Thunderlane

I can’t sleep.

My room is cold and for some reason I’m scared to leave.

I want to leave.

The words “death penalty” flash through my headhole in neon letters.

This will never end.

Just go to sleep.

Try again tomorrow.

You are a champion.

No, get up and get some cereal.

Yes, that will help you occupy time.

Ok I will.

Ok good.

My phone rings and it is the mare from downstairs and I don’t answer.

I don’t know what time it is or the date.

I leave my room and walk to the kitchen to get a bowl of cereal.

In my biography this will be the defining event.

This will be the part where I ascend to control.

My roommate’s box of cereal is on the counter.

I take some.

While pouring, I worry.

This is bad.

My roommate will know.

The box will feel less heavy to him.

No.

No maybe not.

No he’ll have to know.

How could he not have an approximate understanding of how much his box of cereal currently weighs.

Ok I’ll just have to put a trail out of the apartment to another apartment so he’ll think somepony else took them.

Perfect.

This is perfect.

Yes.

This is good.

I will do this.

When I go to pour, dry cereal spills on the ground.

The plastic bag has been incorrectly opened.

The cereal pieces tap the ground, crushed by my attempts to dance away from them.

Ruined!

I think about just kneeling in the kitchen and screaming, “Fucking ruined!”

It seems rewarding.

Thinking also about walking outside and randomly kneeling and screaming, “I’m ruined!”

Instead, I leave the cereal on the counter and go back to bed, no longer excited about being myself.

Not excited about being fertile either.

Not really excited about some other things that have names if I really think about them too.

And I have one long word in my head that is millions of words bent together.

The giant word laughs at me whenever it wants.

And no, there is no such thing as a weekend when you don’t do anything during the week.

And yes, I want something definitive to happen.

I think tomorrow I’ll burn myself on the stove so people will feel sorry for me.

Not sure.

It seems like you just have to have an idea about where you are going and that makes things better.

My hooves are too cold to sleep maybe that’s it.

And all my socks are gross—too gross for me.

This is the defining moment, when I have enough self-esteem to say yes to better socks and better hygiene.

Goddamn.

It’s morning and the mare on the first floor has an actual bed and I am pretending to sleep in it.

She has her forelegs wrapped around me, kissing my back.

I think I have acne on my back.

Goddamn I hate myself.

She’s been awake for thirty-eight minutes, trying to wake me up so I’ll have sex with her.

I know thirty-eight minutes have passed because I have been facing the alarm clock the whole time, opening my eyes randomly to check the time.

Time is the slowest when you’re pretending to sleep.

I forgot to brush my teeth last night.

My mouth tastes like there’s shit in it right now.

Whenever I push on this one molar with my tongue, it tastes like, some kind of shit-plant is sporing.

I’m really worried about how much I keep forgetting to brush my teeth.

I think it’s because my roommate buys bubble-gum flavored toothpaste.

And I always want to swallow it right away.

And every time I swallow it, my stomach really hurts.

Like really hurts bad.

Like it gets so cramped I can’t stand sometimes.

The toothpaste fizzes up right away too.

Fuck.

I don’t know why I am so upset about the toothpaste but I really really am.

The mare next to me stops kissing my back and she gets up and leaves the room.

When she is fully gone from the room I open my eyes and stare at my boots, near her broken closet door.

The words “You are a pussy” scroll through my headhole in neon letters and it makes sense.

And I sit there and eat it.

I scream in my head.

It takes forever.

Things outside the apartment building are moving and making sounds.

The sounds make me jealous of something I can’t picture.

I just want to go outside and never come back.

Go into the sounds.

I get up and put on my underwear.

In the kitchen, I look at the ground and the word “dumbass” forms in the tile.

The word “dumbass” laughs at me, and the laugh is mean-sounding, evil.

“Good morning,” she says.

“Thank you.”

She hands me a cup of water and we stand in the kitchen together and I try to think of something that is going exactly right.

There has to be something right now that is right—that exists as anyone would want it.

We make no eye contact.

Her and I.

We get along.

“Will you go to the store with me,” she says.

“What,” I say, even though I heard correctly.

We’re silent some seconds more.

Then some seconds more.

And these seconds see the deaths of other seconds, see new relationships formed by some random act of binding, see many others through the same silence.

“What,” I say, again.

I have an urge to throw my cup against the wall.

I don’t though.

I don’t because I know I will sit there and pick up every piece out from the carpet.

Just leave.

Leave her apartment.

Ok.

I pour the water out in the sink and then I finish dressing and leave.

Outside I feel very stupid.

Like the air is effecting a bad chemical reaction with my skin and face.

Everything looks unfamiliar.

There’s nowhere to be.

I walk to a park a few blocks away and sit on a bench with my hooves over my ears.

It’s cold out.

In some ways it is the best moment of my life.

In some ways I am always telling the truth.

I sit on the swingset at the park until I’m really cold.

Eventually, a homeless stallion walks up to the metal garbage can by the swingset.

He looks through the garbage can.

Then he takes out some old chicken legs and eats them.

I watch him eat the garbage.

I want to say, “Pass that shit dude.”

But I feel too shy.

He comes up to me and searches both his pockets, holding the chicken leg in his mouth.

He takes out two plastic dogs.

“Want a dog,” he says carefully, lips around the chicken leg.

“How much man.”

“Whatever you give me,” he says.

I give him a bit and I take a small plastic dog.

I secretly name the dog, “Mega-Dog.”

The homeless stallion takes the chicken leg out of his mouth and holds it like a cigar.

He looks at the other plastic dog in his hand.

I notice.

“I’m breaking up a marriage,” I say.

He laughs.

“You're awful,” he says.

He keeps laughing and he goes back to the garbage, takes out more things.

I see the words “good job” scroll through my headhole in neon letters.

And I feel like the mayor of a small room with no one else in it.

I leave the park and walk.

And I decide I don’t like waking up.

And I decide I want to walk in a straight line until I am very far away, but I also know every straight line walked is a commitment and every straight line is many other straight lines and they intersect and sometimes they overlap completely.

I haven’t slept in two days so I feel tired now, lying on my sleeping bag.

My hooves are very cold but I am ok.

In the long transition to sleep I entertain a complex paranoia about a group of ponies who will be assigned to review each action I have taken throughout my life.

And once dead, I’ll meet them in council.

There will be a group assigned to review my “thank-yous said” to “those not said.”

There will be a group assigned to review every face I’ve made just after waking up.

There will be a group assigned to review how I treated ponies who asked me for help.

And a group assigned to review the times I felt bad but didn’t tell anyone.

A group assigned to review the times I deliberately threw crayons into the small fan my third grade bus driver positioned by his face.

And a group assigned to review bugs I needlessly stepped on.

A group for this nap I’m taking too.

And in the paranoia, I see myself getting dressed-up to go before them and answer questions.

I’m very nervous before each council but I try to be brave.

“This nap you took—” someone says.

“Yes?”

A mean-looking mare in the middle of the panel, she clasps her hooves together and she says, “Tell us about this nap.”

When I wake up, one of my legs is numb.

And I remain awake in my sleeping bag, staring at the blinds until the black behind gets more blue, then lighter blue, then white.

Sometimes I definitely feel a sense of accomplishment but it’s never after accomplishing something.

My roommate and I are driving home after buying paper towels for the apartment.

A slapping sound happens against the bottom of the car and I look over my shoulder through the back windshield.

“You just ran over a cardboard box,” I say. “Looks like it had already been run over though, so you’re good.”

He switches hands on the steering wheel and he says, “Thanks for telling me. Keep me notified.”

I drum on my thighs.

“I will,” I say.

Then I look down at the new boots I am wearing.

I went for a walk a few days ago and the entire bottom part of my back right boot came off and like, I fell into the street.

It was really fucking pathetic.

A car almost hit me.

I think the driver saw me there lying in the street, pathetically holding up my leg to show him the flappy boot, and just forgot about continuing to swear and yell at me.

So dumb.

When I got back to the apartment building, this old stallion down the hall gave me another pair of boots.

He’s always outside smoking thin cigars and when he saw my boots he gave me a pair he never used.

I wanted to make a card for the old stallion that had two birds on a branch and beneath the picture it would say, “Good people tend to branch out.”

But I didn’t.

I just took the boots.

My roommate puts on the turn signal and turns.

I smell something strange in the car for a second and then Idon’t.

I would call the smell “leafy.”

It’s insane.

I look over my shoulder through the back windshield.

“Hey you just ran over a plastic bag,” I say.

“So what,” he says.

I settle in my seat.

“So just another victim,” I say. “When will it end.”

“I can’t stand myself,” he says.

It sounds rehearsed though.

I laugh for some reason.

I definitely want to get better about not doing things I don’t understand.

At a stoplight, my roommate takes a leaf off the dash and drops it over his shoulder to the backseat.

He seems very nervous.

He says, “We have to stop by the video store too so I can drop off a video.” He clears his throat and says, “I just wanted someone to come with me man. Sorry to trick you, but I can’t do things like this alone. I’m sorry I tricked you but please, don’t leave me now. Don’t make me go alone man. I was honest at least. I was honest with you. Note that.”

“This will not be forgiven,” I say.

We pass a small billboard that reads, “Embryos are babies too.”

“Embryos are babies too,” I say, watching the billboard go behind us.

“Oh yeah.”

“Yeah,” I say.

He says, “How about cars, are cars babies too?”

“I think so, yeah,” I say. “Or wait, no. No, cars aren’t babies. Cars have motors and babies don’t.”

He lifts his eyebrows, still watching the road.

“Babies don’t have motors. You don’t think so?”

“No man. Pretty sure,” I say.

“Unless you consider the heart a motor,” he says.

“Which I don’t.”

My roommate straightens himself in his seat and puts both hands on the steering wheel.

“Ok,” he says, “what about roads, are roads babies too.”

I think about it.

About a hundred feet up in the air, I see a purple balloon, lost and going higher.

I laugh, watching the balloon over my shoulder as we pass.

The word “brother” flashes across my headhole in neon letters.

“Uh, no,” I say.

“Yeah you’re right,” he says.

“See. Only embryos are babies too.”

We pull up to the video store and my roommate slows the car.

“Just throw the movie by the drop box from here,” he says. “It’ll be close enough. I don’t feel like getting out.”

I lean out the window.

I throw the video out and I say, “There we go.”

The video case hits and slides along the blacktop a little.

I lean back into the car.

My roommate says, “You are my brother.”

“And you are mine.”

We drive away.

I don’t know what time it is at all, like even within an hour.

And I’m thinking a thought that is something like, “Be thankful for what’s left of you.”

“So how about embryos, are embryos babies too,” my roommate says.

“Yeah that was the first thing the billboard said. Do you remember that.”

He laughs, like he’s unsure how to respond.

We drive past buildings I recognize and some I don’t and I think about the happiness I would feel if I fell asleep and woke up and we were entering a state three or four states away.

I have maybe a hundred bits left in my bank account and today I leave the apartment and walk to the bank to withdraw it.

I just want to see it.

I just want to have it in my hooves and then hit myself in the head with it.

In the parking lot outside my apartment building, I see my landlord leaning inside her car, cleaning it.

She comes out of her car when I pass.

“Are you happy at all,” she says.

She squints then pushes her tinted eyeglasses up with her finger.

“Not really,” I say.

Then I shake my head, to confirm that I don’t think so.

“No, not at all. You’re not,” she says. “Are you having fun though,” she says, squinting with her hand over her eyes. “Are you having fun at all.”

“Yes, definitely,” I say.

She smiles.

“Ok, that’s all I want to know,” she says.

She spits her gum into a puddle by her feet.

“Things are going nowhere for you,” she says.

She closes her car door.

“No-way-yer,” she sings, walking away.

The walk to the bank is nice.

It feels nice to walk.

In the lobby I go to the teller window with the most attractive pony in it.

“I want to take all my money out,” I say.

“I want to take you out,” says the person at the window, winking at me and running her thumb across her throat. “Here, take this form.”

I fill out the form and I walk out of the bank with all my money.

84 bits.

And for some reason, in the parking lot out front, I worry that an eagle will swoop down and fly away with my money.

That is why I fear the eagle I guess.

There’s a homeless guy pushing a shopping cart near the bank’s drive-through.

I’ve met him before.

He used to sell gym socks by the 90/94 highway entrance ramp.

He’s cross-eyed.

He told me he’d fought in the war.

When I asked which one, he said, “All of them.”

He pushes his shopping cart and I start to walk across the shopping area to avoid him.

Across the parking lot from the bank there’s a small jewelry store.

The store is small, not the jewelry I mean.

I go in.

I have the jeweler show me things that cost around 84 bits.

Necklaces.

“All these are around that amount,” he says, motioning over the glass counter. Then he motions up and down on himself and he says, “And all this is around priceless, sweetheart.”

I laugh and nod.

I point to a necklace.

“Ok,” I say. “I’ll buy that one.”

“Which one.”

I lean over and point again.

When I lean, I can smell my armpit.

It seems like the jeweler smells it too because he looks at me like, “What have you done, you sick asshole.”

The word “death” flashes through my mind in neon letters.

I see myself saluting it.

I see the right way to do everything but I can’t memorize any of it quick enough.

Goddamn.

That’s happened before.

The jeweler and I stare at each other.

Eventually I blink.

I think he thinks that means he won somehow.

So I pay and let him keep the remaining three bits in change.

He says, “Does it ever bother you how unneeded you are, almost everywhere.”

“It does,” I say.

And I leave.

A few blocks from my apartment, I stop at the park.

No one else is there.

Spring will come soon.

I can tell.

Hi, hey.

Nothing will change.

Hi hey.

A squirrel runs through the tubeslide and then drinks water pooled in the tire swing.

It is funny to me.

I laugh but feel bad for some reason also.

And I take the necklace out of the bag and then hold the necklace up against the sun and the necklace looks beautiful.

I’m laughing.

I can’t stop.

It’s stupid-awesome.

Yes.

The laughing feels so good.

It occurs to me that there might be gum in the middle of the earth.

That makes me laugh more.

Is there gum there.

It doesn’t matter.

This is so good.

And one day, there will be no evidence of me ever having lived.

No evidence identifiable.

And I’ve thought of no better practice.

In some dirt by the swingset, I bury the necklace.

Pretty deep for what I can do with just my hooves and the still somewhat cold ground.

Then, I’m done.

And it always seems that things are just about to drastically change and be better.

That I just have to wait.

Wait for a giant, gift-wrapped package to float to me, mine to undo.

And inside the gift-wrapped package: an endless orange and an immortal puppy and some money.

I don’t know if I should judge myself based on what I can accept or what I can’t accept but I do know that I always dislike where I am and then look back on where I was with sadness because it is gone.

(That means I am worthless and it’s my fault.)

Ha ha!

I stand in the playground and I feel like I would never be friends with someone like myself.

Never ever.

That I would never do that.

No I don’t know.

It doesn’t matter.

There should be a word for what happens when you begin to ruin a feeling by saying it.

There should be less right-heres.

I wear the same underwear over and over.

I’m pretty disgusting I guess.

And in my dreams now I yell at people but make no sound.

It feels like practice.