Beautiful Hearts and Suicide Notes
“To the finder of this note:
I’m sorry.
I’m sorry for all the pain I’ve caused you. All of you. I promise I never meant for things be this way. All I ever wanted was to smile and laugh and be happy like you. To wake up every day and look at the birds and the trees and the sun and feel the warmth I heard so many stories about. To look in the mirror and see my reflection and look at it like someone I could trust. I wanted to walk out the door and be greeted by the bright faces of ponies who cared about me, and I cared about, too. Maybe I could brighten up their day just a little, if only for a second, with a hug or kind word or a muffin. Maybe if they felt sad I could cheer them up, and maybe they would do the same for me. And finally, I always wanted to fall asleep every night with the hope that things might just be better tomorrow.
But I hurt you, and for that I couldn’t get what I wanted. I didn’t deserve it. My existence didn’t bring you happiness, only anger and pain. I tried to give you the love that I had, but every time I tried to make you happy, I always messed up. I tried my very, very, very best, but no matter how hard I tried I only made things worse for you. You hated me, and I understand why. I hated me, too. If you’ve taught me anything, it’s that being different is just too hard, and that’s why you don’t want ponies like me. How can we all live in harmony if there are ponies like me around? Somepony could get hurt; that’s why we all have to be the same. You could never trust me, so neither did I. Somepony like me has no place, you said. I make you sick, you said. Just go away, you said.
So I did. And you replaced me. And nothing that really mattered was lost. Everyone will like it better this way. No one will be sad or angry because of me. Now that I’m gone, you can all finally be happy. I won’t mess anything up ever again. Everypony will be the same. Nopony else will cry again, not even me. I’ve cried enough. You can wake up surrounded by ponies you love, and who love you, too.
Every day I woke up alone. I would walk up to the mirror and see a pony who’s caused nothing but hurt. Those eyes reminded me of everything I’d done. They would fill with tears until I didn’t have any more left. I just wanted to close them forever. I’d walk outside and no matter what I’d do ponies wanted me gone. At the end of the day I’d cry myself to sleep with nothing but regrets. Maybe I won’t get to see daylight shining in my window again. Maybe I won’t ever get to feel the warmth of a friend’s hooves, comforting me, telling me it’s going to be OK. Maybe I’ll never be able to do the same for somepony else. But if me being gone makes you happy, then that’s what I’ll do, because really, it’ll make me happy, too.
Goodbye,
I love you,
Derpy Hooves”
You could not believe it. You dashed the note away with a frantic wave of your hoof. For a moment, all you could do was simply sit, petrified, and allow the shock to set in.
You’d been asked by Rainbow Dash to bring Derpy to Sugarcube corner to attend the surprise birthday party she and her friends had planned. Everypony who was anypony was going to be there. The decorations, the catering, the ambiance, everything was lavishly planned on a grand scale, no expense spared, and all for the shy little mailmare. Fluttershy mentioned at some point or another that she‘d noticed Derpy being especially melancholy, so naturally Pinkie Pie wouldn’t rest until they’d shown some grand gesture of kindness to her. There was more than that, though, and you knew it. Not everypony said it, but her adorable, clumsy mannerisms; her warm, gentle personality; and her uniquely adorable smiling face always found a way to turn even the darkest, blackest of nights into a cozy, friendly evening. Everypony had always loved her, but never got the opportunity to show it; either they were too shy or Derpy was too shy to reciprocate it.
The wind slammed the front door to Derpy’s home behind you, jolting you back into consciousness. Frantically, as if the entire structure were engulfed in flames and crashing down around you, you dashed about and searched for her. From the threshold of the door, where you found the note, up through every room you could think of, you ripped the place apart for her. You turned over furniture. You looked in closets. All the while shouting her name on permanent repeat.
“Derpy!” you cried violently.
“Derpy, where are you!?” you cried again, this time your voice cracked as your eyes filled with tears. You nearly collapsed to the floor under the weight of your distress, faltering slightly in your step as you continued your search.
“Derpy, please be ok…” you sobbed softly, sorrow overtaking your capacity to yell.
Rushing upstairs and through a long, cavernous corridor of a hallway, you arrived at the door to Derpy’s bedroom, the final room to search. As you reached hurriedly to open it, you heard a horrible, thunderous crashing sound. Wood hit against wood, followed by a great muffled thump.
“Derpy!!” You yelled hysterically at the absolute top of your lungs. You didn’t care if anyone heard you; all you cared about was that Derpy was alive and safe. Heart pounding, breath racing, you pushed against the door with all your might. Not a budge. The lock was sealed tight. You pushed again, fueled by sheer, unrelenting determination. Still nothing.
Your resolve would not waver. Backing up several feet, you braced yourself to completely demolish the door. Taking a large breath, holding it in, you rushed at the large, locked, wooden door like some enraged bull. The door stood firm, and the resulting shock dashed you against the ground like a mutilated rag doll. Adrenaline, however, made you impervious to the pain, and if anything it augmented your drive even more intensely than it already was.
You backed up several more feet this time, to the point where you almost touched the opposite end of the hallway. No force in the world could keep you from her now. You steadied your feet, lowered your head, closed your eyes, and ran, ran like you never ran before in your entire life. You ran faster than you would than if you were running for your own life.
The door gave way, splintering with impact and sending you flying, bullet-like into the room. It took you a moment to collect yourself, to make the world beneath your feet stop spinning wildly and for your eyes to make out anything other than brilliant splashes of colors. Colors, though, eventually gave way to silhouettes, and then still to the world. The room was bleakly, unnervingly dark. The blinds draping the windows let in only the faintest slivers of light, sporadically casting thin white blades over the walls. Scattered, evanescent bits of dust added dimension to the light before receding into the darkness once more. As your eyes adjust, the first thing you are able to see is Derpy, lying motionless on the floor across the room.
It soon became the only thing you could see; the only thing that mattered. Nearly tripping over what remained of the door, then again over a frail, fallen wooden chair obscured by the darkness, you rushed to Derpy’s side. Placing a hoof at the arch of her back and another at the base of her neck, you cradle her limp form in your embrace. Her eyes and her mouth were closed, not a muscle stirred, and her thin, delicate frame brought to mind holding a little bird.
“Derpy…” you whisper as the tears drip in cascades down your face. The world seemed so small now, compressed to the shape and size of a single pony, and it was an empty world. A world without the bright eyes and warm smile of a pony who never thought ill of anyone, that is what you saw, looking on like Luna from the moon in her infinite solitude.
You could no longer endure it. You collapsed, placing your head on Derpy’s chest and dolorously sobbing uncontrollably. Moments became eternities as a million thoughts darted in and out of your mind at breakneck speed: what you should have done differently, what you’d do if you only had one more day with her, apologizing for any wrongdoing you might have done to her. But all the thoughts were transient in your sadness, and all melted together into static.
You felt a strange sensation as you pressed against Derpy’s body. You paused, pulling her closer to pinpoint its origin. Her chest moved faintly up and down in a slow dirge of a rhythm.
You pulled back, jolting into a kneeling position, still holding her in your forelimbs. Your eyes widened as impulsively, almost instinctively you called to her, urging her to wake with your hooves and words.
“Derpy! Wake up, Derpy! Please be OK, Derpy, please!” you cried, the magnitude of the world flooding back to you, wanting nothing more than for her to experience its majesty even for a moment.
For a second, there was silence.
As her chest moved inward and outward in full, complete breaths, her eyelids parted in the smallest fraction visible, if only barely so in the darkness of the room.
Jubilantly, you threw your forelegs around her shoulders into an embrace. Her eyes jolted open, taking a moment to register the universe she found herself in. Dumbstruck, she looked about the room and then to you.
“Wha… What’s going on?” she calmly, sincerely asked.
“You almost… left us, Derpy.” You replied, your voice quivering with relief and sorrow.
“Us?” she inquired.
“Yes, us, your friends.” You told her.
“I… I didn’t think I had any of those.” She said in nearly a whisper, half to you, half to herself.
“Of course you do!” You said, raising your voice slightly and pulling her out of your embrace for a moment. You placed her hoofs on her shoulders, your eyes parallel, looking in to one another in a connection that neither of you could fully explain.
“You’re surrounded by ponies that care about you, and you’d see that if you’d just open-” you paused. A beam of light fell across her face, divinely illuminating her amber eyes, each looking in completely opposite directions. You smiled. “-your eyes,” you finished.
“bu…but they said-” she began to speak uneasily.
“I know what they said. I read your note.” You hesitated again, as if to wipe all memory of that horrible past away. “If they say those things, they’re not your friends. You can’t let ponies like that hurt you,” you reassured her.
“They said they knew what was best for me...” She uttered. Her voice trailed off, low and disheartened.
“They lied, Derpy! They only cared about themselves. They couldn’t accept that someone could be different and still be beautiful. And you are, you are one of the most beautiful ponies I’ve ever known, and I don’t just mean on the outside. If they can’t accept all the love and kindness you have to give to this world because of the way you are, well, they’re missing out.”
In that moment, Derpy’s eyes lit up as if by some fire in the back of her mind. She threw her forelegs around you as tears of contentment flowed down her face and dropped and broke like glass on the floor in a bright rhythm. She held you like she held on to everything beautiful she’d longed for, you becoming the tangible manifestation. All the while a smile of pure innocence and bliss like you’d never known or would ever know spread across her face.
You returned her embrace as best you could, but to try to emulate something so pure is an endeavor bound to fail. You poured your heart for her in that embrace, passing emotions to one another by contact alone, you letting her know that everything is okay, and she simply saying ‘thank you’.
After a moment, your eyes fell to a thin white wisp around Derpy’s neck. Upon closer inspection, it revealed itself to be a little string of twine, wrapped in a simple knot around her neck and haplessly frayed at the end. You looked upward, wondering if the remaining segment could be near. Sure enough, there was another broken bit of twine wrapped around the blade of a large ceiling fan in the center of the room.
“Derpy, did you try to-” she nodded.
“With… this?” she nodded again.
You couldn’t help but let out a small chuckle at how heartwarming, how endearing she was. “Let’s go home, Derpy, to your true friends,” you said, but at this statement she only held on to you harder, wordlessly begging you to stay for just one more moment. So stay you did, for moments too numerous to count in a lifetime as the rays of sun danced across the walls. You stayed there together as the world ceaselessly turned, content to remain safe and secure in the loving arms of a friend.
