Coming For To Carry Me Home
Coming For To Carry Me home
Coming For To Carry Me Home
Written by Tyler Robbins
Story by TheLordInsanty
(TheLordfanboy on dA)
Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. – Psalm 119:106
The following story is based on real events . . .
The sun shone brilliantly in the blue sky as Mark Adams rode his bike down the sidewalk. The birds chirping in the air were less prominent in his mind than his destination, which at the moment was the large shopping center at the north end of town. The wind swept through his short brown hair as he rounded the corner on the street that would take him to the mall, a small smile playing on his lips at the thought of being with his friends.
He loved spending time with them. The things they did were a real break from the boredom of schoolwork or the strictness of his parent’s house. Seeing a movie or hanging out in the food court was one of the highlights of his week, and the fact that they always met at the same time guaranteed that he wouldn’t be without something to do.
Turning into the parking lot he prepared for another Sunday afternoon of fun with his friends, which would be followed by the afternoon church service.
Sunday was a day most people cherished as a day off work and a time when they could catch up on all the sleep lost during the school week. Mark enjoyed it for a different reason. His father was the local minister of one of the city’s many churches, and as such he grew up with an intense love of worship.
It wasn’t something that was forced on him, as many outside the church would suspect. He just loved the feeling of being in tune with God, singing hymns, and listening to his dad, Howard Adams, bestow a new message every week from the pulpit. He hungered for spiritual food, and was filled with the gift of knowledge whenever his dad opened his mouth.
The two worship services came and went, and before he knew it he was back home. As he followed his older sister into the house, his mother turned back and said, “Don’t forget, you two: dinner will be ready in an hour.”
“Okay,” they chimed in unison. As Mark’s parents went about their after-worship routines in the lower floor, he and his sister walked up the flight of stairs to the upper floor, she to her room and he to his.
Closing the door behind him, he almost giggled to himself at what he was preparing to do. He reached into his school bag for the iPad he had gotten for Christmas that year and pulled up the video playlist. His eyes wandered over the glowing display, which cast a dim glow on his face, and finally he decided upon an episode.
As he plugged his earbuds into the socket at the bottom of the device, he hit the episode title, and after a short opening scene he heard the lovely main theme of the show playing in his ears: “My Little Pony, My Little Pony, ah-ah-ah-ah . . .”
The happy tune went on, causing a smile to erupt on his face. Mark wasn’t sure why the theme song made him so happy. Maybe it was the awesome bass line, or perhaps the fun melody. Or maybe it was because the theme song promised another episode of ponies and their hilarious misadventures.
As the theme song played out, he mused about how he got into this show in the first place. “Dude, have you checked out the latest Death Battle?” his friend Greg had said. Mark was an avid fan of Death Battle, ever since they first pitted Boba Fett against Samus, but he hadn’t seen the newest episode. “You’ll never guess who they’re battling this time: Starscream and Rainbow Dash.”
“Rainbow who?” he had replied.
“It’s a pony from My Little Pony.”
A beat. “You’re kidding.”
“And you’ll never guess who won!”
He waited for Greg to finish.
“The pony!” he had exclaimed.
Mark couldn’t believe it. Being a Transformer fan, he knew Starscream wasn’t the best Decepticon, but for him to be defeated by a girl’s toy? It made no sense.
So he watched the Death Battle, and was impressed. Not only did the pony actually defeat Starscream, she handed him his head on a silver platter! After that, he started to check out the show. It couldn’t be that bad if other guys liked it enough to make a Death Battle on one of its characters. From there, he was hooked: he started watching the show on YouTube, drawing pictures, and writing stories. He knew the term for boys like him: bronies.
The word was hard to swallow for him.
He liked being a part of a group, but the term “brony” was a bit . . . weird. His parents raised him to like manly things, and there was a hint of softness to the word brony.
Then again, he was watching a show about pastel-colored ponies going about their lives in a saccharine world.
He didn’t care at the moment. All he cared about was the humor being generated by Applejack and Rarity refusing to have fun during Twilight Sparkle’s very first slumber party.
A hard knock on the door to his bedroom alerted him to the presence of his sister. “Mom says the food’s ready.”
“Okay,” he replied hitting the pause button. He’d watch Rainbow Dash create a sonic rainboom later. Right now he needed to eat.
As he got up, he pondered momentarily about whether he should tell his family about how he loved My Little Pony. Most people on the internet told him that it was no big deal, but he wasn’t so sure. His dad likely wouldn’t approve of liking something which was, admittedly, targeted at little girls, and he certainly would like the artwork and stories that Mark had created in his time as a brony. However, he didn’t really worry about it. As long as he kept the drawings and stories put away and remembered to clean out his browsing history, he could keep watching, drawing and writing about ponies from the land of Equestria until the cows came home.
Pausing before he got to the door to his bedroom, he noticed a hint of blue coming from the closet. As he walked toward the closet door he saw that it was his Rainbow Dash plushie. His parents never came to wake him up for school, so he sometimes slept with it and cuddled the soft, minky fabric it was made from. He would even talk to it, though he’d never admit that to anyone, and though he knew it was silly to confide in a bit of cloth and some stuffing, it felt good and was a release from stress that he wholeheartedly appreciated.
Stuffing the plush back into the closet, he heard his mom calling from the living room. “I’ll be right there!” he shouted back, then closed the door and walked out, making sure to turn out the light as he did.
He walked down the stairs into the living room and then moved past the couch toward the dining table at the other end. Having a combination dining room and living room was not something he was particularly fond of, but he didn’t care at the moment. His concentration was on the Sunday supper set before him.
After gathering food on their plates and saying grace, he and his family started to eat the meal set before them. Before too much food was eaten, Mark looked up at his father.
“That sermon was pretty good, dad.”
“Thank you,” replied the pastor. “I did work all week on it.”
Mark chuckled. “Yeah, and I bet most people think you only work Sundays, right?”
This time his father guffawed. “And they pay me accordingly.”
The meal continued, and eventually his dad spoke again. “So I hear that your school is going to have a gay club, right?”
“Yeah,” replied his sister, Sarah. “They got approval from the school administrator and now they’re meeting every afternoon.”
“Bunch of hippie fags, if you ask me,” muttered Howard tersely. Then he looked at his kids. “I don’t want you two associating with those people, you hear?”
Mark and Sarah both nodded their agreement. “I wouldn’t be caught dead talking with one of those guys,” said Mark.
It wasn’t entirely true, though. He’d read a lot of the Bible, and though his dad told him repeatedly that it was a sin to be with people like that, Mark had seen plenty of passages which told him otherwise. One that really stuck out to him was Matthew 9:10, where it said that Jesus sat with the sinners and the tax collectors. If the Son of God did it, didn’t that mean he should as well?
But he knew better than to argue with his dad on the subject, or even bring it up. If he did, he would surely get a verbal tongue-lashing rivaling the destruction of Hiroshima in magnitude. He’d even gotten beatings for things he did which, looking back, he didn’t think deserved such fearsome consequences.
But he wasn’t about to voice his opinion on that. So he took the beatings and tongue-lashings, secure in the knowledge that he would be out of the house soon and then out from under his dad’s dictatorial nature.
He continued eating, and nodding along with his dad’s rant about how the public school system is going to go to hell and drag America’s youth with it, all the while praying to God that he would never discover the passion Mark had for My Little Pony.
The last buzz erupted from the school PA system, and suddenly all the students in the math class got up and headed straight for their lockers. Greg Peterson met Mark at his locker, a huge grin displayed on his ginger face.
“What are you so happy about?” asked Mark as he stuffed his book bag full of homework and textbooks.
“Why, just the fact that Star Trek Into Darkness opened last week, and now that the theaters aren’t full of crying babies, I figured you and me and Trace could go see it tonight.”
As Mark zipped his bag closed, his mouth broke into a huge smile that mirrored that of his lanky friend. “Sure! I just need to call my parents first and tell them were I’ll be.”
The redhead shook his curly mane. “Dude, when are you gonna cut the umbilical cord already?”
“Oh come on,” countered Mark. “You know how crazy my parents can get if they don’t know exactly where I am at all times.” He was only partly joking. He didn’t really mind his parents keeping tabs on him, though he did wish for the sort of freedom that Greg enjoyed.
“Alright man,” said Greg. “But my dad’s got a pair of sheers you can borrow should you change your mind.”
Laughing heartily, Mark put an arm around his friend. “Let’s meet up with Trace at the mall. We’ve got a few hours to kill before the movie starts.”
Little did he know that this would be the last day he would get to enjoy a movie with his friends, for at his house, things were happening that would spell his doom.
Julie Adams, wife of Howard Adams, knew her place in the household. She was a Christian lady, a bit homely, but with a good heart and a faithfulness to her husband that she knew pleased her Lord and befitted a preacher’s wife. She also considered a clean house to be a sign of her loyalty to her family, so when Mark had called and said he wouldn’t be coming home until late, she decided to use this opportunity to go into his room and clean it up. He wasn’t a messy teenager, as teenagers went, and as a mother she was rather proud of that fact. Besides that, she wanted to get started on the housecleaning in an area which would be relatively easy to clean.
The door to the faux wood-paneled room opened slowly as Julie dragged a vacuum sweeper into it. She paused momentarily, admiring the relative cleanliness of her boy’s room. Her eyes passed over the rifle he proudly hung on the wall and the compound bow in the corner, and she smiled at the thought of how much of a man he had become at seventeen. She set the heavy sweeper on the floor, then started to pick up the dirty clothes and scraps of paper that hadn’t made it into the waste basket.
As she bent down to pick up an old receipt next to Mark’s bed, she saw a peculiar drawing on a piece of notebook paper lying under the bed.
She picked it up to get a better look at it. It was a small pony, but it was colored blue with a mane and tail that had all the colors of the rainbow, and it seemed to have some kind of lightning bolt tattoo on its flank.
She pondered it for a moment. It didn’t seem like something Mark would be into, but she knew that Sarah was too old for that, being ready to go to college.
Many questions went through her head, and the more that did, the more frightened she became of what her son did in secret.
Without knowing what else to do, she walked out of the room, notebook paper in hand, and headed downstairs to show her husband.
“Man, do you guys have any idea how awesome this year's BronyCon is gonna be?!”
Mark was sitting around a table in the mall's food court with his friends sharing a basket of fries and drinking a root beer as they all waited on the movie to start. Greg sat to his left and was doing more than his share of damage to the stack of greasy food while Trace was leaning back and mirroring Mark’s disposition. All three of them were huge fans of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, so naturally the conversation had shifted from discussing the new adventures of the crew of the Starship Enterprise to discussing the adventures of Twilight Sparkle and her friends in Equestria, and more importantly their plans to travel all the way to Baltimore to spend a weekend at one of the biggest brony conventions in the country.
“I know, right?” replied Trace. “I mean, we’re gonna be talking with the voice actors and the production staff!”
“Forget that,” said Greg through a mouth full of fries. “I want to see Acoustic Brony. I hear he’s going to be there this year!”
“Yeah, me too!” replied Mark enthusiastically. “So you guys gonna see Equestria Girls?”
“Are you kidding?” Greg’s tone took on a more disgusted tone. “I wouldn’t be caught dead watching that movie! It looks like you took a Monster High doll and painted it to look like Twilight! Plus, the movie looks like it’ll suck big time.”
“Come on,” responded Trace. “Those guys at DHX know how to handle stories like this without totally messing them up. I’m sure the movie will rock. Besides, have you seen the new trailer for it?”
Both of the boys across from Trace shook their heads.
“It feels just like My Little Pony! It’s gonna be great.” The smug grin on his face sold his friends on his assuredness.
“Whatever, man,” said Mark. He was not about to watch a movie which looked just like another high school drama.
“Anyway,” he continued, “the new season of MLP is coming up. What do you guys think will happen now that Twilight’s an alicorn?”
As he was speaking, a family sat down next to them. All three of the boys looked at them, hoping that they hadn’t just heard a bunch of teenagers talking about a show for little girls. They were proud bronies, but not that proud.
“I dunno,” said Trace in a more hushed tone than before. “I’m sure it’ll be great. DHX hasn’t let us down yet.”
“Except for Spike At Your Service,” said Greg with a half grin.
Trace and Mark both chuckled. “Yeah,” said Trace, “Except for that.”
As he was speaking, Mark checked his wristwatch. “Hey guys, we gotta get to the theater if we want to get in the movie. It starts in fifteen minutes.”
He and his friends got up, then after they chucked their garbage in the trash and returned their tray to the wash stand, they started walking down the main thoroughfare in the mall toward the shopping center’s movie theater, ready to experience what was sure to be one of the greatest Star Trek movies ever made.
He sat in his chair and stared at the paper for several minutes, trying to make sense of it.
Howard Adams was not one to question the loyalty of his son to the church and the moral values he tried to bestow upon him. So when he saw this rainbow-colored pony drawing, he didn’t know how to process it.
He looked up at his wife. “Where did you say you found this?”
“Under his bed,” she replied sadly.
The man got up, then started to pace with the paper in his hand, his above-average weight causing a low rumble throughout the hoause. He didn’t often pace. He found it to be a sign of weakness. But in this case he was certainly feeling weak in the knees, so he felt it was justified. This time.
He looked at his wife again. “And you didn’t find anything else?”
“I didn’t look anymore after I found that, but I’m sure he must have more of it lying around.”
He nodded and ran his fingers through his thinning hair in response. “Better leave it for now. I’m going to look up some information on this. Maybe it’s not as bad as we think.”
But he wasn’t sure. He didn’t know much about gays. They were scum as far as he was concerned, and the less he contacted that diseased culture, the better. But he knew that their symbol was the rainbow, and this pony seemed to be made from rainbows.
His anger boiled in his stomach. Did those homos somehow influence his son? Was that gay tendency rubbing off on him and turning him into one of those freaks?
He wanted to find out. He needed to find out. If this pony was some kind of sign that his son was now gay, then he needed to deal with it now, before whatever change that had come over him became permanent.
The floor rumbled under his large feet as he walked hastily toward the family PC on the wall next to the dining table. He tapped anxiously as he waited for the machine to finish booting up. Why can’t this thing load up any faster?
He quickly inputted the password, and then no sooner had the icons on the desktop loaded than he started furiously clicking the Internet Explorer icon.
The home page took eons to load, and once the last advertisement was displaying on the screen, he hit the search bar and typed in “Rainbow colored ponies,” making sure to search for images.
Lucky for me that Sarah taught me how to do that.
His foot tapped impatiently as the pitifully slow service provider filled the screen with images of all description. Actual ponies, jelly beans, beads, little girls, cakes . . . every possible result that corresponded with the search parameters was displayed on the screen, and it momentarily overwhelmed him. But one image seemed to be a common theme: a cartoon pony with large, cute eyes, a light blue coat, and most importantly a rainbow-striped mane and tail.
The image sent a slight wave of revulsion through him. It was so . . . cute.
Why would his son be interested in anything remotely cute? He liked guns. He liked the military. He liked action movies.
But this was a cute, adorable little pony, and after clicking on one of the pictures he discovered that it was apparently a character from My Little Pony.
He’d heard of that show, and his daughter watched it when she was a kid. But it was a horrible show, as far as he could tell. It had stupid characters, boring stories, and no imagination.
Why would his son be interested in that?
He had to know.
Clicking on the button which would take him to the original page, someplace called “deviantART,” he decided to find out if there were more cute ponies like this, and hoped that he wouldn’t find anything that disturbed him as much as the idea of Mark liking My Little Pony.
Horns and strings blared on the speakers as Mark and his friends sat in the black theater and watched the starship Enterprise flying across the screen.
The scene on the planet that Captain Kirk was leaving was one of the most breathtaking he had ever seen, and as the remarkable starship blasted its way through the star system following an attempt to save an alien race, the main theme swelled to a climax as the title of the film appeared.
The entire audience was in awe of the amazing musical score, and Mark had a grin plastered on his face that rivaled that of everyone in the theater.
He was only subconsciously aware that he was still thinking about Equestria Girls and how, despite his conviction that it would suck, he still wanted to see it.
Even though it was obviously a plot to sell more toys, he did have the feeling that it would be a good movie, especially since all of the main cast was intact and the same company was making it.
But regardless of what he thought of that movie, he knew that the movie he was currently watching was going to be awesome.
Soon he was transported visually into Admiral Pike’s office as he chewed out Kirk for his actions on the alien planet, and at that moment he was hooked to the movie and didn’t have a care in the world. In fact, it seemed like this afternoon would really end spectacularly.
Howard Adams’ stomach was reeling.
He didn’t think it was possible for such disgusting imagery to exist, yet there it was.
The mouse moved in response to his hand and clicked link after hideous link, opening up pictures that were truly disgusting. He saw the ponies doing things that he didn’t even think about trying, even after he had married. They even portrayed most of the ponies in gay relationships!
Then there was the profanity. It seemed to be laced throughout every single sentence of every comment on every picture he saw, and the discussion forums that had turned up in his search contained a thousand times as many words and sexual references.
The worst were the stories.
After a half hour of searching, he found a site with fan-written stories on it. Horrible stories about ponies engaging in sexual activity and kissing, and almost all of it implied that the ponies on the show were lesbians!
It was too much for him.
He shut off the internet explorer, and for a long while he didn’t say anything. The entire time, his wife had been standing off to the side in the doorway to the kitchen, and jumped a bit when Howard slammed his fist into the desk.
“We’re going to put a stop to this,” he said, a dangerous tone accompanying the words. “Right now.”
After shutting off the computer, he got up and began pacing again. He would never in a million years have thought that his own son would be guilty of being into something so vulgar as pornography and homosexuality, but the evidence was there before him. There couldn’t be anything good about the show itself, if their characters were homos, and despite not wanting to admit it to himself, he suspected for a while that his son might be gay.
He’d never had a girlfriend, and though he said it was because it just hadn’t found anyone that interested him, now Howard knew the truth. He had to be gay. After all, he liked pink and yellow ponies that danced around and then kissed and had sex with each other!
The anger boiling inside him at his son’s deception started to turn his face purple.
His wife knew better than to stick around when he started acting like this, so she walked back into the kitchen. She didn’t get more than a few steps in before Howard spoke, in a dangerously quiet tone. “We are going to have a talk with him when he gets home from that stupid movie. One way or another, I’m gonna get that gay junk out of his head.”
Without knowing what else to do, Julie simply nodded in agreement. She didn’t like how her husband got when he got angry, but if their son was practicing homosexuality, then something needed to be done about it, and if it came to it, she knew that her husband was more than capable of getting those thoughts out of her son’s head.
One way or another.
As he waved goodbye to his friends driving off into the darkness, he could tell something was wrong at home. He hoped it didn’t have anything to do with him, but judging by the look on his mother’s face, it had everything to do with him.
He walked up the path to his house, tightness building in his chest and his breath quickening in anticipation of what kind of reception he would get. As he walked into the living room, he saw his dad standing there, a firm look on his face.
“Sit down.”
The simplicity of the command betrayed the seriousness of the situation, which was underscored by the dangerously low tone of the voice.
As Mark sat down on the couch next to the wall, his dad started to circle around him like a hawk. Even his sister was standing there, with what looked like some kind of triumphant expression on her face, as though she were slaying a long-hated enemy.
The silence was deafening as his dad tried to figure out how best to approach the situation.
Finally, after many nerve-wrenching moments, he spoke.
“Do you have any idea why you’re sitting there?”
Mark looked at him confusedly.
“No.”
“Julie,” he said to his wife.
She produced a small sheet of paper. His father took it, then held it to his face. “Look what your mother found in your room today.”
He let the paper fall into Mark’s lap. Staring up at him was Rainbow Dash, a doodle he had created on his old homework as practice for drawing ponies. But he was still confused as to why his dad was angry.
“I’ll be honest, I had no idea you were capable of such gross sinfulness, son.”
The longer he sat there, the more confused he became. After the last statement by his dad, he looked at him with a frown. “What are you talking about?”
“I think you know what I’m talking about. That cartoon, My Little Pony. Do you realize how sinful that show is?” The man’s voice became louder and a little control was lost with each poisonous word. “They are a bunch of sissy ponies, and what’s more, I found out that they’re all gay lovers! They even have pornography drawn about them!”
Mark was stunned. “How could you even get that message from watching the cartoon?” he asked.
“I didn’t have to,” replied his dad with a touch of smugness. “I found the smutty art that you pony fans draw on the internet.”
“Dad—”
“I’m not finished!” His exclamation was loud enough to cause a twinge of pain in Mark’s ears. “I also found a bunch of stories online. Do you know what they had in them?”
Without waiting for an answer, he leaned in, the fury on his face sending fear pulsing through Mark’s body. “Sex! Between lesbians!”
“Mark,” said his mother. “We only want you to be into things that are appropriate for a boy. Masculine and wholesome things.”
“But it is wholesome!”
“Mark,” his dad said, ignoring the protestation, “Why would you like a show which is supposed to be for little girls? Like I would let a little girl watch a show that had that stuff in it.”
“But it doesn’t have any of that stuff!”
“And why should I believe you? Don’t you realize how dangerous that stuff is?”
His mom looked at him with sympathetic eyes. “Mark, do you want to have sex with ponies?”
He looked at his mother incredulously. “What?! No!”
“Do you masturbate with your stuffed ponies?”
He almost laughed at the silliness of the question, but still responded negatively.
“Look,” said Mark, “There’s nothing about that show which is bad, and in Philippians it says that anything that is lovely, virtuous, good report, and honest is something we should dwell on, an My Little pony is all of that and more!”
His dad wasn’t buying it. “Then why did I find such filthy images when I searched online about this stuff?”
“Because that’s what the fans of the show do.”
“Then I don’t want you to have anything to do with it,” his dad said, gesturing for emphasis. “If that show inspires such filthy and sinful and homosexual images and stories, then you are to have no part of it!”
Mark’s eyes went wide. “You can’t do that!”
“And you have no choice. ‘Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.’” The words that were once a comfort to Mark were being used against him, and he had nothing with which to fight back.
“You are to have no contact with anyone who likes this show, nor are you to watch it on television, the internet, or video. You are to make no art or stories or anything. This show has obviously turned you gay, and I won’t stand for anything like that under my roof.”
“You can’t be serious!” shouted Mark, tears flowing freely now at the accusation his father was throwing at him. “I’m not gay!”
His father drew close, pointing a finger right at Mark’s nose, with a positively vile expression on his face.
“You drew a rainbow-colored horse, and rainbows are things that fags use. And this show obviously has the gayness in it, otherwise I wouldn’t have found all that smut art and pornography.”
Mark started to get up, then quicker than he thought possible, his father shoved him back down. Then he looked up at Sarah, who had been loitering in the background, content to let her “gay” brother take all this heat. “Sarah, I want you to go into his room and dig around until you find all the pony junk that he worships. Then bring it down here.”
She nodded with a smirk, then raced upstairs to Mark’s room. He just sat on the couch, a giant weight of shame and anger seeming to crush the life out of his chest.
Ten agonizing minutes passed before Sarah came back downstairs with an armful of paper and toys. Among the objects was the Rainbow Dash plushie that Mark cherished. He had confided so many things in that small object, and though it was inanimate he considered it one of his greatest friends, its smiling, happy face and large eyes giving him all the love a stuffed pony could.
And then he heard his father say, “Start a fire in the garbage can out back.
“What?!” shouted Mark in protest.
His dad looked him square in the eye. “‘And they burnt their sin before the Lord’.”
Mark was beyond words at this point. He tried to fly up out of the chair and rescue his prize from Sarah’s arms. She could burn the paper and the small figures, but Rainbow Dash was special. She was custom-made by a friend, and he could never get another one like her. But his efforts to escape the iron grip of his father were in vain.
His arms held tight behind his back, Mark was led by his father like a prisoner through the kitchen to the back door and into the yard. This far north there was no city ordinance preventing garbage can fires, as long as the resident used a metal container. And at this moment Sarah was heading toward a metal oil drum which was sitting in a hole in the gound that they used for burning garbage.
Mark knew it well. He had been sent many times to the burn can to destroy all the garbage the family used on a daily basis.
He watched in agony as all the items in Sarah’s hand were tossed one by one into the can. She prolonged the ordeal as much as possible, savoring the cruelty she was inflicting on her “gay” baby brother.
He felt a knife to his stomach as he watched her pour lighter fluid on the pile, felt it twist in his gut as she lit a match, then felt the agony of the knife being ripped out as she dropped it in the can.
With a whoosh of air, the entire pile was aflame, casting a sickening orange glow over the entire scene. Tears of agony flooded out of Mark’s eyes and down his cheeks as he wailed in desperation, the smoke stinging his eyes.
Nobody heard, or if they did, they didn’t care.
His father held his face toward the fire, and he watched as the once happy Rainbow Dash started to char and burn before his eyes. The bright blue of the minky fabric was no match for the raw destructive nature of the fire. His eyes burned as he watched the flame make its way up her back, first destroying the lightning bolt on her flank, then engulfing the wings which were so carefully crafted, and then it reached the mane, that beautiful, rainbow-colored mane.
Finally, he watched as the face of his friend was consumed, the last thing to go being those large, lovely magenta eyes which had listened to his hopes and dreams, his nightmares and frustrations, for so long.
Then she was gone.
His energy long since vanished, he collapsed to his knees as the fire slowly died down. The only thing he could do was whisper, “Why?”
“It’s for you own good,” replied his dad in anything but a sympathetic tone.
His parents and sister left him in the yard, dazed from the torturous afternoon.
He didn’t know how long he had sat there, staring into the metal can which held the ashes of his once beautiful friend. He wished that there had been something left, but Sarah had made sure the toy had been completely soaked in lighter fluid.
The cold of the ashes was nothing compared to the chill in his heart.
Suddenly overcome with emotion, he got up and ran toward the house, throwing open the door and running through the kitchen and the living room, then up the stairs to the bathroom. His mother tried to stop him, but his father held up a hand to stop her. “Let him go. He needs to know that we don’t support such sinfulness in this house.”
With a forlorn expression, she nodded in agreement.
With the door shut and locked behind him, he let out all the emotion that had been building up inside him. The wailing might have been heard by his parents, but he didn’t care. All he cared about was that his parents just destroyed everything that really meant something to him in this life.
Well, almost everything.
Suddenly, he knelt down and began to pray.
“Holy Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be your name on all the earth,” he began, “I know I’ve done things that I’m not proud of before, and I’ve asked for forgiveness from you. I ask you again: if I’ve done something wrong, then please forgive me of my sin. But God, I can’t see how My Little Pony can be evil! It has good morals, it has none of the things my dad thinks it does, and it has inspired a lot of good in people.
“Lord, you are the master of the universe and all it contains. You’ve allowed this to happen, and though I’m angry, I want you to know that I’m not angry at you. You must have a reason for this to happen, and I hope I see this reason soon, if it be your will.
“Father, please forgive my dad. He means well, but he’s wrong, and I know it says that children are to obey their parents, but your word also commands us to be loving and tenderhearted, not what I just experienced.”
He felt anger start to rise in him, but knowing that anger has no place in a prayer, he pushed it aside.
“Father, I hope you show me your providence and love. I don’t feel that from my dad, or the rest of my family for that matter. Please, send someone into my life that can show me what real love is. Send me someone who can comfort me in my time of need, Lord. You are in charge of legions of angels. Please spare one and send her my way so I can know comfort once again.
“Lord, I don’t ask much, but I ask this with all my heart, and if it be your will, please let this happen soon. In Jesus’ blessed name I pray, amen.”
Relief often accompanied a prayer in Mark, and this time was no different. The weight he had felt since this whole ordeal began seemed to vanish, though he still felt a great hole in his heart where the knife had gutted him.
He trudged downstairs, and was met at their base by his dad.
“Don’t think you’re out of the woods yet,” he said, with traces of poison on the edges of those words. “I intend to punish you somehow for this.”
He looked at his dad, then built up enough courage for one shot. “Burning my stuff wasn’t enough?” he asked bitterly.
The round seemed to bounce off his dad like a .22 bullet on a battleship hull. “You are no longer allowed to play on the computer or watch the television without supervision. You are also no longer allowed to see your friends. You go to school, you come home. That’s it.”
“You can’t be—”
“And that’s not all. The only time you are allowed outside this house is when you’re at church, and then you are to sit with your mother and be by her side at all times so she can keep an eye on you. You don’t want to know the kind of torment I can rain down on you if you violate these rules.”
His face went dark. “But first, I’m gonna give you the beating of your life.”
He reached for his son’s arm, but Mark ducked, then bolted to the door. He knocked the screen clean off the hinges as he lunged through it, the exposed metal edges slicing into his arms.
He didn’t care.
All that mattered to him was escaping his father’s wrath. All these years he had boasted about how much he hated gays, and now that he thought his son was gay he was prepared to take out all that anger on him.
Soon he heard the sound of footsteps banging on their porch behind him. He didn’t turn around. He didn’t have to. “Get back here!” his father yelled into the night.
“Leave me alone!”
“Son! Look out!”
Mark had no intention of listening to his father. He kept running, then stumbled on something and fell forward. The impact against the hard surface he had landed on made him see stars, but they were nothing compared to what he saw next.
A brilliant white light filled his vision.
He had no idea what it was, but as he slowly got up he saw a blue speck swooping around and came to the conclusion that the bright light was some sort of tunnel.
The blue speck came closer, and soon it was joined by other, multicolored blobs. Eventually they got close enough that he could make out their shapes, and when the object he was looking at registered in his brain, he couldn’t believe his eyes.
There before him, just a few feet away from him and floating on a pair of wings, was a being which sent waves of joy coursing through his body.
“Well don’t just stand there gawkin’ at me,” said Rainbow Dash. “Come on!”
“You’re . . . you’re . . .”
“Awesome, I know.” She allowed her pride to puff her chest out a bit.
“But . . .”
“Hey!” she shot at him. “You waitin’ for an engraved invitation? Shut your trap and take my hoof!”
As he closed his mouth, which had been hanging limply open, she held out a hoof, and he took it, lifting himself into the portal. Suddenly the sides of the tunnel started to flicker. “Let’s go, everypony!” shouted Twilight Sparkle. “I’m not sure how much longer I can keep this spell going!”
Overcoming his shock at seeing these six ponies, he started climbing the ladder that they were all using to . . .
Wait, he thought. Ladder?
This was insane. He was walking up a glowing, golden ladder which seemed to stretch into heaven itself. The golden sides of the tunnel, even in its collapsing state, reminded him of the gilded city that John described in Revelation. Suddenly his brain switched to an old Negro spiritual he had heard:
I looked over Jordan,
And what did I see,
Comin' for to carry me home,
A band of angels comin' after me,
Comin' for to carry me home.
Swing low, sweet chariot,
Comin' for to carry me home;
Swing low, sweet chariot,
Comin' for to carry me home.
He certainly felt like the ponies were leading him home, and he hoped that home was Equestria.
The trip through the portal wasn’t as long as he thought it would be, considering the vast size of the ladder, but regardless he was soon standing in a beautiful meadow, with birds chirping and clouds meandering lazily through the sky.
He recognized the place immediately. It had to be Equestria, though it was far more . . . detailed than he remembered from the show. Looking at the grass, he could see the individual blades, and he watched as bugs crawled through them on their myriad missions.
He breathed. The air was sweet, as though it hadn’t been touched by the smog and soot of his world in all its existence. He even thought he heard a chorus of angels singing.
Oh wait. That was Fluttershy’s bird choir in a nearby tree, welcoming him to their land.
As the last of the ponies stepped through the portal, he watched as it closed up into nothingness, then looked over at Twilight, noticing for the first time that she now seemed to be made of flesh and blood, with a carefully combed mane and a shiny horn sticking up above her exquisitely violet eyes.
“It was no big deal,” she said, guessing he was marveling at the portal. “I merely used a combination transference and metaphysics spell, coupled with a timeline-alteration spell, which I used to cross the transdimensional barrier that exists between each known universe in the—”
Applejack put an orange hoof to Twilight’s mouth. “Let me handle this one, sugercube.” She turned to look at Mark with those gorgeous green eyes. “We basically traveled across time ‘n space to come get you at the behest of Princess Celestia.”
“Princess Celestia?” he asked, incredulous that someone was using her name in a way that sounded like they were referring to a real person.
“Yes-in-deedy!” piped Pinkie Pie as she hopped in place. He could have sworn he smelled a faint odor of cotton candy come off the party pony. “She’s ultra-super-nice and the best pony in all of Equestria!”
“Yeah,” chimed in Rainbow Dash, “she’s even more awesome than me!”
“A truly magnanimous sight to behold,” said Rarity, her beautiful purple mane waving in the gentle breeze.
“I’m sure you have a lot of questions,” said Twilight. “I’ll try to answer them to the best of my ability on the route to Ponyville, but I can’t really answer why you’re here.”
He looked at her quizzically. “Why not?”
“All I know is, she said that she received your message about wanting someone to comfort you, and sent us to retrieve you.”
He was dumbfounded, and slightly aghast. Could Celestia actually be God? He shook the ridiculous thought from his head. But if she wasn’t God, then how did she know he needed help?
Putting what he thought was a hand to his head, he felt something hard knock against his temple. He looked down, and saw not a hand, but a hoof. It was black and shiny, and what used to be his arm was now a foreleg covered in downy-soft white fur. He looked over his body in amazement. Every square inch of it was covered in white fur, and he now sported a blonde mane and tail. And most interestingly, on his flank was a large picture of a cross, with a bible superimposed on top of it.
A cutie mark. Which meant . . . “I’m a pony?!”
Twilight seemed to be confused. “Yes, you’re a pony. Weren’t you a pony when we found you?”
He looked at the purple unicorn in astonishment. “No, I was a human.”
“A what, now?” asked Rarity.
“Nothing,” he said quickly. He didn’t want to disrupt whatever illusion Celestia had set up, because she obviously had a reason which they weren’t aware of for hiding the human world from them.
“Come on,” said Rainbow Dash. “Let’s get to Ponyville. Maybe on the way I can show you some of my awesome moves!”
“That would be so cool!” exclaimed Mark, inciting a huge grin from Rainbow Dash. As they trotted into White Tail Wood, Applejack lingered behind with Twilight. “Do you think we should tell him yet that he cain’t go back?”
A worried expression crossed Twilight’s face. “We’ll let Princess Celestia do that. For now, he needs to get acclimated to this world.”
It took Mark a moment to get used to the fact that he was no longer wearing any clothes. The deeply-ingrained need for clothing was not something easily shaken. But after seeing several spectacular tricks performed by Rainbow Dash on the way to Ponyville he quickly forgot his shame and started to really enjoy himself.
It was not hard to be happy in a place like this. It seemed to exude a naturally radiant happiness, which he guessed was the “magic of friendship.” Or something. It didn’t really matter to him. Whatever the cause, this world just felt . . . right.
He trotted alongside his new friends, the love he felt for them multiplied by the fact that they were now standing right next to him. He would have to get used to the fact that they were real objects instead of animated cartoons, which made him a bit uneasy, but it was easy to push those feelings aside and bathe in the warmth their presence supplied.
“This forest is simply marvelous!” exclaimed Rarity. “Why, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen it like this before.”
“That’s because usually we only come in here for the running of the leaves,” said Fluttershy, her angelic voice giving Mark a slight case of cuteness-overload.
“Well perhaps we should visit the wood more often. It’s positively dazzling!”
Mark chuckled a bit at the prissy pony. It was just so unreal seeing them alive and in person. The idea that they were once cartoon characters clashed with the reality he now faced, but the fact that what was once fantasy was now reality filled him with a sense of euphoria that completely outclassed anything that a drug might provide.
Soon the group emerged from the edge of the wood into the meadows surrounding it, and as they walked over the rolling hills he saw on the horizon a sight that was at once familiar and alien: the blades of Ponyville’s windmill. The sight of the wood frame and canvas brought a smile to his face, and he found his cheek muscles protesting from use. He hadn’t smiled this much in all his life, nor had he experienced a natural high that refused to fade like this.
The closer he got, the more intense the high became, until his jaw ached from smiling so much. Twilight and her companions all noticed his happiness, and as with all true happiness it was extremely contagious. The seven of them all bore enormous grins as they entered the outskirts of the small town, and their happy demeanor was echoed in the townsponies that they all happened to walk by.
Mark was floored by a deep sense of belonging, and it was intensified by all the ponies he walked by saying, “Welcome home!”
The choice in words was a bit strange. He’d never been to Ponyville. Up until an hour ago it had been a fictional location in a made-up world of technicolor ponies. But now he was being welcomed to the town as though he had been living there all his life. He made a mental note to ask Twilight about it.
As they walked on the dirt roads through the town, he breathed in deeply. The smell was intoxicating: a mix of roses and other flowers, as well as baked breads and the earthy scents of fresh vegetables and fruit. It outclassed even the more well-stocked farmer’s markets that he’d been to, and it filled him with an even deeper euphoria than before.
It was almost too much. He wanted to pinch himself, but lacking fingers the best he could do was nip his shoulder. The pain told him that this was real, but his mind still refused to accept this as real.
Still, for a dream, it wasn’t a bad place.
His attention was draw toward a pony who was waving at him rather enthusiastically from the second story window of his house. He frowned; something about the pony was intensely familiar. Then it hit him that the stallion in the window reminded him of a cousin that died a few years back. But he chalked it up to coincidence.
As they walked through the town, he noticed that Twilight was leading him toward the train station. “Where are we going?” he asked the violet mare.
She looked back at him, her electric purple eyes locking with his. “We’ve been asked to take you to Princess Celestia. She has a special interest in you.”
A shock ripped through his chest. He was going to see her? The ruler of all Equestria and Twilight’s schoolmaster?
Despite the excitement of seeing the most powerful alicorn who had ever existed, he felt a bit disappointed. He had wanted to check out Carousel Boutique and maybe get a sugary snack from Sugercube Corner. But he shunted his disappointment aside. His destination was the glorious city of Canterlot, home of the most incredible castle in existence and Princess Celestia herself.
Suddenly filled with a renewed energy at the thought of meeting Celestia and perhaps finding an answer as to why he was here, he picked up the pace, with Twilight and gang trotting right up alongside him to keep up.
The time it took to get to Canterlot from Ponyville was never explicitly stated on the show, but he didn’t think it would take quite this long. Still, he was not without entertainment. Applejack had no shame in telling him some of her exploits on the farm, and Rainbow Dash insisted on filling him in on every aspect of her self-proclaimed awesomeness. Rarity made sure he knew exactly how to carry himself in the upper-class of Canterlot, and Pinkie Pie kept him smiling the whole trip with her crazy antics. He even got a few nervous squeaks from Fluttershy when he asked her about her animal friends. Twilight for her part was a bit trepid toward his implied knowledge about herself and her friends, but she chalked it up to coincidence. She knew that this pony had never been to Ponyville, because otherwise Pinkie Pie wouldn’t be planning on hosting a party in his honor when he returned, so it had to be either astute observational skill on his part, or else dumb luck.
Mark on the other hand was wondering if he should reveal that he had such intimate knowledge of the Mane Six, but ultimately decided against it, if only because Fluttershy would likely be highly embarrassed to know that a significant amount of her life had been seen not only by himself, but millions of people in his world. The others likely wouldn’t take it too well, either.
He instead chose to focus on the incredible circumstances he was currently in. The fact that he was now in the magical land of Equestria was one thing, but to be turned into a pony as well? It was uncanny, and a little unsettling. He’d wished for such a thing to happen, as all fans do, but now that it actually had happened it scared him.
Something even more important occupied his mind. He’d read many times in the Bible about how, when one died, he would be transformed into a new body. Philippians 3:20-21 repeated itself over and over in his mind, and he hoped that the implications weren’t correct.
Then again, if this were indeed Heaven, then he really didn’t mind leaving Earth behind forever.
A blast of hot steam filled the station with a white cloud of water vapor as the train pulled up on the track next to the platform. Clanking steel finally ground to a halt as the mighty engine of the Friendship Express brought its load of passenger cars onto the siding next to the station.
After the doors were opened by the telekinesis of the unicorn stewards, the Mane Six escorted Mark from the comfortable Pullman into the station proper. He was mostly silent as he glanced around, taking in all the sights and marveling at the sheer grandness of the city they were standing in. A mountain chain dominated the background, providing a breathtaking backdrop for the gilded buildings surrounding the depot. As Mark was led through the streets, his eyes caught sight of a wonderful sight: hanging on the side of the mountain, seeming to defy gravity, was the enchanted castle of Canterlot.
They approached the grand edifice, the sheer scale of the place filling them with a sense of awe, and then made their way through the courtyard into the palace.
As he stepped through the giant pair of double doors, Mark caught his breath. The artwork on the show didn’t do the magnificence of the palace justice, with its ornately carved woodwork and gilded accents. He saw courtiers going about their business, their noses high up in the air in that traditional Canterlot snobbiness, and the boy giggled a bit as he thought of the ponies walking straight into a wall from not being able to see past the bridge of their nose.
Twilight led the way through a few short corridors until they arrived at the main audience chamber. Its sheer scale dwarfed even the large hall they passed at the entrance, and there, sitting on a beautifully crafted throne, was Princess Celestia.
He had been unprepared for her presence. Though she was clearly a physical being, there was an otherworldliness about her which should have been unsettling, but it merely complimented her grand posture. The whiteness of her coat seemed to possess an ethereal glow about it, with a softness that reminded him of duck down. Her mane and tale flowed gently though there was no wind to carry them, and they seemed to be a miniature version of the Aurora Borealis. Their glow reflected off the breastplate she wore, which appeared to be pure gold inlaid with gemstones and intricately engraved with a complex pattern of swirling lines. It echoed the golden crown which she wore on her head and the single violet gem that was embedded in the center. Her intense magenta eyes locked on him, reflecting the warm smile she pleasantly wore.
“Welcome, Mark Adams.”
That voice . . . it was at once inviting and intoxicating, like the voice a mother would use when comforting her baby, and it filled Mark with love and adoration.
They all bowed in her presence, and as they rose she seemed to glide off the throne, walking down the ornately woven carpet beneath her hooves seemingly on a cushion of air.
“I’ve been looking forward to meeting you, my child,” she intoned.
“We all have,” said Twilight. “In fact—”
“Not now, Twilight,” interjected Celestia. “I would like to speak to this young colt alone, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course, Princess,” replied Twilight, bowing as she said it, and then the ponies left the chamber, leaving Mark and Celestia alone.
“You must be filled with questions. All will be revealed in time.”
He walked alongside the alicorn as she led him through the castle. The architecture was constantly varying, and he found himself continuously impressed by the sheer variety. Artwork filled the walls, and above him on the ceiling a beautiful mural was painted depicting great unicorns in Equestria’s past.
As they made their way through the castle, Celestia was eerily silent. He wondered if he should begin a conversation with her, but his sense of decency overrode any desire to make small talk. She was royalty, and he wasn’t about to risk offending her by instigating idle chatter.
Soon he found himself in a small chamber surrounded by all manner of telescopes and sextants, and what he guessed were star maps.
“This is one of my favorite rooms in the castle.”
He should have been used to the enigmatic nature of Celestia from her attitude in the show, but he was still at a loss.
“It was the first place that Twilight Sparkle requested to be taken to. As Equestria has little use for a navy, the chart room seemed a harmless location for her to spend time. Knowing my young student, I had assumed the library would be the first request, but there you are. I thought it fitting to take you here first.”
He nodded, not quite understanding her motivations, but appreciative that she had thought of him. He glanced around. “It’s a pretty cool place.”
“Indeed it is,” she agreed. As she said the words, he caught something floating beneath them: remorse. Had something happened in here?
“Princess? Are you alright?”
“Yes, my child,” she replied with regret, “but I’m afraid this situation is more complicated than you might like. Please, sit.”
He lowered his hindquarters to the floor, supporting his weight with his forelegs as he had seen the ponies do countless times on the television show, and waited patiently as Celestia chose the right words.
“You are from an entirely different world than ours, aren’t you?”
He nodded.
“This is not something I was not aware of, but I wanted you to know just how real this situation is. To transcend the barrier between any two worlds requires great magic, and something that powerful is often too much for one pony – or one person – to handle.”
He frowned, then a lump of fear formed in his chest. He swallowed to suppress it. “Princess Celestia, what happened on earth that led me here?”
“You were fighting with your parents, were you not?”
“Yes,” he replied with trepidation, afraid of where she was going with this.
“Well, anger often blinds us to the obvious. In your case, you blindly stumbled into the street outside your home into the path of an oncoming car. I’m afraid you didn’t survive.”
It took many seconds for his mind to process what she had just told him. Finally he looked up at her. “So you’re saying I died? Then why am I here?”
She again paused, seeming to choose her words carefully. “I am not the most powerful being in all creation, Mark. I’m not omniscient, omnipresent, or omnipotent. There are other beings more powerful than I am, and one such being is the Supreme Ruler over the multiverse. He and I constantly communicate on a level that other beings cannot comprehend, and he informed me that he had heard your prayer. When he did, he was moved by compassion.”
She locked eyes on him. “Millennia ago, he sent his son to establish a new way of life for you and your kind. But many followers of this new way do not obey many of his commands. They forsake love for hate, compassion for hard-heartedness. They become the very thing my Master opposes. And if they infect children with this evil, then he is all the more upset.
“So his heart was moved with compassion when you asked to be taken away. He thought long and hard on how to do it properly, and in the end, after considering all possibilities, he decided to use your impending death to bring you here, for only an event as powerful as the end of life can offer enough magical energy to transport a being from one world to another, even if that magic is focused by a unicorn as powerful as Twilight Sparkle.”
He struggled to take it in.
Such a revelation about himself was something that he never in a million years would have thought could happen or would happen. And yet, here he was.
He looked up at Celestia. She looked down at him. “I hope you understand, Mark. I hope you understand that my Lord, in his infinite wisdom, could see everything, and he only did this because he loves you.”
He nodded. As the idea crept in that he would no longer be a part of the cruel world that he once inhabited, he started to feel a warmth come over him.
And as it did, he felt his lips curl into a smile.
Red and white flashing lights splashed over the neighborhood from the ambulance parked in the middle of the road. Equipment lay on the asphalt from the whirlwind of activity the preceding minutes had brought, but the activity had long ceased.
The owner of the Chevy Malibu that struck the boy was deeply distraught and offered his deepest sympathies and apologies to the grief-stricken parents, who were still standing on the curb where they were held out of the way of the paramedics.
But the efforts of the EMTs were too little, too late.
Apologies and condolences were offered by the police officer in charge of the scene, who had led the parents into their house so they could grieve in the comfort of their living room.
Yet despite the horror and tragedy of the scene, something amazing had occurred. Neither the driver nor the parents had seen it occur. It wasn’t even noticed by the EMTs until after they had called time of death. The event had happened on the face of the boy as he lay dying in the street.
Bones had been shattered in the impact, and internal injuries compounded upon one another in the boy’s broken body.
But despite the torment inflicted on it, his face conveyed a different emotion entirely.
For on his face, deep and unchanging, was a permanent, contented smile.
Author's Note
Well, I hope you enjoyed that little one-shot.
A friend of mine wanted me to write this story for him, and I was all too happy to oblige. He seemed pretty pleased with it, and now I'm happy to share it with all of you.
Thanks for reading!