There are certain cycles one cannot escape; the water cycle, for instance, is extremely hard to escape due to the fact that it happens all around us, and no matter how many times you scream at the weather pegasi to stop, the cycle will continue. A laundry cycle is similarly hard to escape, because no matter how many times you refuse your mother of doing this simple chose, the lusty calls of the clothes spinner will call you back.
There are also less tangible cycles, ones that draw you in inside of your everyday life, sucking you in and destroying you, piece by piece, little by little. Your soul is crushed under the monotony of these cycles, and you slowly drown in the rising ride of unseen terror, while you walked along blind and dumb.
“Damn it, Big Mac!”
Before I tell you a story about that, though, I have to tell you this story.
“Eeyup?” came the voice of the large red stallion. He sat on his large rump, staring at the sister who had yelled his name.
“We’s ain’t doin’ too good!” Applejack yelled. “And yer behind it! Ever since Ah started listening to how you wants to run this farm... it’s all gone down the shitter!”
Big Macintosh, a piece of hay sticking out from his mouth, chewed on it once, then gave his reply.
“Eenope.” Due to generations and generation of inbreeding, Big Mac could only say “Eeyup” and “Eenope.”
“Don’t ya backtalk me, Mister!” Applejack yelled, frothing at the mouth. This had nothing to do with her anger, she had been bitten by a raccoon with rabies earlier. “If I could divorce you, Ah would! And before you pull another one of those Celestia-damned sassbacks on me, just because we sleep together don’t mean we’s married!”
“Eeyup.”
“Fuckin’ hell, there yous go again!” Applejack screamed, then looked over at Apple Bloom, who was sitting on the floor and shoving crayons in her nose while drinking some motor oil. “And you... ya a fuckin’ waste of space! Ah regret ever spittin’ ya out of my babymaker!” Applejack gave her brother sultry look. “But Ah can’t refuse the goods, ya know?”
“Fuck you, you ain’t mah real ma!” Apple Bloom yelled, taking a swig of motor oil and hacking up a tooth.
“Um, Ah just explained thats Ah was,” Applejack said, cursing her inbred daughter’s stupidity.
“Shit, everypony hit the deck!” yelled Granny Smith from in the kitchen. “Meth Lab’s about to blow!”
Everypony did as she said, and fell to the floor. When the explosion that surely would have killed them never came, Applejack slowly rose to her hooves, dusting herself off.
“Well, Ah’d say that’s enough acting like rednecks for one day,” she said, dropping that ridiculous manner of speaking. “Ah know it’s mighty dumb, but we’ve got to pay homage to our roots one way or another.”
Apple Bloom sneezed, and a few crayons shot out of her nose.
“Alright, Apple Bloom, go to your room and do your calculous homework,” Applejack instructed. “Ah don’t want you to fall behind, and you got an A- on your last test and Ah’m worried for your education! Get to it!”
“Ah think one of the crayons is touching my brain,” Apple Bloom lamented.
“That’s biologically impossible,” her sister reminded her. Looking over at Big Mac, she sighed. “She’s a hoof-ful sometimes, but you gotta admit, we’re raising her as best as our parents could have.”
“Eeyup,” Big Mac confirmed.
Applejack gave her brother a look. “You do know that we aren’t acting anymore, right? You can talk normal-like now.”
Big Mac looked down at his hooves, blushing. Applejack raised an eyebrow. “What’s wrong, Big Mac? Somethin’s eatin’ at you, Ah can tell.”
“Well, Ah must confess, Ah do like the act,” Big Mac muttered, still staring at his hooves. “Why, don’t you ever?”
“Sometimes,” Applejack admitted. “For instance, in order to get my mouth forth to look exactly like rabies, Ah actually had to go to Fluttershy and get a raccoon sick with rabies to bite me.”
Big Mac and Apple Bloom exchanged horrified glances. Applejack smiled, a bit of foam leaking from the corner of her mouth.
Applejack chuckled, breaking the terrified silence. “It’s quite alright Big Mac, just as long as you remember it’s an act. If Ah so much as catch you putting a hoof on these Apple-hips, I’ll take off your testicles and make soup out of ‘em.”
Big Mac nodded, swallowing hard as hard as he could as Applejack walked away from him, hips swaying voluptuously. He closed his hind legs to protect his fruits, and a bead of sweat made its way down his forehead as he watched the magnificent apple-bucking thighs trot away.
Applejack, now finished with the odd Redneck-Ritual, decided to head out to do what she always did to relax; buck some apples. And this, my dear friends, is where the soul-crushing cycle comes into play.
Heading out into the far end of the orchard, Applejack enjoyed the loveliness of her grand estate. The grass was singing, the birds were shining, and the sun was growing; everything was in its right place.
She picked a nice, prime tree, and gave it a good kick. A few good sized apples fell out of the tree, including one with a small acoustic guitar swung around it.
“What the...” she said, bending down to get a better look at the fruit that had fallen from the tree. A small crack in the center of the apple opened up, and it began to speak.
“Do not be alarmed, young pony!” it said in a very nasally voice. “The name is Jeff Magnapple, and I’m here to sing you the song of my people!”
The apple cleared its throat, and began to sing. “When you were young you were the king of apple blossoms—”
Applejack crushed the talking apple under her hoof. “Bad apples,” she said, wuping the crushed bits of fruit and guitar-wood off on the grass. Looking up at the tree, she felt somewhat sad; she had barely bucked any apples, but the god damn singing apple had ruined the mood for it.
As she stared at the bits of the apple that still remained, an epiphany dawned over her. She sat there, staring at what was once the apple, and through her mind, dusty gears began to turn. Hundreds and thousands of ideas, some involving apples, and some not, flew through her brain. The sun, which should have shone with the glory of Shrek as the sunion, was instead was a giant apple.
The heretical thoughts flying through her began to form and take shape, making her realize the true potential of her life, and of the world. It didn’t need to be a world of onions and horses and elements of harmony— it could be a world of so much more! She didn’t need to occupy herself with bucking apples, day in and day out, only ever-so-often her boring life rocked by some sort of mundane event, or once in a great while having a kingdom saving task shatter the world of work that surrounded her. She could be so much more then this, and she could bring forth a new world; a world of apples. And with this, Applejack broke free of the vicious, soul-crushing slavery.
A breeze of fate blew through the orchard, dislodging some of the apples shaken loose by Applejack’s bucking, and a very large one fell out of the tree and landed with a hard BWAMFTH! on the poor pony’s head.
“Apples,” a dazed Applejack muttered, the potential visionary's mind only filled with the thoughts of the juicy fruit, and all she could do to cultivate them.
And with that, the cycle reclaimed its victim, and cackled madly as her soul was crushed between its mighty thighs.
