A Thunderlane Trip

I'm Thunderlane. I’m walking around Manehattan, feeling like a piece of shit.

It’s winter. There are many ponies out. I pass an older homeless stallion and he is colored dark gray and cyan almost exactly like me. Almost exactly.

I want to stop him and grab his shoulders and say, “So I make it past 30 then?” But he walks by me.

Eye contact is bad I think. I don’t make eye contact with any girls because I don’t want to ruin their night and make them feel bad. I make eye contact with some guys because sometimes I just feel angry. Eye contact is bad I think.

At a stoplight, I wait to cross and there are two stallions next to me. They’re holding hooves.

I imagine myself as one of them, standing next to me, this dipshit with an ugly face. Later on, will one say to the other, “Hey did you see that asshole at the stoplight. Why does he live on the same earth as us, with his dipshit-ass ugly face.”

And then the other man will agree in some way, if only in quiet.

Hearth's Warming music plays from someone’s car at the stoplight and I can hear it through the closed windows. Will I get run over tonight. Is tonight the night of magic.

It’s totally possible that something will suddenly kill me. And I accept that. I always think about getting randomly hurt and how awesome it would be to just immediately be changed and removed from my situation. To have something direct to worry about, like a broken leg or a really big cut. I’d no longer be a pony blending in.

When the stoplight signals to cross I wait to take a step until the other stallions walk away. I don’t want to walk next to them. It is horrible for me to be walking at the same pace next to somepony on the sidewalk. And like all others, these stallions pass me.

Now knowing that in infinite space there is a pure negative, shaped exactly like me. With no intentions of making friends. Insecure enough not to make friends so as not to lose them.

There’s ice on the sidewalk. Will I fall. If I fall, and just stay there, will somepony eventually help me. Will a police officer walk by and say, “Stay there,” motioning with his/her hoof to stay still. Will I just roll into the gutter and disappear.

I don’t know where I’m walking. This is Manehattan. On a street with a lot of bars and people yelling.

Earlier I walked to the Hudson River and I stared at it. It remained where it was, and I stared. No pony else was there.

It seems like there and here are just as loud somehow. It’s cold and I hate everyone I can see. All of my strength is required to hate this many people but I manage and I am proud of my effort. I expect the same of everypony else.

No, I don’t know.

I wonder what my roommate is doing right now. Last night he knocked on my door and asked me to check the back of his neck for pen marks. He said, “So, I think there’s a pen loose in my bed and, I think I slept on it.” There were no pen marks. I made sure not to touch his body while checking.

It seems likely that if I were to give form to what I believe is my roommate’s abstraction of me, it would be some parts of a pencil eraser that somepony blew to the floor after erasing something they didn’t want somepony else to see.

I walk by a group of people standing outside a bar and somepony almost bumps into me. I imagine myself pulling this pony apart with my hooves. Just pulling off pieces of face and neck and upper-chest. Just ripping an arm off with a single pull.

Could I accomplish that. What would this pony think of himself if I were to do that. Would he fight it, or accept it as inevitable. What would the ponies watching think.

I walk by them all and smell perfume and I am no different. It feels like practice.

I concentrate on my heartbeat and worry it is never going to stop. Then I worry that I will have a heartattack, and that the heartattack will hurt. For a very small amount of time I can fully understand the pain that would accompany a heartattack, a heartattack so bad it rips my heart into more than one piece.

And I can see either accepting everything that happens, or accepting none, but in between I lose hope. I can accept the heartattack of caring that much or that not-enough.

What if I have a heartattack tonight and say something really dumb when it happens, like, “oh jeez” and then make a dumb face when I fall. What if that happens to me right now. People would laugh. I would laugh. Oh my.

Once past the area with all the bars, there is an outdoor ice rink to my left. Ponies are skating there together. None invited me.

No, I don’t know, I mean that’s how I want it.

And the light inside the rink is what these ponies use to skate. And that light is the same that gives them to me, not me to them, because I am outside its area on the sidewalk.

My nose is cold and my nose is also dripping. Oh my.

Nobody at the ice rink looks at me. In passing. They don’t because it would be weird to be looking at someone this far away. Arranged relationships with other people that technically never happen. It feels like practice.

Yes.

Not quite a piece of shit myself, but the streak for sure. For sure the area the shit passes over and leaves behind parts of itself.

At the streetcorner just beyond the sound of the ice rink, there is a long patch of ice on the sidewalk that I have to slide over in very small glides. Like, I use maybe two inches per glide to be safe.

As I’m doing this, I hear my cat meowing and it sounds like he is on my back somewhere behind me. My cat is not there when I check. He died a while ago I think.

This makes sense. It sounded so real when I heard him meow, but it didn’t happen. Just the thought of my cat’s ghost is enough to make me feel like there’s like, a sour feeling in my head area.

I remember a few years back when I lived in Ponyville. I want to itch my back until I feel pain. No, I don’t know.

I see a billboard with a young mare on it. The young mare is bald. The billboard is for cancer research. I feel bad about ponies with cancer.

I think that if I discovered I had cancer I would immediately say the word, “Phew.” Phew. On the sidewalk in the cold weather, the word “phew” scrolls through my head in big block neon letters. Yes. I watch it scroll, and I approve.

It’s like everyone I see now has a manecut. Having a manecut seems like something important. It seems defining. I’ve noticed my thinking towards another person is immediately altered if that person has clearly had a recent manecut, still shaped.

Maybe that’s my problem. Cutting my own mane for years has maybe contributed to me feeling different from other ponies in a fundamental way. Could that happen.

I just need to get manecuts. Maybe that’s my main problem. I need to get manecuts from now on.

Across the street there’s a bookstore and I walk to it. I think maybe I’ve read here before (read in front of ponies on purpose not like randomly out loud among other ponies who just happen to be shopping). Will they remember me there if I go in—the employees and the people there. They will not.

Will one of them shoot me with a water pistol full of some dangerous chemical. They will not.

I realize it’s not the same bookstore. I go into the bookstore. Inside there is a mare walking around and she is pretty to me. She has a pretty face and a pretty body and it feels nice to be close to her. She fixes her glasses and walks past me, looking at the books.

I wonder if she is thinking about having sex with me. Am I standing exposed before her in her thoughts. What is she imagining. Am I at least present in her imagination at all.

I want to watch the imagination. What do I look like to her. Do I have coins taped to my stomach. If I do, why do I have coins taped to my stomach. That seems wrong.

I check my stomach with my hoof and there is nothing there but hair.

I say nothing to the mare as she passes. She just passes.

And I’m intentionally looking away. She looks at the books and I am roughly equivalent to any other inessential part of the room to her, like a corner or a tile. I buy a low-priced copy of a book written by Karl Jenners and then I leave the store.

When I leave I act like I am looking at something on the wall, just beyond the register. I don’t know why I act like I’m looking at something, but I know it’s intentional. I can feel that it is intentional.

A lot of times my behavior is the reaction to what I think other ponies are observing about me, and so yes, I am uncomfortable a lot (haha).

Outside the store on the building next door there is an advertisement for clothing. A mare lies on a bed looking like she is dying or has some kind of sickness but still wants to fuck and the name of the brand of clothing is on the bottom of the advertisement. I think, “So what.”

I see a candybar wrapper on the ground. I think, “So what.”

Then I walk in the same direction as before. It feels like practice.

I only cry like once a year now. If I had a bar graph, I’m confident it would confirm this. The right-now me only cries once a year I mean. And it’s hard to tell if I ever cry specifically about the thing happening or just because it is needed at that time. It’s insane.

I take an alleyway between two buildings. Alleyways between buildings are some of my favorite places to be walking. There seem to be no spiderwebs now. And I remember that’s because it’s winter and some things go away and/or die. What happens to the spiders in the winter.

I have the urge to drop from the sky and scream, “What happens to the spiders in the winter.”

There’s a crown spraypainted on the side of a building, and there are numbers over each spike of the crown. And as I pass by a dumpster, I realize every specific thing I worry about is nothing compared to the main worry I have which never has an object.

The idea of haha goes into my headhole and I almost laugh but I don’t because at the other end of the alley there are ponies smoking cigarettes outside a bar. And it feels like everypony is looking at me, even ponies in cars at stoplights.

I only laugh like once a year now.

And I realize that there is nothing to worry about without first wanting to be alive a certain way. That is somewhat relaxing to think. If I accept whatever I get, exerting no energy for its arrival and none for its refusal, I will be happy or at least ok.

So weak.

It occurs to me I might never laugh again. It seems possible, and also likely. That could happen. I accept that.

Both of my hooves are cold through the shitty boots I’m wearing and I like the way the snow is coming down more now; there is maybe a few inches on the sidewalk area. I imagine a stallion coming out of an alley and stabbing me a number of times until I die.

Face-down, mouth-open in the snow. What would that change about me. Would I love it. Would I think that the stabbing was painful and that I didn’t like it. Does it actually hurt or is it great.

I see my killer being given a wreath and a box of candy by the mayor of Manehattan at some kind of ceremony (a ceremony for killing me, you see). And ponies are cheering for him. I see myself stab-holed and crawling out of an alley to join the periphery of the celebration. Then I hold one hoof over the stab wounds and with the other hoof I wave to my killer as he accepts the wreath from the mayor.

I pass more ponies who are out walking. I’m on Amble Avenue.

A lot of times when I encounter somepony else out walking or running past me, it feels like we should be more united than we end up acting. We’re both outside at the same time together. Why doesn’t that mean anything to anypony. Goddamn.

No, I don’t think I actually care about that.

I thought I cared about it just now. The word “phew” scrolls through my head in neon letters. I feel like my eyes look really wild right now. It’s possible I have a fever.

On my side of the street there’s a cop wagon with two cops inside. Manehattan Police. The Manehattan Police Department. And I just barely resist the urge to jump and scream at the window of the cop wagon. That would be funny and I don’t think I would get arrested (not sure though).

In resisting the urge I feel something like a rush of energy through my heart-area.

Stallion Arrested for Surprising Manehattan Police Then Slipping on Ice and Dying—Cries Wildly.

I consider walking to the Hudson river again, this time taking my boots off and getting in until I die. That would work (almost sure). I would die from that. I’d be completely invisible in the snow and gray water and I would die from freezing. That would work.

Plus I don’t think it would be a bad way to die actually. I don’t think that would be bad.

There are usually a lot of ducks (?) geese (?) by the Hudson and I think it would be nice to slowly lose consciousness while they stared at me. What would that change about their lives. Would it cause anything new in their lives. Maybe it wouldn’t matter.

Why can’t I just walk up to some people and say, “Can I spend time with you, I’m really—” and then stop. I think about ponies I used to know and I wonder if any one of them is thinking about me at this moment. That is possible. That could be happening.

What happens when you are thinking about a pony at the same time he or she is thinking about you.

I see myself before all the ponies I used to know, them forming a line. I see myself greeting them each, one by one, and saying, “I really am a good person. Are we good, are me and you good.”

A baseball park comes up on my right side now. I look at the l/e/d sign out front and I expect scrolling letters to write, “Nobody likes you and you don’t have a home—ponies just tolerate you.” For some reason then I imagine an old newscaster in front of a big microphone going, “This just in, nobody likes you. They just tolerate you.”

I don’t think I would react in a shocked way if I saw that. I would accept it.

Right now I’m hungry. I feel hunger. A weird noise happens in my stomach and I feel bad. The noise my stomach just made is (probably) the same like a young dinosaur telling its mother it needs food.

I consider starving to death on purpose. Maybe I should do that. Starving to death on purpose seems awesome to do in Equestria. It would be something that ponies would remember. I would be remembered as the pony who purposely starved to death in Equestria. The stallion whose stomach made those bad baby dinosaur sounds until death.

Stallion Found Starved, Believed Relative of a Baby Dinosaur.

I pass by a liquor store and go inside. It smells like my closet inside. I like it.

No one’s in the store. Then an old stallion comes out of the backroom, wiping his mouth with a napkin.

I ask if they sell pens. He’s confused. The store. Does the store sell pens. I make a motion with my hoof like I am writing and I say, “Pens, pencils.”

He says no.

I walk more and come to a 7-11 store. I go inside and ask the stallion if they have pens or pencils.

He says some things I don’t understand and he points to an aisle.

There are a lot of ponies at the register and he keeps yelling at me to go different ways. I go to walk down an aisle and he yells at me and motions a different way.

I can’t seem to select the right way. The way he wants. Fuck.

He yells more at me and the ponies in line are now looking and I can only make out a blurry monster around their general area.

For some reason I smile, feeling awesome for a few seconds. Like, I smile really hard, just watching a man yell directions at me. This is amazing. I laugh.

The pencils are by the back near the drink-cooler area. I find the pencils.

There are ponies by the drink-cooler and one says, “Yeah, that fucking juice is fucking awesome man. It fucks you up and shit, like, the flavor.”

I take a pencil to the register and wait in line. In line I notice the pencil is the brand that is the store’s name. It is a 7-11 mechanical pencil.

When my history is written on the face of my gravestone, the gravestone that is the entire plate of stone moving beneath the earth’s surface, this part will say, “Buys a 7-11 mechanical pencil after being yelled at in front of many people.”

The mare in line before me is paying. As she pays, the stallion at the register (the stallion who yelled at me) holds up a container of juice from the counter. He says, “Go get another.”

The mare just stands there. The stallion at the register shakes the juice and says it again, really mad. The mare goes and gets another. Approaching the register again, she says, “Is it buy-one get-one free.”

“Yes yes buy-one get-one.”

I look at my pencil to be distracted, and I think about how the mare just blankly did what an angry man working a register told her to do, without first knowing why. Someone yelled at her, and she did what was being yelled. This redeems something.

No, I don’t know what I’m talking about.

I pay for my pencil and the stallion behind the register tells me to have a good night. I wonder what a good night is to him and then I wonder the same about myself.

It occurs to me that in order for that communication to work, myself and the stallion would have to come to an agreement about what it meant. I’m too scared. It feels like practice.

I walk nextdoor to a restaurant. Inside the restaurant I see some ponies who were just in the 7-11 with me, so I walk away, and go to a different restaurant nearby.

I order food and eat my order at a table meant for four, in the corner of the place, keeping my scarf, worrying the whole time that a worker will walk up to me and say, “Why don’t you take your scarf off.” I decide if that happens, I will say, “Because I’m undercover.” It doesn’t happen.

My history is the history of things imagined and not-happened.

I eat my food without looking up and I write all this down in the white space inside the book I bought, and I try to think about an idea of the not-happened and it seems like I can do it at first but then it becomes unclear and I am not bothered at all. And exit the restaurant.

My scarf is on and it’s cold outside, and I make the mistake of breathing in at the same time a long wind goes into my mouth. Then walk home, thinking paranoid thoughts about how ponies are trying to fuck with me somehow and I haven’t figured it out yet. Shit is getting bad.

No I don’t know.

I live in Manehattan and I don’t get along with a lot of people and the reasons are always new and wonderful.