Between A Dumpster And A Hard Place
You will never find that life for which you are looking. When the gods created man they allotted to him death, but life they retained in their own keeping. ~ The Epic of Gilgamesh
0-0-0-0-0
"[How much longer?"]
“I dunno, Donny,” Ryan scratched the top of his greasy head as he leaned forward in the café booth, holding the worn cellphone close to his ear. “Just give me a little longer. I’ll come visit again soon.”
["Why do I get the feeling you’re only stalling for time because you’re attempting to deny the inevitable?"]
“Fuck me with a crowbar, man.” Ryan Miller frowned at the tinny voice, even though it was obvious that the boy on the other end of the phone couldn’t see it. “Quit makin’ assumptions, a’ight? I’mma make it. I said I promise.”
["People promise a lot of things,"] Donald, Ryan’s teenage cousin answered forebodingly. Wordlessly, Ryan ended the call, turning off the phone for good measure and stuffing the old Nokia back into his jeans, taking another bitter swig of his coffee.
It wasn’t like it was doing much good keeping him awake, anyway.
No, Ryan Miller hadn’t slept in several days.
As to why the bedraggled and dirty man were in such a foul mood was anyone’s guess. However, one might have speculated that the dark bags under his eyes, accentuated by his even darker expression were some signal of danger.
All things considered, Ryan more closely resembled a shark on legs than anything else. A wickedly downturned and crooked nose, dirty teeth filed deliberately to a point so as to give him a more disturbing smile.
Ryan Miller was one that took great pride in his appearance.
Amongst the Sharks, those with images to upkeep were generally those that stayed alive longer, and Ryan had been in the gang for nearly half his life. Then again, he was in his early twenties. He’d had a short life. He had been a welcome addition to the Sharks.
At least, right up until he stabbed the gang leader in the eyeball with his own switchblade.
Mysteriously, Ryan was no longer quite as welcome in the Sharks, making the large and rather opulent tattoo of a shark’s maw on his back fairly obsolete.
He glowered at the few other patrons in the café, fingering the coffee cup. Ryan kept his head down, the permanent scowl etched onto his face deepening.
It obviously wasn’t a good idea, staying in Brooklyn when the Sharks were still out for his blood. What he really needed to do, he’d convinced himself, was just lay low for a while before slipping away quietly.
And if anything, that’s just the way Carlos would have wanted it. Ryan would just go away, never to be heard from again.
Ryan shuddered, forcing back the dark thoughts of precisely what his now one-eyed boss was capable of.
He’d seen it firsthand once before.
That was something he never, ever wanted to see again.
“Coffee?”
Ryan jumped, startled at the elderly waitress’s offer. Flecks of grey hair stood out behind the hairnet she wore, but her smile was wide. Even though it seemed nearly impossible, Ryan’s frown only grew deeper and more hateful.
“Eat a bag of dicks.”
“E-excuse me?” the old woman looked significantly offended, and even pulled back the coffee pot she held in one hand, as if to state that he couldn’t have any more even if he asked politely.
“Without ketchup.”
And Ryan ever so politely displayed both middle fingers as a common sign of goodwill and friendship.
Narrowing her eyes, the waitress said “Sonny, I think it’d be best if you just left.”
Unwilling to give ground to an elderly woman that he was clearly enjoying antagonizing, Ryan barely managed to open his mouth before he was interrupted by the sound of his phone alerting him.
The phone that he had quite deliberately just turned off only a minute ago.
Completely ignoring the blatantly agitated waitress as she stomped off to alert her manager, Ryan tugged out his phone to peek at the latest alert. Perhaps he’d hit the wrong button? Maybe he only thought he’d turned it off.
Instead, the dim glow of the screen showed only a single message. It was one that he’d always dreaded seeing, but it wasn’t from his younger twin cousins as he’d expected. Inexplicably, there was no number, only the message.
[Help.]
Suspiciously, Ryan stared at the hunk of plastic for a long, quiet minute. He checked nervously over his shoulders a couple of times, but the message remained the same, and nothing happened.
Curiously, he attempted to reply with ‘why?’
The response was immediate.
No wait, no pause. The moment he sent the message, the other returned.
[Because death is coming.]
It had to be some kind of fluke.
Furrowing his brows, Ryan tried typing again. His fingers pushed clumsily against the buttons, although he refused to attribute it to any kind of fear. The dire warning of ensuing death nagged at him, however.
[Please, help.]
0-0-0-0-0
Just a short little walk through Brooklyn.
Yes, because that seemed like such a good idea when an entire gang wanted his head.
Ryan swore foully, turning blindly down another alley past a trio of homeless men as the rain came down harder. He knew the city like the back of his hand, but he was forced to avoid numerous routes already because of his current predicament. It wouldn’t do for any of his previous ‘friends’ to decide that Ryan was marked as a target for a reason and suddenly instigate his severe bullet allergy.
Stupid. This whole thing was stupid.
Answering a plea for help from a message with no way to tell who it was from, ignorantly blundering directly into what could have very easily been a trap.
Call it crazy, but Ryan wasn’t particularly in a mood to die that day.
He swiftly marched through the rain toward the address, which eventually led him down a cramped and darkened alley littered with trash beside a discount butcher’s shop.
And if that didn’t set off a few alarm bells, nothing would.
He definitely recognized the area; he’d been there before on several occasions. In Ryan’s specific line of ‘business’, there were certain methods of ‘proper disposal’ so as to avoid implication.
In short, Ryan didn’t eat very much meat unless he knew where it came from.
Suspecting an ambush, Ryan whirled on the spot, grabbing a busted bottle from the ground.
However, he found nobody following him.
Not letting his guard down, Ryan stealthily slipped along one brick wall of the alley and prepared to hastily escape the area, just to be safe. He’d spent enough time in Brooklyn as it were; forget laying low. Ryan would find one or two of his safer contacts and sneak out of the city while he could.
He was in the process of making a ‘tactical retreat’ when his phone sprang back to life, alerting him once more. He dropped the bottle with a clink! and let it roll away.
[Please, hurry! Not much time!]
Fighting off the urge to panic at the unexplained phenomenon, Ryan peered down another alley, using the small light from the phone to light his way through the heavy drizzle.
“Anybody out here?” he called out, his voice stifled by the rainfall.
In the dark, Ryan nearly tripped over a pile of rubbish when he heard the voice.
“Discord, this isn’t funny anymore!”
“Who’s there?!” Ryan jumped, waving the phone as threateningly as he could toward the rusted dumpster where the noise had emanated from.
The head poking up from behind the dumpster whipped toward Ryan, and gave each of them a thorough shock. However, Ryan felt that his was definitely more pronounced.
“… Fffffffuck me with a crowbar, a talkin’ horse,” he breathed, blinking long and hard to check if it were merely an illusion.
“Do you mind?” Princess Celestia shied away from the light of the phone. “Are you trying to blind me?”
Ryan simply stood stock still, his mouth hanging agape in disbelief that such a thing could possibly occur.
Of all the unlikely things to occur, discovering a talking horse pinned between a heavy dumpster and a brick wall was most certainly one that he’d never expected. Ryan simply stared at her, suddenly becoming conscious that his mouth was quite plainly hanging open. He snapped his jaw shut, and fighting back a sudden dizziness that he was almost positive had been caused from being poisoned by the waitress, spoke to the distressed creature.
“You, uh… you need some help there, lady?” Ryan began slowly, finding himself unable to blink.
“Well, considering my rather unfortunate situation,” she deadpanned, turning her head with some difficulty to face him. “It would be most welcome.”
She had a feminine voice, and a bizarrely colorful mane. The vibrant hues of her mane stood out garishly against the dirty bricks, shimmering oddly in what little light there was. The horn on her head drew his attention almost as much as the crumpled wings that stuck out at odd angles, which looked relatively painful.
“Yeah, yeah,” Ryan said rather distractedly, and for good reason. What was obviously an illusion still wasn’t fading away, so he probably only had about a minute or so before the poison in his system completely killed him. Couldn’t hurt to pander to a figment of his imagination in his dying moments, right?
However, Ryan was not poisoned by an unruly waitress as he believed, and with their combined efforts, Ryan managed to finally pull the dumpster away from the wall inch by inch, tugging and pulling with all his might as the regal looking equine pushed with her forehooves. Within minutes, the pair managed to yank and shove the obstruction out of the way.
The effort left the bedraggled winged unicorn thing obtained freedom at last, crumpling in an undignified manner to the ground. If she was expecting Ryan to help her to her feet, she was sorely mistaken, as he merely stood by and watched her struggle to stand in a puddle.
“You, uh…” Ryan fought to speak, a peculiar sliver of guilt rising when he saw the alicorn shuffle to the side and collapse against the wall. “… Y’aight?”
“I’ll recover,” she responded breathlessly, shaking her head. The alicorn seemed to be paying an inordinate amount of attention to her horn, glaring at the tip as if it were the offender.
“And thank you kindly for your help… you,” she continued with a hint of gratitude, but uncertain of exactly what to call him.
“Whatever.”
And that led to simply standing in one spot, staring expectantly at each other in what was becoming an increasingly awkward situation.
“So,” Ryan rubbed the back of his wet neck nervously, actually a bit disappointed that the nonexistent poison hadn’t quite firmly put a stop to his rapid heartbeat. “You, uh… you come here often?”
Princess Celestia looked very, very hard at Ryan for almost a full beat. He could have sworn he felt a heat rising in his neck, and immediately glowered at her.
“Actually, I’ve only seen glimpses of a place similar to this,” she said slowly. “Apparently, Discord thought it would be a hilarious prank to put an interdimensional gateway in place of the royal bedchambers.”
“… What.”
Celestia sighed heavily. Obviously, this wasn’t going to be easy.
Even more slowly, she said “I’m not from around here.”
“Yeah, no fuckin’ shit.” Ryan grinned. She frowned at his vulgar language, and narrowed her eyes slightly, but didn’t respond. “How’d you even figure out how to text without thumbs, anyway?”
“I what?” she tilted her head in confusion, again attempting to stand with little success. Celestia leaned against the wall, her breathing heavy. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.”
This only served to add to Ryan’s general sense of befuddlement, but it wasn’t like much else made a lot of sense at the moment anyway. He was talking to a horse, for god’s sake.
He shook his head furiously, droplets of water spraying around him.
“So, uh…” Ryan said uncertainly. “… What now?”
The alicorn stared at him as if he were stupid. Which, coincidentally, he was.
“Well, let’s see,” she drawled grumpily. “I have no idea where I am, I apparently have little access to magic, I think Discord sprained one of my wings, I just spent over three hours quite literally trapped between rock and a hard place, and I haven’t got a single clue as to how to get back.”
Ryan thought pensively for a minute.
“You, um… need a place to, you know. Stay? Lady?” Ryan scratched his greasy head uncomfortably. He wasn’t used to helping people, let alone mythological creatures that showed up in downtown Brooklyn.
“It would be greatly appreciated if some kind sir were to offer lodgings whilst I salvage my bearings,” she hinted carefully.
Of course, it took Ryan a bit to realize what she was getting at.
“… Fuckin’ hell,” he groused, and jammed his hands into his pockets wearily. “I’ll, uh… I’ll see what I can do, lady.”
“Celestia.”
“What?”
“Celestia, princess of Equestria,” she nodded quietly.
“Oh.” He shrugged. He didn’t particularly care whether or not she was some form of nobility. Then again, he probably should have guessed it from the regal stance she was struggling to maintain, the golden shoes, and almost dainty way she spoke.
“Name’s Ryan,” he held a hand out to shake hers before realizing that she obviously didn’t have hands, but she shook it nonetheless, and even did so with a small smile.
“A pleasure to meet your acquaintance, Mister Ryan,” Celestia said softly, trying not to move her left wing too much. “I’ll be certain to announce of your ensuing knighthood for valiant acts of bravery should I return to my kingdom,” she quipped jokingly.
“Yeah, yeah, that’s great,” Ryan said distractedly. “Now, get in the dumpster.”
If Celestia didn’t think her day could possibly get an stranger, he’d just proved her wrong.
“… I’m sorry, what?”
“Get. In. The. Dumpster,” Ryan repeated as if she were stupid. Which, coincidentally, she wasn’t.
“… Why?”
Which, from her (or any other, really) perspective, was a perfectly rational and reasonable question. After all, she’d just spent a good deal of time escaping said obviously filthy chunk of metal.
“Easy. ‘Cause I got this here plan, and I don’t think people ‘round here are gonna take too kindly to seein’ a motherfucking unicorn walking ‘round Brooklyn. See?” he explained, flipping open the smelly lid.
“… I suppose I can see your point of view,” Celestia remarked, dissatisfied that she’d be returning to the stench of the dumpster.
“Glad we came to a fuckin’ agreement,” Ryan said surprisingly cheerfully as he helped her stand and clamber inside before he dropped the lid down. Celestia instinctively panicked at the thought of being trapped in such an enclosed space, but Ryan tilted the lid up slightly so that she could see. And at least she had some protection from the rain.
“Stay put,” he grunted as if he were scolding an unruly puppy. “I’mma work some shit out. A’ight?”
Celestia responded with a grumble, several bits of trash and refuse poking her. This seemed to be a satisfying enough answer for Ryan, as he dropped the lid with an uncomfortably loud clang! and proceeded to leave her in the darkness.
0-0-0-0-0
“… You’re not dead yet. Huh.”
Ernie was a man to point out the obvious.
“Yeah. Funny, that,” Ryan wiped his face with his elbow, eyes nervously darting about the back room of the butcher’s shop.
Ernie was a reliable enough person, and Ryan had known him for quite a while. However, due to his particular ‘relationship’ with the Sharks, the pudgy butcher had developed quite a grim reputation of his own. Ernie’s constantly bloodstained apron was in extreme contrast to his eternally cheerful disposition, his smirk almost plastered onto his face.
“I take it th’ big man wants your skin, eh?” Ernie asked conversationally as he cleaned one of his enormous cleavers, wiping it with a dirty rag.
“Carlos?” Ryan blinked, fingers dancing agitatedly along his leg. He’d partially forgotten his old boss, which almost made him laugh. Almost.
“Uh, I’m not here ‘bout that – and I’d be really, really grateful if you’d-“
“Don’t even have to ask, man.” Ernie’s already large smile widened, which only served to creep Ryan out even further. Ernie was a reliable man, to be sure; but he’d been around for a long time because you learned to stay on his good side. Or else.
“Oh. Uh… thanks, Ernie.” Ryan nodded swiftly, keeping a close eye on the hand that polished the cleaver. He never quite seemed to know whether or not to trust the man, but it seemed like a safe bet that doing so would be a very bad idea. Then again, Ryan didn’t exactly have a lot of other options at the moment.
“You going to tell me what it is you’re staring at me like that for?” Ernie asked casually, the enormous smile never leaving his face.
Ryan cringed, thinking quickly. “I need a favor.”
“Who doesn’t? Am I right?” he chortled mirthlessly, tucking the large knife away into a rack with countless others.
“I, uh, well-“ Ryan stuttered, unsure of how to proceed. “I mean, I need a bag.”
“Old habits die hard, huh.” Ernie’s face became serious for once, and he gave him a blank but level stare.
“It’s… personal.”
“If you say so,” the butcher shrugged, his fake grin reassuming its usual position. “Just so long as you’re willing to pay for it. You know I don’t do rentals.”
Ryan scowled, digging into his pocket.
“At double my usual rate.”
“Fuck me,” Ryan’s glared hatefully, hand clasping around his precious bills. He should have guessed that Ernie would try to take advantage of the situation sooner or later.
“Only if you ask nicely, but then I’ll charge triple.” He beamed, picking another cleaver from the rack and scrubbing quietly at it.
0-0-0-0-0
Author's Note
I can't wait to see how this story turns out.
