THE SEGREGAL SHERIFF
The old donkey is dying. As he lies on his death bed, his family gathers around him.
"Are you here with me, in my final hours, mum?" he asks his wife.
"Yes, dear, I'm here."
"And is my son here?"
"Yes, he is."
"And what about my daughter?"
"She's here as well, dear."
"And... My siblings?"
"We're right here, brother."
The old donkey then sits up.
"Then who on Tartarus is taking care of the shop?!"
. . . . . . . . .
Jack and Jenny meet on the street.
"Good morning." Jenny greets Jack cheerily.
"Let's skip the trivialities, Jenny." Jack replies sharply "How much do you want, and by when?!"
. . . . . . . . .
Li'l Jackie is bucking the side of the church. The Vicar comes out.
"Jack, if you keep kicking that wall, I swear to Harmonia, I'll ponify you!"
Jackie ignores him, and keeps kicking the wall. Soon, the Vicar grabs him by the scruff of his neck, drags him into the church, and ponifies him. He walks home sadly, and meets up with the onager.
"What happened, Jack?" he asks him.
"I've been ponified." Jackie replies.
Then the onager takes him away and beats him up.
Jackie goes home, feeling sore and sad.
"What's wrong, Jackie?" his mother asks.
"I've been ponified." he replies.
His mother beats him up as well. His dad comes home, and his mother tells him about his ponification. So his dad beats him up as well.
Li'l Jackie runs out into the middle of the street, and cries against the Heavens:
"Sweet Harmonia! I've only been a pony for a day, and I already hate donkeys!"
. . . . . . . . .
"Why do donkeys always reply with a question?"
"Why is it wrong to reply with a question?"
. . . . . . . . .
Jack and Palo meet on the street. Jack is wearing a large, yellow star on his chest.
"Jack..." Palo asks, surprised "...Are you an ass?"
"No. I'm the SegRegal Sheriff."
. . . . . . . . .
What's the difference between bread and donkeys?
???
Breads don't trash against the fire door.
. . . . . . . . .
The Gearmane asks the little mule:
"How old are you, Kind?
"Me? I'll be nine this year..."
"No, you wo~o~o~on't!"
. . . . . . . . .
How does the mule foal play hide'n'seek?
???
Goes in through the door - goes out through the chimney.
. . . . . . . . .
During a military training:
"What do you do, if you see a dying zebra, giraffe, donkey or mule?"
"I-I don't... Don't know..."
"Congratulations! You've passed!"
. . . . . . . . .
The officer informs the prisoners:
"Boys, we'll be making grass stew tonight!"
The prisoners start to cheer.
"Shut up, you weedy sods!"
. . . . . . . . .
The officer asks the little mule:
"What do you want to be, kind?"
"Me? A soldier, sir!"
"No, I mean...
...Glue or Gelatin?
. . . . . . . . .
"...And I really want to take this moment to express my desire to see the sovereign flag of our country fly bravely in the sky once again, and see those who wished us nothing but slavery and dept to pay for their crimes, because it was because of them that the revolution of XX was crushed, so those, who contributed to this, should be taken away by trains once again, like they were back then, and forced to do honest work, because that is what they HATE the most..."
. . . . . . . . .
"...And then, it was announced, that everyone must wear a yellow star on their chests, for the sake of identification. Me and my friends agreed to put on our best dresses, and put the stars on those. Then we walked out onto the streets, proud and brave... Nobody repeated what we did.
It didn't mattered..."
. . . . . . . . .
"They started mark our shops and stands with those stars, one by one, standing on the street corners like guards or harlots, holding up large signs... That stated that no one should buy our products. That they should "protect" themselves. Initially, no one cared. But then, as they started patrolling the streets, ponies began to obey. Soon, they began ransacking and looting our shops and other establishments. At first, both us and others protested. But soon, nobody dared to protest..."
. . . . . . . . .
"I was walking across the street when I saw a group of blackshirts on the corner.
There were corpses around them.
I tried to walk pass them, but they called me over.
"Kid, are you an ass?" one of them asked.
"Should I be?" I replied.
"Don't ask, I ask you!" the trooper snapped.
"What's wrong with me asking?" I replied again.
"Hey, mules talk this way!" one of the called out to my inquisitor.
"How do you know how mules talk?" I asked. They exchanged looks.
"Just go, kid!" they told me.
I saw their eyes.
They knew.
I knew.
. . . . . . . . .
"At first we thought this thing would be short-term. That it would soon be over, and everything will return to normal. After a month, we started to see daylight that it wont. But still, we had hope. By the end of the year, we knew that nothing will ever be the same. By the end of the war, we've lost all hope..."
. . . . . . . . .
"I was just drafted in when the new protocols were initiated. Five of us - my friends and I - were sent out to patrol the stocks. We knew the area, and were surprised that a segregation zone was established there.
When we arrived, we knew that something was wrong. Our friends, our old friends that we had known since childhood, looked at us with glares of anger, hater. gazes of fear, and stares that showed utter hopelessness.
We didn't understood. There was a meeting held at the local market, to inform all the soldiers in the district about the changes.
...Afterwards, we never talked to our old friends anymore. We couldn't even greet them, or even look at them. In some cases... That was the last time we ever saw them."
. . . . . . . . .
"I was only a foal when they took my mother away.
They broke down our door one night, and told my mother to come along with them. Well, they ordered her, calling her horrible names and teasing her, saying that if she won't comply, I'll have to suffer. She went along.
I don't... I can't remember how long I've stayed in that cold, empty flat. Our neighbours must've heard my crying. They hid me in the attic.
The first night was the worst. There was a storm that night, and the wind howled against the tiles of the roof. I couldn't sleep. Just cry.
When we first heard the sirens, I was told to go to the basement.
Afterwards, I heard nothing. Just thunder.
In my young age, I didn't know those were bombs.
Then silence.
Silence, until the Stalliongradians arrived, and gave me food, clothes and medicine, telling me that the war is over, and better times are on the horizon.
"There was a war?" I asked. They were in shock.
I never saw my mother again."
. . . . . . . . .
For each wagon, roughly 30 to 40 heads would fit, not counting offsprings. It is encouraged that the responsible officers taking care of the operation would hasten the pace, disregarding the reaction of the load, apart from deviation or retaliation, which should be dealt with immediately after notice, but in a manner that conserves ammunition and manpower. Rebellion on the train is made practically impossible by the setup, but a soldier MUST remain vigilant.
. . . . . . . . .
"There were long rows in the square, standing around the tram lines, where the wagons have been parked. Every wagon was filled with more passengers than what it could accept - it was like an act from a circus, where all the clowns try to squeeze into the small fiacre. No one was laughing now.
I saw a soldier, an officer, perhaps. He was observing the whole thing, just staring, emotionlessly, at the crowd, as they boarded the vans. But in his eyes, I saw something... Something that encouraged me.
"Please, sir..." I pleaded, crawling in front of him "Please let me home. I have a small foal, who's left all alone. Our neighbors won't take her in, in fear of... In fear off...
Nopony paid attention. Sights like these were as common as cold. Still, the officer looked troubled.
"Stop acting like that, mare!" he grumbled "You're putting me into an awkward predicament!"
"But sir..." I begged.
"Just rip off the damn star, and walk away!" he whispered "Don't run, just walk! Get out of here!"
I did as he told.
My filly, weakened by starvation, died of tuberculosis, before the war ended. I heard that the officer from the square was shot by his own superiors. I visited his grave after the war, and brought a flower. A violet. That was the only thing I could get."
. . . . . . . . .
"We've probably stayed there for two or three weeks, as we were carried across the country. Many of us had died along the way, in the tight space were we all stood. Every time we stopped, we would throw out the corpses, and had cold water thrown over us as a form of shower, and then, new prisoners took the dead ones' place.
If someone managed to escape, they were shot. One of us managed to climb out through the small window of the wagon, but he didn't ran away. He just sat there, on the ballast, and gazed into the distance - the sun was setting. He smiled, free from the dark and tight place he was squeezed into, and he smiled when a young soldier found him. He smiled as he was shot, dead in between the eyes.
Later that night, we heard another shot.
The young soldier had killed himself."
. . . . . . . . .
"The first thing I saw was the fire. Then the smokestacks. Three chimneys bellowed fire and smoke in the distance. We've reached our destination.
As we got out, captured soldiers from Neighgorod "greeted" us, and took us to the barracks. One of them pointed at the sheds on the other side of the camp.
"See that?" he asked, chuckling "That's were you'll die."
We thought of it as a cruel joke.
We didn't know that the same thing has been happening in their country in the past four years.
In hindsight, that wasn't a cruel joke - it was a warm-hearted warning."
. . . . . . . . .
"Originally, they were taken off from the wagons, we took their clothes and properties, shaved their manes and tail - the fur as well, in case of foals - then they were selected: those capable of work were sent to the right, to the barracks. Those incapable of work were sent to the left. To the showers, they thought. Those weren't the showers. Those were their execution chambers.
Their dead carcasses were then burned.
Then, the plans changed.
No more secrets.
They were rounded up in masses, and waited in front of the large, steel doors. Those mothers who knew what was coming, told their fillies and colts to remain calm, and even joked about what they would do after the "showers" - there was no "after". I worked there once. We took the cans of Cyclone-B, punched their lids in, and threw them in from the roof. That was before the pipes were put in. And those red... No, marron.... No, I think, they were purple, purple crystals... We threw them inside, and made bets who would survive the longest.
Once, I saw my friend and his family enter the chambers. They called out to me, but I turned my back on them, and kept on patrolling.
I was 13 back then.
Up until then, I haven't seen anything but corpses, corpses, corpses...
Corpses...
Corpses...
And corpses...
And I thought, when this was all over, I'll be the last pony on Earth. Nobody else will be alive, but me.
All I've dreamt about was to have five loafs of bread, all to myself. Just for me, and me. Alone..."
. . . . . . . . .
"When we opened the doors, the cadavers tumbled out like logs.
We've observed that at the bottom were the foals, then the youngest fillies and colts, then the elders, then older fillies and colts, then the mares, and at the top were the strongest and healthiest stallions.
Some of the foals have been trampled so much that you couldn't even make out their little faces anymore. The officers in charge turned tail and vomited. A new soldiers shot himself, then and there, when we first opened the doors. I just stared. The cyan colored splodges on the walls were growing larger.
We later found a young filly, who was still alive: she fell muzzle first into a pool of blood, urine and other bodily fluids - water was known to abrogate the effectivity of Cyclone-B. That's how she survived.
We asked our leading officer if she could be saved, assigned for a job with the other mares.
"Could be." the officer replied "If only she was a little older..."
She was shot the next day.
Not by the officer, of course..."
. . . . . . . . .
"There was a barb wire fence, charged with high frequency magical force, surrounding our barracks. Every day, mares and fillies ran into the wires when they could. The guards never objected, or encouraged us. We had to clear away the corpses ourselves.
One day, my friend asked me:
"Wanna go?"
"Where?" I asked back.
"Running... Into the fence." she replied.
"Are you mad?" I asked "If I run into the fence today, and these lose the war tomorrow, I'll get a stroke in Heaven!"
Everybody who heard us laughed.
There were no more suicides that day.
For one guffaw."
. . . . . . . . .
I saw the volunteers carry big bags of bones to the grinder. Bigger bones, like the tibia, were hard to burn, so they ground them up into dust, then carried it to the nearby river, where they dumped it into the water. The flowed down with the current but it didn't submerge for a long time.
They were grinding the bones of their own friends, family, lovers.
They were throwing the ashes of their own.
. . . . . . . . .
It should be hereby noted, that after taking account of the large number of stock from Hungery, the chambers were found inadequate to deal with the increased load. Thus, burning pits were built, dug seven to twelve hoof deep, with grills on the bottom to cover the gas pipes, and canals dug beneath, so that the dripping grease can be caught and used to increase the fire...
. . . . . . . . .
"There was a small, Neighgorodian mare in charge of our barracks. She terrorized us to no end. Nopony, not one of her superiors told her to stop. When we were liberated, she wasn't given a trial. We killed her, out of vengeance. It was quicker than what she deserved."
. . . . . . . . .
"When the tracks were blown up, the last of the entrained had to make that miles long walk, that forced march to the camps. Many of them died, but the survivors were optimistic. We thought they were aliens. They reasoned that if the tracks were blown up, then...
...The "enemy" was coming!"
. . . . . . . . .
"The Stalliongradians arrived. They weren't shocked. They lived through the war on the front, living every day with the knowledge that they would die the next morning - it was a miracle if they didn't. They lived and marched on in inequane conditions.
We sympathised with each other.
The soldiers demolished the crematoriums, the barracks, everything.
But they couldn't finish.
There was still evidence left."
. . . . . . . . .
"There was no train service or anything on the way back.
Many of us died on their way back home, now free, free from the facilities we couldn't believe to have existed, even though we lived in them for the past twelve months or so.
When I saw the demolished city, I knew I arrived home.
We weren't welcome.
When they saw us, their eyes didn't say: "You're still alive?!"
Instead, they said: "Look, who's back!"
Turns out, they had to give back everything they've gotten from our confiscated property. It was an order.
No one complied.
Nothing was given back."
. . . . . . . . .
"There were talks about guilt everywhere, how everyone was sorry, and how they didn't knew. We understood that.
But then one of them mentioned that they hoped that it would be the mules. They felt really sad, because it was the donkeys, mainly, and not the mules..."
. . . . . . . . .
It was over.
Was I glad, that it was over?
Yes,
Did I wanted to go home?
Yes.
Did I liked it home?
No.
Have I ever forgiven the soldiers?
Yes.
Have I ever forgiven my friends, neighbors, and the others?
...
. . . . . . . . .
How can you tell if a donkey has been through the cleansing?
???
He's rich.
. . . . . . . . .
How can you tell if a pony has been through the cleansing?
???
He's dead.
. . . . . . . . .
How can you tell if an equine has been through the Second Panequine War?
???
He'll keep telling you that you 'know nothing'.
. . . . . . . . .
How can you tell if an equine is racist?
???
Do you need to tell?
