From the Journal of Jason Houston
Jason liked My Little Pony. He always had. When he was a kid he would sit and watch the adventures of Sundance, Wind Whistler, and Firefly, and imagine himself there sharing in the fun and excitement. He liked it so much that he begged his parents for the pony toys for his birthday. His father was a little concerned, but since there had been no other requests for gifts, Jason got ponies.
It took up until his second year of grade school before Jason realized that being a boy and liking ponies was apparently something shameful. He considered this for a time, and decided he would have to hide his hobby. He wasn't an outcast or anything, just a normal kid growing up with a normal childhood who happen to like ponies in his secret spare time.
His hobby didn't ever dominate his thoughts or consume his time, but he would occasionally have reoccurring dreams that he was transported into another world where the cartoons of My Little Pony were real. All the characters from the show were there, along with some new ones too, and there were even a few kids his own age.
These dreams always played out in a similar fashion, although some of the details varied from night to night. In the dreams he would find himself in the middle of the town in the afternoon, along with the other kids. Then the ponies would come out and ask if they wanted to go on an adventure or just do something fun around the town. They would let the kids put it to a vote, and the majority decided what they did.
The years went on, and Jason grew older, graduating high school and moving off to college. When he moved into his dorm he took a pony with him. It was nothing elaborate, just a Magic Star, however it didn't go over very well with his roommate. That was the year he discovered just how cruel 'young adults' can be. He didn't live in a bubble. He knew about pranks and torment, but this was the first time he had experienced it directly. It was never anything so bad that could justify physical confrontation, but it was always there in every snide remark and off hand comment. Soon Jason found himself being excluded from the activities around the dorm.
After those first few months Jason stopped going out to buy pony toys. On winter break, he collected up all of his old ponies and put in a plastic bin to store in the closet. After he came back to school, he stopped trying to secretly watch the show on television. He even willed himself to stop having the dreams.
In the last pony dream he would ever have in his life, he told the characters in his dreams what had happened, and why he wouldn't be visiting them anymore. The ponies were sad, but they all seemed to have expected this. The kids, who by now were grown and couldn't be called kids anymore, seemed to take it the hardest. They asked him to stay, saying that all of them had experienced similar things, but Jason's mind was made up.
Before he left his pony dreams for good, they all went on one last journey to a large castle to see the Princess of the land. They walked into the throne room to see the Princess of all the ponies standing tall and beautiful. She approached Jason, and asked him if he truly wished to never return to the land of ponies. Jason gave his answer, and the Princess bowed her head to give him one kiss upon his forehead. With tears in her eyes, she declared that it would be done, and the entire scene faded into a blinding white light. Jason woke up weeping, and stayed awake the whole rest of the night.
Time passed, and Jason graduated college with a degree that he only partially wanted in the first place. He went out into the world and got a job in an office building where the employees were encouraged to “show off their personality” by posting various pre-approved newspaper comic strips onto the walls of their cubicles. Jason's cubicle remained blank.
Years went by and Jason got promotion into a better cubicle with a raise. He moved into a new apartment, and changed girl friends a couple times. He wasn't miserable with his life, and there was money enough to pay his bills. He had his luxuries in a comfortable chair, a bottle of good whiskey, and a subscription to Netflix.
One night, he was sitting in his chair, sipping his drink, and skipping through episodes of old television series, when he came upon old episodes of My Little Pony. He hadn't seen them in years, and allowed himself a brief moment of nostalgia. He looked through the show's information page, and found that there were other Pony cartoons made after he had stopped watching. He investigated further, and discovered that there was, in fact, a new series being currently produced.
He snooped through a few websites, and found the general consensus to be that the show was well liked. He also found that there were full episodes posted in online video websites, and decided to watch one, just on a whim. What he saw shocked him. They were the adventures and gatherings from his dreams. All the characters were there too. Some had been given different names or designs, but he could still recognize them. That night he watched through every episode he could find, just to be sure. There was no mistake. Someone had made his dreams into a cartoon show.
After recovering from his initial shock, he looked into who was in charge of making the stories. He looked up the woman named Lauren Faust on Wikipedia to see exactly who she was and what she had done previously. That night it was one revelation after another. He recognized her picture from the short biography. He was looking at the grown up version of one of the children from the Pony Land he left behind. He remembered her as the girl who always liked to draw.
After work the next day, he looked into the matter further. He found that she was going to make an appearance at a nearby convention within a month's time. He resolved to arrange his work schedule accordingly, and attend to try to get a chance to talk with her.
The days moved on in their own pace, until the weekend of the convention arrived. Jason found the opportunity to approach his target at an autograph session. The line stretched around the room and down the hall, and everyone in it held at least one plastic pony toy waiting to be signed, everyone except Jason. He held a folded index card.
He noticed something about the show, after watching to about the half way point in the series. There was a pony missing. He wondered at this, because the absent pony wasn't a character who could have been offensive or otherwise controversial. He remembered that, in his dreams, Lauren seemed to be very close with that one particular pony. Jason figured that maybe she wanted to keep that character to herself.
Soon it was his turn. He stood before her, but said nothing. He only handed her the folded index card with the missing pony's name written on it. She opened it and read. Slowly she looked up at Jason. She stared at him a moment, saying nothing. Then her eyes widened ever so slightly with realization, and Jason nodded a little in recognition of her expression. Lauren's eyes began to moisten as she looked into his face, and she opened her mouth to speak the words that Jason knew would come.
“Security. Get this guy out of here.” Immediately Jason was escorted out of the room, and told to leave the convention. He obliged. Things worked out much as he had anticipated, but he was fine with it. He had confirmed his suspicions. He wasn't going crazy.
On the drive back to his apartment, he started to think about that other world, and about the children he used to dream with. He wondered if the other kids had taken similar action. Maybe they had been welcome to stay. Maybe, if he had not left the Pony Land of his dreams, he would have been welcomed too.
That night he lay in his bed thinking of all that could have happened, perhaps all that should have happened. Maybe if he had allowed the pony dreams to continue, things would be different now. Maybe his whole life would be different. He began to wonder if he really had been banished from his pony dreams forever, or if there was some way to dive back in. He wondered how he would go about doing that, even if there was. Then he remembered the Princess pony and what she had told him. The words were very precise and final. He cried himself to sleep that night, realizing that the door was closed, and nothing could open it again.
The next night he decided to type out a journal of what had happened and why. It wasn't anything long or elaborate. He just needed to get all his thoughts and feelings out into visual form, just to clarify things to himself. It was something he used to do in college, and it usually made him feel better for it. It only partially worked this time. It was very broody and morose, and he didn't like that.
He read over it and decided to make a rewrite, only this time putting a more simple spin on it. He decided to write it in the third person too, to put distance between himself and the events. It was so much easier to feel better about losing a part of your heart if it was presented as someone else losing a part of theirs. He didn't even use his real name. He finished it and felt better, still fairly lousy, but better. The journal story had served it's purpose, and he secreted it away in the depths of his computer's hard drive.
A week passed, and Jason spent his evenings learning about the new “brony” groups online. He was surprised how many people were into it. There were websites and meetings and all kinds of things that hadn't existed before. He involved himself in the fun a little bit, but by and large kept a distance from most of it.
Then one night, after a having few drinks, he went exploring through a popular pony site that accepted fan made stories. He wondered at how people would react if he were to submit his own story under the guise of a work of fiction. He would have to clean it up a bit, and maybe take out some of the names of people and places to make it more anonymous, but that wouldn't be a problem. Perhaps one day he would be bold enough (or drunk enough) to actually send it in.
