Angels don't got no backhand!
Lying on a cloud is like lying on the softest feather filled pillow. But even pillows can be transformed into brick walls when they are collided against at the speed of sound.
Gilda had been working especially hard during her morning workout. She found that anger was a very good motivator.
Ponyville’s Rainbow Dash chosen to perform at Royal Wedding
Newspapers are for dweebs anyway… she thought to herself bitterly as she remembered the article she read that morning.
Critics speculate that her signature Sonic Rainboom will likely be showcased by the soon-to-be married couple, highlighting the scale of the event.
Why did you even read that trash? she asked herself, scrunching her nose up in disgust.
She passed at bullet speeds above vibrant grass and wildflower fields, and colorful pony built homes.
She rolled her eyes as she did a barrel roll, annoyed at how much she was allowing the article to get to her.
As it stands, her status as a rising star in the field of competitive flying is unrivaled.
Unrivaled…huh… she blinked, as she remembered the line she read over twenty times.
She looked down distractedly. It was a mistake.
She collided into the castle-sized chunk of thickly packed cloud, her inertia compacted the cloud, making it hard as concrete
The last things she saw were an overwhelming bright white…and then darkness.
0000
Ba-bonk
Ba-bonk
Ba-bonk
Ba-bonk
The repetitive sound was brisk, loud, and profound in the pure white room. The lanky man who produced the sound stood tensely in the center.
His thin wire glasses sat on the very brink of his nose, held up with pure will power.
“Ugh.” He groaned with exertion, like a Wimbledon tennis player with four times his muscle weight. He hit the blue rubber ball with all his might.
Ba-bonk
The ball flew softly through the air before bouncing off the far wall, coming back towards him.
“Concentrate, Mary, concentrate!” he said, twisting around clumsily to hit the ball with a back hand.
Ba-bonk
“This is for the record. The platinum.” His thin auburn hair twitched this way and that from his self-generated breeze. “You can be the proverbial Elton John of racquetball, the after-life version of Roger Feder.”
“EH!” he gritted his teeth as he delivered his strongest swing yet, sending the blue ball flying at blinding speeds, faster than ever before.
Unfortunately for Mary, the ball struck the corner between the floor and the far wall, sending the ball, with all its speed, directly at his face.
The force of the small round ball was enough to send Mary reeling, falling back onto the white padded floor.His glasses flew over his head, and his arms and legs were strewn over the cloud made floor.
“Good job, Marion,” he said sarcastically to himself, reaching back for his glasses. “We were only one volley away from reaching seven!”
Mary sighed as he sat up and took a look around his fluffy cloud racquetball room.
“Maybe I should try some heavier ankle weights?” he mused aloud. He gingerly rubbed the spot on his nose where the ball hit and looked down at the blue ribbon of latex fabric holding up a pair of small weights he never took off, even when he slept.
He stood up and dusted off his pure white t-shirt and shorts hanging loosely off his skinny body.
Suddenly, the ground beside him exploded, sending fluffy pieces of cloud flying. A big chunk going at terminal velocity struck Mary on the chest, throwing him up like he had the total mass of a cardboard cut-out.
“Ouff!” The wind rushed out of his lungs upon impact.
The creature that burst forth from the floor hit the ceiling, caving it outwards, before flopping down onto the ground.
“Ughhhhh,” Gilda groaned. It felt like every bone and muscle in her body had just gone through a wringer. It seemed that her stomach had taken the brunt of the impact: it stung like she had just done a belly flop from a three hundred hoof height.
Her eyes opened blinkingly and she rolled her head left and right.
She turned herself over, back onto her claws and paws before she leaned forward and pushed her paws back, stretching until she heard something pop. With a sigh, and a ruffle of her feathers, she decided that everything was in working order.
“You’re a little scruffy for an angel,” said a voice from behind her.
Gida narrowed her eyes and turned around. “Who are you callin scruffy you…” she paused when she cast her eyes on the skinny thing sitting in a disheveled state behind her. “What are you?” she asked, confused.
“But you have the hair of a feral Tina Turner,” he continued, smiling in admiration.
“I asked you who you were, Dweeb,” she said, taking a threatening step forward.
“Dweeb?” he repeated thoughtfully. “That’s a new one. Usually it’s along the lines of ‘creep’, ‘weirdo’, ‘Ying Yang Killer’ or ‘party pooper’. Full marks for creativity, my furry, feathered friend.”
He reached out a limp wristed right hand. “Mary Lightly,” he told her.
Gilda raised an eyebrow, but slowly reached out and shook his fleshy appendage.
“Mary? Isn’t that a girl’s name.”
“Yes.”
“Are you a girl?”
“No. My father’s name was Mary, and his father’s name was Mary and his father’s name was Craig.”
“That’s good. Otherwise you’d be a pretty ugly girl,” said Gilda.
She looked curiously around the cloud room she had crashed into. “How is it that you’re standing on clouds? You don’t have wings.”
“It’s probably because I’m dead,” he replied, as if that explained everything. He pulled his hands together behind his back and stretched.
“What do you mean you think you’re dead? You’re not dead, you’re right here, dweeb,” said Gilda, looking at him weird.
Mary kept smiling.
“I don’t think. I know,” he insisted. “Now come on, you’re probably going to want to do some more stretches. Try to get nice and limber!” he said, reaching down to his toes.
“Why?”
“For the racquetball game,” he replied.
For the first time, Gilda took a look at the clothes Mary was wearing. They were white, sporty, thigh high shorts, a size small shirt, and a headband on his forehead. There was some kind of thick blue bands on his ankles above his pale tennis shoes. Beside his shoes were two white rackets and a pile of balls.
“Why do you think I want to play racquetball with you?” she sneered.
Mary stopped stretching or smiling and he looked at the griffon with something oddly desperate in his eyes.
“Because…you’re my angel,” he told her. “But, I understand, you’re probably busy. Have important angelic things to do, like blessing Tom Hanks and earning your wings. If you want, you can talk to me about it…I mean, you’re life. I really haven’t had anyone to talk to around here. Not like it’d be a change from usual if you left.”
“Well…” Gilda began, trying to find a good excuse to get away from this weird ‘Dweeb’. But, after a second, she started wondering if she really wanted to leave.
Her muscles were sore, her body tired, and going back out there wouldn’t change what bothered her. Maybe taking a break here wouldn’t be such a bad idea. And it wasn’t like this guy would be much of opponent. If she was to play him it wouldn’t be a very long match.
“…I guess I have time for one game…”
Mary grinned. “Thank you.”
He tossed a white racket to Gilda; she grabbed it out of midair with her right claw.
“How do you play this game, anyway?” she asked, studying the racket.
“Like a champion!” replied Mary, now balancing the rubber ball on his racket.
Gilda raised an eyebrow, but then nodded. “I can roll with that.”
“Try to return my volley,” said Mary, as he took a few steps back. He let the ball drop and bounce off the floor, before smacking it with side of his racket.
Ba-bonk
Gilda focused in on the flying ball, and swung with a back hand as hard as she could. The ball bounced off the wall, but instead of taking the same angle as before in reverse, it flew up wildly.
Ba-bonk
Ba-bonk
Ba-bonk
Ba-bonk
It bounced off all the walls, this way and that way, with no rhyme or reason, at an uncontrollable speed.
Mary ducked just in time, as the ball lightly scraped past the tip of his head, ruffling his hair.
Gilda, though flinching, caught the ball tightly in her claw, giving it several puncture marks.
“Maybe this is going to be a bit harder than I thought,” she pondered briefly.
“What did you say your name was?” asked Mary, preparing to serve a second ball.
“Gilda,” she said.
Ba-bonk
“Huh, interesting name for an Angel of the Lord. If I had to choose, I would have gone with something a little more biblical, like Ezekiel or Aberacus.”
Gilda rolled her eyes. “I’m not an angel. I’m a griffon. Half eagle, half lion, all awesome. I mean, seriously, are you colorblind or something.”
Ba-bonk
“Nope, you are angel,” insisted Mary. “Only angels have wings, and visit heaven.”
Mary swung at the incoming ball, but missed, and instead sent himself spinning on his heel.
“I think that puts the score at one to one,” he said once he stopped spinning.
“Oh come on, you aren’t seriously counting that first serve as your point?! I hadn’t even swung a racket before then,” protested Gilda, pouting.
“It’s not my fault angels don’t have any backhand,” replied Mary, preparing to serve another ball.
Ba-bonk
“Tell me, Gilda. What events have brought you to my humble racquetball court?” he asked, watching the trail of the ball go towards his partner.
"Oh," said Gilda, suddenly thinking back to article and then her crash. "Just...um...doing my daily workout. Gotta keep these wings in practice. If I want to be the best anyway..."
Ba-bonk
Her broken sentences were enough of a distraction for her to hit the ball the wrong way, bouncing it against the ceiling and then the floor, losing the point.
"It sounds to me as though it was more than that. Something was troubling you," said Mary, retrieving the ball slower than before as he looked to the griffin.
"I mean...there was something distracting me. I doubt a dweeb like you would understand," said Gilda, diverting her gaze away from her racquetball partner.
Mary smiled, and served. "Try me."
Ba-bonk
Gilda sighed, and shook her head. "I don't know... It's just this friend I have, well, I thought she was my friend." She hit the ball back.
Ba-bonk
"She's a really good flyer, like crazy good. When we worked together, I thought I was just as good as her. But now, she's the one with the flying career, she's the one with the fame, and she's the one with the pomp and circumstance. It just...it's not fair...I worked just as hard as her, I wanted it just as much as her. I swear I did, but she's the one who got it," Gilda ruffled her feathers a bit as Mary returned the volley.
Ba-bonk
"She won't even talk to me anymore, like she's just too good for her pal Gilda. Who was there for her through every three hour practice in flight school, and every nauseating flight simulator? It sure wasn't those Technicolor dweebs she's hanging out with now," she said bitterly.
Her swing sent the ball going wide, making Mary chase after it in a clumsy, awkward run.
Ba-bonk
"I was reading about her in this newspaper article that was just fawning over her, saying how everything just stopped with her in competitive flying."
She shook her head as she reimagined the article. Unlike Mary, she didn’t bother chasing after the ball as it flew past her.
“So what did you do?” asked Mary, his hands on his knees, already winded.
Gilda raised an eyebrow.
“I crashed into a cloud.”
“No, I mean, what did you do with the newspaper article?”
“Oh, um,” she began, suddenly blushing beneath her fur and feathers. “I threw it away…”
Mary’s looked up at her skeptically.
“Alright, fine. I cut it out and put in my drawer with all the other articles about Rainbow Dash,” she admitted, embarrassed.
“Ahhhh,” said Mary with understanding. “You’re still in stage two. Just wait until you get the cork board to hang articles on and move to the town they live in without their knowledge.”
Gilda dead panned at the skinny creature. Partly because of how disturbing it was, and partly because it disturbingly rang true. She had even been considering finding a better way to organize the articles in her Dashie drawer just yesterday.
“And… you know this, because…” she asked tentatively.
“Because I’ve been down that road,” replied Mary, turning his attention to the ball Gilda had punctured, which he now balanced on his racket. “He was my friend too, though, I was never really one for friends.”
“Yeah, Rainbow Dash was my only friend too,” Gilda said quietly.
“I wanted to be the hero, instead of him, for once.” He smiled nostalgically. “And that’s what got me murdered. I decided not to go for help, and I went alone. Guess I was never one to be the hero...how about you?”
Gilda sat down, swallowed, and strummed idly on the strings of her racket.
“No, me either…wait…you were murdered?”
Mary nodded with a smile. “A serial killer. But I don’t think I should bore you with that story. And besides, I thought I might be able to move past it in death. Have a nice racquetball retirement. You know.”
Gilda kept looking down and sighed.
Suddenly, her face lit up, and she turned to Mary. “So, you think you’re not all obsessed with your friend anymore?”
Mary shrugged. “Death tends to resolve things like that.”
“But, do you think, that maybe, I dunno, you could help me?”
“With what?”
“Get over my obsession with Rainbow Dash and become a real flyer,” said Gilda, hopeful.
“I don’t know…”
“Oh, come on! It’s not like you’ve got anything better to do, moping around a cloud with what I can only guess is an endless supply of rackets and balls! Come on, let’s do some cool stuff. Let’s go on tour as interspecies racquetball playing team! Put on an interpretively awesome flying slash dancing show! I don’t know?” she waved her racket around for emphasis. “Just help me out, okay? I think I need it…and maybe we could both use a friend.”
Mary stood there quietly, staring at Gilda through his thin, wired glasses, pondering her proposal.
“Could we even be a crime fighting duo?” he asked.
“Sure, I guess. On the side.”
Mary nodded acceptingly. “Very well, my aviary angel. But that just leaves one thing to do.”
“What?”
“We have a game to finish!” declared Mary, letting the ball drop from his racket and serving it on its bounce back up.
Ba-bonk!
“And you’re going down, DWEEB!” Gilda smiled, and jumped up to return the serve.
Ba-bonk!
“He!” grunted Mary through an earsplitting grin.
Back and forth and back forth went the blue ball, moving at blinding speeds.
Ba-bonk!
"Two to Three!"
Ba-bonk!
"Three to Three!"
Ba-bonk!
Ba-bonk
"Four to Three!"
Ba-bonk!
One swing sent the ball going far and wide, and Gilda leapt up, using her wings to catch it.
The return also went wide, forcing Mary to jump and skip in order to send the ball back. Though the swing did not miss, he fell down, knocking over the bucket of rubber balls.
Gilda, distracted by Mary's antics, hit the ball at an off angle, sending it onto the ceiling and walls too quickly for anyone to catch.
Instead of announcing the score in his favor, Mary picked up one of the balls at his side and hit it wildly, then another, and another. It wasn't long before Gilda caught on and they were both chucking the balls willy-nilly.
Streaks of blue zoomed around the racquetball room in an energetic chaos, bouncing until they lost their momentum, or until they collided with the two Racquetball players.
Eventually, they ran out of balls to hit, and both Mary and Gilda flopped back onto the comforting cloud that held them up. They both breathed deep, hard and raggedly, laying down as their adrenaline faded.
Mary, the most winded of the two, had his hair sticking to his forehead from his sweat.
Gilda laughed lightly.
Mary smiled, and wiped some sweat off his brow.
"I think we can call that a draw, Mary," said Gilda.
"Well, I guess Angels can keep better score than I can," he replied.
"You know, for a dweeb, you're a pretty cool guy."
"Thanks."
"So," said Gilda, sitting back up. "What do you say we ditch this joint and get something to eat?"
"Will there be anchovies?” asked Mary.
“I know a place,” replied Gilda.
With a wink to her partner, she grasped the cloud floor firmly with her claws and then ripped it open, exposing the open sky bellow them.
“But we should also get some pie,” she added.
“I like pi,” said Mary, tossing a spare ball into his pocket, and sticking a racket down the back of his shirt.
Gilda motioned for him to climb onto her back.
Mary clambered on, linking his hands around her soft feathered neck, and placing his chin atop her tuft of hair.
“Try to hold on, Dweeb,” said Gilda, a playful and determined glint growing in her eyes.
They took off, faster than a speeding bullet, back into the world. The sound of joyful screaming and screeching faded into the distance.
