Oh, What a Wonderful Morning.
The sun is very well known to be a giant ball of radioactive hydrogen, on its way to becoming helium, as it is crushed in on itself furiously by gravity. However, minutes away at least by the standards set forth by light traveling through space, the sun is not so harsh. The very edge of it is only now beginning to peak across the horizon; and only the very feeble and weak rays of sunshine are able to burst through the mist and early morning clouds. It is these very weak rays of light that are miraculously able to make the very long journey through space and through the atmosphere before finally making the last push through the curtains to land on the closed eyelids of our good friend.
It is a peculiar thing that I am forced to describe this pony in this manner. For in most stories, the main character is often a dashing knight or troubled youth. They are often the underdog or the idol of worship. However, in the case of our find friend here, he is simply average. Average is about the only word that can describe our simple friend. His cutie mark is a very simple circle, which symbolizes that he is a jack of all trades, able to do an average job on just about everything but is master of nothing. One would think that having the special talent of not being special, if anything, would fill a pony with complex emotions however, complex is about the only thing that this pony seems to be incapable of.
As his eyes opened on this almost sunny morning, he poked of hoof outside of the covers to feel the cold air that surrounded his bed. Like any stallion, he is somewhat obsessed with the state of temperature in his surroundings. When active and awake, he must have things as cold as possible to allow his body to work most efficiently. However, when curled into the confines of his blankets, the cold acts only to keep him asleep. Slowly, he exposed himself to the air outside and removed himself from his cotton cocoon. As he attempted to pull himself out of bed, he found that his mind and body were not nearly as active as advertised when the sun’s light first reached his eyelids. Thrown awkwardly over the top half of his bed and his night stand, where the alarm clock sat undisturbed and prime to go off, he found himself unable to move.
Lullabied by the tick Tock of the clock, our friend fell asleep draped over the night stand next to his bed. Like any stallion not yet tied down by the bonds of a romantic relationship, he often fantasized about what his dream-girl might be. This sometimes led to very disturbing discoveries of one’s own psyche. For it was not until a few nights ago, that a dream led him to finally discover that he has the strangest obsession with wings. Even though he himself was an earth pony, he found himself fantasizing about a young mayor with wings.
It was this very fantasy that his subconscious mine decided to revisit. In his dream, she laid back comfortably on a cloud as he nervously hung on to her for dear life. “So do you believe that Pegasus are superior to earth ponies?” she asked in his fiendish style Dream-He was obviously forced to nod his head in agreement, as the last thing he wanted was for her to allow him to fall straight to the clouds. “Good there’s nothing I like more than a pet who knows his place. In fact I think it’s time for you to show me how submissive you are” our average friend nodded briskly in agreement as the top of his head was patted by one of the wings his eyes could not help but to lock onto. She then picked him up and held him over the edge of the cloud allowing him to look down. “As your reward, I’m going to take my little pet and…”
Ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring!
The alarm clock clacked and clattered off right next to his head. In his surprise he fell off of his precarious perch and to the ground. As he fell, he attempted to turn off the clock. However, he simply ended up grabbing it before finally losing his grip mid fall and successfully launching it out his bedroom window. As our stallion friend was left confused and alarmed on the floor, he looked upside down at the broken window.
“Fiddle sticks.”
Picking himself up off of the ground, he looked at several posters around his room, ones of all the famous Pegasus fliers’ spreading out their wings. In his sleep-disturbed and slightly hungry state he could not admire the artwork on his walls. Instead, turned to go take a shower.
For our friend, the act of waking up must work in several stages. Stage one being a shower to make his body and mind clean and ready for the new day.
As he grumbled and mumbled, he managed to walk into the bathroom. Though I would like to describe it as stepping into the tub, his fumbling motions were more of cider-enriched dancing as he tried to work his own hooves through the drowsy state he was in. Once in the shower, he twisted the knob on full blast. Temperature being one of the stallion’s main concerns when dealing with room air quality; it was not a concern when dealing with water. Whether it’s freezing cold or piping hot, he enjoys the clean feeling it gives him as yesterday’s dirt is washed away from his coat. With his mouth open he waited for the blast of water. As the pipes garbled and churned, he grew slightly suspicious, but before he had the forethought to step out of the shower, outburst a torrent of orange dirty water from deep inside the pipes. If our average friend had prioritized getting the newspaper first, he would have seen the water company’s warning notice alerting that they have fixed a break in the line overnight.
Spitting out the orange color water, he was forced to wait for the pipes to run clean before he could finally finished his shower and move on to the kitchen. On his way to the kitchen he bashed his leg on the coffee table as he does most mornings. Though his body was now clean, his mind was frustrated by the unpleasant taste of rusty water. Not allowing the failed attempt of a morning shower to affect his day, he thought he could simply make up for it by enjoying breakfast more so than usual. Reaching for two different types of cereal, he also acquired sugar and a banana. Cutting the banana into slices and then those slices in half, he theorized that your tongue could register shape and that was why cracker shaped like objects tasted better than normal crackers; he put hard work into the making of the bowl.
Finally topping it off with nuts and strawberries, he went to the fridge. Opening the door, he found himself speechless. Closing the door briskly he decided to allow the universe time to make up for its transgressions. As he opened the door for the second time, he was faced with the reality that there was no milk. His mind raced to try to think of any source of milk within walking distance. Though he had neighbors none of them were ponies capable of producing milk and the only cow he knew had moved some weeks earlier. He often fantasized about what a Pegasus might look like if she was also a milk mare. But now was not a time for boyish fantasies. He had the hardest decision of his life to make. To throw away an entire bowl of not just cereal but the perfect cereal, or equally terrible, to try to enjoy the bowl dry. It was only when the stallion was forced to face his darkest hour that a small solution peeked out from the corner of his eye. His coffee maker was full of water and only needed fire to make it disburse the delicious black liquid who’s caffeine could wash down any dry treat.
Swiftly he started the pot and waited for the right amount of fluid to fill the mug to defeat the breakfast villain placed before him. As he allowed his still fatigued and somewhat sleepy mind to drift about the possibilities of self-restocking refrigerators, he noticed a small black line moving across the table with a destination of his bowl of cereal. Snapping back into reality he inspected the black line. As his eyes focused, he saw it was long and made of many segments. Each segment had about six legs and at the front of this demonic train of external Skelton parts was a head gifted with a set of pincers and feelers found only in the deepest scum pits of the underworld. To this very day, it is a complete mystery as to where his hoof acquired the phone book to Cantorlot, especially considering he lived in Ponyville. With that information being of no relevance he raised his mighty weapon high into the air and slammed it down with the voices of a thousand ponies screaming “kill it with fire”.
Unfortunately for our average friend, it would appear that his ability to aim is also average. Though he succeeded in destroying the demonic hell spawn that attempted to crawl across his nice clean counter, he failed to miss the rim of the bowl. His dry and simple breakfast took flight. Its new mission in life was to spread small granulated sugar with pieces of fruit and two different types of cereal all over his clean floor and counter. Our stallion friend always knew that bugs have been created by some form of evil wizard bent on keeping him out of old boxes left in the garage. Now it was very clear that they had moved on to a new target, his breakfast.
Our friend, heartbroken and tired, stared at the mess made of his nice clean floor. With a deep sigh, he brushed the mess off the counter and onto the floor. Unwilling to start the day on an empty stomach, he began walking through the kitchen looking for ingredients. There was always one simple piece of decadence that would allow a stallion to start his day with pride. This time he would make sure he had everything before committing any ingredients. It was our young friend’s intention to make the mighty and powerful sandvich.
This stallion had an entire morning to make up for in one delicious piece of food and he intended to make the most of it. The bread was quickly gotten out of the bread box. From his fridge, he acquired olives, lettuce, cheese, and tomato and various other liquid condiments. From his pantry, he acquired the mighty hey bacon, watermelon seeds and flowers. This would be the sandvich of Celestica herself, only royalty’s lips fit to touch such a magnificent creation and yet he alone will receive its blessings.
As our friend looked over to the coffee pot he saw that it was not yet done. However, it was no matter. This sandvich would take time to make as most works of art do. With somewhat a sense of paranoia about him, he set to work assembling the wonderful ingredients. The sandvich was complex, tall and magnificent. Such a beautiful work of stallion-hood brought a tear to our friend’s eye.
He thought of things that might go wrong if he attempted to eat the sandvich now, so with great care he began putting away all the ingredients. Being sure to close the refrigerator door and making certain to keep his pantry organized, he tidied up. Even with the floor still a mess he seemed confident that he could eat his sandvich in peace. Picking up the loaf of bread as the last thing to put away, he found he could not find the twist tie. He performed a quick scan of the counter before looking in his seat. Scanning the sugar planes that were once his kitchen floor, he did not see anything that resembled the twist tie.
He knew it was wrong and had heard his mother and father argue about it at least a hundred times but he had no choice. Doing the thing that every stallion does, he held the top of the bag in one hoof and spun the bottom of it vigorously. Afterwards he put the bread upside down onto the counter until a new solution could be found. It was then however, the dark nature of the world he lived in was revealed. Now that the bread was upside down, he could see the bottom piece of bread that consisted of mostly crust. However, rather than being a dark brown as most pieces of bread are, that piece had a sea of black, green, and purple growing in fuzzy patches all over it.
The royal sandvich he thought to be his savior, his princess here to take care of him, was none other than a changeling sent to deceive him and drag him back to the dark cold place from whence it came. Stricken by grief and rage he smacked the evil sandvich away from him. The sandvich, now with its cover blown, growled and breathed fire as it finally fell to the floor unable to continue its un-holy quest.
Once more our friend is left without a proper way to start his day. Forced to look at his kitchen devoid of the proper ingredients to make a decent breakfast, his eye caught a glimpse of a small shimmer of hope. His coffee was now completely brewed and ready for his embrace. With a tear running down his face, he picked up the last good thing he had left in this world and set it on the counter in front of him. Luckily he did not like milk in his coffee; however, he quite enjoyed honey. Quickly moving back to the pantry, he gathered the jar of honey and sharply twisted off the lid, setting it down on the counter next to his now full coffee cup. The honey jar was sticky and shed off the scent of sweetness. Our stallion friend quickly got a spoon and dipped out a large scoop of honey. Finally he could have something however small, and maybe something, to hold the world still and allow him the chance to breathe. As he tried further to pull out the large mass of honey, he was met with some resistance. In his fumbling he did not hear the coffee cup as it was nudged to the edge of the counter.
Alarms going off in his brain screamed at him to ignore the spoonful of honey and look to the coffee cup. He only caught a glimpse of it as it disappeared below the counter. In a fraction of a second he entered a state of mind not seen in this world for thousands of years. “No!” he said as he moved with swift speed and agility. Diving he caught up to the cup and quickly matched its speed. Grasping it, he turned the cup up right and saved every last drop of the precious liquid that had been strung through the air.
As our stallion friend fell to the floor with a thud, he opened his eyes to find his coffee cup full and unharmed. Our friend was victorious. The acts of the entire world attempted to rob him of what was rightfully his. And in an act of defiance he took it back. Standing up, he felt the fire flow through his veins as the sweet taste of victory was interrupted by the lip of the cup kissing the lip of the counter. Instantly the cup shattered using its upward, velocity to spread bits of broken mug and coffee into the still open jar of honey.
Silent and defeated, our stallion friend stared at his destroyed kitchen. Hopes and dreams crushed beneath the hooves of this world’s most notorious evil entities. Dropping the handle of the mug onto the already messy floor he walked back upstairs to the welcoming embrace of his bed.
