Blurred vision. Biting cold. The howl of the wind. These were the only things that my mind registered as I crashed onto the hard ground. I had flown a long and perilous flight, and my journal was not yet over. As every muscle screamed in protest, I forced myself back onto my hooves. I was exhausted…no, that’s an understatement. I was beyond exhaustion. The only thing keeping me going was…wait, what was keeping me going? I had no destination in mind, so that couldn’t have been it. I was not desperate for shelter from the storm, so that possibility is also out. I feared not death, thus I had no pressing urge for self-preservation. So what exactly was it that was keeping me going?
I remember…I had stared into the heart of this storm what seemed like days ago. I plunged into its depths; worrying not for the potential danger I was putting myself into. I had nothing back home holding me down, no ties to anything, anyplace, or anypony in particular. What life I had left behind was a shattered, tattered remnant of a lifestyle I thought I enjoyed, though I can see clearly now that I was a miserable wreck of a pegasus for trying to fit in somewhere I didn’t belong. I remember thinking that I needed change, but every time I tried to make change happen for myself it backfired in some unfortunate way. Something was always in the way, either holding me back from reaching whatever dream I was pursuing at the time or blocking my way ahead. Every plan I ever conceived was a failure, though I could never pinpoint why. Even now, as I struggled to remain conscious, I could not pinpoint why everything I ever tried always fell short. So what was keeping me going?
Did I ever foresee that my life would be turned upside down? That everything I ever knew or thought I knew would have to be left behind? Strictly speaking no, but for years I’ve had this suspicion, this hunch, that what I had would not last. Every day I tried in vain to keep that thought subdued, to keep it away from what I thought mattered. It never worked. It wasn’t until I reached my breaking point in life that I realized that something had to change, though I could never discern what.
I suppose for that reason it’s a good thing that I was always a loner, a drifter. Few ponies really met me, and even fewer still ever got to know who I am, or was. I don’t know who I am now, though I think I know who I was then. I was confused, trying to be somepony that I wasn’t. I tried so hard for years to fit in with society, to actually be somepony that mattered. It was a lie. I had to learn the hard way that society was a lie. Money doesn’t matter. Poverty is a pony-made problem, not something inherent to any given species like hunger. Wealth, be it material or financial, is an illusion; nopony can keep what they’ve acquired after death. The only certainty is death, and even then there are those who have found a way to escape it. Are there any true certainties? I personally don’t believe so, and when I tried to explain this to my fellow Equestrians I was shunned, scoffed at, and made into a pariah. I was an outcast, and for some reason I was perfectly okay with that.
So why was I out here on some unknown piece of land in the middle of some body of water in what could possibly be the biggest storm I’ve ever seen? Why? Why did I put so much effort into getting here? I suppose the best answer I could give is that I was trying to escape something, though I couldn’t say what exactly that might be. Perhaps I had just grown tired of living around a lie. Perhaps I wished to forge my own way through life, society be damned. But that wasn’t it, at least not the entire reason. Was it spontaneity? I didn’t exactly premeditate flying into some monster of a storm just to find myself broken and beaten on some island…assuming this is an island. I couldn’t quite make it out as I landed, and I’d had a hard enough time just focusing on my limbs making sure that they still functioned properly.
In any case, it was a thought that I could return to later when I had regained my strength. For now I had to put every ounce of strength into moving underneath an outcropping of rock. There I could escape the rain, though the wind remained persistent. Underneath these rocks I allowed myself to collapse onto the sand and dirt. My energy was spent, and I fought to remain conscious.
But why? With all that I know, why would I even bother? I have nothing. No possessions, no dreams, no friends or family…nothing. So why did I persist? I had nothing to really live for anymore, not that I ever really did to begin with. Any reasonable pony would look at me and insist that I just give up and let nature take its course with me, and were I a reasonable pony I just might agree but I concede I must not be a reasonable pony to have willingly wound up in this situation. Any reasonable pony would have taken but one look at the storm I dove headlong into and bailed for cover.
So I persisted. I never thought of myself as being terribly stubborn, but I must attribute my current state of affairs to at least a degree of stubbornness. Perhaps that is solely why I persist, why I keep pushing onwards despite anything and everything. It would explain why I’ve insisted on taking this flight with no destination or goal in mind, at least other than to just put some distance between me and everything I’ve ever known. I must be that stubborn then. Just because I was always a drifter doesn’t mean I was always carefree, right? Hang on a moment…
…drifting…
…was that it? Am I just falling back on the one thing I’ve always known in the absence of everything else? Is that why I keep going? To drift wherever my hooves and wings take me? Has that always been my calling, my destiny, to just drift my entire life? Was I never meant to live with society and all its fake rules? Was I born to be an outcast?
These thoughts overtook my mind. Seconds began to pass like eternities, and eventually my strength gave out and I allowed myself to succumb to the embrace of unconsciousness.
Author's Note
Just something I came up with since I haven't written in a good while, set to the same general story/theme of "Reflections". Perhaps I might make a series of this...