"Alright! There you go! You're all set!" My smile could cut diamonds, or at least trim the extra silicon off the bust of the elephant in a Wal-Mart halter-top who is lurching across the counter before me. I nevertheless plaster her face with Disneyfied grins as I stuff the neon green dvd cases into a bag and swing it her way. "Have a happy holiday!"
"I'll try," she sputters, then proceeds to wrecking-ball her way across the sea of soccer moms, neckbeards, and Brazilians who have turned the floorspace of our store into a scene from Cannibal Holocaust. All is noise and farts and squealing bipedal larvae. The seconds lurch by like molasses, and even behind the iron curtain of our point of sales I feel like a water bucket dropped in the middle of a raging forest fire. Didn't I first get here eons ago? It was a far-off, magical time called "Thanksgiving Evening," when the store was empty and the world outside the mall was darker than Mordor.
Oh, to once again taste of such sweet, stagnant desolation. Instead...
"Here. I'll buy two of these," a mother of... something limps up, slapping two empty red boxes onto the counter before fumbling through her purse for one of many shiny credit cards. "Quickly, please. I gotta make it to JC Penney before a sale on men's slacks ends. I have my card here."
Something inside me twitches—part of it with joy and the other with scathing hatred. It almost melts away the throbbing pain shooting through my calves and ankles... cankles? Meh. Go to Hell, MacFarlane. Shit, you can join this whale of a tail. Look at her. Red and green sweater, candy-cane pin, friggin' bells and mistletoe on her purse? It's like Norman Rockwell blew Santa Claus and snowballed all over the coffin that she rose from this morning. How I wouldn't love to pull a Danny Trejo across one of her three chins—whoops. Ahem. Game face. Put your game face back on, girl.
"I'm sorry, ma'am," I say, folding my hands together like a Tibetan monk standing on the shores of retail destitution. "But we're all sold out of those bundles."
Her face implodes like a walrus' buttocks. She points at a stack of fliers positioned in the middle of the store. "But your sign right there says that the Mario package is in stock."
"You're right, it does, ma'am." Stop twitching. Just... stop twitching. "Right beneath where it says that they were exclusive to the sale that we had at six o'clock in the morning today."
Her eyes take on a red boil, like twin torches atop the plush head of a hippopotamus submerged in vomit. "You mean to tell me that the only way I could have gotten these Mario handhelds is if I showed up at the butt crack of dawn?!"
My eyes dart left and right, each glance filled to the brim with bright faces, swinging shopping bags, and the flu. "Uhhhh... yes, ma'am. We sold out of them in the first two hours."
"Well, I think that's ridiculous!" Her body shakes with her voice; her wrist fat wobbles as she pounds it against the counter like a fleshy gavel. "I think that since you're advertising the systems, you should sell me two of them right now!"
My lips purse as I feel my resolve being ribboned out of me like one of William Wallace's many fatty entrails. "I... can't sell you any of the handhelds, ma'am. They were sold out this morning after the six o'clock sale." I nod my head in the direction of the big, glaring, huge-as-fuck poster board. "Just as advertised—"
"I have two special, needy children who have been begging me day and night to get these Mario gaming machines on Christmas Morning! Do you know what you are putting me through?!" Her voice rises like a car alarm. The people in line behind her yawn upon the fringes of the tempest, attempting to lose themselves in cell phones and ennui. "Do you enjoy turning me into a mother who makes broken promises?! Sell me a system, goddammit!"
I smile as if I'm tasting vanilla sherbert for the first time. "I'm sorry, ma'am, but we're all out." Would your kids like fries with their Asperger's? No? "Maybe I can interest you in one of our PS Vita bundles? Or I could add you to our Christmas waiting list?"
"No. Thank you. You've helped quite enough," she grunts, for the inner orc has finally sprung out of its festive packaging. She tosses the red display boxes to the side like German potato launchers and waddles for the hills. "It's assholes like you who ruin Christmas. I can see now why you guys are going out of business."
My face is practically Audrey Hepburn's by now. "Have a good holiday!" Sweet David Bowie, I hope she falls and chokes on her own lady dick. I swivel about like an animatronic angel and smile at the next corpse lumbering my way. "Hello there! What have you got to purchase today?"
"Relax, Courtney, it's me," grunts an overweight blob in a tight Xbox green polo.
"Oh, Roger." I blink as my manager stumbles behind the registers with me, his arms full of empty DVD cases and the scrappy signs of pilfered accessory bags. "You're still here."
"Forever and always." The body heat in the store rises by tenfold whenever he's near. I have to lean my fanny forward just to make room as he grabs used guts from a drawer of old Wii games directly behind me. "What was that just now, by the way?" he asks without looking, as if there are eyes in the back of his neck-folds.
"Oh, I ticked off a woman who wanted something out of stock and now she may never shop with us again."
"Whatever," he grunts. God, I love my boss, which is saying something. "When were you supposed to go on break?"
"Uhhhh..." I speak out the side of my mouth while simultaneously ringing a customer up for a stack of 360 controller chargers. "Two centuries ago?"
"Courtney—"
"You originally scheduled me until one, but then Shawn never showed up, so I agreed to stay on the clock. Remember?"
"Ungh..." he sighed with the voices of a thousand dying chipmunks. "Friggin' holiday hires. As if Corporate gave us enough hours as it is..."
"There you go. Happy holidays." I hand a bag and receipt to the drooling customer while glancing over my shoulder. "You want me to call in Cheryl? She's begging for the experience."
"All Cheryl ever does is alphabetize the Wii section and look pretty."
"Heh, and what am I, chopped liver?"
"Hold the onions. When are you out of here, Courtney? Remind me."
"Uhhh..." I squint at the scant traces of a schedule sprawled out beneath a mountainous pile of crumpled receipt paper. "I chicken-scratched it earlier. Oh... fuck me, six o'clock."
"Shhh! Courtney! Sunday School voice, goddammit."
"Ahem. Yes, Roger. Sorry, Roger."
"Take your thirty minutes now."
"Whoah, what—really?" I blink at him.
"Make it forty-five minutes." He stands up with the games he's grabbed against his chest folds and meatwagons them over to the register. "You came in early, after all."
"Really?" I squint at the rampaging sea of customers. "You sure about that?" I swear, it's like four buses direct from Sao Paulo ejaculated tourists into this place all at once. "It sure is Battle of Pelennor Fields up in this bi--... er... female dog."
"Better now than never. I can deal with this. Ain't nothing like the crowds we used to get when I managed at Target."
"Bet you're glad you decided to switch jobs for such a small, quiet store, huh?"
"Best damn decision of my adult life," he muttered like a Mexican bandit before the firing squad, then promptly smiled into the barrels of a family of four leaning directly in front of him. "Hello again!" he sing-songed. "Did you bring your membership card today?"
My tiny hands are already blurring over the keyboard as if it was Ewan Mcgregor's fly. "No better way to celebrate Baby Jesus lying in a manger than selling discounts on games where you turn hookers into throw rugs." I bring up the time clock program and hit "log out" with the force of an angry Wiccan goddess person thingy. "Sweet, sweet release."
"Hello," something nasally with a nasal voice nasally speaks to me from behind the counter, nasally. "Do you have a used version of Pokemon Black?"
"I'm sorry, but I'm now on break!" Get fucked. I mean, seriously. Get— "One of my fine associates here would be more than glad to answer your question!" I turn one last time towards Roger. "Uhhhh... pocket check?"
"If you stole money, I'll eviscerate you later," he exhales out his left ear. "Now go."
Praise Allah, I am out of here. I swear, if it weren't for Roger, I'd feel like Julie Andrews marinating alone in the fires of purgatory. Now, just to get out of this place—Holy vagina belches this is a lot of people. I feel really bad for my co-worker Drew. Look at him over there, being swamped to death by the customers around the new Microsoft console display. Talk about getting XBoned. Ha!
I shuffle, slide, and stumble my way through the pea soup of shoppers. At some point, my nametag turns into a noose as it gets hilariously caught on the rung of a front marketing display. I not quite so hilariously mutter vulgar things under my teeth until I yank the thing loose and plunge into the open upstairs promenade of our delightful little mall of horrors.
The orgasm of western society is a slow thing coming, every pun intended. I can't remember the last time I actually gave a shit about Christmas beyond the reach of a corporate paycheck. Everything is bitter frost and bitterer headaches. Even now, as I stumble my way through zombified clusters of families bundled in wool, polyester, and Zoloft, I'm struggling to keep the vomit inside my quivering gooey parts. The air is thick with sighs: the exhaust of stuck up people with pent up fears, all discharging into a single Viking bowl painted with pretty ribbons and price tags and shiny red bows. The staccato renditions of Jingle Bells and It's Christmas Time in the City (Shitty?) warble over our heads, directing us to the execution chambers or some other cliche corner of that old, super-badass Macintosh commercial with skinheads and Big Brother and that running sledgehammer chick who forgot to wear her bra and—
Holy fuck, the food court is a goddamn warzone right now. Yeah, screw this. I'm in no mood to crawl over random latinos and vomit just to order myself a rubbery sandwich from Christ Fil-A. Let's see if ol' Nancy is serving today. She's in the furthest part of the mall, after all. Usually there's a few cans of Grape Soda left in her at this point of the day. I like to call her "Nancy" because of the word that some jerkoff etched into the security bolt right above her coin dispenser, though in all honesty only the first letter is the same and the other five letters aren't something very conducive to a relaxing Friday lunch break, I don't care how "black" it is.
Yeesh, what was up with that lady just now? Aside from one or two hotheaded morons, everything was going fine today. Guess there's always one in a bunch. How many Black Fridays does this make for me in this company? Eww, four? Jesus Christ on a pogo-stick, I need to find a new place to work. You'd think four years of college and an English degree would have given me more than this. Maybe if I rented my vagina out to photographers I'd earn money making new Stephanie Meyer book covers. Hell, anything's gotta be better than being stuck at a job where you gotta pretend that open product out on the floor can be sold as "brand new."
But seriously, what crawled inside her and died? Besides her husband's dick, I mean? I've been pissed off before, but I don't take it out with me while Christmas shopping. So I ruined the holiday for your needy kids? Well, how sad for you. You obviously care very much for them, seeing as you ate all five of their older brothers and sisters in one gulp. Could I interest you in the new Playstation Enema?
Meh. Maybe I should skip the grape soda and go for a Dr. Pepper. I need to ingest caffeine like a nun needs to swim with dolphins. At this rate, my mind's gonna blow out through my ear sockets. While using a dependent clause, I'd adverbially metaphor this object an overwrought simile. Goddammit, where is Nancy—Ah, here we are.
Standing alone in the echoing bowers of this restroom hallway, I lean up to the mighty Obelisk of Sodas and slip one... two... three... count 'em—four George Washingtons into Nancy's eager coin slit. Yeah. You love it, ya Pepsi Corporate owned slut. Give me some grape flavored ambrosia—What? You're out? What do you mean you're fucking out?! Who in the flying fallopian tube orders motherfucking grape besides me on the day after Thanksgiving?! What, did God cure everyone of diabetes thirty-six hours following the Great American Turkey Orgy?!
Fine. Fine. Let's see what's left. Dr. Pepper? No. Fuck. Mountain Dew? No. Balls. Surge? Shit, that was a decade ago. Fuck me, I'm getting old. Uhhhh... Ginger Ale? Wat. Seriously. Wat. Ginger Ale? The only thing Nancy has inside her Pepsi cooch is Ginger Ale?! Fuck that and fuck Ginger Ale and fuck Nancy and fuck my life! I'd rather fucking stretch my arms elbow deep into a sperm whale's fucking butthole and play fucking pog with myself than drink fucking Ginger Ale. I mean, who the fuck drinks Ginger Ale and pretends to fucking respect herself in the morning? That's the sort of shit baby tears are made of. You gotta be a person too lazy to slit her own wrists to enjoy Ginger Ale. Hell, I bet those nineteen fucking assholes would have just quit halfway to the Towers if they talked heavenly virgins over ice cold mugs of fucking Ginger Ale the previous day. Fuck. Ginger Ale?! I mean seriously?!
Life sucks and then you blow. I swear to Christ's splintered teenaged palms, this bites.
How much time has gone past? I look my watch. Meh. Four minutes. Four minutes of power-walking like an 80s fitness freak and cursing a carbonated beverage to the high heavens. Oh well. That still gives me forty-one minutes to lean here against this cinderblock wall, listening to bad quality CD loop Christmas carols and pretending I'm doing anything but drinking god-forsaken motherfucking Ginger Ale. Fuck. I've gotta be a girl with no life whatsofuckingever to have her insides turn to arsenic from something so simple as Canadian Dry bullshit in liquid form and—
The soda machine disappears in front of me.
"Buh?"
I blink. Everything around me is exactly the same, the exception being the thin black vagina full of stars that has suddenly materialized before my eyes.
"Nancy? Where'd you go, girl?"
I'm answered with a piping hot intergalactic queef in my face, brimming with lightning and the sound of dying cats meowing to a Penderecki symphony. The can of Ginger Ale flies out of my grip before I have a chance to take a second sip. In any other situation, I'd be soaking my pants with ecstasy over the fact, only this same inexplicable vortex of whatthefuckness is now sucking me as well, and not in the sexy way.
"Aackies!" I dare not ask what just summoned the twelve-year-old sixth grader from my palpitating lungs, because I'm too busy clawing and scraping at the tile floor in a desperate search for anchorage. Dammit. It's no use. Maybe I should have listened to my mother and grown up to be a girly-girl. At least then my fingernails would have been a little longer—shit—slipping! Mother of cocks—No no no no no!
The inside of the mall flies away from me, but instead of limping through Sears I'm flying backwards down a psychotic hall of mirrors. I wonder if this is what it feels like to be born in reverse, though a tad bit less smelly. Jesus, what is this place? I see bands of purple effluence... effulgence... elephants(?) soaring past me. Either I'm in Hell or Andy Warhol's summer vacation vomitorium. Shit! What's that noise coming at me from the other side? And that light?! Christ on fire, I'd better not be fucking dead. There are way too many soccer moms I've yet to piss off over refusing Pokemon GBA trades and Action Replay refunds.
Suddenly, there's a smell. And it... it smells pretty good, actually. I can't even think up an expletive to try and insult it, on account of how much my nose tickles. It's like the inside of a Yankee Candle store, or maybe a baby's nursery without all the diapers and shit. Ha! I got to throw in some excrement in there after all because—shit—it's like the color lavender came to life and French Kissed me. What is this? Where is this? What is happening to—?
It's precisely at this time that I land on my ass. Fate gives my cheeks a good bounce for measure, and I'm almost choked by the sheer inertia wrapping my nametag three whole times around my neck. Wheezing, I teeter to the side, seeing a ribbed plate of metal lying beneath me. Upon the noise of crackling thunder, I look forward. A giant vertical slit of nebulous stars is quivering in front of me, hovering within a gigantic round doorframe lined with bright fluctuating pylons. Yes, just like the Protoss nonsense. For the love of Chex Mix, what the Hell is this? Screaming? Do I hear screaming behind me?
"Something's emerged!"
"Celestia Almighty! You mean we summoned somepony?!"
"That's... that's no pony..."
"What is it?! Can you see?!"
The voices are crackling, filtered, as if coming out the far end of a high school intercom. Shit, I can't believe I still remember sensations from high school, especially after just riding a Slip'n'Slide through purgatory. Wait. How big is this room?
I stand up before the portal. All of my joints feel as if they're filled to the brim with ceiling popcorn. I hear cracks in places where they're not supposed to be—like my ears and my hair and my toenails and my underwear. Ew. Turning around, I see that I'm in a giant metal cavern that's bent and curved like a clamshell. Then, directly behind me, I spot a wide laboratory window, behind which several colorful... muzzles are leaning forward, their little breaths condensing against the wireframed glass.
The fuck...?
"It... it..."
"What is that thing?!"
"It's hideous!"
"A monster! By the blood of Nightmare Moon, Time Turner, you've summoned a horrible, horrible monster!"
"This is all my fault! This was never supposed to happen!"
"Oh goddess oh goddess oh goddess!"
"What has science done?!"
"Uhhh..." Ponies? "Hello?" Ponies? "Are you... is that... I mean... how did...?" Ponies?! "...butts?"
Ponies. "It's... it's talking to us!" A living, breathing, talking, disproportionately shaped pygmy equine in a goddam necktie tilts a pair of goggles up, revealing outrageously large Disney eyes... or anime optics... or... goddammit. "It's an abomination!"
"The horror! The horror!" A pony with a fucking pink coat stammers from her computer station, collapsing into a fainting spell. "So hellish!"
"Quick! Quick!" A unicorn (yes, a unicorn) gallops up to Mr. Necktie and practically spits all over his own labcoat. "Close the Interdimensional Mana Conductive Transfer Portal!"
"But... but..."
"Are you blind, stallion?! We've summoned an abominable wretch from the bowels of Tartarus with this machine! We need to send it back through the Interdimensional Mana Conductive Transfer Portal to whence it came!"
"But I can't! The controls to the Interdimensional Mana Conductive Transfer Portal aren't responding!"
"What do you mean the Interdimensional Mana Conductive Transfer Portal isn't working?! There's no time to argue! It's..." The unicorn grunted. "We really need to give this thing a shorter name."
"Something else is coming!" Shouts a pony with wings—okay, dammit, no. No. That's going too goddam far.
"Huh?!" I hear myself blurt as I pivot around to gaze into the fluctuating portal. Yup, just as the pastel hoof thing beyond the glass prophesied, a black Stanley Kubrick object is shooting down the gigantic space urethra and hurling straight towards me. "Whoah!" I jump to the side just in time to avoid a hulking missile of a soda machine as it slams hard into a wall of collapsing mainframes. "Jeez, Nancy!" I sputter as I roll across the metal dais situated around the portal. "Were you raised in a barn, ya dumb whore?!"
But the damage has been done. Out here, we is screwed immaculate, or at least those fucked up computers are. I watch from where I lie in a slump as all of the mainframes sparkle, fizzle, and die. Right as they do, all juice to the pylons gets cut short—I guess—because an inverted fart noise announces the utter collapse of the portal. Suddenly, it's dead quiet, and I'm stuck here in some sort of bizarre underground pony dungeon.
It doesn't take long for several infant sobs and shrieks to break the stupid silence.
"System malfunction! System malfunction!" one horsie-horsie bellows from the observation chamber.
"The Interdimensional Mana Conductive Transfer Portal's disappeared! The primary mana nodes have been fried!"
"That monster! What did it do?!"
"It sabotaged the whole operation! It's trapped itself here with us!"
"Oh blessed Celestia, save us! Celestia save us all!"
"Uhhh..." I lean up, brushing my slacks and my nametag clean. "Hello?"
"Aaaaaah! Cover your ears, everypony! 'Less you wish to hear its soul-shattering death knell!"
"Uhhh, helllllllo?!" I walk up to a round metal door, one scuffling sneaker after the other. "Uhm... you guys? You speak horse english or something?" I step over Nancy while pointing towards the flickering pylons. "Could you reopen that thingy? I gotta get back to work soon. I'm not even remotely kidding."
"Acck! It's... it's c-c-coming cl-cl-closer!"
"Someone reinforce the locks!"
"I can't! The system suffered a catastrophic mana overload! The security system is fried!"
"Uhhh... anybody?" I lean forward and speak against the doorframe. "For real, my break is gonna end in about..." I glance at my watch and immediately blanch. "Thirty-six minutes! Fuck me!"
"Stay back! Stay b-back!" The horse with a necktie mushes his face up against the glass, glaring straight down at me. "Back, demon! I mean it—"
"Dudes! Seriously!" I knock my fist against the door. Clang clang! "My boss is a swell motherfucker! But he gets supermerrygoroundpissed off when people don't show for backup on Black Friday and—" Claaaaaang! The door gives way. With a prolonged creaking sound, it fall forward and slams into the floor of a barren corridor beyond. "Oh... snap."
"Good heavens!" The horse pulls at his mane and practically foams at the mouth. His sparkling round eyes are wide enough to burst. "It's breached! It's breached through the outer seal! Everypony, run!" He gallops away with adorable little clopping sounds, I swear. "Run for your lives!"
The laboratory fills with hollers and screams, made a great deal clearer thanks to the door having fallen in front of me.
"Whoops..." I wince heavily, teeth gritting. "Look, I can pay for that, but I don't get my paycheck until next Friday!" More screams; more shrieks. "Hellooooo?!" I frown as I shuffle forward, finding myself having to bend low and crawl through the dayum passage. "Look, can one of you get off your fucking period and talk to me straight up?! I need to get that portal reopened and—shit, was this place built for hamsters? The hell is this so tight for?"
Before I know it, I've bumped my head against another metal seal.
"Owie!" I rub my skull as the door falls just as easily as the one previous. "For Christ's sake, did you build this place out of paper mache?! What's the deal?" I crawl forward into the laboratory rooms beyond, only to find that the ceiling here hangs even lower. "Uhhh... Hello?" I look around, my eyes spotting desks, office chairs, rows upon rows of electronic equipment, and an illustrated calender featuring winged ponies tightly clad in blue and yellow spandex... uhhhh—what the shit?
Just then, a hideous alarm blares into my not-so-virgin ears. It's like someone in this place forgot to fix the shot clock to a horribad college basketball game. Once the noise has achieved a miserable excuse for a "siren," my eyes are being blinded by a multitude of spinning red lights. And, yes, it's just like that fucking scene from Alien.
So, it's a little easy to forgive how blinded I am when I first stumble upon a shivering little lap dog... only it's not a lap dog.
"Aaaugh! No!" The stallion quivers beneath me with his necktie, covering his face in two candy-smoothe brown hooves. "I'm sorry! Archimaredes, Galileoats, Newtrot, Einstallion, I'm so sorry! I've failed you!" He wails. "I've turned science into a doomsday machine! I've ruined us allllll!"
"Holy shark farts!" I stammer above the alarm noise, blinking dazedly at this petite creature. "You're like... the size of a damn house cat!" I reach forward and touch the thing's mane, just to see if it's real. And it sure as Hell is—really damn silky too. "Huh... who'd a thunk it?" Seriously, though, who'd a thunk it?
"Aaaaaaugh! Noooooo!" He shrieks at my touch, arching his back like a spasmadic stingray in mid-orgasm. "It burns! It burnnnnns!"
"Dude, I barely touched you. Chillax."
"Sooooo sorrrrrrry, my Princesssssss..." He doubles-over and outright sobs. "I've brought hell upon your kingdommmm..."
"Yeah, uh, to hell with this." I turn and crawl in the direction of a hallway on the far side of the red lights and blaring noise. It's a struggle not to bump my head as I lift my eyes to the distance. "Hello?! Can anyone else help me?!" I frown. "Anyone else who wasn't born with cotton candy in place of its horse balls?! Come on! My break won't last forever!"
"Containment breach in sector two!" A masked voice shouts. "Containment breach in sector two!" Right before me, three pathetically tiny stallions in riot gear—I shit you not—swing around the corner and line up like a Roman phalanx. "Isolate and contain with extreme pony prejudice!" The middlemost one lowers a gas mask, tightens his muscles, and flings a net directly in my... erm... direction.
The only reason that last paragraph deflated is because the cute fella's "snare" barely covers half of my left arm. I glare at it with what could probably have been described as Garfield eyes before flinging the thing loose and yanking him towards me by his mask. "Look, buster, one of you needs to reopen that Twilight Zone galactic uterus thingy. I don't care if it's you or one of the unicorns or one of the bastards with wings, but I need to get back to my job!"
"It... it's g-got me!"
"No! Commander!" The other two stallions bellow. "Noooooo!" And then they proceed to rush up and smack me in the shoulders with miniature batons and riot clubs. I'm only slightly ashamed to say that they feel no worse than rubber bands being flung across the room by a middle school ginger kid.
"What... what the ass are you doing?" I merely flick one of the ponies in the nuzzle with a pinkie finger. "Cut that out, ya melon fucks!"
"Gaah!" The security horse in question flies back from my tiny gesture. His comrade rushes to his side, crying openly in the strobing light.
"Breathe! Breathe with me, Calico Stride!"
"Every... m-muscle in my body..." The pony rattles in his armored gear. "...all t-turning to jelly..."
"Don't go towards the light, Calico Stride! Do you hear me?! Don't go towards the light!"
"Stallions!" The pony in my grasp wheezes, his eyes rolling back. "Go on... without me, you h-hear?"
"Oh shut the hell up, ya sissy!" I growl at him. "You're fine!"
"Tell my wife... and m-my two foals..." He chokesand gasps. "That... th-that I love them. I love them so very much..."
"We will, Iron Canter!" The last standing stallion hoists his companion up and hobbles down the long corridor. "We will remember you always!"
"I go now..." He drapes limply in my grasp, a warm smile washing drunkenly over his fuzzy muzzle. "To join my ancestors... in the sunny plains..."
"Unnngh, fuck me running." I lay him down in a melodramatic pile of groans and death-rattling twitches while I crawl on ahead. "One of y'all had better have a super large ass 'cuz I'm about ready to kick it!" I frown as I shimmy faster and faster. "Somebody's gonna open that portal back up and it's not going to be me!"
"It's in pursuit!" The limp stallion says while being dragged in his companion's arms. "It's in pursuit! It's chasing us, Sky Blaze!"
"I... can't... outrun it!"
"Then drop me! Drop me! I'll hold it off!"
Thump! "Celestia speed to you, you brave brave warrior!" His companion sobs as he gallops ahead towards a pair of double doors positioned before a steep flight of ascending stairs.
"Oh no you don't!" I snarl as I slide towards him like a desperate softball player, or maybe something that isn't a lesbian. "I wanna speak to somepony in charge!"
"Be gone, demon!" He shouts as he tosses what looks like a tear gas grenade in my face. When it goes off, I incidentally take a breath, and I swear by Majel Barrett's left belly button that it smells like potpourri.
I frown towards the sunlight dripping down from above. "Is there something in your world that isn't rated TV-G?"
But the guard's too busy running away and screaming at the top of his lungs to pay me much attention. With a groaning sigh, I climb after him and into the blinding world above. At last, I am graced with a wave of cool, breezy air.
On one hand, it's nice being able to stand up completely. For another, I'm stuck in Narnia. Seriously, it's fucking Narnia. Look at these trees and bushes and crystal blue ponds. This place is way too gorgeous to be on any civilization's grid. It's as though Thomas Kincaid came back from the dead and impregnated Minnesota. I feel like I'm about to frolic across the navel of unmitigated natural Americana. All you need is for Sarah Palin to roll up in a farm tractor and... and... meh... fuck it. I guess that's no longer topical these days, is it? Even I get tired of beating a dead horse.
Speaking of which, look it, screaming ponies.
"Aaaaaah!"
"Aaaah!"
"Everypony, evacuate!"
"Run for your lives!"
"It's unstoppable!"
"It's going to destroy us all!"
Several adorable little equines in adorable little labcoats run for the hills. I look around me and see a dinky, metal fence surrounding a bunker. The gated entrance is marked with signs that read: "Danger!" and "Magical Experiments In Progress!" and "Positively Do Not Enter By Order of Princess Celestia!" and also "This Area is Off Limits! Keep Out!"
"Shit, I'm in Singapore."
More screams.
I look forward, and is only now that I notice an entire frickin' village within a sperm's squirt away from the site. A windmill spins in the air, a flag billows in the breeze, a subject verbs in the present tense...
"Ellipses..." I shuffle forward. "Hello?! Hey! I'm at twenty-five minutes now! You have any idea what that means?!" I enter town limits. I hear gasps to my left and right. My eyes dart about to spot ponies shutting windows and colorful horses slamming front doors shut as I draw near and nearer. "I'll let my crew down! I'll let my boss down! That's a horrible Christmas present, even though he's Jewish—but hey, shit ain't kosher, dudes!"
By the time I enter the village's downtown area, complete pandemonium has broken out. For those of you playing the home game, "pandemonium" is a polysyllabic word meaning "batshitcrazy," or maybe a terribad port on the N-Gage.
"I love my boss Roger!" I say. "He's the only manager too kind and too fat to try groping my butt whenever I climb the high ladder to grab Turtle Beach headsets! Also, he's married, so I know that there's some other fucker in this world who's more depressed than me!"
"Wooo! Lookie! Lookie!" Something really, really fucking pink hops up and down at the entrance to a building shaped like an enormous gay pastry. "It came from Black Friday!" Its sing-songy voice echoes off of nothing.
"Fuckawhat?" I glance its way.
Just then, an older mare with a blue coat grabs the pony from behind. "Don't encourage it, Pinkie!" She hoists the two of them inside the enormous gingerbread suppository.
"H-hey!"
The door slams shut behind them both. "And no title-dropping without permission!"
"Awwww..."
"Everypony! Head inside!" An old gray mare wearing an... ascot? Cravat? The fuck do you call those things? Anyways, it's got fucking bifocals, and it's pointing a hoof at me. "Officers! Do your duty! Dispense justice!"
Four uniformed ponies rush towards me with batons waving and... aww Christ, do I even have to describe this part?
"How is any of this... Any of this gonna help me get back so I can punch in?!" I lean forward and snarl at the stallions and their dinky he-weapons. "What, am I supposed to stay here?! You want me to be a farrier for a living?! Yes, I know what the word means! I also happen to know what 'clitoridectomy' means, which is what I'm gonna give to all of you with a fork—male or female—unless one of you unzips that Gene Roddenberry blowhole and farts me back to ESRBville!"
"C-can't... help it..." The police ponies collectively collapse to the ground before me, turning limp as noodles. "It's... so... foul...!"
"Celestia, save us!" The gray mare whimpered as it fell down and slumped towards a rattling flagpole. "This is a dark day! A dark day for all!"
"Did someone spike y'all's Kool-Aid with ecstasy?! Come on!" I stamp my foot. "A girl's gotta make a living! What's your excuse?!"
I hear a spontaneous whimper from behind. Spinning around, I see two mares trying to sneak out from behind an overturned wagon. As soon as they see me looking their way, they break into a desperate gallop.
"Move, Fluttershy!" One of them shouts, its white horn glistening in the sunlight. "Don't let it look at you, darling! It will impregnate you with its eyes!"
"I'm... tr-trying to run!" the other squeaks, only trip on its own outrageously long mane hair. "Eeep!" The two ponies collide with each other, crashing and burning in the middle of the road. I'm sure Jim Ross could think up a snazzy analogy here.
"Hey!" I point at the paler of the two. "You with the horn! That's like magic and shit, right?!" I stomp towards it. "Can you open the portal back?! Please?"
"Nuuuuu!" The thing curls up like a snow-white cockroach, shooing me away with petite hoofie-kicks. "Lay off me, you brute! Approach me no further!"
"Okay, so maybe we got off on the wrong foot!" I kneel down before the two. "I'm sorry for all the four letter words. My father was a sailor and so was my mother until he met my father. I swear that I have nothing against any living thing of any creed or ethnicity—except for maybe Brazilians, and I only mean the top one percent elite. You ever been to Wet'n'Wild? Theeeeey know what they've done."
"No! No closer! Back I say!" The unicorn glares daggers at me, all the while its body lies open like a plush snowy bathroom towel. "I just know that you wish to ravage every orifice that I happen to possess..."
"Uhhhh..."
"But perish the thought! You hear me?!" She crosses her forelimbs in front of her flushed red chest. "My name is Rarity, the most fabulous pony mare in all of Equestria, and I am a chaste lady!"
I nod. "Yeah, no shit."
The feathered one to the left squeaks like a submissively urinating puppy.
"Hey... Hey!" I squat over the thing and give its trembling head a gentle stroke. "Relax! I'm no Pol Pot! At least not this week of the month. And besides, I just want to get back to—" A shivering bolt of energy shoots from my fingertips to my brain and back. "—holy crud, your ears are hella soft."
"M-m-m-m-maaaaaybe," the winged pony is stuck between a ticklish giggle and an agonized sob. I feel like a Pixar movie just slammed headlights-first into Hostel 2. "Please don't kill meeeeeeee..."
"How can you slaughter something with ears as soft as a muppet's vaginal lips?"
"Uhm..." The unicorn slides over and taps my elbow. "So... that means you're n-not going to ravage Rarity the unicorn with your horrible monster limbs?"
"Fuck off!" I shrug her away with a frown. "Ear scritches, dammit!"
I'm rewarded with a violent smack to the skull that almost has enough force to send me reeling. Almost. I look up in time to see a streak of seven colors roaring over the rooftops and bending about for another pass.
"You leave my friends alone, you big goon!"
"Rainbow... D-Dash...?" The blushing thing whose ears I'm stroking looks up.
"Rainbow! Our heroine!" the unicorn coos. I've never wanted to stomp on a marshmallow any harder in my life.
"Raaaaaaaaaaaaaugh!" The creature dive-bombs me with a voice cracking shout. Something something adoracute tomboy lesbian... something. I dunno. I'm all out. I'm being attacked by a fucking rainbow horse with pink eyes. What the fuck else do you want from me?
"Seriously, you guys?" I sigh into the spritely melee roundhousing me over and over again from all sides. "What is this? Feather horse Hong Kong?"
"Take this! And that! Ya-ta-ta-ta-ta!" The thing repeatedly kicks me, swiftly losing its breath as its cheeks burn redder and redder. "Canter spike! Spinning hoof kick! Grrrrr! Why won't you go down?!"
"Not on a first date." Seriously, I've reached my limit. I did not come all this way to do mortal combat with Joseph's living technicolor dreamcoat. So, I reach out and grab the pony by one of its wings. "Now cut that out!"
"Lemme go! Nnnngh!" It fights. It struggles. It ultimately pivots on my grip and kicks my elbow. "You wanna dance?! Let's dance, sister—" Just then, my grip slips. "Horseapples!" He... she... it... whatever falls back, stumbles, pratfalls over an apple cart, and collapses with immense Hollywood theatrics through a shattering horse trough. "Yaaaugh!"
There's a huge cyclonic draft in the air as every hoofed creature within viewing distance sharply inhales at the same time. The silence is pathetic, as if Bambi's mother just got shot in 3D. Right on cue, all the fuzzy woodland creatures ooze out of their homes and apartments, as if the village suddenly turned hemophiliac. I hear a twangy shriek to my right, and I glance over just in time to see a blonde pony with a cowboy hat gallop over to the winged pony's side.
"Rainbow!" She shouts in Reba McEntire's voice. Fucking Christ. "Rainbow! Y'all okay, sugarcube?! Speak to me!"
"Rainbow Dash..." The unicorn and her submissive friend crawl over. "Oh, darling, if you broke your spine, I would never forgive myself!"
"I'm fine, everypony!" She grunts, unhappy to be the center of such sympathetic attention. "Now let me get back into the fight! Ungh!" She winces, coughing and wheezing in pain.
"No, you ain't fine!" This is starting to turn into Lifetime in HD. I hardly notice. My mind got blown as soon as a pony wearing a hat entered the scene. "Look at you! You done broke every bone in yer body!"
"I... I only did it for my friends..." The pony pants and wheezes as all her fuzzy companions join hooves around her. "I... I used to think that I was awesome. But now..." Cough. Coughhhh. "Now I know that... it's you guys... who are awesome..." A limp smile. Moist eyes. "Maybe..." Sniffle. "Maybe we could have all b-been... awesome together..."
"Oh Rainbow Dash..." The weak pony buries her pink mane in the winged horse's side. "If only you had shown us this soft side of yours before..." She sobs drenchingly. "Instead of hiding it all beneath such a rugged exterior!"
"I didn't want you to worry..." The pony's ruby pink eyes flutter shut as its breaths grow shallow and shallower. "Really, dudes. It was never... n-never..." One breath, a final breath, and then a death rattle. "...never your jobbbb..." And then, it falls silent.
Seconds pass.
Her eyes flash back open. "Oh, hey Twilight!" She smiles. "'Sup?"
"Enough!" A loud voice shouts behind me.
I spin around. A glinting light forces me to squint.
For once, a dayum unicorn is wearing a big bright crown on her skull. It's been a while since I watched a Disney movie, but I think that means—
"You're not wearing any underwear!" I shout.
Her violet eyes cross. "What?"
"Ahem." I point. "You're a princess!"
"Yes..." She says, but nevertheless gulps with trembling wings in my shadow. "And th-these ponies here are my friends!"
"Score!" I pump my fist and approach her. "Pleeeeeeeease tell me that your lavender body can cook up a ruby-shoe-tapping deus ex machina that'll fart me back home! I've got..." I look at my watch and my eyes bulge. "Ten minutes! Fuck! It'll take me eight minutes alone just to body surf my way past the Playstation Four demo!"
"My friends mean everything to me..." She sniffles and fights back tears. "Friendship is what brought me to where I am now! It's what gives me peace of mind and righteousness of the heart!"
"Uh huh... yeah. I got it." I nod, nod, nod. "Because Mickey Mouse Club loves to tell you how to get to Sesame Street. Now can we please—"
"And friendship is the most powerful thing in the universe! Because without it, we are lost like leaves scattered before the winds of—"
"Look, I haven't kicked your horn off and made a Chinese dildo out of it! So you count as my friend!" I point the way I came. "Now will you please open the fucking portal, you goddam space horse?!"
"Eeep!" She limply trots past me. "Follow me, oh monstrous creature! I will usher you back to your domain!"
"No!" The blonde thing with a cowboy hat stretches an arm out as she drawls, "Twilight, don't do it, sugarcube! It's a trap!"
"Down here, AJ" The blue one suddenly yoinks the mare earthward in a full-body hug. "I think I need some more friendship!"
"Whoah!"
Yeah. That didn't happen. Anyways, let's skip ahead a bit, 'cuz I fucking hate backtracking. Besides, it really doesn't take us long to get back the way I came. Once or twice we nearly stumbled over armored stallions and limp lab technicians still busy pretending to be in their death throes. It's kind of cute when you think about it, but then you remember that you're at the bottom of a glass ladder trying to earn eight fifty an hour in a work environment where the odds of a woman advancing is about one to five and—you know what? I just depressed myself again. I don't need that on top of all the stress of burying Christ's manger with price stickers and receipt paper. Let's get to the point. The lavender unicorn opens the fucking portal, okay?
"Hey!" I grin into the sudden maelstrom of flickering lights down the vaginal hall of mirrors. "You've opened the fucking portal, you lavender unicorn!"
"Yes! And for the safety of all who I hold dear, you need to go back home!" She exclaims, trying to console frazzled Dr. McNecktie. "Maybe you'll have learned something about friendship so that the next time we meet, we will be in a better position to discuss—"
"Yeah, fuck off the end of my clit." I jump into the flickering portal without giving the squishy hoof things a second glance. "I'm out the window like Michael Jackson's white baby."
I make my exit with more or less grace. Did I mention that I have webbed toes? You probably didn't know that. You also probably wouldn't realize that the real world smells like rotten cheese all the time. Then again, not everybody gets to spend thirty minutes in a prancing horse dimension that's scented like the color "mauve." When I land back in the mall's hallway, it's like being dumped onto a landfill off Staten Island, only the seagulls are carrying Macy's shopping bags and refusing to make eye contact with Muslim women.
That's how I know that I'm back—this tickle along the inside of my nostril that makes me think that a sweaty Danny Devito is skullfucking me. It's a little thing called fate, and I'm bound to it like a college loan.
"Yeah, well, that's something that happened." I read that on an internet site once. Anyways, there's no time to mourn the absence of Nancy. "A little grape goes a long way. Too bad she couldn't last enough to enjoy it." I'm running through the mall before I have a chance to register how horrible that sounds. Come on. Come onnnnnn. Just two minutes. You can do it! Press "X" to "Courtney." Press "X" to "Courtney!" Yes! I'm there! Saved by the shamelessly obscure pop culture reference!
I stumble into the store full of festive customers and customers' phlegm. Judging by the mediocre temperature of Roger's glare, I figure I'm not cutting it too close. I could try to tell him about my magical adventure with Nancy, the ponies, and an attacking gay pride flag, but I'm sure it'd all bounce off his chest. Besides, how am I to tell that any of that actually just happened? After all, life is merely the sum of all our memories, and all of them contrived between the flippant blink of an eye. Who is to tell what is reality from the flagrant misconception of a beleaguered soul's imagination?
Ha! I'm just shitting you. I'm going to home to cry myself to sleep tonight. But not now. Right this moment, I'm gonna clock in, I'm gonna do my due diligence, and maybe—just maybe, as a responsible working member of society—I'm going to make a deserving family happy this season.
So, signing back into my register, I grace the next customer with a smile and chirp as delightfully as I can, "How may I help you today?"
"Yes, I'd like to pick up Dark Souls 2 for my son."
"Oh, I'm sorry, ma'am, but that isn't out until March. Would you like to pre-order it, though?"
"The site said it was out today, you cunt!" And her purse flies across my face.
The blood.
Author's Note
Call it what you want. I'm calling this "therapy."
