Purity was a pegasus pony. His family was very poor. There wasn't much food to go around, and his parents were very strict about never wasting food. Ever. "Waste not, want not," they always said. Sometimes they would beat him if he spilled any of his oats on the ground. Sometimes they would beat him because they were sad. That made him sad too, but he was a big pony and he could take it if he had to.
Purity had a little sister named Charity. Purity loved the little filly very much. She always so excited and loved to bounce around and run and jump and fly and play. She was a real chatterbox too. She always wanted to eat, but she never got big like Purity. In fact, she was as skinny as a rail! Purity's mother told him it was because she had a "hyper materblism", but Purity didn't know what that meant. So he would let Charity have some of his portions at lunch, because he liked to see her happy.
One day Purity's father clipped his wing on a cloud engine, and fell down to where the earth ponies play. He must have liked it down there, because he never came back up to work at the weather factory. Purity could understand why, life was pretty boring up in the clouds. There weren't very many colors. The weird thing was, Purity's mother didn't let him or Charity follow when she went down to play as well. She was very clear when she said to stay put, and wait for her to come back with more food.
So Purity and Charity waited. And waited. And waited some more! They were both getting really hungry. And not just the regular hungry, this was a special kind of hungry where you get all shaky and can't think straight. Purity had been this kind of hungry once before, when his father lost his job for a little bit, and the food stopped coming.
Charity was even worse though. She started complaining and whining and crying, and she only stopped when she fell asleep. Purity hated to see his little sister sad. It made him very sad too. He wanted her to stop and be happy, so he could be happy again, even if he was still hungry. But he didn't know what to do! Nothing he said would cheer her up, and he couldn't find food anywhere!
He was getting very sad and very shaky and he definitely couldn't think of a way to make her stop. So he started hitting Charity, because that's what mother usually did when she was sad, and it made her not so sad any more. It didn't work so well, she just started screaming even more. So he tried again, a bit harder. This time it worked! She stopped making noises! Purity was very proud of himself. Even though he was still pretty hungry.
But all that work had made Purity very tired, and he still was very hungry, so he took a nap. When he woke up, something was really stinky! It smelled like the garbage he had to sometimes eat when his father didn't bring home enough food. But it wasn't garbage, it was Charity that was stinky. But, that would mean Charity turned into garbage...
And that was gross! Purity liked Charity when she wasn't garbage, even when she was complaining. But Purity couldn't think about that for very long, because he was still very hungry. It was times like these when Purity had to eat garbage, but he had looked for garbage to give to Charity so she could eat and stop whining. But... Charity was garbage... And he needed to eat garbage, even though it was stinky.
So Purity ate Charity. Then he took another nap.
When he woke up, he was not in his home, and he had a stomach ache. There was a pony yelling at him, but he couldn't quite understand because his stomach hurt so much. So he vomited all over, and his stomach finally stopped hurting, so he could go back to sleep.
This time, he woke up wearing new clothes! He almost never got to wear clothes, so this was very exciting. There was another new pony with him, but this pony didn't yell. And he was wearing the same kind of clothes, except his were more colorful. This new pony told him that he was Purity's new boss, and that Purity had a new job. Purity had never liked jobs, but he guessed it would be OK if it meant he could finally start eating again. The best part was, all he had to do was pull a little lever every time a green light turned on. That was easy! So he pulled the lever all day until it was time for lunch.
As he walked to the mess hall with the other workers, he noticed a bunch of sleeping ponies on a conveyer belt, being dumped into a dark hole. He was kind of afraid of the dark, but Charity would probably like taking a ride. She always liked exploring. He mentioned this to one of the ponies standing near by, she he asked "Who's Charity?". Now that he thought about it, he wasn't quite sure. But then he remembered: Charity turned into a garbage pony. He told his new friend, then asked her, "So why are all those ponies sleeping if it's lunch time? And where does the hole go?" She replied that weren't sleeping, they were garbage ponies, and they were being thrown away.
Now that just wasn't right! Even if they were garbage, garbage is still food (Purity had learned that the hard way), and you should never, EVER, waste food. After lunch (it felt so good to eat again!) they told him to go pull his lever some more, so he did. But while he pulled his lever, he started thinking about all the wasted food that was being thrown in the dark hole. And he started thinking about how angry his parents would be if they knew that he was letting all that food get thrown away. And he knew that they were still going to come back, eventually. And he started thinking of the terrible beating he was sure to get when they found out. So after all the other ponies left, he flew over to the conveyor belt and crept to the edge of the hole.
It smelled like garb-- like food. There must be so much food down there! Even though he had eaten a lot at lunch, he was still awfully hungry. So he took a deep breath, and jumped down the hole... and landed on top of a whole pile of food!
Food was everywhere, and colors too! The food itself wasn't very colorful, but there were big bright tubes that had all kinds of wonderful colors in them. "This must be like where father went to play with the earth ponies!" Purity thought.
He was very excited that he discovered this secret all on his own. He wished he could show it to Charity, but he guessed that Charity already knew about it, because she was a garbage pony, and he guessed that this is where all the garbage ponies played. They sure played quietly... Usually when he and Charity played they were very loud. He guessed that it was just a garbage pony thing.
But he did hear something, a funny little ticking sound. He looked around, but he couldn't find what was making it. So he looked some more. And just a little bit more... And then he found it! It was an old clock that was making the ticking noises.
It reminded him of the clock in his old house. Every time it made the dinging sound, he and Charity had to come inside to eat. The funny thing was, just as he was thinking about that, the old clock started dinging like crazy! It frightened Purity so much that he dropped the clock and screamed like a little filly! Purity's mother always hated it when he was late to supper, so he ran over to the pile of food and started eating as fast as he could.
When he was full, there was still a bunch of left overs. That... never happened. He didn't know what to do with all the extra food. There was never any left overs at his house. So, he put it all in a neat little pile for latter, said good bye to the clock, and flew back up the hole. He figured that if it had been down there this all along, it would still be there when he came back to pull his lever tomorrow. But he would have to save room at lunch, because there was just so much food down there! And who knew when Purity's parents would come back!
When Purity found the bed that had his name on it, his stomach was hurting again, but not as bad as before. He tried not to think about it, and force himself to fall asleep. After all, he had to be ready to pull his lever tomorrow.
