So Far...

“I’m a schizophrenic, and so am I” I said. Rainbow looked at me with her trademark “what the hay are you talking about” look.

“You humans tell the weirdest jokes. I don’t even know what a hitler or a schertzofurnic is... Here’s a quality joke. So this stallion wants a job, but he stutters terribly. He walked up to another stallion one day and said “C-c-can I h-h-have a j-j-j-job?” The other said “no, sorry, you must speak well with clients.” The stallion moped home and was sad the rest of the day. The next day he found a mare selling flowers. “H-h-hello” he said. “C-c-can I h-h-have a j-j-job h-h-here?”. “I’m sorry” she replied, “but you stutter much too often for me to understand you!” The stallion kept walking until he saw a firehouse with a help wanted sign on. He went in and said “Ex-ex-excuse m-m-me, but c-c-can I h-h-have a j-j-job h-h-here?” One of the firestallions said “We would, but you stutter far too much, and we can’t have that in critical situations”. “♫But I don’t stutter when I sing!♫” The stallion pleaded. “Oh alright” the firestallion replied. “You can work security tonight.”

Later that night the stallion saw that right across the street from the firehouse a sawmill was burning down. He quickly took out his radio and shouted “Th-th-the saw-saw-saw m-m”. “Sir, I can’t understand you” the operator replied. “♫The sawmill is burning♫”! “♫Wah cha cha wah cha cha♫” the operator replied.”

“I don’t get it...”

“See, the operator thought it was a song, not an actual emergency.”

I thought about it for a while.

“WOOOOW. That joke was lame.”

“Oh fine, it’s always the clean, non-racist ones that are never funny.”

“Well Rainbow, why don’t you tell me a ‘good’ one then?”

“Because Scootaloo is right next to us” she said, pointing to the orange pegasus behind us.

“Hello Dash” Spitfire said, hovering over us.

“Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh!” Scootaloo cried from behind Rainbow’s flank. “It’s Spitfire!”

“Hey!” Rainbow barked. “Who’s fan club are you the president of anyway?”

“THAT is the president of your fan club?” Spitfire interrogated, fluttering to the ground and laughing.

“Yeah!” Scootaloo shouted proudly. “She’s the fastest, coolest, most radical pony who always dresses in style!”

“Fastest? Aw come on little filly, you ought to know better than that!” Spitfire laughed.

“That’s because I AM the fastest!” Rainbow asserted. “Celestia herself said it at the young fliers competition!”

“Oh, don’t scare me like that Dash. You know that I am the fastest. You do, don’t you?”

“I’m pretty sure you’re not.”

Spitfire fell down again and rolled on her back laughing, tearing up a bit. “You were serious? That makes it even funnier!”

“If you’re so fast why haven’t you ever performed a sonic rainboom?”

“Look, Dash, I assumed you knew this, but apparently you didn’t. When you break Mach 1, you do a sonic rainboom, because, well, you are rainbow-based. But something different happens when I break Mach 1...”

“A race then?” Rainbow challenged.

“You and me to Canterlot, winner gets bragging rights.”

“That’s all I ever wanted” Rainbow affirmed, and simultaneously they took off.

Rainbow at first led by a nose, but was quickly overtaken. Even though both were going hundreds of miles per hour, they looked like two dots barely moving relative to each other, with a blur of fauna. A Mach cone quickly developed around each of them, as Spitfire steadily overtook Rainbow. She clenched her eyes to keep them from drying out, unlike Spitfire who, rarely nude in public, had big glass aviator glasses protecting her eyes. Rainbow watched intently at the tip of the Mach cone, sharpening to a point, slowly unraveling. It was breaking the spectrum. She was going to do it; her first ever parallel sonic rainboom. The Mach cone sharpened to its full extent as bolts of static hit the air. She was so close, she could feel it. Just a bit more and-

Everything went white. Rainbow, blinded, instinctively raised both hooves to shield her eyes, and the Mach cone, sensing the disruption, violently ejected her back. Her singed fur smoldered, and when her retinas recovered from the wash of purple, she saw in the sky a ring of fire, with a smoldering streak of burning sky leading to a small golden dot, already at the gates of Canterlot. She picked herself up, limping from the burn on her left forehoof, and walked to Canterlot. I took the train.

Rainbow wiped her watery eyes as I rubbed her with sunflower oil.

“D’aww, come on Dashy! It doesn’t look too bad...” Spitfire commented.

“That’s not why I’m upset. I lost. I thought I was the fastest, but I wasn’t. I thought I was unique in being able to break the sound barrier.”

“And who better to lose to than the captain of the most elite aviators in Equestria? I’ll tell you what, you really gave me a run for my money back there!

“Guest for Rainbow Dash and Arthur Human!” Soarin yelled from behind the hangar door

“You know that’s not actually my last n-“

“Hello everypony!” a pink pony yelled.

“Pinkie what are you doing here?” Questioned Rainbow.

“I’m just here to volunteer because I get so lonely without my little dashie washie and... ummm... Arthur... wh... jar... McArthur! Like that old guy in the military uniform who watched the 80’s My Little Pony!”

“Wait what?” Spitfire said, questioning the mental stability of the pink pony, and rightfully so.

“Well you see there was this one general I saw while breaking the fourth wall in the 80s... Douglas McArthur was it?”

“Wait so you can see people?” Rainbow asked, more puzzled than ever.

“You bet. Right now we’re being watched by 2,000 kids between the ages of 5-10, and 2,000,000 people between the ages of 14-40. I guess since the 80’s the show has become much more adult-themed.”

“Dash should I call security?” Spitfire asked sincerely.

“Pinkie why are you here?” Dash asked again, concerned.

“I’m just here to volunteer as a cook, like I said.” She said with an inappropriately large smile.

“Don’t tell me” I said melancholically. “You’re going to make cupcakes.”

“Well, now you ruined the general idea.”

“And you’ll ask for Rainbow’s help.”

“How did you know? Do you have Pinkie senses?”

“I read a book about it this one time.”

“A cookbook?”

“Nearly threw up the first time around.”

“Surely the food wasn’t that bad.”

Now I spoke with my ‘soldier remembering Vietnam voice’;“I had nightmares for a while. Couldn’t clop for 45 minutes...”

“All this because of cupcakes?”

“It was horrible. You were cutting Rainbow apart and chopping her up and showing her corpses of her friends, and giving her adrenaline shots whenever she would pass out...”

“I’m not sure who to call security on now” Rainbow said frankly.

“And there I was- I had a good friend blasted by an RPG round on a search and destroy mission on the Ho Chi Minh trail. I mean, I've seen blood and gore before, but when it's someone you've spent a lot of time with, day in and day out, and he's lying on his back missing an arm and a leg, with a bone protruding out the top of his body, you want to help him any way you can.

As my friend lay there, on the verge of dying, I thought, "for what?" I wanted the fight to end quickly so this medic chopper could leave and things could return to normal. Soon he disappeared from my sight, but to this day they linger in my consciousness. The only thing I could do was pray for my friend. I fell to my knees and prayed like I had never prayed before. I asked God to please be with my friend, keep him safe and to please let my friend live! "Amen" "Amen" and "Amen"...”

I snapped out of my insane state and looked back at the 3 ponies staring at me. Spitfire and Rainbow held their mouths open, staring blankly at me like I just pulled a pineapple out of my pants. Pinkie, on the other hand, was sitting intently, clapping excitedly as I finished my quick story, cheering, like I just pulled a pineapple out of my pants.

“Oh, also I was going to say that the Equestrian parliament is holding elections for the prime minister, and was wondering whether Dash wanted to run, since she is now old enough.”

I felt a foreshadowing flashback coming on.

*

“Rainbow Dash, mein führer, what are your orders to parliament?”

“Yeah, this world isn’t nearly cool or fast enough. I want everypony to increase their idle speed 10 fold, and I demand every school be replaced with a junior speedsters flight academy!”

“But mein führer, the enemy Iran is at our borders, what do we do about the potential threat?”

“Simple, Flam. Nuclear threats fix everything.”

*

“NO!” I cried. "I mean, Rainbow, you have other priorities to attend to."

“Righty smitey whitey tidies!” Pinkie said. “Let’s have fluttershy run!”

*

“Fluttershy, Mrs. President, what are your orders to parliament?”

“Oh dear, I don’t want it to sound harsh. I just want everypony to be happy and do whatever they want.”

“But Mrs. President, the enemy Iran is at our borders, what do we do to prevent the ferocious creatures living there from attacking us?”

“Flam, I guess we could talk them out of it?”

Flam facepalmed.

*

“Something tells me that won’t quite work.”

“What about Applejack?”

*

“Applejack, my queen, what are your orders to parliament?”

“The people are well-fed, but’m due to our capitalist regime, our darn tootin’ competitors are quickly industrializing against us and are planning to leech us out of all our resources!”

“And what do you plan on doing against the enemy Iran?”

“Flam, you misunderstood my priorities. I don’t need to get rid of Iran. I need to get crush competition like you and your darn machine! Iran won’t invade us or face... ECONOMIC SANCTIONS!”

“They already began.”

*

“No something tells me we will turn neoconservative. Again.”

“Alright, how about Rarity?”

*

“Rarity, my beautiful overlord, what are your orders to parliament?”

“Well Darling, I simply must have everypony looking their best. We can’t be the leading nation if even a single pony is in drabs!”

“But my beautiful overlord, the enemy Iran is at our borders, what do we do about the potential threat?”

“Ummm. Darling, isn’t there someone more qualified to answer that question for you? Why are you always picking on me for all the ‘big decisions’? Its not like I’m the prime minister or anything, I’m just the overlord. People are always complaining that they are hungry and look emaciated and just never stop bothering me, and I can never eat a daisy sandwich without gaining a pound, and don’t even get me started on women’s bathroom lines...”

*

“I think I’d prefer Rainbow.”

“How about Twilight?”

*

“General Secretary Twilight, what are your orders to the Duma?”

“Well the economy is booming, everypony has a higher standard of living, and general prosperity is sweeping Equestria. I would say maintain status quo.”

“What about Iran?”

The sound of a stick snapping rung from Twilight’s head as her ear twitched violently.

“The enemy Iran, as I have heard is at our borders. We must respond, but how should we do so most prudently?”

“Perhaps a meeting, a treaty of some sorts?”

“How widespread is the news spread about Iran?”

“Not far, ma’am.”

“Good. Censor it out of every newspaper, and remove it from any textbook. He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past. If weakness means anything at all, it means the thought to tell people what they do not want to hear.”

“What shall we do about Iran though?”

“We immediately declare war!”

“Isn’t there anything more humane than war?”

“The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of lives, but of the products of ponykind’s labour. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent. We cannot be both the world’s leading champion of peace and the world’s leading supplier of the weapons of war.

The entire Islamic world condemned Iran. Nowadays, because of the unwarranted invasion of Iraq by Celestia and Luna, which was a completely unjust adventure based on misleading statements, and the lack of any effort to resolve the Palestinian issue, there is massive Islamic condemnation of the Equestrian Empire.

“But, ma’am, starting a large bombing campaign against a democratic country is surely inhumane!”

“It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using that word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. Bombing is not especially inhumane. War itself is inhumane and the bombing plane, which is used to paralyze industry and transport, is a relatively civilized weapon. ‘Normal’ or ‘legitimate’ warfare is just as destructive of inanimate objects and enormously so of pony lives.

“Where is our god now?” Flam cried into his sleeve.

“Is ponykind one of God’s blunders? Or is God one of ponykind’s blunders?”

*

“Pinkie, how about none of us run?”

“Oh you don’t want to run either?”

“I don’t think I’m eligible...” I said frankly.

Pinkie pulled out her pocket-sized Declaration of The Rights of Ponykind and of The Citizen of Equestria and unfolded it, reviewing the massive parchment coated on both sides in tiny words.

“The Prime Minister of Equestria... yadda yadda yadda... at least 25 years old and a resident of Equestria.... yadda yadda yadda... obsolete part of this clause provides that instead of being a natural born citizen, a person may be a citizen at the time of the adoption of the bill... This clause is sometimes said to ... Nope, sorry, you have to be 25. You’re 16 last I heard.”

“Well darn.”

As she stuffed the massive folded parchment back... wherever she kept it, a small object fell out. It floated and landed right in front of me, sideways. It was a picture of Big Mac with a heart sticker.

“Pinkie what is that?”

“Oh, that’s just a picture of my coltfriend.”

“Big Mac is your coltfriend?”

“Well sure. We do all that kissy stuff and go on dates sometimes. Don’t you and Rainbow ever go on dates?”

Rainbow and I looked at each other inquisitively. “Never crossed my mind I guess...” Rainbow remarked.

“Oh well there’s this really nice restaurant in downtown Canterlot called Snooty Cannellini. It’s very nice!”

Looks like I have plans for tonight...