player, occasionally both of us sipping from our drinks.

“It’s funny, thinking about it after the fact, but I’ve had many of my dreams come true.”

I looked to the mare, brow raised. “You dreamed of being a princess?”

“Not exactly…” she pressed a hoof into the couch cushion, feeling the fabric.

“So what then?” I asked.

“Well, I didn’t even realize it until long after, but having my friends.”

“You were a shut in book nerd, that’s not too unusual of a thing to want.”

Twilight stuck out her tongue at me. “Without them, lots of my dreams would still be dreams. Traveling the world, meeting new ponies and, well, other creatures,” she gave me a look.

“Human.”

“Right, you’re a human. Other Equestrian inhabitants as well. Going on the grand adventures I’ve been on, it’s just been non-stop. If it wasn’t all so unbelievable, I’d dare say that I was dreaming most of it.”

I hummed in agreement, sipping more at my drink. The song hit the beat change, another voice singing.

“What about you?”

“What about me?” I asked back.

“Do you have something you dream of doing, or having?”

I ran a finger along the rim of my glass. “Yeah, I did a couple times.”

“And did it happen?”

I stared at my feet again. They still hurt.

I could see out of the corner of my eye, Twilight’s ears went flat.

“Well, it can still happen. Whatever they are, there’s still a possibility.”

“I’ve given up on a lot of them. They’re either gone now, or they’re still sitting around, rotting away from time.”

It was quiet for a little while, up till the point the song ended again and the player shut off with its tell tale clunk.

“Well, you can always come up with new dreams, and try again.”

I stood, motioning to play the record again, but stopped.

“What if… what if I don’t want to anymore?”

“Want to what? Dream?”

“Yeah. What if… what if I’m sick and tired of having these dreams, cause when they don’t come true, I just give up on the idea.”

“There’s a difference between having a realistic dream, and something truly out of your reach.”

“You became an alicorn princess.”

“Okay, point taken, but I’m also from a world where everything is sunshine and rainbows.”

“Wow, meta much?”

“Meta what?”

“Never mind. Go on?”

“First, play the song again, please?”

I didn’t respond. I turned the machine on again and put the arm down. Taking my seat I turned so I faced her, my left leg semi-Indian style. Twilight shifted as well to face me, but continued to stare at the player as it spun.

At the beat change, Twilight looked back to me.

“Our worlds are totally different. So what we both see as realistic goals also vary.”

“I sure as hell don’t aspire to be a princess, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

Twilight chuckled at that. “No, of course not. So what then is an example of a realistic goal you’ve set for yourself?”

“To fix my car.”

“Car? That’s one of those metal carriages, yes?”

I nodded.

“Okay, well that sounds simple enough. Just go fix it.”

“I’ve been working on this particular car for fourteen years.”

“Four- wait how complicated are these things?” Twilight asked with alarm.

“Not very.”

“So, why…”

“I don’t know.” I looked away from the mare, instead focusing on the couch cushion with her hoof on it. “I just, I plan to work on it, hell I even start on it, but then… it just fades away, and sits for years before I touch it again.”

“Did you ever think that you don’t want to do it?”

“I’ve… yeah, the more I stare at it, just sitting there, the less I’m motivated to do anything about it.”

I looked back up to the mare’s face, right into her eyes. “But I’ve got dreams, wishes of that feeling when I finally get it running, and can drive it. I picture me driving down the road in it, happy that I finally did it. I achieved my goal.”

I realized I was smiling at that, and quickly frowned.

“But… it’s just not there when I want it to be.”

It was quiet, the sound of the record player shutting off was lost somewhere in the conversation.

“I wasn’t prepared to become an alicorn. It just happened.”

At some point my eyes had drifted to a stray whiskey bottle, sitting empty against my old suitcase. At her words I looked back up at the pony.

“If you give up totally, it will never be. But if you just keep going, even slowly, one day, it’s just going to happen. It will, but you can’t stop dreaming, even if you say it never can come true.”

“So just keep pushing on,” I said.

Twilight nodded. I glanced the clock behind her, it was one thirty in the morning. I turned in my seat, facing forward again. Down at my feet, the almost empty bottle of tonic water had just enough for one more glass.

“I think I have one more play in me, then I’m done for the night.” I said, taking the bottle and pouring the last of the clear liquid inside.

Twilight looked as though she wanted to say more, but bit her tongue.

“Yes?” I asked.

“I’m not quite tired yet. Would it be a problem if... “ she trailed off.

“The music doesn’t bother me, in fact I like to lay in bed with it playing. So yes, after my glass I’m going to bed, but you can keep playing records.”

Twilight gave a small smile, a whisper of thanks coming from her lips.

So the song played once more. I had my glass of tonic water gone before its end, and true to my word once the song did come to a close I got up and moved around behind the couch to my bed.

With her magic, this time correctly I noticed, she played the song again. I turned off the only lamp that had been on, casting the room into darkness, save for the lens on the stereo. As I closed my eyes and begin my nightly struggle to sleep, I could hear her humming, sometimes even whispering the lyrics to the song. For a moment, I swore she sounded sad as she sang, but I let it slide. I had enough problems of my own to dwell on tonight.

”I never had a dream come true…

Author's Note

I have no idea the rate this story is going to update.

4: A Sinner Kissed an Angel

Stars in the sky were dancing
One night perfect for romancing,
The night a sinner kissed an angel,
He wanted thrills, she wanted love,

“What in the hay happened to you!?”

My eyes tried to focus on where the sound came from, but they didn’t feel up to the challenge. Instead, I turned my entire head to my left, seeing the purple ali-pony-thing sitting there, looking at me with an expression I couldn’t quite place.

“What?” I asked, forgetting what we were talking about tonight.

“Alex, what did you do?” she asked.

I blinked several times, rubbing my face with my hand, only to find it covered in oil and dirt stains.

What was I doing again? I asked myself.

“You got home hours ago, I saw you. But then you left again.”

Left again? “Left again? NO no no, I went down to the barn.”

“Barn?” Twilight asked.

“Yes, I have a barn, where I work on stuff and things and stuff.” I reached down to the floor for a bottle of… what was I drinking?

My eyes struggled to focus on the label. It was some form of beer, something non-domestic, probably a leftover from a friend.

“You got home late though. Why would you go down there to do more work?” Twilight asked.

I swore she was worried, but it was clear by now this wasn’t my first, second, or even third drink this night. “I dunno.”

“Oh no, that’s no excuse. What’s going on?” Twilight asked. Oh yeah, that was her name! Twilight. It slipped my mind a couple of times there.

“Well I had to finish my dad’s truck,” I said, nodding my head. Was I even still listening to music? I couldn’t remember.

“But it’s already past two in the morning. Why would you go out this late to work?”

“Why do you stay up so late to-”

“Oh no, you’re not gonna turn this around on me.” Twilight said with some authority.

I leaned away from her, my head bumping into the lampshade on my right.

Looking at Twilight’s eyes for a solid moment, I tried to rack my brain back to function once again to come up with an explanation.

“Okay, so, like, I’ve been putting off getting his truck fixed.”

I looked to Twilight, who only nodded in understanding.

“And I’d done half the work a couple weeks ago. Then tonight, I decided to just get it done.”

“Just like that?” Twilight asked.

“Yeah, just like that,” I said.

“What made you decide to just go out and work more, after working all day at your job?” Twilight asked, as if there was an alternative motive.

Which I think there was, but I couldn’t remember what it was, even if I wanted to hide it from her.

“Because.”

Suddenly, I felt a… something on my left shoulder. Turning, I saw it was a purple hoof. Huh, that’s what they felt like. Anyway, she was looking at me with a worried expression.

“You’ve been doing so good at cutting back. And suddenly, you return home and are drinking. What’s the matter?”

I swore, she actually, legit, one hundred and twenty percent, sounded like she cared.

Sadly, I didn’t.

“Nothing. I’m just fucked up and tired and exhausted, and wanted to unwind.”

“So you spent four hours in your barn working more?”

I looked to the record player, still silent for… some time now, I dunno.

“Yo, use your magic stuff to play the record again.”

After a few seconds, or maybe minutes, my brain was still buzzed, I looked to the mare beside me. Knowing I was giving her the attention I could best muster, she shook her head.

“No? Well fine, fuck you then,” I said, standing up, only to fall back onto the couch.

“Take it easy!” Twilight tried to rest her hoof on my shoulder again, but I shoved it away.

“No, fuck you. Fuck everyone and everything.” I stood, this time victorious, and with a finger resetting the lever on the record player to play the song again.

“What is your problem?” Twilight asked, sounding more mad than worried I noticed.

Huh, I noticed that? I must have been sobering up, so I took another swig from the bottle at my feet.

“I want to feel like shit. I’ve been feeling good for too long.”

“That makes no sense.”

“No, it does.”

“Okay then, explain.”

“Every time I do something good, and feel accomplished, it bites me in the ass.”

“So what happened?”

I looked at the record player, now on the instrumental part. “Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing yet, excuse me.”

“So what, you expect something to happen because you accomplished in finishing working on something for your father?”

I shrugged, sipping at the… let’s say weird, weird beer. “Yeah. Last time, he wrecked his green truck after I did a bunch of work to it.”

“So what, when things are going good, you drink because you want to numb yourself as a bracer for when something bad happens?”

“Wow, you took the words right out of my mouth.”

“I’m sorry to say it, but that’s just life. Sometimes things go good, sometimes they go bad. There’s no getting around it. You just gotta pick yourself up and keep going. If you expect something bad to always happen to you, then you’ll get nowhere.”

“Hope for the best, expect the worst,” I said.

“I hate that expression. It’s so pessimistic.”

“Yeah, well that’s how I live my life. That’s why I don’t own anything nice, or good, or modern or expensive.” I stood, pulling the lever to start the record again. “Just look at this thing, it’s older than God. Held together barely with parts from other record players.”

Twilight looked to her left, spying a box, still unopened. “What about that?”

I looked at the box, clearly show casing a brand new record player. “What about it?”

“You have a new one right here, why don’t you use it?”

“It was a gift from a friend, one I didn’t want.”

“Well, clearly they care about you to send you such a nice gift.”

“Yeah, they’re a good friend. Too good for me.”

Twilight opened her mouth to continue, but I interrupted.

“That record player is probably going to sit in that box for five years, because if I open it and try to use it, something’s going to happen and go wrong. I’m going to break it, or abuse it, or whatever the fuck else I do.”

“Well, that’s rude of you.”

“Excuse me?” I asked, and realized I was still standing, but didn't’ care to sit just yet.

“I can’t imagine that new player was cheap. So you’re going to be rude and just let it sit unopened, unappreciated, and-”

“I never, never, said it was unappreciated.”

Twilight game me a sideways glance.

“You have no idea how much it means to get a gift like that from a friend. That is something I appreciate and adore. The fact they put so much thought into getting me a record player that met specifics of my taste that are hard to grasp, I wanted to cry when I got it.”

Twilight looked to the box, resting against a old cabinet radio, then back to me.

“But look, look at my hands,” I said, putting my hands towards her, palms out.

Twilight didn’t need to lean close or get a better look, it was clear to their condition.

“I’m dirty, oily, greasy, and whatever else you can think up. This is how I am. I washed my hands three times, and it still doesn’t come off. I’m just filthy, always have been, and will be until I die in ten or so years.”

Twilight continued to stare at me, sorrow in her expression.

“So you see, that’s why I can’t open that box. Not for a while. It has to sit there, and stay clean, protected, until the right time.”

“What is the right time?”

Apparently I’d been standing for some time, because the song ended again. I started the record up, and finally fell back into my couch.

“I don’t know… I never know.”

Twilight took a moment to look around my bedroom.

“You surround yourself with the old. It’s all beyond its years, and yet you keep them going.”

“So?”

“So why can’t you do the same with new things?”

I took the final sip of the beer, setting the bottle down on the floor, and looked over to the mare.

“So what if you dirty it? Or even break something on it? The point stands as with your antiques, with your records by Celestia’s sake! You take care of them in your own special way. They may not be clean, or in the best of shape, but you still care about them. So why should something new be treated differently than your old stuff?”

I sat there for a few moments, lost in thought. Damn it, I hated it when she was right, which she’d been too often in our conversations.

“Fine.”

I stood, stumbling over to the box and grabbing a pair of scissors, opened it. I pulled the player out of its foam prison, took it out of the plastic, and set it on my table.

“There, it’s open. It’s exposed. Happy?”

“My happiness isn’t what we’re talking about. Are you?”

I looked at the player, the plastic wrap still protecting the top cover. It was a nice player, modern, USB capable and could produce sound probably better than my dated system.

“No.”

“Why?”

I looked to the mare. “Because this gift means a lot to me, but that old, worn out player with mis-matched parts, was a gift from long ago, and until it dies, I will forever use it.”

“So why do you feel guilty for having the new one?”

I didn’t remember using the world guilty, but I guessed Twilight was more perceptive than I thought. “Because it won’t mean as much to me as my old one, and I feel bad.”

“I think, if your friend was really a true friend, that they’d understand, and wouldn’t be upset. We all have something personal to us that no matter how many of the same thing you throw at us, it won’t ever come close to that closer object.”

I stared at the new player for a while, then walked back over to my old player. The song having ended, I gently picked up the record and took it over to the new player, placing it on the turntable and after fiddling with the power cord turned it on, playing it again.

Instantly, the audio difference was noticeable. Cleaner, crisper, and the song sounded like it was from a CD.

And yet, I could only frown. This wasn’t how these records were played. How they sounded way back when.

“You care too much.”

I drew my attention from the player and to Twilight, who was examining my empty beer bottle.

“This is a local company, to Michigan anyway.”

“Huh, no shit.”

Twilight set the bottle back onto the floor. “You shouldn’t worry so much on how the music is played, only that it is being played period. Both players were gifts from people important to you, but you don’t have to play favorites. Find uses for each one."

I sat in the chair at my table, watching the record spin. “Yeah. I guess.”

At that point, I was beyond exhaustion, and suddenly I felt a tugging on my arm.

“Come on, let's get you to bed.”

I didn’t argue, or protest. She guided me to my bed, where I crawled onto it, still fully clothed in my dirty pants and shirt. At some point I’d at least had the smarts to shove my suspenders off my shoulders. I’d be regretting this sleeping arrangement in the morning, when the many things in my pockets stabbed me in my sleep, but I didn’t care at the moment.

Twilight took a seat back onto my couch, back towards me. I stared at her for a while, only a single lamp casting light as usual. I still couldn't get over how from behind she looked like a cat, sitting and waiting. The only difference being the long mane that wrapped around her neck. Her coat looked soft and well groomed, and at that moment I felt like touching it.

But I knew better, and instead rolled over onto my stomach. “Goodnight,” I mumbled, my face in my pillow.

Twilight looked back to me. “Goodnight, Alex,” Twilight’s horn lit up, and twisted the switch on the lamp, casting my bedroom into darkness.

”That night a sinner kissed an angel,
That was the night I fell in love.

Author's Note

I can't stress it enough, that I thank Lise Eclaire again for the record player. It is a wonderful gift, and means a lot to me. I'm just bad at expressing it. So here is a test of the player he got me.

5: There! I've Said It Again

I love you, there's nothing to hide
It's better than burning inside
I love you, no use to pretend
There, I've said it again.

Growing up, I listened to many different performers long since passed on. Most were dead before the 1980’s, gone a decade before I’d even been born. And yet, these were the voices I grabbed onto. Their music, their genera, their hopes and dreams and romancing. This is what drove me to collect their voices, forever in shellac until their fateful day.

For the last fifteen years or so, give or take a couple years, I longed to have the voice like them. I’d been told by many over the years that I had a singing voice, but I couldn’t, and still cannot, imagine so. And yet, if I had to admit to myself, which I still do, if I could have the voice of any one person from my favorite musical era, it would be none other than Mister Vaughn Monroe.

Was it because his was the first 78 rpm record I’d ever owned? No, while the fact was true, it wasn’t why. His voice was unique, still was to this day. Listen to his voice, and tell me someone who sings like him? I dare you.

“Dare me to what?”

I looked over to the purple pony, sitting in her usual spot on my couch. The gap between us filled with nothing but a worn out cushion.

I also hadn’t realized I was speaking aloud at some point. “Nothing, I was just talking to myself,” I said, looking back to the record player.

Forgive me, for wanting you so,
But one thing, I want you know.
I’ve loved you, since heaven knows when,
There, I’ve said it again!

I knew this song by heart, and there was more to come. One of the few songs I favorited that actually wasn’t half vocal, half instrumental. Then again, Monroe wasn’t known to let his voice go unheard in his music. After all, that’s what he was all about. That wonderful, deep filling voice that made you think of… of…

Well, for everyone it was a different feeling. Myself?

“His voice is lovely,” Twilight said.

“Like the grandfather I never knew,” I whispered, although as an afterthought loud enough for the mare to hear.

As Twilight watched me, I took another sip of my beer. The only one for the night, mind you. She knew too, but was still giving me that look like I’d given up.

I hadn’t entirely, but sometimes you needed to unwind. Was one beer really unwinding? No, not for me, but it still gave me a taste of what was both my best friend, and my worst enemy for four long years of my life. I needed the reminder sometimes, that I couldn’t fall back into that routine again.

A single beer one night, or maybe a Jack and Coke. Other than a couple nights where I did let myself go due to weakness, I was still fighting. I was trying to be better, or at least that was what I told myself.

After all, no one else would.

“That’s not true,” Twilight said.

Damn it, I was talking under my breath again.

“And how would you know?” I asked, the record ending with the tell tale clunk of the player.

“I cannot believe, in the vast group of friends you have, that no one has taken a notice to how much you’ve been cutting back.”

I sighed, standing to start the record again. “Maybe they have then, but I don’t remember. I just know, my closest group of friends, the last time I was with them…”

I couldn’t even remember, honestly. It was a typical night for me, drinking and laughing and having a good time with friends. Or at least, I was. Were they? None of them ever told me, or would check up on me the morning after. Was I alright, was I okay?

Truthfully or not, I’d give them a practiced answer anyway.

Amidst my silence, Twilight levitated over my beer, still half full and dripping with condensation. She took a sniff, and closing her eyes she pressed the lip of the bottle to her muzzle and took a sip, before pulling it away with a “yack!”

“Well, I can’t honestly tell you that isn’t how I expected that would go,” I said with a half chuckle.

“Sorry, it’s just, I had to know for study reasons. After all, I’m here for you.”

“Oh, are you now?”

Twilight nodded her head. “You know, believe it or not, I’m not the only pony interested in visiting you.”

I dragged out a raspberry, taking my beer away from her magic grasp. “Well, I can’t.”

“My friends, the princesses… my family. They’re all interested in my studies, and they want to meet you.”

I looked to the record player, halfway through the song.

“Then just bring them all over and we’ll have one Hell of a party.”

At that, Twilight shook her head. “No, not like that. Although Pinkie Pie could argue.”

“Of course she would,” I said.

Twilight let out a small laugh. I tried to follow suit, but couldn’t muster it. Vaughn’s voice wasn’t giving me the right feeling of joy and laughter.

For the last several visits by the pony in purple, it had been one thing or another bothering me, making me depressed or on the verge of it. I hated to feel that way, especially around company, but couldn’t help myself. Tonight, however, was different. Would be, if I stuck to this single beer, almost drained from the bottle.

With a deep breath, I took the last swig of the bottle, swallowing hard as the cold bothered one of my sore teeth. I set the bottle down on the floor, and leaned back into the couch, getting comfortable.

Right as the record player turned off.

I motioned to stand, but then stopped myself, looking over to the mare beside me. After a few moments in silence, she looked back, a confused look on her face.

“What?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

I shrugged. “Sorry.”

Now she raised a brow. “Sorry? For what?”

I looked to the still record player. “Just… for getting all… eh, the last few times you’ve been around.”

“You don’t need to apologize,” she said, a smile on her face.

I didn’t smile back. “Yeah, I do. That’s rude of me to be all down when you’re here. That’s not why you come here, right? Not to listen to me drabble on about my problems or complain.”

“Why do you think I come, then?”

“Well, didn’t you say something about this place being… um.. Restful? Relaxing? I dunno, something along those lines.”

“And has it not been?” she asked, like it was a real question.

“I wouldn’t think so. I’ve been tired and worn out the last several days, and just… feeling drained emotionally. I’ve been using you as a way to vent, so I’m sorry.”

“There, you’ve said it again.”

My right eye twitched.

“Fuckin’, fine.” I stood, pulling the lever and starting the record again.

The player had grown cold, and for the first few seconds of the song it was quiet, then once it warmed up the volume increased and was more audible.

The two of us sat in silence again, while Mister Monroe sang his song.

“You’ve been playing lovely music, throughout your indifferent feelings,” she finally said, smiling at me.

“It’s all lovely music,” I said.

Her smile grew in size. “Exactly. It doesn’t matter what you’re feeling, or how I’m feeling. What matters is the music is here. It’s here for you, for me, for us to actually feel something. Just because you’ve been more down recently, and openly expressing yourself, doesn’t mean I’m not enjoying my time here. With the music, with you.”

I sat there in silence, looking at the mare. Finally, at the third verse in the song, I spoke.

“Wow, this sounds like it’s turning into a cheap romance novel.”

Twilight let out a laugh, and I was quick to join her.

“Sorry,” Twilight said.

“There, you’ve said it.”

Again, a giggle out of both of us, then silence.

“Did you really want to sound like him?”

I looked at her, curious.

“You were mumbling to yourself a lot tonight, and one thing you said was you wish you could sing like him.”

“Oh, yeah.” I watched as the record player arm lifted up, swinging back to its resting place and shutting down.

“I think you should look into singing,” she said.

I let out a single laugh. “Yeah, I was invited to join a group once. Couple years ago.”

“Oh really? Why didn’t you?”

“Conflict in time. I worked, and still do, when they get together.”

“So you’ve kept in touch with them?”

“Eh. Once in awhile at the bar I see them, and we say hi. I play some old songs on the fancy digital jukebox of theirs, and we sing. They said with practice I could be something, but I was more interesting for my knowledge of the songs.”

“With how old these songs are, and the generation gaps that lie within, I’d imagine you knowing the lyrics to many of these songs would give you a step up compared to most.”

I shook my head. “Doubtful. If anything, you need the musical talent in you already. Then you can build up on the songs. I think they were just trying to be friendly.”

“You never know.”

“Nope,” I agreed.

Silence fell between us again.

“Why do you think your friends don’t care?”

She had the damndest times to speak, right as I was about to stand up. I relaxed my body, sinking into the couch as much as possible.

“They do. That’s the problem.”

“Isn’t that what friends are for? To care for you, help you and be there in times of need?” Twilight asked, like she was an expert on the subject.

Wait… fucking pony, magical bull shitting-

“Yeah, they are. But sometimes, it can be… too much. I can be too much. I’m not normal.”

“Are any of us?” Twilight asked with a knowing grin.

I shook my head. “Not what I was going for. I’m unorthodox compared to most, and for some reason, I draw those whom I’d normally avoid, or wouldn’t think could stand to be around me. And yet, there they are. They hang with me and withstand my antics. I just don’t totally understand.”

“That’s because they’re your friends.”

I looked to the mare. She smiled, her horn glowing, and I heard the sound of my record player spinning up again.

I let out a defeated sigh. “Fine, I get your point.”

Twilight looked to me, waiting.

“What? You want me to explain?”

“Well duh.” Twilight rolled her eyes. The sound of the lever being pulled and the record starting had me hesitate, but I thought some more on it.

“I guess, friendship isn’t all about compatibility and likes slash dislikes. It’s about who we are as people, or ponies for you, that we can agree mutually on something and find comfort in our company. We don’t always agree, but that’s fine too. We just like to talk, share thoughts and opinions, and sometimes shoot guns out of car windows.”

“Wait, what?” Twilight looked at me with worry.

“But in the end, it’s just that. We’re friends, for whatever reason that fate brought us together, we’re here. We are there for one another. Maybe not right now, maybe not in a year, but at some point or another, we are, and were. And even if our friendships change and we grow distant, we still have those fond memories of our times spent together to keep that bond there. Maybe not as strong, but it’s still there, if not just a tad thin and worn.”

Vaughn continued to sing, ignoring our silence as Twilight just stared at me. I looked back to the mare.

“Too much?” I asked.

“What was that, about shooting out a car window?”

I shook my head. “Nothing, a story for another time.”

“Sorry, it’s just-”

“There, you’ve said it again.”

Twilight gave me a mimicked look from earlier, one I’d expressed at her choice of words. She let out a deep sigh.

“-it’s just, I wasn’t expecting you to grasp that idea so sudden.”

“Do you really take me for a fool?”

“That sounds like a song title.”

“Actually, I think it is…” I thought, looking at the shelves of records.

“Still,” Twilight’s words brought my attention back to her, “if you understand like you say you do, then why do you still worry? Why are you still fretting over the fact that you’re so much different than your friends, and you can’t see why you’re, well, friends?”

Okay, now that threw me off.

“I… I’m not sure,” I said honestly. “A lot of stuff worries me, even though I already know not to worry, or to let it get under my skin. Is it human nature, or just mine?”

“That, you need to answer for yourself.”

I shook my fist. “You just love to just lay out the red carpet for me, and as I get on it, pull it out from under my feet, don’t you?”

Twilight let out a laugh. “Learn by trial and error. A saying my father would always tell my brother and me.”

“Sounds like something my father would also say.”

Silence on all three ends of the conversation took over the room. I stood and started the record again. Sitting back down, I reached for my bottle of tonic water and poured myself a glass.

Twilight pointed a hoof at me. “Is that… still the same glass?”

I looked to the cup in my hand, fizzing with bubbles as the tonic water ate away at whatever grime and crud was inside. “Eeyup.”

Twilight stuck out her tongue in disgust. “Wow, you’re right. I don’t understand how your friends stand you.”

At that we both laughed, although for varying reasons. Vaughn Monroe was nearing the end of his song once again, and it was approaching three in the morning.

“Well, it was fun, but I think I’m done for the night.”

Twilight chose that perfect moment to yawn, placing a hoof over her mouth. Being one of those who followed yawns, I did the same motion. At the end of our trailing yawns, we turned to each other and began speaking at the same time.

“Oh, sorry-”

We both stopped, then Vaughn spoke up.

”There I go!”

And then, along with Mister Monroe, we sang:

”There! I’ve said it again!”

Author's Note

So, long over due, here are some pictures of what I got.

My actual record player, originally a Symphonic, eventually the turntable itself wore out and was replaced with a Panasonic. Over the years the needle arm has also had some work done to it, and no longer are the ceramic pack's available, I've had to scavenge parts from other players and make them work. Currently holding it together is tape, broken Popsicle sticks, and a piece of cardboard. Also, a Funko Octavia there to the right for moral support.

A long ago gift from my grandmother, you can find the story of that here.

Next is the primary shelves of 78's I own. These ones are organized either by sets or album books that I've sorted by head performer/band leader.

This one is a tad different. The shelf itself is mostly my vinyls that I keep. Below those are my collection of 12" 78 records, and in those binders there? Those are all full of more standard 10" 78's, sorted by label maker (Victor, Colombia, Decca, etc). I have more, much much more, but this is all I had the energy to take tonight.

If you're at all interested in records, classical or big band/swing music, feel free to drop me a line. I don't know a whole lot, but I'm always eager to share the passion.

6: Moonlight Serenade

Exhaustion.

There are some days when you’re just so tired, you can’t or don’t want to do anything. All feeling leaves you, and you just sit around, or lay in bed all day. Some have argued that you need it, or that you worked hard the other days of the week, so it’s warranted.

But what if you feel like you hadn’t? What if you feel as though you’ve just been shuffling around for weeks on end, and you’re just taking your free time for granted?

Tonight, I’m tired. So very tired. I didn’t do anything, I didn't see anyone. I’m so lazy, I’m not even playing my 78’s, but instead an album set. Glenn Miller never sounded so good, except in person, and well, that time has come and gone long ago. How I would have loved to be there watching a live performance.

Albums, or as some may call them LP’s, or even just 33’s, are a totally different animal than the older, and more traditional 78’s that dominate my record collection. Usually they sound better, are a lot easier to clean and keep clean. The needles wear less, likewise the records. Not as easy to break, although I’ve broken a few over my years regardless.

Tonight, I wasn’t expecting any guests. Anyone, or well, as of recently, anypony to show up. It had been several days since the last time I saw her. For a while, I was beginning to think that she was actually here. Real. I mean, I’d felt her touch me, but was it? Or have I fallen into a stupor that’s just got me so messed up I’m imagining things?

Most days I don’t like to try and trust my mind, the conflicts and issues of my life messing me up and putting me on the wrong path. Or right path, just wrong direction, either way I digress.

Having sobered up for several days, my nights felt longer. Even with the broken monotony of getting television again hasn’t seemed to fill that void in my heart, my soul. Jonny Carson can only do so much, you know.

So after another week of work, my dry spell of tips finally was relieved, and to celebrate I’d bought myself a bottle of my favorite bourbon. Sipping the glass carefully, it burned down my throat, and I knew I’d be regretting it tomorrow. Oh well, let me suffer.

Suddenly, I felt my ears pop. The record player was still going, playing another of of Mister Miller’s best songs.

“I was wondering when you were gonna show,” I said.

“Were thou expecting Us?”

That… was not the voice of Twilight Sparkle.

I turned my head slowly to the left, and standing in the center of my bedroom was a dark blue pony. Alicorn, of course, with mane and tail that shimmered and danced around her body. The little stars hiding in her hair were roused by the lone lamp in my bedroom, although not so bright as I’d imagined.

Princess Luna looked, well, like she did in the show. Then again, so did Twilight. Weird, my brain struggled to wrap around the idea.

“I am to gauge by your reaction, Princess Twilight did not inform you of Our arrival.”

I slowly shook my head.

The mare let out a sigh, one sounding like it was tired. Or was it because I was tired, and everything just felt tired and exhausted, regardless of the action, be it my own or company’s?

I looked to the glass of bourbon in my hand, the ice cubes almost gone. I took another sip, leaning back into the couch. The song continued on, so I looked back to the center of my bedroom again. She was still there, just standing still, looking around my walls.

“You know, usually Twilight just takes a seat next to me,” I said.

“Oh? And you expect Us to just abide by what she does?”

I shrugged. “You’re the one here, you do whatever. Just as I’ve told her before, don’t kill yourself, and don’t break any records.”

I could feel the temperature in my bedroom increase ten fold, the mare was literally steaming with rage.

I took another sip of my bourbon.

“How dare you insinuate that we would so carelessly just-” Princess Luna, while giving me a death glare, made to step towards me, however her hoof caught onto what I guessed was the power cord to my lamp, because suddenly she hit the floor, the lamp hit the floor, and all was dark.

“You alright there, princess?” I snickered. Man, I’m pretty sure I was going to die tonight, but fuck it.

I heard her try to get back onto her hooves, so deciding to be nice, I turned on the lamp beside me.

Thankfully, from where I sat, I could tell she hadn’t broken the glass dome of the lamp, just the bulb had gone out. Considering I still used my old stock of incandescent bulbs, I wasn’t too shocked. Luna however had anger and embarrassment fighting to claim her face. I just shook my head, patting the seat next to me.

“Come on, grumpy pants. Take a load off your brain.”

Anger triumphed in her expression war, but she bit her tongue and carefully trotted over to the couch. After testing with a hoof, she then walked up onto the sofa and took a seat. On a side note, I realized she wasn’t wearing any of her fancy… armor? Whatever it was called was lost on me.

Glenn Miller continued to play his music, although the song currently playing I couldn’t place off the top of my head. I felt like going back to the previous song, but with how Luna was glaring at me, I wasn’t too keen on any sudden movements.

“So, you are this human that Princess Twilight speaks of?”

“I guess?” I shrugged. “I wasn’t aware if she was talking with other people than me.”

Luna shook her head. “No, thou are the only one she speaks of.”

“All bad things, I hope.”

Luna’s expression lightened. “No, but she speaks of how you put yourself down quite often.”

“Yeah, that’s a good way to put it. Care for a drink? I got water, Sprite Zero-”

“Pray tell, what spirits is it you consume now?”

I blinked. “Bourbon?”

“Then that should suffice. Stoned, if it isn’t too much trouble.”

Taken a little bit aback, I just shook my head as I stood. It also only just now dawned on me that I was only in a T-shirt and underwear. Were I not so tired I think I would have given a damn.

Walking past the mare, I went to the back of my bedroom where my mini-fridge and glass cabinet were. Taking out a… lets say clean glass, I grabbed the small ice tray from the tiny freezer and put some cubes into it. Then walking back, I stopped at my writing desk, opening a door I pulled out my bourbon and poured the amber liquid in.

I walked back, handed over the glass, which the princess took in her magic, and sat down.

Right as the record player went quiet with a clunk. I sighed.

“That was quite lovely music, We especially liked the one We first heard upon entering this realm.”

“Yeah, you would.”

Luna raised the glass to her muzzle and took a sip. I could tell by the wrinkle in her muzzle she probably never actually had alcohol before, which really shouldn’t have-

“You have very poor taste in bourbon.”

-Or, you know, she actually knows her shit and that my taste in liquor is also shit.

“It’s cheap, it burns, and it numbs my brain. Beggars can’t be choosers.”

“Tis a fair statement.” Luna sipped from her glass. “Now, as you were saying, about the song?”

“Oh, right. It’s called Moonlight Serenade.”

Luna looked to the silent player. Before she could even ask, I was already standing, starting the turntable. I had to help give it a couple spins manually, the motor for thirty three revolutions was getting weak.

More luck, I knew this vinyl set well, and which song was the target. Carefully I placed the needle arm down, and the beauty of Glenn Miller played through my speakers.

I took my seat again, reaching for my glass when I realized it was empty. I sighed, although so did Luna. Looking to the mare, her eyes were closed as she tried desperately to sink further into my couch than any sane person would. Only The Shadow knows what lies in those depths…

“You look as bad as I feel.”

“The feeling is mutual.”

“Uh, I don’t think that’s how the phrase is used.”

For the first time, Luna smiled. “Maybe, maybe not. We are still grasping these new phrases.”

I thought for a moment. “It’s been like, five years. How are you still struggling?”

Luna frowned again. “Just let Us enjoy this music and spirit, no?”

I waved my hands in mock surrender. “As you wish, oh majesty.”

I stood, repeating the steps to pour myself another glass of bourbon. Before sitting, Luna hovered to me her empty glass, shaking it at me.

Not even caring, I took her empty glass, but handed her my full one. She rose a brow at me, but I ignored it as I poured, again, another glass of bourbon. This time skipping the ice, I took my seat and sipped from her glass.

“Dare We say, that seems unsanitary.”

“It’s alcohol, it sterilizes.”

Luna appeared to want to argue, but that tired expression returned again as she sunk into the couch and took a sip.

Well, I guess now was as good of a time as any.

“So, rough day?”

Luna didn’t respond, her eyes closed as the song was wrapping up.

“Or rough night then?”

Luna’s right ear twitched, but she didn’t move to speak.

The next song began to play, and Luna started to stiffen up in her… shoulders? Did ponies have shoulders? The thought was shoved aside as I stood, and quickly picked up the arm and shifted it back, and slowly lowered it to play Moonlight Serenade again.

As the song began, Luna relaxed and took another sip. I followed suit.

“Sorry, I wish I had this song on original seventy eight. Would be easier than the mood being interrupted by another song.”

Again, Luna didn’t respond.

I let the song go for a minute, then decided to break the silence.

“Rough day at work.”

At that Luna scoffed. “You don’t know the meaning of rough work.”

It was my turn to have an angry expression, but I let it simmer down. “No, every job is hard in its own way. Mine is very… manual intensive. Plus being a Sunday I was alone for my entire shift.”

“As the only pony who runs the night court, I can attest to that being alone for your entire job is tiresome.”

I noticed she let the We thing slip, but didn’t feel like mentioning it.

“Yeah, and well, I’m discovering all these new problems I’m having, as I’m getting older. I didn’t even understand what anxiety meant until my doctor said I had it. I just thought I was dying.”

The next song was playing on the player, but neither of us paid no mind.

“We- I, too, have had those feelings. When I was first brought back from Nightmare Moon’s control.”

“Yeah, I can see that.”

“So what happened?” Luna asked, her eyes locking with mine.

What did happen? I was overwhelmed. It was a beautiful day out. Planes were flying like it was the last day of Summer, then it would be too cold for people to go fly. I had planes comign and going, needing fuel, needing services, needing needing needing…

“I had a panic attack. I thought I was dying.”

I guessed Luna was staring at me intently, myself breaking her gaze to stare into my glass of bourbon.

“After five consecutive hours of chaos and non-stop action, I parked an airplane in a hangar. No one was around, I was by myself. I turned off the tug, and just… stopped.”

Luna didn’t ask me what half of those words meant, which I was grateful. I didn’t feel like trying to explain all this stuff in the current mood I was in.

“Chest pains, arm pains, headache. I was weak, exhausted, barely able to breath. I just sat on the tug, drained of whatever life I’d call this to be.” I let out a chuckle. “Two years ago, if you’d told me that I’d suffer these kinds of things, I would have laughed.”

“Why?” Luna asked.

“Because I always believed it was just a mental game, and you just had to outwit yourself. My father would always berate people like that, who said that they just needed to pull up their pants and push through it. And for the most part, I did for a long time. Then… the last year, it’s been…”

“You’ve been struggling to get past your feelings. Between caring for what you do, the people you are around, and making sure the job is done, you’re just getting burned out.”

I nodded my head at Luna’s words. “Especially when I’m by myself. I used to handle it and shrug it off, but now…” I went quiet, taking a bigger sip of my bourbon than before.

“It is rare for a… person to care about what they do, to the extent that they themselves fall victim to it. We must push onwards, and know when we just have to let go.”

Fuck, I just remembered that one episode, with the Tantibus… which was Luna’s creation, because she felt…

God damned Princess of Friendship, bull shitting, fucking-

I sighed. “Yeah, my father says I care too much.”

“So you bottle all the issues you have with work, with possibly co-workers and your employer, so that they don’t bother you in current times.”

I scratched my forehead with my free hand. This kind of thinking was starting to hurt.

“Okay, I get where you are going with this. So what, I just tell my boss that I feel, what? Mistreated? Abused? Uncared for?”

“Do you feel those things?”

“Most of the time, no! Just when-”

“When things aren’t going good.”

I looked to Luna, her glass of bourbon was long gone. The record player was silent. I stood up, starting the turntable again and finding the perfect song.

“So how often are things not going good? When they’re not going the way you want?”

“When I feel like I’m being abandoned!” I sat down with some force, my couch clearly giving less fucks than I typically did considering Luna barely moved.

“We think you need to just sit down with whom you need to, and discuss your discrepancies with them, get it out in the air, and try to fix things, before they eat you.”

“Was that the royal We, or we as in you and Twilight?”

Luna smiled at that. “You pick up fast.”

I shook my head. “If I picked it up fast, you wouldn’t have had to come here.”

“Maybe I wanted to.”

I looked around at my surroundings. Empty beer and liquor bottles littered my floor, along with empty record cases around where I sat. Piles of papers and mail strewn around. The box to the record player I’d gotten as a gift was still in that chair, opened, waiting....

“I don’t see what you, or Hell, Twilight, see in this place.”

“You have a vast collection of music. Maybe that is what drives us towards you.”

“You could just go onto the internet, it’s all there… mostly.”

Luna shook her head. “We are both like minded people. It isn’t about the music itself, but how and where it is played. You cannot replicate this feeling in any other way than in person.”

Yeah, okay, that was my motto for a long time, so I got that, and yet…

“So, now that we’ve discussed my exhausting day, what about you?”

“What about Us?”

Back to that fancy talk… “Well, you seem tired. I know you’re the Princess of the Night, but you seem to be… I dunno, exhausted? Like how I feel.”

Luna was silent, looking at the quiet record player. I stood and started the song again.

“It’s like me, with my work. Some days are normal and okay, then I get days like this was and I’m dead down to my bones. So tell me, what brought you here tonight?”

At Luna’s expression, she stared only at the record player. I couldn’t deny, I was a sucker for the brass section of the big band music, and Glenn Miller knew how to flaunt it.

“Mine sister thought it wise to shift some of her regular duties onto… me. Ones she felt would help me feel more useful, I suspect. Instead, it has left me-”

“Over burdened and mentally strained than had you just been left with your regular duties,” I cut in.

Luna nodded her head.

“Well, welcome to the club.” I raised my half full glass of bourbon towards Luna.

She raised her empty one towards mine, but before they could clink, I grabbed hers, poured half of mine into it, and gave it back. Brow raised at my antics, I held my glass up high, smiling.

With a shake of her head, and a faint smile, she took her now partially filled glass and clinked it with mine, and we both took a sip, the song coming to its conclusion, and before it could go to the next, I stood and switched off the player.

Sometimes, it was just nice to be able to share your troubles with someone, and know that you’re not the only one going through the problems of life.

Be it a princess or drunkard.

Author's Note

I was going to wait until later to start introducing other ponies, but well, each one of these chapters is written and posted in one night, upon a specific song inspiring the writing. Moonlight Serenade is my all time favorite of Glenn Miller's songs, and well, I couldn't just ignore the chance to have Luna.

As usual, don't expect anything special from this fic. I don't know what it even is.

7: I'm Stepping Out with a Memory Tonight

I’m stepping out, with a memory tonight.
To paint the town the way we used to do.
I’ll dine at the old cafe, where we had so much fun.
And order cocktails for two, instead of the usual one.

I followed along with the song lyrics, singing quietly, as I watched the record spin. The lyrics were short, but they held a lot of meaning. It was like, trying to remember a time, and relive it again.

“He hasn’t blinked.”

I looked over to Twilight, sitting on my couch beside me on the middle cushion. What sat in her usual spot, however, had given the mare pause when she came by this night. Currently, Twilight and my cat, Grayson, were in a staring contest with one another. Both sitting still, front legs standing straight, tails wrapped around to their right, and not breaking eye contact.

“He probably blinks when you blink.”

It was hard to see Twilight’s face, but I could catch a glimpse of her trying to slowly blink her eyes, trying to catch the feline blink. Quickly, Twilight blinked, so focused on her expression I wasn’t even paying attention to Grayson as he continued to stare at the mare.

“Did you see him? Did he blink?”

“I dunno.”

Twilight turned her head slightly towards me, but not breaking eye contact with my cat. “What do you mean, you’re staring at him too!”

“Actually, I was staring at you. Your face is making funnier expressions than his.”

Twilight huffed, centering her head once again towards Grayson.

“I still don’t see what the big deal is,” I said, looking back to my record player with a sip of tonic water.

“I’ve been here on five occasions, and not once did I see this cat. Then you tell me you’ve had him for, what?”

“Seven or so months?” I say, unsure of myself. “Besides, what’s the big deal? He’s just a cat.”

“I know, but he’s just sitting there, staring at me…judging me…” Twilight whispered the last bit.

The turntable shut off with a clunk, and I stood to start the song again. Before I sat, I turned around to get a look at the two. With a shrug, I decide to end this game of wits.

I reached down to the floor, grabbing a bottle cap. “Hey, Grayson!” I said, tossing the cap to his front paws.

The cat had no reaction, just continued to stare.

I leaned on the wall, taking off one of my dirty socks. I threw it at the cat, it landing on his back, then slid down to the couch. I could see his resolve breaking. I have one more thing to try, and if that fails I’ll have to bring out the secret weapon.

“Hey, Shit Head.” I reached down for my nearly empty bottle of tonic water, turning it on its side and laying it on the floor, kicking it. It rolled a little, the waves of the liquid making the bottle wobble back and forth.

Grayson’s ear twitched. Huh, he’s really hell bent on starting Twilight down, isn’t he? Very well.

I walk over to the other side of my bedroom, and grabbed the rolled up bag of potato chips, opening it purposely loud to gain his attention. Both cat and pony sets of ears swivel towards me. Huh, I wonder if Twilight likes potato chips?

I walked back over, and stood before the two. Reaching in, I took out two chips, one noticeable bigger than the other.

“You want a treat?” I asked.

“You give your cat potato chips as treats?” Twilight asked back.

“His favorite toys are bottle caps, dirty socks, and bottles with liquid in them. Why are potato chips the weird thing in this situation?” I said, leaning down between the two.

Neither broke eye contact, so I did the only sensible thing a man could do in this situation. I placed the larger potato chip on Twilight’s muzzle, and the smaller one on Grayson’s head. Both parties reacted the way I’d hoped and expected. They finally broke eye contact at the same time to blink and stare at me, like I was a complete idiot.

Which, in all fairness I was, but I digress.

“There, I win,” I said, stepping over to the turntable to start the song again.

Sitting back down on my couch, Grayson lowered his head, the chip falling to the floor, the cat quickly following it to start taking bites out of it. Twilight, feeling satisfied, retook her position on the other end of the couch. With her magic she levitated the chip off her muzzle and took a bite out of it. Chewing it carefully, a happy smile graced her lips as she ate the other half. At their antics, I hadn’t realized I was laughing until Grayson bit one of my toes exposed toes.

“Ow, damn Shit Head!” I lifted my bare foot, rubbing the toe. “I give you a treat, and this is how you repay me?”

“I think that was for laughing at our expense,” Twilight said, having at some point taken the bag of chips from me and was munching on them. She also dropped a couple more smaller ones onto the cushion between us, and Grayson jumped up to sit with us and eat too.

“Oh, how quickly the tables have turned,” I said with a roll of my eyes, taking the last swig of tonic water from the glass. I went to take one of Grayson’s chips, but with a quick smack of a claw, he halted my hand’s advance.

Twilight reached a hoof down to Grayson, petting him. “Good kitty.”

“Hah, when I adopted this cat, the lady told me he was a man’s cat. What a crock of shit…” I licked the small drop of blood off my hand.

“Wait, did he draw blood?” Twilight asked, sounding actually worried.

“Yeah, of course. He’s a cat, he has claws. Claws cut, blood comes from cuts.”

“Do you need a bandage, or peroxide?”

I shrugged, confident the small trickle of blood would stop eventually.

Or, you know, heaven forbid, it could fall and stain the couch. Because, you know, the couch was old, and no one cares about stuff that’s old and worn out? So what if it gets a little stain on it, or a little frayed on the edges. No one really cares...

“Hell if I care…”

“Care about what?”

Shit, I was doing that talking out loud thing again.

Looking around my bedroom, there was so much old.

Forgetting my previous thought, I looked over to my cabinet radio beside my desk. Covered in dust, paperwork, and miscellaneous junk, it was not the normal thing to see in a modern bedroom, let alone an entire house.

“I’ve always wondered…” I began, looking to Twilight a moment, the mare giving me her full attention. “I just, what was it like?”

“What was what like?” she asked.

“My stuff. My collections. Everything that there is in this one room, is almost eighty years worth of history. So I just wonder, what did each thing go through?”

Twilight followed my gaze, seeing the radio. “I’m not sure I follow.”

I struggled to find my words. Thankfully, my record player chose that moment to go silent with its traditional clunk. I stood, repeating the song, and taking a seat. Grayson meowed in protest at my pushing him out of my spot, but I didn’t care. Damn cat needed to learn his place anyway…

“I’ve always wondered…”

“You’ve said that three times already.”

I gave Twilight a stern glare, and for the first time I could remember she closed her lips with the motion of her hoof.

“What did it all go through?” I asked, no one in particular. Twilight continued to look at me with confusion, but still silent. I decided to elaborate further.

“What happened to each piece of history that I own, that brought it to my possession? How many families did it go through, how long did it sit in a garage or basement before I got it? What kind of story could it tell, if they could talk?”

Twilight blinked, then nodded her head, either understanding finally, or trying to humor me.

“Well, I guess there’s no real way to know, is there?” she asked.

I shook my head. “Nope. But still, I wonder. I can’t help but guess, or speculate some sort of story for everything I own.” I turned to the mare, placing my left leg on the cushion half indian style. “You know, I remember where and when I got most everything I own?”

Twilight shook her head.

“It’s true,” I continued, “take the radio over there. I got that… five years ago, in the town of Linden, a lady off of Silver Lake road wanted it to go to a good home. She gave it to me, no charge, no price. Just a promise that I’d be that good home.”

“So, are you worried you haven’t?”

I rose a brow at the purple mare. “I’m… honestly not sure. I mean, I could imagine worse places, but then again, it’s been sitting there for years now. The tuning band is broken and a condenser inside is shot so it only hums loudly, but still... “

“Still what?”

“Just, having it here. In my room, it makes me…”

“Sad?”

I shook my head. “No, actually it makes me happy. Having something vintage like this up here. You know, I never cared much for television, but radio. Oh, I grew up listening to radio all the time. Then even my first real job, all I had was the radio in the car for entertainment.

“Music is a huge part of me, and while I’ve never heard any of my records on actual radio, the idea of a shared musical outlet like it makes me smile. Too many people forget the humble beginnings, instead focused on what music they want and think they need now. M-P three players, I puds, it’s all destroying what radio was, and still is, about.”

“And what is that?” Twilight asked.

I turned back to my now silent record player. “Life.”

Using her magic, she began the song again.

“Life is something you can’t always make work in your favor. You can’t always have it go according to plan. There is always something, or someone, between you and what you want, and you have to fight for it. It’s just like what radio is. You just have to go with the flow. Listen to what everyone else does, and sometimes you’re lucky to get your song request through when you want it, and it goes your way. But for the most part, it’s all up in the air.”

My bedroom was silent for several long moments, Grayson having finally gone into a salt-induced comma between us. I patted his grey fur, making sure to keep clear of his exposed belly, unless I wanted him biting me anymore tonight, which I didn’t.

“You know…” Twilight began, looking at my record player. “Radio is still fairly primitive in Equestria.”

I looked at the mare. “Oh, really?”

She nodded her head.

We sat silently for a few moments, and with the clunk the turntable went silent. I stood, reaching over to start the song again, but stopped. I looked at the purple mare on my couch, her large eyes staring intently at my player, while Grayson enjoyed being slowly pet by her hoof. I looked back to the record player, which in reality, it was more than just that.

It was a record player, 8 track player, and above all else… a radio.

“Eh, what the hell.”

It had been a long time since I’d used this old thing for something else other than my record collection. I grabbed the knob on the front that changed function, and turned it to FM STEREO. For the record, I didn’t know many AM stations, but well, there’s always time to learn.

Author's Note

Sometimes, I take for granted what radio has done for the world. Without it, we wouldn't have many of the things we love and enjoy. So next time you find yourself bored, with nothing to do, don't go for that remote. Get that radio out, and listen to a station. Any station. Something that moves you, drives you, and makes you sit back and relax.

We have five senses for a reason, after all. Vision is the easy one. Try just hearing the world for a change.

8: Auld Lang Syne

Author's Note

If the title wasn't obvious enough, this was suppose to be posted on December 31st/January 1st, but well, life gets in the way a lot as I'm sure many of you know. So here it is half a month late.

8: Auld Lang Syne

“Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne.”

Growing up, I rarely ever got to witness the turning of the new year. It wasn’t because I had a curfew, or school the next day. Usually, we worked. Newspapers had a tendency to fall upon any holiday they could, because mainly back in the hay-days they ran every day. There was no such thing as a day off, or night in our case. We worked; we drove. Well, I didn’t drive, I was too young for those early years, but I’d ride in the back of our old panel van and put the newspapers together and bag them to be delivered.

It wasn’t until a few years ago, when I’d finally rid myself of that job and I’d been able to actually attend a party with some friends. Apparently it had been a while, because when the ball started to go down, I commented about “what happened to the apple? It used to be an apple.”

That was like, fourteen years ago or something, I forget. Point was, I missed it most of my life. However, there was one thing that always had me thinking about the new year.

“This song sounds sad.”

I didn’t even bother looking over to the mare beside me. “Not suppose to be sad. More like a melancholy feeling.”

Twilight didn’t bother looking at me either, instead she was fascinated by watching the television screen. While the audio was muted in favor for the record, she was still writing down notes about what she saw on a random note pad I’d had sitting nearby. I wanted to ask if she understood the idea of a ballpoint pen, but considering she didn’t ask me and just went ahead and started writing I figured Equestria wasn’t so backwards after all.

“So, do you have any resolutions?”

I grabbed my glass of bourbon, taking a long swig. “The same as always. Don’t die.”

I felt the notepad smack the back of my head after I realized I’d spilled half my drink from the sudden contact.

“What the hell gives?” I stood up, brushing off some of the nearly melted ice cubes onto my floor, not caring that they’d melt.

“That’s not anything to joke about! I’m being serious, do you have anything you want to achieve this new year?”

What was it with women never taking a joke? Or was it that I just had really bad jokes?

“I mean, I always have yearly resolutions. Nothing particular, just the usual stuff like fixing something or cleaning up some of my stuff.”

“Well, considering the last time I was here, you’ve done a pretty good job at cleaning.”

“I even vacuumed.”

Twilight raised a hoof to her muzzle, the clear expression of fake shoke on her face.

“I know, poor Eureka hasn’t been worked like this in years.”

“Is that the yellow one, or the green one?”

“Yellow. Green one is the Hoover. Both have stories behind them, though.”

“Oh?” Twilight set the pen down and shifted her body to look at me.

I waved my hand at her. “Another time; everything I own has a story, you know that. Right now though, it’s almost time for a once in a year treat.”

I stood and restarted the record again, then walked over towards my glass shelf and got another lowball glass and bottle of bourbon. Twilight watched the television with wonder as the announcers, I forget their names, talked and interviewed couples in Time Square.

Careful not to go too crazy, I poured a little in the clean glass and my own. I’d already had two, and while it wasn’t a resolution per say, I was still trying to cut back.

“Here. Take this.”

Twilight looked at the glass with surprise. “I don’t drink.”

“Oh come now, you came here on a holiday. You’re legally bound to have a little nip.”

“I don’t think that’s a law…”

“It’s a law in this house, now take it.”

With a huff and puff of her cheeks, Twilight took the glass in her magic and took a sniff of the offending beverage.

“Yeah, I know it probably isn’t your kind of drink, but it’s all I got. Everything else I put away downstairs.”

“Why’s that?”

I took my rightful seat once again, the couch bouncing from the weight shift. “Because while you were gone the last month, I did some stupid things and decided I needed to rethink some of my life decisions.

“Like drinking?”

“Among other things, yes.”

“So you’re… quitting?”

I lifted my glass. “Does this look like quitting? No, I’m cutting back, and while people might say I’m not cutting back, I actually am.”

“But, why not just quit?”

I stood again to start the record over. With a heavy sigh, I pulled the lever back and turned around.

“Because every time I tell people I’m quitting, I end up disappointing them, or upsetting them, because I break the promise and drink anyway. It’s how I am, it’s how I will always be. I like to drink.

What people don’t get, is I learned my lesson that I was drinking for all the wrong reasons before. I get it now, I understand, but I feel like they still don’t see it.”

I took my seat, then picked up my glass again. I looked up to the television, the countdown had just hit sixty seconds.

“I don’t want to be an alcoholic, or a drunk, but I know I am, and I’ve accepted that. Now, I just need to work on being better for myself and others. However, I’m not strong enough on my own to go full bore, so… I have to settle with cutting back. A couple drinks here and there. Other people do it just fine, so why can’t I, right?”

I looked to Twilight; she nodded her head. I then saw lights flashing in her giant eyes, and her focus shifted to the television screen. I followed my gaze, and the big numbers were flashing starting at ten, then nine, eight, seven…

“Six… five… four…”

Twilight joined in, “three… two… one…”

Then the screen exploded in bright colours and excitement. The record player shut off with a clunk, so I grabbed my remote and unmuted the audio, and that all familiar song started to play.

“Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne.”

I raised my glass along with the words, and Twilight was quick to follow my lead as I sang along. Before too long, the damn network cut off the song and replaced it with a Frank Sinatra song. While nice, still, it was awfully rude to cut off that song meant for this time of the year. Guy Lombardo would be rolling in his grave at such a sin.

I pressed the power button, turning off the television, then faced Twilight and clinked my glass to hers.

“Happy new year.”

Twilight copied me, tapping her glass to mine, “happy new year.”

She didn’t need further instruction as she drank the small sip of bourbon along with me. As funny as it was to watch her go through a coughing fit for five minutes afterwards, the company was much more meaningful than the later teasing would be.

Lightweights, you can call them from a mile away...

9: Ferryboat Serenade

Author's Note

Everyone's bitching about Whittler update. Yeah yeah, it'll happen, just... be patient.

9: Ferryboat Serenade

“I have never been aboard a steamer,
I am just content to be a dreamer.
Even if I could afford a steamer,
I will take the ferryboat every time.”

“What are you doing?”

I didn’t break my concentration from the two bottles in my hand. In my left, a small green bottle that thirty years ago held a pint of cheap Cognac, and as of two years ago was drank greedily. Now, it held a different purpose, for in my right hand was a seemingly empty fifth of Jack Daniels.

“I’m emptying this bottle into another bottle.”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “I can see that, but why?”

I held the fifth bottle another few seconds, my attention bouncing between the bottles and the record player as it played along.

“Have you ever heard of a ‘Journeyman’s Bottle’?” I asked, setting the small pint bottle carefully down onto my end table.

“No? Is that something you people do?” Twilight asked.

“You people as in us humans in general, or drunkards slash alcoholics?”

At my question, Twilight’s ears went flat.

“While the boys and girls are dancing,
Oh dancing,
While the sweethearts are romancing.”

“It’s an honest question,” I said, placing the now confirmed fifth bottle into a plastic bag with other empties, then grabbed another bottle to drain and removed the cap.

“I wasn’t meaning anything by it, I was just curious if…” Twilight bit her lip.

“No no, it’s fine. I get this kinda shit frequently. No, I’m not doing this because I’m desperate.”

“Then why? I mean, from a non-drinkers aspect it looks like you’re trying to salvage every drop…”

“Yes, and no.” We were both quiet as I finished another bottle, and after placing it in the bag and putting the cap onto the drain bottle, I stood and walked towards my fridge. A few moments later I returned, and in my hand a completely full pint bottle of Jack Daniels. “You know what that is?” I handed over the bottle to the mare.

Twilight took the bottle in her magic. “Looks like another bottle of… liquor.” I could tell she hesitated to use the word booze, slang to most, but to those trying not to offend could hide other meanings.

“Yes, and no. That there, is my first Journeyman’s bottle. I started that about, oh, three years ago, and finished it less than a year ago.”

Twilight studied the bottle closely. “That’s a lot of liquor bottles to drain to fill this.”

“Maybe yes, maybe no. Point is, that there is a special blend.”

“Of what?”

“I don’t know!”

Twilight lowered the bottle to stare at me, a confused look on her face.

“The point is, every liquor bottle I emptied, I drained into that. It’s a unique blend of whiskeys, bourbons, rums, vodkas, and whatever other liquor I emptied here. It’s got a unique blend that can’t be copied.”

“So… what are you doing with it?” Twilight magik’d back the bottle.

I took the bottle in my left hand, casting it in the light of my lamp to study the different waves and forms it made from the combined liquors. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

I shrugged, standing to restart the silent record player.

“I mean, Alex, there’s some sort of reason for this, right?”

I sat back down, letting the music take over for a short time. There was something unique about the Andrew Sisters singing, something you didn’t hear any more. A trio of women singing in almost perfect harmony, together, and in perfect timing.

“I figured, one day, I’m gonna share the bottle with my friends, and probably find out it tastes as bad as it sounds,” I took a sip from my glass of whiskey, the ice cubes long since melted. “Just like when I saved a two liter of Game Fuel.”

Twilight raised a brow.

“It was a drink that’s now since been brought back, but back in O’ six or whatever, it was limited production, so I saved a few two liters of it, and on my eighteenth birthday, we opened one, and God did it taste bad.”

Twilight snickered.

I joined in. “Yeah, we can laugh at it now, but at the time it was quite the disappointment.”

“If I’m to guess it sat as long as you implied, I would imagine so.”

I nodded in agreement, emptying the last empty fifth. All was silent for the next few moments as the record finished with a clunk, and Twilight used her magic to start the record again.

“So, what exactly is a Journeyman’s bottle?”

“Oh, right, I never did explain that.”

I placed the now empty fifth bottle into the full plastic bag, tying it up to be recycled later, and took my seat.

“Basically, as I was told, back in the day when men would travel a lot, and go from place to place for work and adventure, they had with them a bottle. A single bottle, for when they bought their booze, they’d drink and have a good time. However, they didn’t want to carry all these bottles around with them with little amounts of liquor, so they’d pour them all into a lone bottle, and drink from that on occasion. For each person, their bottle would be a unique flavor and blend of drinks unique to them and them alone, so hence the Journeyman’s Bottle.”

Twilight blinked, and using her magic took my Cognac bottle and inspected it, going so far as to open and take a sniff. As expected, her muzzle scrunched in protest to the foul smell, and I laughed.

“Like I said, I mostly drink whiskeys and bourbons, so it’s gonna be heavy on that end. And yet, there are other drinks in there.”

“It is definitely a unique scent…” Twilight replaced the cap and put the bottle back on the floor beside me.

“Yeah, take a wiff of this one.” I opened the full Jack pint bottle, and hand it over.

“No, thanks…” she says nicely, and I replace the cap.

“Suit yourself. One day, you’re gonna need to drink some, and you’ll be un… um.. Unready?”

“Unprepared?”

“Yes, that word.” I took another sip of my whiskey.

“Life is like a Mardi Gras,
It will make you live, make you love.”

“So… you’re not doing that because you’re in need?” Twilight asked.

I shook my head. “Hell, if I was that desperate, I’d sell more shit to pay for booze. No, this is more of an experiment, that one day I’m gonna open up and test.”

Twilight nodded, taking a sip of her glass of water.

“So rest assured, I’m not completely fucked.”

The record player shut off with its usual clunk, Twilight turning to watch as the turntable came to a slow stop.

“I hope so…”

I focused my gaze onto the now still player.

“I hope so too…”

10: Der Fuehrer's Face

Author's Note

This started out to be a joke that I use a Twilight Sparkle coaster on my couch side table... idk what it is now.

10: Der Fuehrer's Face

When der Fuehrer says we is de master race,
We heil (pfft) Heil (pfft) Right in der Fuehrer’s face.
Not to love der Fuehrer is a great disgrace,
So we heil (pfft) Heil (pfft) Right in der Fuehrer’s face.

Most people don’t understand my way of thinking. Or, for that matter, my interests. My hobbies. My life, in a nutshell, is best explained by the idea that my encyclopedia set is from 1976. For most in today’s modern age, the fact of even having an encyclopedia set is a brow raiser.

For a mare like Twilight Sparkle, it was a norm, as once she’d found my “library” in my hallway, she was drawn right away to Funk and Wagner’s like it was the funk… and, uh… you know, never mind that joke.

I also have a encyclopedia set from 1950 with the ‘51, ‘52, and ‘53 additions, but those were in a box somewhere and I’d not had the time, willpower, or care to dig them out and shelve them.

“I was really hoping it would be longer until you found my books,” I said, fishing through an old shoe box full of junk.

Twilight never looked up from the book she was reading. “I knew you had books, just not an encyclopedia set.”

“And why’s that?” I asked, taking a sip of my bourbon.

“Well, you didn’t appear to be so well read and I thought-”

I placed my hand over the page she was reading, causing the mare to finally look away from the book and towards me.

“I’m not well read. But I’m also not so stupid to discard the worth of a book. I may not be able to hold all sorts of information here,” I tapped my head, “I can have the knowledge at my fingertips with books.”

“Well, that is a very good point. Not all ponies, or in your case humans, can keep track of facts and theories like others. Take my friend Moondancer for instance…”

“Nope, don’t care. Hah! Found it!” I dropped the shoe box, kicking it away with a foot.

“Found what?”

“So we heil (pfft) Heil (pfft) right in der fuehrer's face.”

Twilight looked at me with a mixture of worry, concern, and disappointment. The kazoo in my mouth might have been dusty, dirty, and probably did taste bad, but I didn’t care.

“I knew I had one somewhere…”

“Did you really dig that out, just for this song?”

“Maybe…” I went to cleaning off the dust with my shirt.

Meanwhile, Twilight looked down to the kicked away shoe box. “What is all this stuff?”

I shrugged. “I dunno. Stuff from when I was younger. Junk, mostly.”

“So why do you still have it?”

“Why not?”

Twilight raised a brow. “What do you mean why? If it’s junk, you should just get rid of it.”

It was my turn to raise a brow. “Excuse me? Have you been here long enough to realize, everything I own is junk? You’re basically telling me to get rid of my entire life.”

“What? No I’m not! I’m just saying this one shoe box of junk!”

“Fine!” I grabbed the box, getting ready to close it, when I saw something inside.

I reached inside, picking up the small lego figure.

“What is that?” Twilight asked.

“My childhood….”

“Well, I mean, it’s one thing to keep a small bit of your childhood, but the rest really should-”

“My life is my childhood.”

“Huh?”

I pointed to the book at Twilight’s hooves. “Do you know how old that book is?”

Twilight looked down, then back to me.

“That book is over forty years old. Do you know when I got it?” I didn’t give the mare a chance to respond. “When I was ten. Got it at a recycling center, they were gonna recycle them into new books. But I didn’t want that.

“Look around, at all my stuff. More than half of the things here I’ve had since before I was even a teenager. My bed, my desk, my record player, my television, my lamps, on and on and on and on…”

Twilight looked into the box again, picking up a small plastic piece.

“What’s-”

“Part of an old BP gas station toy set, for my Hotwheels. And that, is part of my old fingerboards set. And that is-”

“Okay okay, I get it! You remember all this stuff! I was a child too, you know! I remember my foalhood toys. You know what I did with them? I donated them, gave them to other foals who needed the things I had to bring them joy.”

It was silent for several minutes. The record player long since going quiet.

“I did all that.”

Twilight blinked. “Huh? But-”

“I’m still sorting away the bits and pieces, but most of my toys? They’re all gone. I kept a few things but… you’re right. Other kids need to be able to enjoy them. And that’s fine, because that’s why I collected and saved the things that I did. For others, for those who needed them.

“But then I ran into a problem. No one wanted to deal with the old, the antiquated, the slightly worn out but not enough to throw away. In this modern age, everyone wants everything new and modern, and no hassle. They want to ‘plug and play’, although that term is even becoming obsolete.”

Twilight placed the toy back into the box, closing the lid.

“Everyone wants things to be easy. Well, I work hard for what I have, for what I keep alive. Dyson may be all new and modern, but damn it all if my sixty year old Eureka still fucking works and I use it. Sure it’s not as good, but then I make up for it by working harder.”

Again, silence.

Twilight picked up the encyclopedia book, looking over the worn brown cover. “These aren’t just books to you, are they? This is a look into the past, what you missed out on. What you longed to live for, and what everything you own was.

“That being said, as much as you live in the past, with the past, you need to take a step forward, and look ahead. Be in the present, and look towards the future.” Twilight snapped the book shut with a loud crack, setting it on the floor.

“You don’t understand, Twilight,” I said, looking at the silent turntable.

“I was a unicorn, and became a alicorn. I’m pretty sure I have some understanding of the games the future brings us.”

“But you’re not me. I live one life, and that is in the past. Everything I own is old, most cases older than I am, but also my own past. My future? It isn’t there. As long as I keep myself the way that I am, it will never be.”

Twilight looked at me, confused. I took another drink of my bourbon.

“I have to choose, Twilight. Either continue my life the way I am, with the things that make me happy… or give it all up, in the hopes that someone will see me for more than I am, so that I can actually be happy, and not alone.”

“Who says you have to give up what makes you happy to find another happiness?”

Silence took over the conversation for another long time. Finally, I stood, and started the record again.

“The first girl I fell for was my best friend. She knew me, through and through, and when I admitted my feelings, I was cast out.”

Twilight’s ears went flat.

“Second girl… well, it was less so. She knew nothing of me, but I tried anyway. Needless to say, nowhere it went.”

“And number three… I knew her for a long time. Many years, still do in fact. But she knows me, who and what I am. I couldn’t change for her, I broke promises. I’m not what I want to be, but I am what I am. I’m a drunkard, a junk collector… I’m alone.”

Twilight lifted a foreleg towards me, but I turned away.

“It took me years to realize my place in the world. I’m to be alone. For every several couples out there, there has to be that one man or woman who ends up alone and sad, so that the world can still go around on its axis. As it so happens, I’m that one man.

“She will never love me, never look at me the way I look at her, or at least, want to…”

Twilight stomped a hoof on my couch. “You can’t seriously believe that.”

It takes a real man to admit when he’s crying. If the dampness on my cheeks was any indicator, then I was either leaking or a man. Considering most everything I owned leaked in one way or another, it could be said either way for me.

“I don’t believe in a lot of things. I do, however, know that the world works however it well sees it. Believe it or not, praise it or not, love it or not, that’s how it is. The scales must even out, whether it takes days, months, years, eons.

“I’m to be the one man that is forgotten by time, but time cannot forget.”

11: When the Lights Go On Again

Author's Note

This was technically my first 78 rpm record. I wanted to use this one for something more profound than a literal light bulb shortage, but well... sometimes you just can't prepare for what life throws at you.

11: When the Lights Go On Again

When the lights go on again, all over the world
And the boys are home again, all over the world
And rain or snow, is all that may fall from the skies above
A kiss won’t mean goodbye, but hello again.

I have a bad tendency to mix up songs. A lot of big band, swing, and even jazz songs have similar beats. As much as I love Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Tommy or Jimmy Dorsey, and any other big time orchestra leader, to the untrained ears they were all so easily confused.

Vaughn Monroe, however, was very hard for me to mix up.

I had a special fondness for his music, his records even more so.

“Um, what are you doing?”

I blinked, looking to the purple mare on my couch. This time, I was not seated with her, instead standing behind and to the left, next to my lamp, currently turned off.

No, not turned off. The bulb was busted, because of… of…

“Luna broke my bulb,” I said, realizing quickly that I had a replacement in my left hand. My right hand held…

I studied the packaging closely. Not real old by any means, but in this modern age, it was now officially a relic of the past.

In my hand was the last of my original stock of incandescent bulbs. The last of an era.

The song continued, Twilight giving me a strange look.

“So, are you going to, change it?” she asked.

Truth be, that was a real stupid question. Of course I was gonna change it, it was just…

“This is my last one,” I said, tossing the empty box to the floor, and holding up the bulb for Twilight to see.

“So? Can’t you just get more?”

“Not like this. This is the last one. My last, original light bulb.” I studied the glass, rubbing my fingers along it.

Twilight raised a brow. “It’s just a light bulb.”

Vaughn Monroe had begun singing again, making me stare at my record player. Then, without looking at Twilight, I shook my head.

“No, not really. I mean, they say the new bulbs are the same, but they’re… not.”

I tried to pretend to not notice her raising a brow at me, so I continued on anyway.

“It’s just, the world is advancing, starting with the mundane. First, they took away our analog signals, replacing them with digital, rendering most televisions everywhere almost useless. Then our light bulbs, I mean hell, when it all first started most of my lamps couldn’t handle them. They’d just pop and burn up instantly. Things are… changing, and I have to say that I’m not ready for it all.”

“That’s part of life. Changing, growing, for the better.”

Now I did look at the mare. “Look around you. To hell with that.”

Twilight’s ears went flat, she trying to avert her gaze from me, but now she’d opened the damn and my words spilled out.

“Everyone is trying to just change the world. Change this, change that. Do this, do that. They don’t think how it affects everyone. The majority, sure, but not everyone. Some of us don’t want it, or don’t care. We want things how they were, simple and cheap.”

“At the cost of your resources and economy?” Twilight defended.

“They’re always discovering new ways to do things, or make them better. I find it hard to believe that they have to change so much just to improve on one thing.”

“Well, with time, everything changes,” Twilight said.

I looked away from the mare, and studied the unused bulb. “I hate change.”

Silence took over our conversation, the record player going quiet.

“Is it the change itself, or trying to adapt?” Twilight asked.

At her words, I broke out of my trance, and quickly replacing the broken bulb. Once installed, I went to turn on the lamp, but hesitated.

“I want to say both, but I think I’d be lying to both you and myself.” I walked away from the lamp, returning to the player to start the record again.

Twilight shifted, resting her back into the back of the couch, her forehooves almost into the air.

“Sure, I have some of the modern luxuries in life. Internet, a flat screen television with a playstation four. So what? Those things are just things.”

“Everything’s just a thing.”

I shook my head, ploping onto the couch beside the mare. “No. My things, most of them anyway, are not just things. They are memories. Stories, lives long since gone, only alive by what’s in here.” I tapped onto my head, then reached for my glass of tonic water.

“I feel like we’ve been over that already.”

“We have.” I set down my cup onto its coaster. “But it does not change the fact that I’m pissed off that they’re going after such mundane things like the lightbulb. Come on!” I threw my hands into the air, letting gravity drop them onto my legs.

Twilight’s horn lit up, and suddenly the lamp I’d changed the bulb in came to life.

“Doesn’t look all that different to me,” Twilight said, studying the glass globe.

I looked at the other two lamps on in my bedroom, directly beside me and to the other wall. They all looked the same, and yet I knew…

“Doesn’t change what I know. Sure, they look the same, but I know what they are. Those aren’t regular bulbs. They’re new, forced upon us masses. Are they better? Sure. Are they saving the world? Probably. But for me, someone who cares little for the world and less for its surroundings, well Twilight my dear, I frankly don’t give a damn.”

“But they’re not hurting your lights, are they?”

“The early ones did. I had to re-wire the lamp over my dresser, because the LED bulb did something funky to it and burned it up.”

“So what about these ones?”

I stared at the lamp. The record player was silent again, had been for some time probably. I hesitated to stand, instead glaring at the white smoked glass of the lamp globe.

Twilight didn't let me speak, not that I had a quick rebuttal at hand. “I think the lamp is what’s important, not the bulb. The later were meant to be replaced over time. They didn’t change how they screw in, did they?”

I shook my head.

“They didn’t change the size?”

Again, my head shook, slower this time.

“And they’re the same wattage.”

“Technically-”

“Okay, yes they’re lower, but they’re also designed to work with the original wattage.”

Again, I conceded the point. Twilight’s magic lit up and the record player came on again.

“You’re trying too hard to focus yourself into the past. So what if they changed your lightbulbs, or your television signals. The new bulbs still work, they gave you a box for your television to work. The world, in order to advance, has to change, and in that change, some things just have to go away.

“I mean, do you honestly think the things you use now, even as old as they are, were so widely accepted when they were new?”

I looked away from my glass of tonic, looking at Twilight, staring deep into her eyes. She had a damn good point.

“It still doesn’t change how I feel…”

“What do you feel, Alex?”

I was silent for a good minute, allowing the song to play.

“Betrayed. Forgotten. Left in the dust to rot away with what I have.”

“Why?”

I leaned back into my couch, the furniture beyond its years with wear and tear. “Because no matter what I say or do, if I try to better myself, change myself, or make myself more appeal-able to others, then I have to give it all up.”

“What? Your things?”

I nodded my head.

“What makes you say that?”

I stood, taking a step to restart the player. I clicked the latch, but waited with the record arm in my fingers, watching it spin for several seconds, then gingerly set it down.

“No one wants to live in the past. Everyone wants to look ahead. I even do, to some extent, but not so far that I forget what’s come before. I like my old television programs, or my records. Is my vacuum a pain in the ass with an old style bag? Sure, but it works just fine and hasn’t let me down. Is my writing desk worn and missing layers of varnish? Sure, but it’s still set up the way I like it and is vintage.

“I’ve tried to be with people, who say they’re accepting of what I like and believe in, but in the end it all ends the same. They just don’t want it. They don’t want to deal with the old, the slightly worn out, or outdated. They don’t want to do a little extra work with something that works fine, instead spend several hundred dollars for something that’s new and easier, but they gotta replace in a couple years.

“I’m not like that, I can’t be like that. And thats… my end.”

Twilight Sparkle gave me a sad look. “Your end?”

I was still standing, watching the record spin, the needle and arm following the grooves.

“I’ve cut back on drinking, even stopped completely at times. I’ve cleaned up my junk, my scrap, my cars and metal and overbrush and tires and on and on. I’ve changed so much of myself, and for what?”

Twilight shrugged.

“For nothing. It didn’t mean a damn thing. It never did. Because I will not change who or what I am. I am a junk collector, a cobblologist, garbologist, a drunkard, and at times an asshole. Above all else… I will not give up my God damned light bulbs.”

“But… what will you do when they all go out?”

Vaughn Monroe sang the last few chords of his song. Momentarily ignoring the purple pony, I watched as the arm hit the center return groove, and moved itself back to the resting position. With a clunk, the machine shut off, but not before the ceramic pad broke loose, causing the needle and guts of the arm to dangle, broken and needing replacement.

“When that time comes, then… I guess I’ll go out too.”

12: Imagination

“Imagination, is funny.
It makes a cloudy day sunny.
Makes a bee think of honey,
Just as I think about you.”

Alcohol does different things to different people.

Some see it as relaxation, to use to unwind. Enjoy their evenings at home, be it alone or with company, and talk over the television, conversing and reminiscing.

For some it can be an out. Numb away the pains and sorrows of our lives, and just go into a vegetation like state as we watch the second hand tick away on our clock. Sober, my mind wanders more than it ought to.

Come to think of it, the last several friends’ houses I’ve been too, they only had digital clocks. No second hands to watch tick away as they talked on about the new trends and modern online things that go above my head.

“Can people even read analog clocks anymore?”

“What?”

I looked to the other side of my couch, where Twilight Sparkle sat, head cocked to the side as she stared at me.

“Nothing, just rambling.” I took another sip of my tonic water.

Twilight watched me, concern on her face. After several seconds of this, to the point I’d nearly drained my glass, she sighed and turned away to watch my ticking clock.

“I can’t believe people couldn’t read a analogue clock.”

I laughed. “My nephews couldn’t until I taught them. Although, it didn’t help that the numbers were in roman numerals.”

Twilight’s brow raised.

I shrugged. “We got some old clocks.” I began to pour myself another glass.

The song continued to play, and Twilight watched it spin. There was one major difference now, which considering the time that had gone by since her last visit, I was waiting for the question to come up.

Of course, her licking lips told me that she didn’t want to ask out right.

“It broke.”

She looked at me, startled.

“The arm, it broke.”

Twilight looked to the newer, modern turntable resting on top of my old one. It was the one from a previous visit, that Twilight had talked me (using the loosest form of the expression) into trying out. Now, it's time for use had come several months back.

“I was wondering about that.”

“Yeah. It’s nice.”

The song ended, but the record continued to spin absentmindedly.”

“Just, no automatic arm.”

“Right.”

Her magic came to life, and she picked up the arm and placed it at the beginning of the record to start again.

“Imagination is quite a silly thing, isn’t it?” I asked.

Twilight let out a laugh. “Oh, I’m not so sure about that.”

“No no, I mean besides the whole you being here thing. In general, we wish and want to imagine what can be, or could be. Sometimes it works out. Most of the time, it doesn’t, and we’re left defeated by it.”

Twilight took a silent sip of her glass of water.

“Imagination is crazy,” I sang along, “your whole perspective gets hazy. This song is so spot on, so subtle, and it hits home, painfully so.”

My focus returned to the spinning record. Twilight’s ears would twitch just at the corner of my eyesight.

What’s amazing, the less and less I drink, the more I find myself wanting to scream out my pains and woes, not too far from when I’d be well off in a pint and just waiting to go to sleep.

“I’ve stopped drinking. Several times. Just… wanted to show I could.”

“But not for you.”

I lowered my glass, inches from my face, and looked at the mare.

“You have not once wanted to stop for yourself. You wanted to stop for others, or why you think they wanted you to.”

“Well yeah, because I could be an ass.”

She pointed a hoof at me. “You could also be an ass when sober.”

I… didn’t have anything to say to that, so I took my waiting sip of tonic water.

“It’s hard to imagine what others want from you, or me, or even Grayson. What matters is what you want from you, from life.”

I let out a small laugh. “There’s not much I want out off life.”

“But what about others?”

I paused.

“What if others want more out of life, and see just how little you care, or little effort you put into your own life? That’s what makes them stray from you?”

“Well, I mean, if I had a reason to, then I’d care more.”

“What else would you need to care for more than life?”

“Love.”

Twilight’s ears went flat.

“I’ve fucked up a lot, you know. Made an ass out of myself around my friends, family, but there was one person that didn’t deserve what I did to… her. And I did it anyway. Because I’m an asshoe. A drunkard.” I watched the record spinning, the needle playing nothing but crackles and pops of the closed loop groove. “And she’d somehow decided to still be my friend. It’s torture to me, but it’s my just desert.”

“Torture?”

I stood, and reset the record player arm to start the song again. Standing there, I watched the record play.

“Yes. Because no matter what I do, no matter how much I try to imagine what could be, it never will. Because I can’t imagine her wanting me, too.” I turned to Twilight, my brows low with a half lidded stare, tired. “I’ve burned that bridge, and danced in the ashes.”

“There will always be somepo-er, one, else.”

I shook my head, and took my seat on the couch. “What have we talked about before? I can’t change. I can’t change my life, my things, my anything. I’m stuck here. Stuck with these old thoughts, and feelings.

“I’m left with the ‘what if’s’, what if I’d done something different, been different. None of it matters, because as much as I try, I can’t imagine it playing out any other way than failure.”

Twilight was silent once again.

“I… want to imagine, if I could be different, change how I am and what I do, that maybe… but my life is a re-run. I’m just doing the same things I always do, then throw me in the tape rewinder and set me up to play again.”

At Twilight’s confused glance, I wave a hand. “Don’t worry, an old analogy.”

“This… might be forward of me-”

“Has that stopped you before?”

Twilight frowned, and I raised my hands in surrender, still holding my tonic water.

“As I was saying, it might be, but I feel it’s worth asking. Have… you told her how-”

“Oh yeah.”

“When sober?”

I went silent.

“When you were you, one hundred percent. Not drunk Alex, intoxicated Alex, or, pardon my language, but flubbed up Alex?”

I wanted to laugh at her word choice, but the tone didn’t allow me to.

“Drunk Alex is one hundred percent me though.”

“That’s because you only imagine yourself that way.”

“No, I’m pretty sure I see myself that way.”

“What’s in your glass?”

“Tonic water?”

“Exactly. You imagine yourself a drunk, but you’re not drinking. Why?”

“Because I’m sick and tired of being a depressed drunk for reasons I can’t any longer control, so I’ve said fuck it, and will only be one or the other.”

“So you’re depressed.”

I didn’t respond.

Twilight’s magic flared up, and the song was started again.

I licked my lips. “I… want to be better, but I’m not strong enough. Not for myself. I need help, but not the kind that everyone wants to offer you, or say they’re there for you but only at their convenience.

“I need someone that can see me for my faults, and I see theirs, but we can accept them and work with it. Support each other at our worst, because let's face it, I’ve got some of the worst ones,” I laughed.

Twilight did not.

“And… what’s got me so defeated, so thrown into the mud and dragged through it is… that I can only imagine one person like that.”

Again, her ears went flat. I hate that expression, like when I yell at our dogs.

“But I can’t imagine her imagining me like that.”

“So you’re just going to continue to spiral out of control until, what?”

I sat there, quiet. Downing the last of my glass, I set it on the floor, and reached around the couch edge, drawing out a half empty pint bottle of bourbon.

Twilight didn’t look pleased the slightest bit, but I didn’t care. This was all too much for me, too emotional. I’d been sitting on these thoughts, feelings, for too long.

“Until,” I began, then took a swig, wincing at the burn. My indigestion did not like me drinking straight liquor, but that was my punishment for my self abuse.

I let out a breath, the fumes tickling my nose hairs. “Until I’m either dead, or… or she leaves my life for good, and then all I’ve got left of her is my imagination again.

“She has left before. For years at a time, in fact. When I think I’d finally be over her, she would come back into my life. The last time was rough on her, and all I wanted to do was be there for her. Help her, support her, and do what I can. But I was doing too much, I think. Maybe too little?”

“You were expecting.”

I bit my tongue, and took another swig of the bottle. “I was expecting there to be something that would happen. Join us, and maybe make us work.”

“Intimacy?”

I laughed at the mare. “Jesus, I’m not that shallow. I know I’m a guy, but I actually care more about things than just sex. Sure, it’s a thing that every guy says just to show he’s not an ass, but I am an ass. I am shallow, just not for the same reasons.”

The record was spinning again. I got up and reset it, and took my seat once more. Grayson decided he wanted to visit, so after he jumped up between us, I began petting him.

We were silent for, I’m not entirely sure, two more plays of the song. By then, Grayson had switched over to laying beside Twilight (the traitor), who was yawning something fierce.

It was well past one in the morning, and there was a train going by the house. It amazed me how I barely notice them anymore.

I knew the topic was over with, but I couldn’t let it go so easily. Glutton for punishment, that I am and all that rot.

“I didn’t want her to think she owed me anything. I wanted to show her that I was there to help support her, and what she wanted in life. But… I guess I’m wrong to imagine something like that working out.

“Because deep down, we all think that everyone else wants something from us. Look at Grayson, he wants pets, so he rubs against you to entice them. It’s simple, but it’s true. I guess, that’s what I was doing too, and for that I’m in the wrong.”

“I don’t know if you were in the wrong.”

“I’d imagine so.”

“I think you need to talk with her about it.”

I shook my head, then with one last swallow I drained the bottle, tossing it onto the floor with the scattered empties that made up my bedroom floor decor.

“No. I promised myself that I was done.”

Her left ear twitched, and she turned to me. “Done?”

I could hear worry in her voice. “Yeah, I’m done with it. With my feelings, my want, my… imagination of it all. It’s done nothing but bring me down, and say and do things that have only hurt her further.

“I’m shutting the fuck up on the situation. I’m not bringing it up with her again. I’m going to just sit there, or stand there, and let her do her thing, and just go with it, and suffocate myself and either cry myself to sleep or drink myself blind.

“Because it doesn’t matter what I do anymore. I owe it to her.”

“But that’s not fair to you.”

I looked at the mare, stern expression in my face.

“Life isn’t fair. You just deal with it, and you move on. You hurt, you feel like shit, you take it up the ass and grit your teeth and hope that one day, soon, God’s fist will come out and give you a break so that you can expel yourself and start anew.

“And that’s just what I’m going to do.” I stood, and picked up the needle, and placed it into the resting position, closing the glass case and turning it off.

“I’m going to bed. Do what you want.” I stopped at my bed, looking at the mare. “Next time, let's talk about less shitty things, okay? Seems like everytime you come around I just spit out my problems.”

“I’m here to help, Alex.”

“No, you’re my imagination again. You’re here to just help me self analyze myself into believing I’m a person worth trying to save.”

Twilight frowned at me, and this time, I could tell I hit a nerve because she didn’t respond in the way I expected.

With a glow of her horn, she popped out of existence and left a empty spot on my couch, the depression still clear on the bed sheet covering it. Grayson took off running the moment her horn had glowed. The only proof left of her being there was the nearly empty glass of water on the end table, sitting on a coaster stylized as the mare herself.

I crawled into bed, not even bothering with the still on lamp, and layed there. Just for this night, I didn’t want to imagine anything. Not family, not friends, not my cats or dogs, not even Twilight. I wanted to imagine only one person, one time, one feeling, and for the first time in many years… I couldn’t.

And as I smiled, awaiting sleep, I could feel the tears running down the sides of my head and staining the pillow underneath.

Author's Note

This story doesn't get blog posts. It's pretty self explanatory.

13: Buttons and Bows

“East is east and west is west
And the wrong one I have chose
Let's go where I'll keep on wearin'
Those frills and flowers and buttons and bows
Rings and things and buttons and bows”

They say time heals all wounds.

I think that’s a load of bullshit.

Time patches up your current wounds, stitching them closed in the hope that you don’t bleed out to death while you watch your life flash by. Eventually, time catches up, and those wounds reopen. You bleed out, all of the old pains and worries coming back. You throw up, gut wrenching and constricted to the point that you just can’t heave anymore out of your system.

Time giveth, and time taketh away. That’s a more appropriate saying. I like that. Looking around, I notice my company, although not who I’d expected.

Elegance, regal, purple curled mane and tail, with an offshoot of white coat that could be mistaken for a very, very, very light grey if you wanted to be specific, which this pony would gladly do.

If I was being honest, I never thought that I’d see other ponies show up. Then again, Luna did break one of my light bulbs, so it was a possibility, but I didn’t think it would happen again so soon.

Granted, she is knitting the holes in my socks, so I can’t complain one bit. Haynes, I love you to death, but all my socks get holes in the same place, just behind the big toe on the bottom.

At this point, I replay the record again, not even sure how long the unicorn mare has been here. She’s sitting in my recliner, off to the side of my bedroom, back towards me. I can see the beautiful curls of her purple mane, and the eerie glow of her horn as she knits. When I first noticed her, I wanted to offer her my sewing machine, but Westinghouse stopped making bobbins for it about fifty years ago, and I’ve been lazy in tracking down used ones. I still remember dragging the thing home in my little red wagon, when I was no older than ten.

Could be worse; I could have one of my Singer pedal machines up here, but it’s just so hard to get a good leather band for one anymore. I could probably make one, but still, not like I’m using one every day. Remembering the first one was a pain to drag home, and the very idea of lugging one up a set of stairs… forget it. Thankfully, by my second and third ones that I had acquired, I was driving so lugging them home wasn’t so bad. It did beg the question though, could unicorns use a pedal style machine with ease of their horn? Or Earth ponies with their strong legs?

If my Singers and one Honeymoon weren’t buried in my barn, I’d be curious to try it.

There’s a lady like cough, and I turn back towards my recliner at the mare. She’s still facing away from me, but has an ear turned in my direction.

“Yes?” I asked.

“Sorry, I’m just… how Twilight talked about you, and this place, I was expecting more conversation. You’ve been deadly quiet for the last twenty minutes, other than standing to play your record.”

“Yeah, well that’s how some nights go. Quiet, save for the voices of the dead.”

“I see.” She paused in her knitting, but resumed quickly, “So is that how you always view your music? By whether the performer, or plural, are deceased?”

“Just most of my collection.” I tap on the shelf beside me, laiden with 78’s. “They’re all dead. Been that way for most of them, since before I was born. Kinda sucks.”

“Kind of?” She asked.

“Well, yeah. I can’t say that I have, or ever will, get to see any of my favorite groups perform live.”

“Ah, yes. Sapphire Shores, my current favorite, puts on some of the most amazing performances you’ll see.”

“So what, dancing, costumes, and all that rot?”

“It is not rot! I make sure all of her wardrobe choices are of the best.”

“Oh.” Yeah, I just insulted her talent. Oops. “Sorry, I didn’t mean-”

“It’s quite alright, darling. I can take a jab here and there. I may be a lady, but I can hold my own to criticism.”

“Good on ya then, lass.”

I swore I heard a hitch in her breath. Probably something I said. Usually was.

I cleared my throat. “You want anything to drink? I got water, some expired Sprite, and a metric fuck-ton of thirty year old cheap wine.”

The last one got her attention, finally turning in her seat to look at me sitting on my couch, brow raised.

“What?” I asked.

“Wine? Twilight told me you were a whiskey drinker.”

I shrugged. “It was free. Compliments of my grandmother.”

“She just gave you a bunch of vintage wines?”

I shook my head. “More like we’re cleaning out her house after her passing, after five years, and I’ve been bringing home what I me and my dad didn’t drink from her house. Between us, we can polish off a couple bottles in an evening.”

Rarity seemed to be thinking this over. That, or she was judging me silently. Either case was plausible.

“What are you drinking?”

I reached down to the bottle, inspecting it.

“Riunite… Lambrusco?” I squinted at the finer print. “Soft red wine. I dunno, some cheap stuff.”

Before she could answer me, I stood and carried the bottle over to her. With her magic, she set down the current sock she had been working on and took the bottle to inspect it. I walked over to the shelf which held all my drinking glasses, and found a clean coffee mug and brought it over.

I set it on the table, on a coaster I should note, and waited expectantly.

“You cannot be serious. You do not drink wine from a… coffee cup.”

“Half the time I just drink it from the bottle.”

She frowned at me. It wasn’t a disappointed frown like Twilight usually gave me, but one of frustration and internal battle.

Rarity must have been as weak willed as me, because she floated the bottle back to me, as well as the coffee mug. I twisted the cap off, and poured her a generous amount.

“Not even quorked…” she muttered, but took a sip, and cringed.

“Yeah, like I said, thirty plus year old cheap wine that wasn’t stored properly.”

She sighed, placing the mug onto the coaster. I went to return to the now silent record player, but a tug on my shirt stopped me.

Looking back, Rarity’s horn was glowing, and so was the edge of my shirt.

“You do know why I am here, don’t you?”

I patted down my shirt, trying to get rid of her magical influence upon it. With a roll of her eyes, she let me go, and I stumbled back to my couch, restarting the record before I sat down.

“I dunno. She probably got sick of me, but that constant feeling of needing to help made her ask you to show up.”

Rarity was silent for a few moments. “You’re… not too far off.”

“Zing!” I poured myself another glass of wine, into a clear Jack Daniels lowball no less.

If there was a special place in hell for those who committed sins against drink, then I was surely going there.

“You were quite rude to her, you know.”

“I know.”

“So is that it? Do you not feel sorry about it?”

I was silent for several seconds, and then shrugged.

Rarity huffed, and I hear the recliner creak from shifting movements.

“Now hold on,” I said, “I didn’t answer.”

“Your silence was all I needed to hear.”

“You have tinnitus too?”

This time, she did turn back to look at me, confused with brow cocked.

“Never mind, probably not. To properly answer you, yes, I do feel bad. I just… can’t help it.”

“Help what?”

I shrugged again.

“You can’t help that you hate yourself, or that you hate the world?”

Okay, that was a big stretch.

“I may hate myself, but hating the world is quite braud.”

“You seemed tartarus bent on telling Twilight, the poor dear, that she was hated.”

Now hold the fuck up… “I never said I hated her.”

“Well you sure implied it, from what she told us.”

“No, I doubted her existence, as much as I doubt you being here.”

She glared at me, and suddenly I felt a sharp jab on my shoulder.

“Ow! What the everliving fu-”

“So, am I real then?”

I looked to the small dot of red on my shoulder, bleeding through my white shirt. Back to the mare, her horn glowed, and a small needle hovered by her.

“You shived me.”

“I wouldn’t use such a threatening word.”

“Shanked.”

“Again, no…”

“STABBED!”

“Please, do you even know what a thesaurus is?”

“Yes, I have one, thank you very much!”

“Oh and do tell, because Twilight was happy to talk about your books, how old is it?”

I paused, voice dying in my throat as I thought about it.

“Well?”

“I’m thinking!”

She blew a raspberry. “Please, you’ve shown very little in that regard.”

“Well…” I stammered, trying to think, “it’s not as old as my dictionary! So it’s relevant to at least the twentieth century!”

Again, she blinked at me. I crossed my arms across my chest, feeling the victor.

I should have known better; I’m never the winner.

“That’s old, isn’t it?”

I let out a sigh, rubbing my face with a hand.

“Yes… yes it is.”

Rarity shook her head, a tisk tisk tisk coming from her lips.

“Seeing the state of some of your clothes, I’d hate to imagine how old everything else you own is, but that would be wishful thinking I dread.”

I wasn’t the best at keeping track of my clothes. I still lived at home, my mother enjoyed, yes, that word, enjoyed doing laundry (she always found things to yell at me about doing it so I eventually gave in), and just accepted what she did as how it was to be.

Rarity lifted up, in her magic, a shirt from my dirty clothes crate.

It was a crate, in the literal sense, of a commercial grade milk crate. Because I didn’t believe in clothes baskets. They were overpriced, cheaply made and flimsy, not worth my time in honesty.

Milk crates I got all the time, and they were great. Used them for all kinds of things.

“So, you simply ignore all these holes?”

I shrugged. “Most of them are from working on stuff. Or battery acid, take your pick.”

Another glare in my direction.

“Okay, so I overlook them. It’s not like I’m trying to impress anyone.”

“Well, Twilight sure thinks-”

“It doesn’t matter what she thinks.” I interrupted, standing to start the record over again.

I heard her let out a huff, but off the edge of my vision I saw one of my cats go darting by.

“Oh, hello dear! What is your name?”

I did, in fact, look over, and watched as Rarity was holding, petting, and generally loving over the older kitten of mine.

“That’s Stinky Pete.”

Have you ever had a perfectly timed sound effect? In your life? Like, you’re talking with someone, and one of you say something so dumb that a tool, or object, is dropped, to show the awkward silence?

My copy of Buttons and Bows has a small skip at one point, and it made itself perfectly clear after naming one of my two cats.

“Stinky… Pete?” Rarity asked, and I could feel her glare on the back of my head.

“Well, yeah. Her name was originally Pumpkin, but she never figured that out. Her farts were so bad, I called her Stinky Pete, and the name has stuck.”

My nieces, in fact, gave me the cat. They hated the name. My vet nearly died of laughter when I told him.

“Right… Of course.”

Silence took over for some time. I’d let the record player go quiet for a while, just staring at nothing, or everything in my bedroom. Eventually, that lady like cough came about again.

“Do you have any ribbon?”

I had to think hard on that one, taking a swig of the old wine as I did so.

“Probaby, in the sewing box under my sewing machine.”

I had looked to her, and she blinked rapidly at me.

“You have a sewing machine?”

I nodded.

“And you were going to tell me this… when?”

Shit, I fucked up. Again.

“Well, it won’t be of much help since I’ve not ever gotten a bobbin for it.”

She rolled her eyes, horn lighting up as she threw a now sewn sock at my face.

“Please, like that’s ever stopped me before.”

I studied the stitched sock, amazed that the hem work was so smooth, that in my shoes all day I might not actually notice it. “Wow.”

“Wow is right.”

I looked back to the mare, and she’d already found my Westinghouse machine, opened the lid, and was studying it.

“Yeah, it’s old, I-”

“This is magnificent!”

That was a first for me.

“Uh…”

“Yes, I could do so much with this…” She seemed to look up, but not at me, or anything in my room.

I felt like she was lost in her own imagination, thinking up all kinds of crazy ideas, and honestly that worried me. This wasn’t Equestria, or if you wanted to argue it, not even Earth. This was my room, where the modern came to die, and be replaced with the old.

I decided that this was above my pay grade, and instead started up the record again. This seemed to catch the mare’s attention, away from the sewing machine, and watched as Grayson jumped onto my bed to watch her, curious.

Again, that damn lady like cough. It was like, she had no other way to get my attention or something.

“You can just shout at me, or throw something at me, if you want my attention,” I say, turning to face her again.

“I could, but that would suck out any of the drama we’re having, now wouldn’t it?” she asked.

Fuck if I knew. This was meta levels as it was, and that only begged the question if I was really off my rocker and believed it, or just wanted to cry.

I was, in fact, not in my rocking chair, and I didn’t feel like crying, so I nyxed both and went with my usual default.

“I dunno.”

She rolled her eyes. “Astounding response.”

“Yeah, I have that effect sometimes.”

She played with the sewing machine another minute or two, but then returned it to its stowed away position, closing the lid with a final thud.

“Well, this was... something.”

I shrugged. “Was it? I dunno.”

I could feel the hoof steps on my floor, the damn room always shook with any movements, and she joined me at my couch, taking a seat beside me for the first time all night.

“Now, I don’t want you thinking you have to apologize-”

“Then don’t.”

I wasn’t looking at her, but I had the mental image of her ears falling back against her scalp. For some reason it made me want to punch myself.

“Alex, dear, I know- no, we know you are hurting, but that does not give you the right to simply shove off anypony’s helpful hoof, when you’re hurting.”

“Who says I’m hurting?”

“No one is. And that’s how obvious it is.”

I finally looked to the mare sitting beside me. I wasn’t sure where she’d gotten it, or if she’d made it, but she was holding a small, pink bow in her hooves, absentmindedly playing with it.

“You need to stop feeling such self pitty, and accept when those who love you want nothing than the best for you, and don’t like to see you hurting.

“You need to strive to get better for you, not anypony, or anycreature, else.”

“And what do you know about that?” I asked, a slight tone of venom in my voice.

“More than I care to admit, but not enough to tell you.” She rubbed a hoof on her chest. “We’ve just met, after all, and I feel this isn’t the right moment.”

I scoffed, taking a sip of the shitty wine. I realized she’d barely touched her glass, still mostly full at the recliner, but also knew that if she had any brains, she wasn’t drinking it like I was.

“So when is the right moment?” I asked.

She tapped her chin, then shrugged. “I suspect you’ll know when.”

I waved her off. “Yeah, sure, alright. So what then, oh wise white mare of death?”

Rarity, fashion diva that we all knew she was, stood from my couch. There, I noticed Stinky Pete with a bright pink bow at the base of her tail, and she seemed to beam at the attention she was drawing from me and Rarity.

I watched the white mare walk away, towards my entry way, tail giving an occasional flick of… agitation? I should know this, having horses in my yard for years should tell me, and yet… I felt dumb at the hidden meaning.

“I am not the pale horse of death, Alex. I am, however, not the last to visit you.”

And then, a flash of light, and she was gone.

I looked down to my freshly knit sock, then to Stinky Pete who had already torn off the bow and was now playing with it.

All was back to normal, and yet, I didn’t feel like it was.

“Fuck it.”

I slept on the couch again.

Author's Note

Blog posts and any sense in this story is for chumps.

14: Don't Fence Me In

Author's Note

I'm not sure if it makes total sense. The time gap between writing the first half of this chapter and the second half is like, 6 months or so.

Oh well.

14: Don't Fence Me In

“Oh, give me land, lots of land under starry skies above
Don't fence me in.
Let me ride through the wide open country that I love
Don't fence me in.”

When do you realize that depression is actually affecting your life?

People tend to bring up the idea of depression, sadness, worry and anxiety like it’s just a thing. Thirty plus years ago, they were moods you went through and just got over. Since then technology has boomed, people have become more social online than face to face, and we’ve gotten more braud with our feelings as a people, and voice more when we’re not the focal point.

I used to turn to alcohol as a fun thing to do when I was bored. As the years rolled by, that shifted to wanting to feel nothing, least of all fun. Social drinking was a norm, but now drinking alone has taken over most of my spare, free time that when I go out to drink with friends, all I do is complain about the prices.

Yeah, I could buy a fifth of Jack for cheaper than I just paid at this bar, but the point is I’m out socializing, not sitting alone in my home drinking away my night.

Or is it when you’re sober, and you find yourself looking for any excuse during the day to say “gosh I need a drink?” At the days end, with hard work, sweat, and high blood pressure, you just need something to take the edge off and unwind. One drink becomes two, then four, then next thing you know you’re waking up in bed, thirsty and eyes blurred from dehydration.

They say you should drink a glass of water for every alcoholic beverage.

I say that’s what ice is for.

Of course, when you’re living off of twenty plus year old wine from your dead grandmother’s house, beggars can’t be choosers, and you have some respect for wine that you don’t ice it down.

Some of the wine, however, does need some vigorous shaking to mix up the chunks floating around in the bottles. So long as I don’t drink another bottle of vinegar, I’ll be okay.

Probably.

No, not really.

“These gals singin’, with this feller here, remind me of my Granny Smith ‘nd her friends. Used to sing a lot when I was little.”

I have to force some heavy blinks to clear the mist from my eyes, probably an early sign of something wrong with my body, but I’ve ignored it as long as I can remember. Turning to my left, I see an orange pony wearing a stetson hat sipping at a glass of…

“The hell did you find whiskey?” I ask, shocked.

“I brought my own.”

I blink again, struggling to get my vision adjusted properly. I lick my lips, dry and cracked.

“Want some?”

She’s a goddamn mind reader.

“I’d never turn down some whiskey or bourbon. I got some old ass wine to share, or if you’re adventurous, some mexican tequila.”

The mare smirked. “Tequila, eh? Sure, why not. Been a while.”

I reach down to my right, grabbing the bottle of tequila and a dirty glass. Giving it a quick once over with a piece of paper towel and spit, I hand it to the mare and pour in some of the clear liquid. In turn, she hoofs over her half full glass of amber goodness, not even bothering to get me a different glass.

Mare of my own heart.

I watch as she takes a generous drink, and gives out a pleased sigh as she licks her lips.

“Damn.” That’s all I can say.

“It’s pretty good, actually.” She takes another sip.

I take a small sip of the glass she hoofed me, and oh is it smooth. I can’t think of a smoother drink in recent memory.

“That’s good stuff.”

“Thanks.”

“What is it?” I ask.

I’m completely shocked when she shrugs. “Dunno. Been in our cellar for decades. No label, probably somethin’ Pa made.”

I feel like asking more, but decide against it. “This is good. I haven’t had anything this smooth in ages. Not since my friend’s brother got out of the Navy, and shared his special bottle with us.”

She nodded at that, placing her now empty glass in my open left hand. I took that as my que to take one more sip of her drink, and hand it back to her.

“Thank you for sharing.”

“Likewise,” she tips her hat, returning to her own drink.

It’s been one of those nights where I’ve had too much time to think. Things have changed, time has jumped ahead by months. I thought after Rarity, maybe she’d had some brains and told everyone else to just stay away.

And now, here we are again. Months passed, and suddenly I got a pony here.

“What took so long?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Busy at the farm, savin’ Equestria, the usual stuff. Wasn’t ‘till a girl’s night and we all got talkin’ did you come up, and she got all down. She didn’t wanna ask one of us, but I knew she wanted ta, so I offered.”

I tipped my glass at her. “Well, cheers for friendship and all that shit it entails.”

She clinked her glass against mine, and we both drank.

By now, the record had stopped, so I stood to restart it.

“That’s nice, electric, I take it?”

I nodded. “I do have a crank one, but since I only have steel needles for it, I try to not use it.”

Applejack nodded. “Yeah, I hear ya. We got fancy diamond ones, but I remember growin’ up with them metal ones. Destroyed the shellac after a few uses.”

My turn to nod as I sat. “Yeah, while we didn’t have much in the way of diamond tipped ones, we eventually found some cactus needles worked well.”

She laughed. “Yeah, well we don’t even have diamond tipped needles. They’re just made out of diamond, period.”

I blinked. “Oh, right, your guys’ concept of precious stones and metals are all out of whack.”

“And y’all take that fancy electricity for granted.”

“I’d argue that, cause my cabin has none, but I also conceded the point because I’m only there maybe a month’s time every year.”

She nodded as before, then went silent as she watched the record spin. Before long, she was also humming along with the song.

“It’s nice up there. Quiet, mostly, time to unwind. You only have a few basic things to worry about. Not like at home.”

“Just like when we go campin’.”

“Yeah, I can see that. Never cared for camping myself, but the idea is solid.”

“And I can’t understand wantin’ a cabin when you’d miss out on the night sky.”

I chuckled. “When it’s twenty below and you’re freezing your ba- er… tits off.”

I watched her visibly shudder. “Yeah, no thanks. We only camp in the nice seasons.”

“I go up to the cabin mostly during the winter, because it’s when I have the most chance of free time.”

“So what do ya do there?”

“Drink, shoot, and just laze around.”

“Sounds nice.”

“It is.”

Silence took over, and I restarted the record. Sitting down on the couch, the mare let out a tired sigh.

“Alright, so I’m here for a reason, and I’m done beatin’ around the bush.”

“That’s good. Was wondering when the shouting would start.”

“I ain’t gonna yell at ya.”

“Rarity sure wanted to.”

“She’s also more… tempered.”

I raised a brow, looking at her.

“What? She is! She’s a lot quicker ta jump on her ‘motions. I’m here ta be the level headed one and tell ya straight.”

“Oh? And tell me what?”

“From the sound a’ things, ya ain’t right, sugarcube.”

My nearly empty glass suddenly became all the more interesting as I couldn’t look her in the face. Damn it, this is Appul Hoerse, I can’t… urg.

I was very biased. She was my top pone, and having her start lecturing me on things? Was this weird? It sure felt weird…

“Yeah, I know I’m not.”

“Then how do ya plan to fix things?”

I laughed. “Lots of time, lots of drink, and some bloody knuckles.”

“The drinkin’ ain’t gonna help ya none. One day yer gonna pay for it.”

“Too late.”

“Well then ya only need ta cut back more so!”

“Yes, because just telling someone they need to stop means they instantly will.”

She shook her head. “No, but seeing how it hurts others should. And lemme guess, you just up and ignore it, don’tcha?”

“No…”

“So you weren’t mean ta Twi? Callin’ her out and sayin’ she wasn’t real and because ‘o that, what she said didn’t matter?”

“What?”

“Were ya?”

“I never said-”

“But did ya mean it that way?”

“I don’t know, that was months ago!”

“So right now, am I real?”

“I don’t know!”

“So then does that mean what I tell ya don’t matter none?”

“No!”

Suddenly, she smiled, and folded her forelegs across her chest. “There ya go then. We’re real.”

I had to set my glass down, I was riled up now, and what she just said, and did… “That was bullshit. That was so quick I don’t even know what just happened.”

She patted my shoulder. “There there, happen’s ta the best stallions, I know.”

I froze.

“Yep, I did just make that joke.”

“I don’t know how much more of this mental abuse I can take.”

“Then how about ya quit it?”

“The mental abuse? I thought I had, then here you are.”

“No, not that. The drinkin, the gettin’ down on yerself. You ever have days where you don’t, and ya feel better for it?”

“Of course.”

“Then there ya go! Latch onta those days, and extend them. Make them weeks of feelin’ better. You’d be surprised how much things change.”

“That’s all and dandy, but what if I don’t want to?”

She blew a raspberry. “That’s a crock, and you know it.”

This time, I was actually confused. “I don’t follow.”

“Of course ya wanna quit. Deep down, ya do wanna be better, work towards a better, brighter goal than…” she waved her hooves at me, half naked on a broken down couch. “This.

“Ya just gotta work for it.”

“I do.”

She shook her head. “No, you just work. You don’t seem to have any sorta goal in mind. It’s all one big excuse for ya. Well, yer gettin’ ta the point you won’t be able to take it back.”

The record had stopped minutes ago, but I couldn’t bring myself to stand and restart it. Applejack was a earth pony, so no fancy magic. And honestly, I think the music was far from the mare’s mind.

“You’ve told Twi yerself. Ya wanna change, and don’t know how. Well, I’m here ta be honest with ya, and that’s just what I’mma doin’. Quit the drinkin’. Period. Ya can’t have the occasional one ‘cause then ya just fall right back into the well.

“Cut it completely, and suddenly you’ll find yerself better. Then, after enough time has passed and you’ve healed some wounds, then try the casual thing again. Faust knows you can’t go through life without a little sin here and there.”

It was so strange. My glass was empty, and the bottle was down at my feet. I wanted, needed, begged myself to pour another, but what Applejack had said to me…

“What if I’m just… not strong enough?”

“Then find yer friends and lean on them.”

“But what if…” I hesitated.

She looked at me with a raised brow, rolling her hoof to edge me to continue.

“They… don’t want to.”

“Bull.”

“Okay, they’ve told me I should cut back, or even quit, but that’s all. They don’t actively try to help, or be there, or anything. They just tell me how I should live my life, and it…”

“It’s wrong?”

I nodded. “It’s my life. I wanna live like this, then I’m gonna.”

“So you wanna jus be miserable all the time?”

“No! But I want someone to actually push me a little in showing they care!”

“Maybe they have? And you were just ignorant of it?”

I opened my mouth to protest, but paused, thinking.

“I’m… not sure. I don’t recall, but then again, a lot of them have basically cut a lot of contact with me to once a month or so.”

“Well, maybe look at it another way. Maybe they don’t push ya, cause they know you need to do this on yer own?”

“But aren’t I obvious enough to know I’m not? I… I can do a lot of things on my own, but some stuff…” I go quiet, shaking my head.

“Have you actually told any of them this?”

Again, I shake my head.

“Then maybe they don’t know? Or understand? And maybe, instead of you waiting for them to tell you to stop… maybe you need to approach them, and say it out loud yerself.”

That was… a good point, something that I want to say I had thought about once in a while, but didn’t really dwell on it. It was a quick thought if nothing else, there then gone in a moment.

“I always just… jump in when people need something. Helping my friends with car work. I tell them how it is, and what needs to be done.”

Applejack nodded. “So ya just expect them ta do the same with you?”

“I guess…”

“Well, I dunno about them fancy automo-whats its, but I can say, sometimes, our wagon has issues, and we’ll just ignore it. Sometimes, we bite the apple core and fix it on our own. Other times, it takes somepony else to point it out and tell us, somethin’s wrong.

“So maybe your problems are like that. Only… everypony is just not sure how to approach you with it. So, be the one to approach them.”

I stand, placing my empty glass on the floor, then motion to start the record again.

“What if they don’t want to?”

She shook her head. “If they’re any good o’ friends, they’ll wanna. Hay, just lookit us! Twilight’s back home worried yer gonna do something stupid but is scared to come herself so we’re all visitin’ ya.”

I sat down with a plop. “I didn’t mean to make her feel that way.”

Applejack nodded. “Yeah, I can tell. Yer just… you. Different in so many ways.”

Staring at the record as it spins, I lean back into the couch. “I just don’t get any of it.”

“Well, that’s life. We don’t always get any of it, or even some of it. We just strive for what matters to us.”

I listened to Bing Crosby sing more about his fence, and remembered our property up north. No fence up there, just open land with some woods in the back.

15: Along the Santa Fe Trail

Author's Note

This isn't meant to start anything, such as fights or whatever, but I've been going through a lot of shit and I'm a good way into the bottle and needed something and then there was a big pony there and I just had to...

yeah.

There will probably be a blog post eventually, probably.

15: Along the Santa Fe Trail

It had been well over a year since I’d actually spent any period of time in this room, save for occasionally trying to clean, or making sure my cats hadn’t made a mess.

My record player had been quiet since then, and a decent layer of dust had gathered on it, as well as most everything else.

The record in my hands was what brought me here, in my bedroom for over fifteen years, now just the “spare” room where one of my friends would crash if they stayed over.

I found the 78 when cleaning in our foyer. I bought it… I’m not sure when, but it had been the only shellac on the thriftstore shelf, pre-Covoid, so I bought it, paying the outrageous 50 cents a record (usually I bought enough at a time they’d sell them to me for a dime a dozen).

When I saw what record it was, and who it was by, it reminded me that I had made a joke at work the other day, about Glenn Miller was not dead, but missing in action.

Apparently, that’s changed in the last few years, as I was told by my boss.

“No, they found his plane. We did it. Communication error.”

While the fact checking has been… hazy at best, it does sound like that’s the going story.

So fine, I don’t care, I’m still gonna believe in my failing heart that he’s out there somewhere, enjoying a drink out of a coconut and orchestrating a crab musical.

Regardless, both the revelation from my boss, then finding this record I’d apparently placed behind a couple antique clocks (and then forgot about) were within a day of each other, so this was clearly a sign.

Plus I’d not had any more delusions since I’d stopped listening to my records, so maybe I was returning to what was arguably considered sane?

I’d still not fixed my old record player, so instead I played with the modern one sitting on top, seeing what state I’d left it in (on, figures), and the stereo set it connected to (off, thankfully).

Once things were as they should, I placed the record on the turntable, but didn’t start it. Instead, I walked down my hall to the vanity that connected to my “current” bedroom, and grabbed a beer from my mini fridge (I’d moved it from the room) and then walked back.

I stood in front of the couch, facing the record player, then with a hefty sigh, I started the music, collapsed onto my couch behind me, and listened to the instrumentals of Glenn Miller and his Orchestra.

The time between the song starting and the actual vocals picking up was half the song, but that was the point of this kind of music. It was there to lull you into the melody, get you dancing, moving, swaying to the beat, before the male or female voice could fill your mind with the alluring thoughts of what you’re actually dancing to.

The last year had been Hell for me, and I’m sure most of the world, but I liked to believe my suffrage was for different reasons than most others. Like this music, people were subdued, listening to the beat of the world, staying close to themselves or close ones, and not speaking, only listening, as the world around them crumbled and fell apart.

I worked.

As time progressed, people came up with new ways to live, to thrive, push on and move forward with what they constantly claimed to themselves and the rest of the world was a planet ending event.

The vocals, by now, had started, and we had the smooth beat already getting us on the dance floor, so the vocals for some broke the mood and caused rifts, while others rolled with it and kept pushing on.

My boss (at the time) had nearly died from it, and to this day he still jokes about it.

Then I came close to dying from a work related injury, and we all joke about it.

The scar across my beer gut doesn’t ever laugh, though, instead reminds me that we’re not, in fact, immortal.

No matter what we do, what we strive for, or force down each other’s throats, that life is not everlasting. Things come to life, they grow, they get old, they die. Sometimes they die young, sometimes older than sand. We aren’t allowed to anticipate what will get us, be it age or a speeding train.

My room rattles from a train going by, and I stand to start the record again. I’d completely ignored the music, but also had it memorized in the back of my mind and knew what had been sang, and what about.

Or did I?

Music was funny like that. Sometimes it was straight cut and forward, other times there was hidden meaning in between the words.

I liked to imagine music more by the sound, the melody, than the actual words. The tone, beat, harmony, it all paints a clear message that what you, me, the listener, are supposed to feel, or be feeling, as you pick it up from your ears.

“Angels come to paint the desert nightly,
When the moon is beaming brightly,
Along the Santa Fe Trail.”

“Stardust, scattered all along the highway, on a rainbow colored skyway, along the Santa Fe Trail.”

I froze, my cold beer getting colder as I fought the urge to look to my left, and yet the voice, female, beside me already had my attention before I could even argue with myself.

Slowly, I turned, and sitting there was a purple alicor, tall, regal like, far from the small little pony I was used to. It reminded me of Luna, but… taller, dare I argue what I’d imagine Celestia would look like sitting on my couch, had she ever visited.

I stared at her, unmoving.

She stared at my record player, eyes moving with the rotation, until it would stop, then her horn lit and she lifted the arm to start it again, but paused.

“May I?” She asked, however not looking away.

“Sure,” I said, doing the same.

The needle was placed gently, and the instrumentals began once more.

“So, you got bigger,” I blurted out.

“A few hundred years does that to a pony,” she remarked.

“An alicorn, maybe, normal ponies would be dust,” I finally raised my beer to my lips.

But it was gone with a flash, and I looked back to the larger alicorn as she downed the rest of my bottle.

“So you’re polite to my records, but not me?”

“I respected your music, but not always you,” she stated, setting the empty bottle on the floor.

Oof.

“That… that’s painfully accurate, and much harsher than I had expected ever from you,” I pointed out.

“As I said, a few hundred years changes a pony.”

“It’s been like, a year for me.”

“Well, yes, that’s because it’s been a year since you last visited this place.”

“My old room?”

“No, just… here, this place.”

I didn’t fully get it, but she waved a hoof at me before I could start solving the riddle.

“Never mind. Besides, I’m not the normal Twilight you’re used to. She is still not sure about talking to you, but me?”

She rubbed a golden shoe against her chest.

“I know better, knew better, yet it’s taken me an embarrassing amount of time to actually come visit.”

“Well the feeling’s mutual, then, cause it’s been over a year since I just sat here and listened to a record.”

She hummed at that, then started the record again.

“This feels like one of those songs that, vocally, has nothing to do with the situation, yet the tempo speaks volume of the mood.”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“I know I’m early, but you’re approaching a very important time, anniversary, that will-”

“I know.”

She paused, then looked down to me, brow raised and curious.

“I’ve known for months, been paying attention to the dates. I’ve just been trying to put it behind me. I’m busy, life’s busy, the world is on fire and people can’t seem to pull their heads out of their asses and just go with the flow.”

“It’s called a pandemic.”

I scoffed.

“That’s what I’m told.”

“So what?” she leaned forward, downward even, so she could look me in the eyes. “You just cast away everyone else’s fears because you don’t fear it yourself?”

“No, but I’m also not afraid of death, or the fact that life is short and can end at any moment.”

“That doesn’t change those from fear, or wanting to help their own chances.”

“That’s fine, then let them.”

Twilight Sparkle, Alicorn Supreme, leaned back and sat straight, although didn’t change her glare at me.

“You should know, after all, Miss I’ve been around several hundred years.”

I’d never seen a pony pissed. I had Luna close, but nothing like this.

It was like I’d put my face into a preheated oven, and then sprayed inside with a flamethrower.

She grit her teeth. “Life, and death, are natural, yes, but they’re also just that: natural. Just as natural, as for instance, as wanting to better one’s chances at survival in a harsh and unforgiving world. Tell me, do those who strive to better themselves and life to their fullest, sound like they’re being dumb? Careless? Selfish?”

I took a deep breath, sighing on the exhale, and looked up to the ceiling.

The Root Beer spray was still plastered up there, after nearly two decades.

“Yes, and no,” I whispered, then turning my head while keeping the back of it on the couch’s back rest, I looked at the pony. “Yes, they’re being selfish, but that’s their right to be. We’re all entitled to being selfish for our own sakes, or even those close to us.

“But there are some of us who are dumb, ignorant, and just plain stupid, and want to live our lives to the stupidest limit we can manage, to prove a point to ourselves, or God, or no one at all. We want to be our own person, our own controller. Is that so hard to ask?”

“At the potential of risking the lives of others?”

“Being alive means we’re a risk to others. Marry Jane is a risk to Joe Shithead because she was distracted and ran him over. Joe Shithead was a risk to Marry Jane because she signed off a form that passed a failing dam to break because she was being lazy. There are so many variables in life, how do you plan for them all?”

“You can’t, which is why you tackle the ones in which you can.”

I had to bite my tongue, because while I wanted to say something… that was actually a fair point.

“So, what do I do? Fall in line like everyone else? Continue to just live my life in happy ignorance?”

“That, is where this whole argument boils down to, isn’t it? What’s the right, or wrong, choice?” Twilight suddenly stood from the couch, barely able to fit in the gap between it and my shelf ladened wall.

“We have to choose what’s right for ourselves, but what if we’re wrong? We suffer the consequences, while also possibly putting others at risk. Or we put ourselves forward, and do what is felt necessary, yet possibly suffering for it, or benefiting from it, we won’t know until it happens.”

“So, there’s no right answer,” I scoff.

“Everycreature will try to pressure you, or me, into believing there’s only one right answer. But, as life has taught me, there’s never such a thing. I’m not here judging you, or trying to change your mind, but trying to help broaden your horizon.”

I leaned back once again. “Yeah, that’s kind of the norm now.”

This time, instead of a rebuttal as I’d expected, I heard a curious hum.

“Would you believe me if I told you, I was only a few days past eleven years old?”

This was out of nowhere, but I rolled with it.

“No, honestly not at all.”

“Well it’s true. We’re all only eleven, yet much older in retrospect. Celesita was thousands of years old, Luna the same. Cadence was several hundred years, and I was a twenty something unicorn lost in her books.” She looked to me. “And yet, we’re all still so young, compared to you.”

“How so?”

All she did was smile, and then her horn glowed, and with a poof she was gone.

I blinked, then felt something cold in my hand. It was my beer.

I looked ahead, and the needle arm was still on its rest, the record sitting in place and motionless.

It was like nothing had happened, yet at the same time everything had happened at once.

Nothing was gained, but nothing was really lost.

The world continued on its axis, and I continued to sit here, lost in thought.

“Ten years…” I whispered to myself, then took a drink.

The beer was warm, yet the bottle was still chilled.

Jukebox Saturday Night 1

Author's Note

This was the hardest thing I think I've ever written to date.

So this chapter, any others titled Jukebox Saturday Night will not follow a particular song theme. I'm trying to go back to my roots, where this story first started to come about as ideas. Not me hyper focused on a single song, but about me sitting on this piece of shit couch, cleaning and listening to my record collection, and finding new and interesting songs as my collection grows.

Also no hyperlinks. I'm getting tired of fixing them when they're taken down, so now I'm providing the info, so you can search them on your own if you wish to listen. Or don't, it's no skin off my back.

Anyway, this is also my first update/post as a mod now. Yay. I've been in such a high spirited mood the last two days I needed something to happen to me to bring me back down to Earth, so this happened because it did happen.

Gonna go try to sleep, but probably won't.

Jukebox Saturday Night 1

“Yodeleeeeheee
I’m a rootin’ tootin’ cowboy, they call me Sundown Slim
I hail from out in Texas, and I ride a seven M”

I’d woken up, for the first time since I could remember, crying.

I don’t think I had done that since I was a little kid, maybe ten or twelve.

My brain was so scattered that I couldn’t really comprehend where I was, what was going on… just…

Distraction is what I needed. It was about five in the morning. For the first time in years, I was waking up sobered, not from lack of drinking but from the situation. I needed to go back to a before time, back to when my life was still doing what I’d become used to, comfortable with…

Complacent.

It had been a hot minute since I’d actually just relaxed. Granted, I relax more often than I care to admit, but it’s not just being. I’m playing a video game, or cleaning the mess that’s my fathers house, or my mothers.

I used to say it was my house, but now… I don’t know where I even live.

This couch, as worn and blown out as it was, was a grounding point for me. I like to think that, anyway. And the one thing that always relaxed me, was sitting here, listening to my music of long dead people.

“You’ve been gone for some time.”

It’s weird, hearing that voice again.

“Yeah, I could say the same.”

Not needing to even look at her, I knew she was looking away from me, bashful, or maybe sorrowful?

My attention was focused on another task, one that I’d neglected for way too long.

She huffed at me. “Well, I’d like to say for good reason, but honestly… I felt like you needed space.”

I shouldn’t have snorted a laugh, especially with how serious Twilight Sparkle’s voice sounded. Sorrowful indeed.

“Naw, I get it. I’m best handled spread out over time. All at once I tend to scare or scar people.”

She was quiet at that, which was fine with me. It was simply… nice? Yeah, it was nice to know someone else was sitting on the couch with me.

Even if it was a technicolored equine who always showed up at the weirdest times.

The record had stopped, so I set the one I was cleaning to the side and flipped it to play the B side. Or was it the A side? I hated how some record labels didn’t note which was the primary side. Or if they did, I didn’t know where the marker was.

“Davey… Davey Crocket
King of the wild frontier
Born on a mountain top in Tennessee
Greenest state in the land of the free.”

“Are… are you okay?”

I hesitated, looking at the record in my hands I’d just been scrubbing clean.

Was I okay?

I laughed a little, then continued the strokes of the tooth brush. “No, never have been.”

I swear I could feel her eye roll.

“I don’t mean the normal not okay. I mean… you don’t seem like yourself.”

“That's a lot to assume since we’ve only talked a dozen times at most.”

I could feel a weight shift on the couch, like she’d just raised her forehooves up into the air. Probably a shrug.

“Well, like you’ve tried to explain to me before, I’m possibly a figment of your own imagination. So I’d actually know about you more than you know.”

“Yeah, that’s honestly true. Then again, anymore I don’t know what’s true, what’s a lie.”

I scrub the last of this side of the shellac, then take an old sock and start strubbing at the residue covering it.

It’s quiet while I do this, and again I don’t mind the silence. Quiet company is still company, and I’ve missed having someone that’s old, familiar, around me for longer than a few minutes.

Satisfied with the outcome, I flip the record over. There’s no particular song tonight that I play on repeat, instead I’m doing what I used to do many, many years ago.

Alone (sorta), cleaning “new” records that I’ve not yet listened to, and then playing them while I start on the next one.

“I have to admit, I’ve never seen you do more than just listen to them. This is… strangely fascinating.”

I removed the James Brown record, placed it onto the stack of what I deemed “Miscellaneous Labels” that I need to organize, and placed the Les Brown record I’d just been cleaning onto the turntable. Sadly, I’d still not fixed my grandmothers, but this newer one still held fond, and welcome, memories of a good friend.

Shame we’d only met in person once, but they’re important to me all the same.

This particular song held no lyrics, only being instrumental. Out of Nowhere. It was a nice tune, then again, to me they’re all nice tunes.

My thoughts returned to Twilight’s words as I sat down.

“Yeah, I used to do this a lot. Before you showed up, or well, more so before, and tapering off as time went on. Anyway, I’d get these bunches of records and go through them, one at a time. Sometimes they need cleaning, because mold.”

Twilight seemed to nod at this, as I’d finally seen her, and accepted that I’m either not drunk enough, not sober enough, or a mixture of the two. It was Saturday, so fuck it, I took another drink of my SunWhisk and beer, then grabbed the next record.

“So that means, you’ve listened to every single record you own?”

I nodded. “At least once. Usually all the classical ones, after that, my big band ones I pick and choose my favorites. You, and the others, usually caught me being melancholy over a particular song so I’d just play it over and over again.”

This next record I didn’t recognize the artist or song name. Hell, I didn’t even recognize the label, so this would either be meh, or a banger. Either way, they all needed cleaning.

“This box,” I said as I pointed to the half chewed box beside me on the floor, “is falling apart thanks to Stinkie Pete’s anxiety attacks, and it’s also the last box of 78’s from my grandmother, so they’re mold covered. Figured it’s been too long since I did any records, so I wanted to do some.”

She hummed at that, and I took the record in my left hand, toothbrush in my right.

I couldn’t see her reaction, but I could hear her gasp as I spat a wad of saliva onto the record, then began working it into the grooves with the toothbrush.

Before she could make any remarks, I started talking.

“I tried cleaners. Most of them didn’t really cut the mold, others seemed to ruin the quality of the record. So, I went wit the tried and true Fuck It method and spat on one, scrubbed it, and it amazingly works well.”

Twilight seemed to grimace at me, and I couldn't help but smile.

“So, you mean all of these…” she looked around, eyes growing big.

“Naw, only the shellacs. The vinyls I have actual cleaner for, and it works good. They also don’t mold like these do,” I wave the record in my hand. “Well, they can mold, but I think it’s a different mold.

“For a while I thought maybe it was because of my alcohol intake, so I tried to clean them with just straight beer. Didn’t work out so well. Liquor seemed to also degrade them, so I figured Fuck It and do it this way.”

I was finished with the first side, so I took my old sock and began scrubbing away, being mindful to not apply too much force so I didn’t crack or shatter the record.

“That just seems so… unhygienic.”

I paused, looking at her with a raised brow.

“Okay, that’s fair, this is you after all.”

With a nod, I stood up and flipped the Les Brown record to the other side. Sunday was the title, unsure if it was a vocal or not.

“I ain’t gonna get those Sunday blues no more,
I ain’t gonna walk that lonesome tear-stained floor.
I never knew much about love,
Till you walked into my heart.”

Apparently it had lyrics. Who knew?

Sitting back down, I flip the record in my hand and begin the process anew. Spit, scrub the brush with the grooves, get halfway and spit again, scrub. Then I took the old sock and began wiping it down, still following the grooves.

“This reminds me of airplanes, too. You know I work on them.”

“Of course,” Twilight confirms with a nod.

“I’m following the grooves. You always gotta go with the flow. When cleaning windows on an airplane, you always go with the airflow. No swirls, no criss cross. Any horizontal imperfections will glare and blind the pilots.”

I don’t think she really understood me, but she didn’t press it so neither did I.

Satisfied it looked better than it did, I stood and swapped the records. This one is a Hollywood label, The Red Callender Sextette.

I also couldn’t help but snicker at how they introduce the song.

Blows.

Back in the day, that word held a different meaning. This is probably a wind instrument song, so it makes sense. But nowadays? I can at least find the humor in it.

Apparently they’re first going to blow Poinciana.

Honestly, once it began spinning up and I heard the instruments being played… I’m at a loss. Not what I was expecting, but it’s also nice.

I can even see Twilight moving with the beat, small things but still like her wings twitching, she enjoyed it too.

“I’d think Pinkie would enjoy this.”

“Yeah,” I said in agreement.

Her eyes, for a while now, had been scanning my walls, Still covered in MLP posters of both fan and corporate made. However, one wall has had many new additions since she was last here.

“You’re up either very late, or very early,” she noted.

I blinked, and looked up to see where she’s looking. My wall clock says it’s now 0640.

“Wow, I’ve been up over an hour? Damn.” I then reach into the box and grab the next record.

It’s a later, black labeled Brunswick, so my brain is telling me pushing into early 40’s? I can’t really remember all the times these different companies existed. This record is also, surprisingly, clean, considering the last several above it were half, or fully, molded over.

Maybe someone spat on this one in the past.

Still, I’m in a mode, working and doing what is calming for me, so I begin the process again.

Gross? I don’t think so, but then again some people are grossed out by such small, stupid things, like bugs or dog shit.

Gross to me is watching an antique dresser being fed into the back maw of a garbage truck, watching the 100 plus year old wood being splintered and destroyed into debris.

I was ten, and it still fucking haunts me.

Beside me, Twilight cleared her throat. Apparently she’s got something to say, but not sure how to say, or start, it.

I have a pretty good guess. I’m retarded, but I’m not stupid.

“Yes?” I asked.

“I know I already asked… but, are you okay?”

That’s really the big question, isn’t it? Am I okay? Am I fine?

“My body feels like it’s trying to kill me,” I say with a shrug. “Genetics, alcohol abuse, my father’s death and work are all waging war on my very being.”

It takes her a moment, long enough for me to stand up and flip the Red Callander Sextette, now Dolphin Street Boogie.

This song is more what I was expecting, and it’s delivering in spades.

“Genetics?” she suddenly asked.

I’m a little surprised that was the first one she went after, but fuck it. I’m an open book sorta guy, wearing my heart on my chest.

“Feet problems. My father had them for ages, sometimes I can’t even stand on them. Shit also tries to grow on them. He used to soak his feet in AVGas, but I’ve been managing to just keep them clean and doctor them with some goofy cream my mother’s cousin left us for her own feet. They’re better, but not great.”

She lets that mull in her head for a moment, which is long enough, or maybe short enough considering the song’s play length, and I stand and put on the next record, On My Ukulele by The Happiness Boys.

I used to have a ukulele, bought it at a garage sale for 3 bucks when I was twelve or so. Didn’t know how to play it, but somehow my father did. He never did explain to me, or tell me, how he knew to play one.

There was a lot he never told me about his youth, but also a lot of stuff he did tell me. It was confusing.

“And how are you holding up after your father?” she asked.

Of course, gloss over my alcohol abuse. I do, I try to ignore it, pretend it’s not a problem, but deep down I know it is. Part of my health problems, part of my emotional problems, part of a lot, if not all, of my problems.

Guess that’s for another time.

“Well, December was the second month in a row I didn’t get absolutely shitfaced on the 28th of the month, missing work or laying down in the middle of our dirt road and waiting for a car to come by.”

At that she actually blanches. “You what!?”

I waved my hands at her. “Okay okay, that last one was a lie. I’m depressed, not suicidal, Jesus.”

She lets out a relieved sigh at that.

“Honestly though?” I asked, but then just sort of stopped there, leaving it hanging.

Twilight doesn’t push me, doesn’t ask or say anything, just looks at me with those large eyes, and waits patiently.

I want to say what’s on my mind, what happened this morning, waking up, but… there is something else. I need to say something else.

“I… I don’t think I really have a best friend anymore.”

I seem to have caught her off guard, as she tilted her head and looked at me strangely.

“Or have, for a while,” I continue, “I’ve not had someone I can just… talk with, personal like this. Deep down, my raw emotions, what’s bothering me. Most everyone just, has their own issues, or… are sick of mine. Sick of me.”

She rolled her eyes at that one.

The next record to check is in my hands, I haven’t even looked at the label yet, but I set it down anyway. I can’t seem to be bothered suddenly by what my original goal was tonight.

Distraction. I needed a distraction. I needed to…

“I dreamt about him.”

Twilight’s ears twitch, and she’s still giving me her full attention.

“It was… so vivid, so real. I don’t even remember what was going on, what we were exactly talking about. Guns, probably, because I only recently learned he had a federal gunsmithing license. Fucker never told me that, just that he was doing some classes years ago.

“But, he was there. In front of me, we were talking, chatting. Laughing. And he didn’t look like the decrepit mess he’d become when Covoid happened. He had fat, muscle, a happy semi-drunk blush to his face.”

I don’t honestly know when I’d started crying, but I was. I couldn’t really see Twilight to know what she was doing.

“We talked for I don’t know how long, good and happy stuff. The things we always talked about, enjoyed, like old times, but then something changed. Like I was waking up from a bad dream, only this was a good dream. More and more started making sense, like he didn’t have a 60’s Ford truck, or the dining room table was cleared off. I started to realize… it wasn’t real. He wasn’t there, alive. He’d been cremated, now sitting in an ammo can with a fifth of Bacardi up at the one place he loved in the world, his camp, Tobacco Road.”

I hated this. I hate this. We are allowed to cry, I don’t care if you’re the manliest of mans, or a wimp. We cry for a reason, a release. My father only cried once in my short 32 years I new him, when his mother died.

I hugged him. He didn't hug back, but I hugged him anyway.

“It was getting worse and worse, things making more sense, reality being restored. The house was back to a mess, booze bottles everywhere. He started to look older, greyer, tired. I just wanted him to tell me something, anything, that he was… I was…”

By this point I was bawling. Twilight, my records, my room, my existence was shattered, gone, non-existent. Pain, misery, not even my beer could calm me. It hurt, I hurt.

There was so much to say, so much to do. I didn’t get to give him a ride in my VW Beetle I’d bought when I was 12, still not running. We never got up to the Soo Locks like my grandmother, his mother, wanted us to do.

He never got to see his grandchild, my sister, his only daughter’s, first.

I’d never been able to find, or keep, someone that I could even have a chance at a future with, so I could introduce them.

My head was in my hands, it was hard to breathe, my sinuses just clogged from both the weather and my emotions.

After I don’t know how long, I felt something solid on my left shoulder. A hoof, or maybe a figment of my imagination? It was enough of an action to bring me back to reality.

“My sister was first to know. She met me at the funeral home, we hugged and cried, but most of my tears had already been shed in the home I’d had him put into. My mother cried, they were never married, but she still held a fondness for him, other than his terrible habits. We hugged.

“And that’s when it stopped. I told several of my closest friends, those who I grew up with, and it was just a ‘oh sorry’. They didn’t understand, they won’t understand, their parents are still younger. In their 50’s, healthy and happy. Only one of my friends lost their father, but he was abusive so it was no loss to him, but he understood the most, even though the emotion wasn’t there.”

I was starting to finally calm down, no shaking, breathing again. I took a swaller of my beer. Gah, listen to me, swaller. Fucking dipshit I was.

Am.

The pressure on my shoulder increased, and I looked over to the purple mare beside me.

She had also been crying.

“I’m sorry,” she said, then opened her chest to me, forelegs spread.

I hesitated, stopped myself from leaning forward, shaking my head to clear my thoughts.

When I looked back, she was gone. Like she was never there, never had been, but at the same time, there was a divet where something had been. The couch cushion slowly raised as it returned to its former shape.

One of my cats? My imagination? A purple talking equine?

The SunWhisk was gone, and I was all out of whiskey. I had plenty of beer though.

I wiped my eyes, they still stung but I pushed it aside. I stood up, removed the record, placed it onto the sorting pile, and closed the lid of the player.

I took one last look around, then downed the rest of my beer, before laying on the couch, hoping to drift off to sleep.

1: More Than You Know

”More than you know, more than you know
Man of my heart, I love you so
Lately I find, you’re on my mind
More than you know”

Her voice held within it a sadness that no matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t sooth. Forever spilling out her sorrow, singing what she felt. Her voice was doomed to forever sing this song, only hushed when the last of the grooves in the record would signal the turntable to click to the next.

But for right now, I could feel the pain. I understood it, or at least, I thought I could. She was so convincing that I too shared her emotions, lost in my own head. Painful thoughts slow danced in my mind, as I watched from a table nearby, my surroundings morphed into what my mind pleased. They held each other close, not wanting to let go, their embrace locked tight. I held the key, and as much as I wanted to pull them apart, I could not. The song was still playing, their dance not yet finished.

Many things have gone on in my life. Many worth remembering, more not so. They freely danced in my mind, never looking at me, only to their partner. I couldn't interrupt their dance with a crowbar, let alone get up from my seat. I continued to sip at my glass, the bourbon no longer burning as it went down my throat. It was just normal now. Just like watching them dance, always the same song, always the same slow dance.

I couldn't find the strength to stand up, the will to break in and share such a personal moment with my own memories. I'm weak, a coward, shying away from every couple that looked at me with that sad, almost mournful look because I was alone. They continued to dance, their song not yet done. I continued to sit there, my fingers rubbing the sides of my glass as my eyes were glued to their embrace.

At long last, the song died with the tinkling of a piano, and was replaced with quiet. I blinked, staring at my record player as the last record had finished, the automated arm lifting and returning to its resting place. It shut off with a loud clunk, the speakers going dead and the light behind the plastic lens going dark.

“That was a lovely song.”

I blinked my eyes, looking to my left to see a purple winged and horned pony sitting beside me. She barely sunk into the worn cushion, her light frame and shape of her body reminded me of a sitting cat, watching and waiting. She happened to be staring at the now still record player.

Silence took over the mood for several long seconds.

“Yeah,” I said. “Helen Forrest had a beautiful voice.” I looked from the player back to the pony princess.

The pony continued to stare, although I sensed she wasn’t staring at the actual player, but lost in her own thoughts as I had been moments before. The song was still playing back in her head, she too was thinking, remembering.

“Would you like me to play it again?” I asked, setting down my glass.

I watched as the liquid inside stirred, what my mind had conjured to be my liquor of choice wasn’t so. The bubbles tickling my nose should have been a clear sign, but for a moment I was back there again, where what I drank didn’t matter so long as it burned.

Thankfully, tonic water doesn’t burn. The scars are only barely healed.

“I think I’d like that.”

I looked back to the pony, forgetting for a moment what I’d asked. It clicked back to me quickly, and I stood, my knees popping with sounds I shouldn’t have been hearing for another decade or two. Again, more of the previous abuse, but I digress.

With a click, I turn the player back on, and once it has a few seconds to warm up I place the arm onto the record once again, and the music began.

I sat back down, my weight causing the pony to bounce a little, but she’s content enough not to comment. A open can of Sprite Zero sits to her side, I can still hear the carbonation bubbles popping inside. It’s the only kind of pop, or soda to non-Michigan residents, that I’m able to tolerate, and by extension, offer my guest.

I took another sip of my tonic water. The pony closed her eyes, let out a deep sigh, and leaned back into the couch.

“Rough day?” I asked, trying to stir some conversation.

Her response was a single nod of her head.

I leaned back as well, rubbing my fingers along the side of my glass. I happened a chance look at one of my clocks. Quarter to midnight, it was getting late.

“I hope I’m not keeping you from retiring for the night,” she asked.

In truth, she wasn’t. It was a normal thing for me to be up well past midnight. One, two, sometimes even three in the morning and I’d still be up. Fighting back sleep with distractions on the computer, or doing this right now, listening to long dead musicians play their heart and soul.

“Nope. Sleep is overrated anyway.”

She chuckled at that. I smiled.

“I hope it wasn’t rude of me to just show up here, unannounced.” She finally opened her eyes, showing off her dark purple irises. “Or, actually introducing myself.”

I took a long sip of my drink, all the while casting my eyes around my heavily ladened walls, filled with posters of both fan and corporate made. Upon my shelves held my collectables, some of them being the small pony figurines. I knew who this pony was, this mare, this princess of friendship.

“Although,” she continued, “I’d suspect it would have been for naught.”

“More than you know.” I said.

“More than you know,” she said.

“More than you’ll eeeeeeveeeeer knooooooooow.”

The record finished it’s second play.

“Again?” I asked.

Twilight Sparkle looked to me, her eyes tired and heavy like my own.

“Aren’t you going to ask any questions?”

“I just did, didn’t I?”

“I mean about me.”

I shrugged. “What’s there to ask? You’re Twilight Sparkle, a character from a children’s cartoon. Would you like me to play it again?”

“Sure,” she said. As I stood again to replay the record, she continued on, “but aren’t you at all curious as to why I’m here?”

I had to think on that a moment. I gave the player extra time to warm up as I thought, but with no good answer coming to mind I set the arm down onto the shellac.

“I guess not.” I said, sitting.

“So… you don’t mind if I just sit here?”

Again, I shrugged. “You know where the fridge is if you need a drink. I sleep on my bed, so the couch is free if you need to crash. As long as you don’t break any of my records or shoot your hoof with one of my guns then I don’t care.”

At the mention of a drink, the mare used her magic to pick up the Sprite I’d provided her with and took a sip. I could tell she wasn’t used to the taste, and if I were to be truthful, I still wasn’t either.

“Sorry.”

She set the can down. “For what?”

“Not having anything better to drink.”

“Honestly, water would have been just fine. I wasn’t expecting a carbonated drink. I don’t drink them too often.”

“How do you function so long then, when you’re up for countless hours studying?”

Twilight gave me a look, and I pointed to the figure of her still in it’s box on my shelf.

“Oh, right. Yeah, well, usually I’m so engrossed in a book or spell, I just can’t go to sleep until I know more about it, and settle my mind.”

“Well, I do have some books.”

Twilight shook her head. “That’s not why I’m here.”

“Then why?” I asked.

She smiled. “There, that’s the question I was expecting.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Honestly? This is why.” She gestured around herself.

I looked to where she waved her hoof.

“You’re here for moldy old records and empty liquor bottles?”

“No, I’m not here for the things around here. I’m here for the relaxation, the escape.”

“There is no escape,” I said, frowning.

Twilight shook her head. “There is. You’ve found it, you just don’t realize it yet. But I see it. I see it around you, when you’re sitting there listening to your records.”

I looked to the record player, having momentarily forgotten it was even playing, and noticed it was almost done with the song.

“Everyone unwinds and calms down differently. I find the way you do it to be something unique and interesting. So, I wanted to experience it. See just for myself what it is that you do to relax after a long day.”

“Why me?” I had to ask.

She shrugged.

“That’s helpful,” I said.

“Not really, but it’s the best thing I could come up with on a whim.”

I shook my head.

“In all fairness, sometimes we as individuals get so focused on something, that we have to have an escape to stop thinking about it. To get away from what’s troubling us. And every once in awhile, it’s good for us to step out of that comfort zone and try something new.”

“And for you, that’s jumping dimensions and sitting on my couch listening to records?”

“For me, it’s finding somewhere calm with music. That’s all my goal was, and I ended up here.”

The record player clunked, signifying it was off. Silence took over our conversation for a couple of minutes as we both just stared at nothing in particular.

“So, what happens after tonight?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I may come back, I may not.”

I felt like saying something, unsure if it was the right mood to do so.

“Go ahead, say what’s on your mind.” Twilight said, pretty much reading my mind.

“I… I enjoyed having company tonight. Just sitting here, listening to my music. I’d… I’d like it if you did come back again.”

Twilight smiled. “Sure, I can see what I can do.”

For tonight, nothing was accomplished. All my work had been done the hours before, I’d had my shower, and I was ready to procrastinate going to bed. For tonight, I had a companion, someone who just wanted what I wanted, to sit for awhile and listen to music. I didn’t solve any problems, or fix any issues I was having. Tonight, it wasn’t about any of that. In fact, more nights should be like that, I’ve decided.

“Again?” I asked.

Twilight smiled. “More than you know.”

3: They Say It's Wonderful

They say falling in love is wonderful,
It’s wonderful, so they say.
And with the moon up above, it’s wonderful,
It’s wonderful, so they tell me.

I was always told that a vacation was time to rest and relax. Where you’re given the time to unwind and let your worries stop bothering you, even if only for a couple of days a year. You’re suppose to just forget them, leave them at home or work, and focus on having a good time.

But what is that good time? Is it sitting on a beach for most of the day? Laying in a hotel bed while you listen to the busy streets below? Is there a particular thing a person is suppose to do to achieve their ideal use for their time off? Or must we find our own comfort zone through trial and error?

Do we actually have to even leave the comfort of our own home? Even if just for a few hours? Days? Maybe even a week or two? Maybe… maybe. Or do we need to leave our comfort zones and explore the world more. Break out of our shell and just go out and do something spontaneous.

Talking with both family and friends, I’ve found no real answer. Everyone seems to have their own idea of the world “vacation”. The two times a year I leave the comfort of my mitten shaped state, I tend to use the word “vacation” when explaining where I’m going. But year after year, it feels less of a vacation, and more of a hassle. More trouble than it’s worth.

Sure, I enjoy the company, seeing friends I’d only spoken to in sparse conversation over the interwebs or instant messaging. And yet… it’s not my ideal vacation. It’s not really “time off” from work or even home. I’m still facing the same struggles, just another place.

“You’ve had that glass up to your mouth for the last two minutes. Are you going to take a drink?”

I backed the glass away from my lips, looking to my left to the purple pony beside me. I look forward again, and take several gulps of the tonic water, emptying the glass of its contents.

“Sorry, I just wasn’t sure if you were doing something, or really that lost in thought,” Twilight said, a worrying look on her face.

“A mixture of both,” I said, pouring myself another glass of the beverage.

“So, I noticed you’ve been gone for a few days.”

I nodded my head. “Yeah, va-” I hesitated a moment, then continued, “-vacation. I went on a vacation.”

Twilight raised a brow. “Did you?”

I looked at the silent record player, sighing as I stood to start the machine again. “No.”

“Was it suppose to be a vacation?”

“Probably.”

“Well, I’m guessing you traveled somewhere, right?”

I sat back down, the song having begun once again to the sound of what I figured were violins. Irving Berlin sure loved his string instruments.

“Yeah.”

“Well, did you enjoy yourself?”

The answer I wanted to say was obvious. Yes, of course I did. I saw friends, had a good time, and spent more on food in a weekend than I do in a week.

“I guess,” I substituted my answer. Why?

Twilight took a sip of water from a glass. Judging by the red plastic and Coca-Cola marking it came from my stockpile near my fridge.

“So, why do you still look so troubled?”

I shrugged. I’d already been back to work for two days, and being one of only two full time employees, any time I was gone it put a lot of stress on my boss. Which, in turn, trickles down the line to me.

I watched as the record spun, Frank Sinatra’s voice was young when this was recorded. His voice was still youthful and pure, before the 50’s could take away that youth and vigor. Back when people had so few wants and needs in the world. Or did they? How different was it back then compared to now?

I could picture back then, when a vacation meant packing up the family and going on a roadtrip to wherever. Adventure, camping, maybe just to see the beauty of the West.

Or the other side, where a man and woman would go out to spend time alone together. To see the romantic parts of the world, or even just the countryside. Spending time with just themselves, having dinners at nice restaurants and spending too much money on champagne. Back in those days, it must have just been so wonderful.

“So they say…” I whisper.

“So who say?” Twilight asked.

“I don’t know. Just ‘they’.”

Twilight joins my gaze at the record player.

“You have lots of friends, don’t you?”

I only nodded my head.

“Ponies who-”

“People.”

“Right, sorry. People who care about you, and love you. That’s the point of your vacation, isn’t it? To see them, to be reminded of them? To show that they’re more than just faceless names over the… um, what do you call it?”

“Internet?”

“Yeah, that. So, is it?”

“Is what it?”

“Is that the point of your vacation?”

I took my gaze away from the record player, now looking at the open suitcase still sitting on my floor with half its contents sitting there, untouched. The card games I’d used to play with friends sat there, now alone and sad like me. Sad for different reasons, I began to think.

“This… wasn’t a vacation. This was just time away. Time to spend with friends.”

Twilight’s right ear twitched at the clunking sound of the record player. She didn’t wait for me to move before she magicked the machine back to life.

“I’m not rested, or restored, or feel any better than I had before I left,” I said. My lips were dry, so I took a drink.

“So then take an actual vacation.”

I turned to the mare. By her expression, I sensed she saw my stressed look.

“I don’t know what that is.”

“Vacation?”

“My vacation.”

“Do you have a guess?”

I thought about it; thought about all the different things I’d done outside my norm. None of them ever came back to me feeling like I’d actually rested myself. Looking around, I spotted my calendar, still on November of the prior year.

Ignoring the fact that I still didn’t have a new calendar, the month struck me.

“Being alone with someone.”

“Someone? Who?”

“I… I don’t know. Someone I need. Someone I can spend my time with, to care for, care for me, and to…”

Twilight looked at me expectantly. I couldn’t say the word, instead resting my feet up on the food massager in front of me. I really should start using that thing more. I closed my eyes, my thoughts trying to stray me away from what I wanted- no, needed to think about.

”I can’t recall who said it,
I know I never read it,
I only know they tell me love is grand,”

Frank’s words wrangled my thoughts back in. I took another sip of my tonic water. Twilight took another sip of her tap water. I set my glass down beside me on the end table.

“I want to feel what love is like. I want to know what it feels like to be in love, to be loved in return. I want something more than just friends. I need it. My life is falling apart before me, slowly, and drowning myself in friendships is just putting band aids on my sinking life.”

“So then find someone.”

Killing the mood, I rolled my eyes. “Oh yeah, you’re one to say.”

“Who says I haven’t?”

I physically turned my body on the couch to face the mare, brow raised. Twilight shrugged.

“I’m not at liberty to say, spoilers.”

I frowned. “That’s cruel.”

“What’s cruel, is what you’re doing to yourself.”

“What? Longing to be in love?”

“No, thinking that friendship is only a bandaid on love. Friendship is full of love.”

“But not romantic love. Not the kind of love I can lay in bed with, to hold in my arms, to hold my hand as we watch the television or just do nothing at all but be in each others company.”

Twilight shook her head. I took a quick swig of the remains of my glass, putting it back down on my end table with force.

“Okay then, miss know it all, what’s your theory then? I’m all ears.”

Twilight looked away from me, watching the record player I guessed as the song was ending. I ignored it, keeping my eyes on her. For giant eyes, they were very hard to read or gauge emotion when I wanted the ability.

“Friendship isn’t there to take the place of romance. It’s there to help you through the struggles of life, even finding the romantic love you long for. If you treat it like it’s just there to numb the pain, then that’s all it will do. You need to embrace it and accept that the love you receive from your friends is there to keep you strong, keep you going; pushing forward instead of being stuck in the same place.

“That is what friendship is. Love. Unromanced, unbiased, just there to comfort you and keep you warm in heart.” Twilight looked to me. “They may say it’s wonderful, but forcing it won’t do you any favors. The time will come, and when it does you will know. So until then, just keep your heart open, and allow your friends to just be there for you.”

I stared at the mare, my mouth partially open. I felt like crying, Hell maybe I even was, I couldn’t be sure. My mind was having an internal struggle. Was she right? Was she wrong? Was I right or wrong?

I turned away from the mare, stood up, and approached the record player. This conversation was suppose to be about vacations, not… whatever it turned into. Or was it still about that? My hand hovered over the lever to start the machine again. I looked behind me to the couch, Twilight looking at me with a half smile. I pulled away from the machine and dropped back onto my couch.

“I think I’m getting sick of this song,” I said.

“Then why don’t you flip the record?”

“Because it’s going on three in the morning, and I have to work.”

Twilight looked over her shoulder to the clock. “Oh wow, I’ve been here longer than I thought.”

“I’m not sure about longer, but later for sure.”

Twilight got off of my couch, stretching her wings as she tried not to knock over anything. “Just remember what I said, Alex.”

And with that, she walked out of my bedroom and into my hallway. A moment later there was a bright flash of light.

I looked back to the quiet record player, then to my empty glass, and lastly Twilight’s empty glass.

“Fuck it.”

I grabbed the blanket from behind me on my bed and laid down on the couch. Old, broken down, and worn beyond its years, the one thing this couch had going for it was it helped keep my mind from thinking too hard as I struggled to get comfortable.

It’s wonderful, so they say.

Author's Note

Bad Horse was right. I have no idea where this fic is even going.