Sitting in the Shower with Bottles of Cider

It has been three years.

Three years since I last wrote in this mini diary. About which I cannot even remember, and do not care to. Three years since I last sat in the shower with a bottle of cider in hoof, only to stare pensively at the inside edge of the tub as the water collected around me.

Three years since I fell in love.

And one month since I fell out again.

A lot has changed, but much has remained the same. I dropped out of Canterlot University. I left being a Security Guard for private interests. I became a 'technician' for the new and old magio-electric lines that run underground beneath most major towns and cities.

Or rather, I've become an apprentice.

Like most of the jobs I have chosen, like most of the lives I have lived, this one is difficult. Filled with difficult ponies who don't really have the capability to be either empathetic, nor understand that which is beyond their own snouts. I have made every effort to the best of my ability to do as they desire. To follow in their hoofsteps. The more I try, it seems, the worse I fail.

"Lighten up." They said. So I did, and they were displeased by the result.

"You speak too much." they then told me, and so I spoke less, and they could not understand.

So I went silent, and the cycle repeats. One might think: "Perhaps you should seek middle ground."

Ah, but there is none. There is no middle ground. They wish to banter AT you, but not with you. They wish you to be HAPPY, and show it, but never express it. To be mindlessly 'happy' with your lot, and to fight without fighting. To be a circular being upon which they can dump their waste and distaste for their own lives and the lives of others.

It is ridiculous.

They are ridiculous.

I am ridiculous.

Clearly it is 'I' who do the wrong thing. Everypony else gets the picture. Everypony else understands. Everypony else is in harmony.

Except. Me.

It is no coincidence that I keep a 'defensive spell of immolation' near my desk, where I spend much of my time after slaving away in pits, and beneath basements and crawlspaces. That after a day of being told that 'I lack common sense,' when I did not grow up doing this job, nor jobs like it, I stare at it, wondering if I should activate it. Speak those words, and...

... Be gone forever.

You cannot be unhappy if you are not here. You cannot speak if you are always out of earshot.

It is a powerful spell. Quick. Nearly painless. Almost always fatal. Meant to take out an aggressor. However, it is equally as good at destruction of an enemy... as it is in the injury, maiming, and purging... of one's self.

It is not a spell to be considered lightly under any circumstance.

This is not a plea for assistance. This is not a cry for help. I do not want pity.

I just want someone to hear. To consider their actions the next time they have to deal with a person such as myself. To perhaps consider that there is more to the picture than a stallion...

...who talks too much.

Ah, but who am I kidding? No one will ever hear. No one will ever care. We are all but one drop amidst a sea of anguish...

... and we will be swept away by the roaring tide, into silence.