A Series of Shorts

Pain. I could hardly feel it, but it was there. Everything felt heavy, dulled and sluggish. I barely managed to open my eyelids. It was blindingly bright and I could feel my retinas aching, protesting this strain. Even though the edges of my view remained black I refused to give up this bastion of vision. The pain was good, at least I could feel something.

I could make out the dim white outline of a figure next to me, another pony, a snow-white mare with bright crimson eyes and a frazzled mane of bright blues. She’s… saying something, but I cannot hear her clearly. As she comes into greater focus I see from her expression, drawn in worry and shiny tears running down her eyes that she seems upset. Don’t pity me, I tried to say to her. This detachment from pain felt wonderful. It was like living in the peaceful haze of a dream.

But deep within the confines of my mind, something buzzed constantly in the back of my consciousness. Who was this mare? I thought I knew her…

No matter my efforts though, I couldn’t attach a name to her, or any emotion to her; all I received was a vague feeling of wrongness, like I’d forgotten something dreadfully important.

Slowly, my drowsiness began to return, an omniscient force was trying to drag my eyelids shut again and slowly succeeding. Through my liquid fog and the distance that seemed like miles, yet I knew to only be inches, beside the bed I was lying upon but could not feel, a monitor began to slowly beep a warning, growing in intensity. The mare next to me became agitated and started to cry something that scarcely reached my unreceptive ears. It sounded like she was begging for me to stay awake, telling me not to fall asleep.

At those words I was reminded of a song I had once heard in the village I grew up in, though I couldn’t remember the name, I was too tired to. In spite of my exhaustion, I forced numbs lips to slowly move sluggishly to produce the lyrics:

Hush now, quiet now

It's time to lay your sleepy head

Hush now, quiet now

It's time to go to bed…