Dear Princess Celestia,
I'm a murderer. I done something so unthinkable that it haunts me in my nightmares. It's so heinous that I drink every night, trying to black out so that I don't have to see his mutilated face again. But I see it every time I close my eyes.
How has Princess Luna not told you yet? Why haven't the authorities come for me yet? I know she has to have seen what I done. I know I saw her one time, when the man was kneeling there and accusing me. Does that mean she approves? Approves of what I did?
I swear I didn't even mean for it to happen, but one thing lead to another, like they always do. That man was in the orchard again. He was stealing our apples, again. I told him, again, that I'd gladly pay him to work the farm, and that he would get meals included. He told me he didn't want to work. Every time, the conversation was the same.
I don't understand why I did it, but then I don't understand why he refused my offer. He could have lived and done whatever he wanted, all I asked was for a day's worth of honest work. He declined, again, and as I turned around I heard him mumble under his breath the same thing he always called me: "dumb fucking horse."
Something snapped in me. He didn't even have time to reach for his gun before I swiftly kicked him in the side of the head. I didn't even know what to do, I was so scared in that second after the rage passed. I remember I heard a sickening crunch, like an apple being stepped on, and when I turned around to look—
The memory of the human's face flashed through Big Macintosh's mind, the once personable features now hideously disfigured by the sheer strength behind that one single kick. Big Macintosh felt his stomach turn at the memory, and he quickly doused his sorrows with another gulp of cider. His writing resumed after a brief respite.
I don't want to sicken you, Princess, but it sickens me. I'm a sick horse. It's sick, what I done did. And I want nothing more than for all of Equestria to know what a sick pony I am for doing it, and for what happened afterward. I'm plum humiliated, and I'm sorry to say that my atrocious actions don't end merely in that man's death.
No, I had to go and stage it so it looked like a murder staged to look like a suicide, like I done heard tell some humans say they would do back where they came from. Why did those damn men have to come to Equestria and bring their evilness with them? Nopony I know would turn down work for food and a hoofful of bits as payment.
Nopony I know would take another's life for that matter, either. These men are different from you or I. Well, I guess now that I've killed one I'm exactly the same as them, just on the outside I'm not. But inside, I'm a monster, like them. A pony-shaped monster.
I can tell you how I did it, how I staged the body. I took his gun and, with great difficulty, I aimed it at his head and pulled the trigger. When his brains and skull were spattered across the ground, and the spot where I kicked him was completely destroyed, I placed the gun in his hand, and waited for people to come.
I told them that I saw another man get into an argument with the dead man over who would get more apples, and that in the ensuing struggle, the other man shot the dead man dead. I only described him as a man, and yet my testimony was enough to get the sheriff to investigate the tent city the humans had set up near Ponyville. Sheriff never even considered I'd did it.
Big Macintosh again took a long swig of cider and read over what he'd written, nodding slowly. This was good, it was good that he was finally going to get it off his chest and turn himself in. He told himself this, knowing in the past his attempts to confess had ended with him shredding the letter to pieces and drinking himself into a stupor.
I feel horrible knowing I falsely accused a man of shooting the dead man, worse still that he's still on trial for murder, and I could easily step in and tell them I did it, anytime that I wanted.
I could tell the judge that I needed to recant my testimony, that the man accused is innocent. I don't know why I'm so weak that I can't bring myself to do it.
He realized that wasn't completely true. He looked at the cider in his hoof and took another drink. The cider made him weak, made him unable to own up and take responsibility. Then again the cider was also the only thing keeping him from those awful nightmares. The nightmares were the only thing telling him, like a reminder, that he was bad. The nightmares told him he did do something wrong, and evil, and so wholly despicable that it flew in the face of everything every Equestrian stood for.
He took another drink, swallowing hard and wiping the tears from his eyes as he sniffed and let out a long, heavy sigh.
It wasn't hard for the sheriff to do enough digging and find out the dead man had his share of enemies. Just my luck that one man had no alibi, and there were witnesses testifying they heard him tell the dead man that he planned to kill him. Guess I did his dirty work for him.
I
He paused, shaking his head as he knew not what to write next. That he was contrite? That he was filled with remorse? What could he even do to make recompense for this disgusting criminal act? He could do nothing. A man was dead, another on trial for his crime.
Big Macintosh was a lot smarter than most ponies gave him credit, and a lot smarter than he himself ever let on. Framing that other human for murder was easily the most devious thing Big Macintosh had ever done in his life, and that made him wonder if he shouldn't go down to the tent city and pick a fight with the roughest, meanest pony-hating human he could find, and die then and there.
I want you to know that I feel ashamed, and I only took this long because I couldn't stand the thought of leaving Applejack and Granny Smith alone to tend the farm and raise Apple Bloom. But I need you to take me in and have me put down. I'm sick, and I don't know what will ever cure me.
I don't expect you or the man I falsely accused to forgive me. I don't expect anypony to forgive me. I'll never forgive myself. I just want the pain to go away.
Big Macintosh
He signed and sealed the scroll, then finished the fifth of cider he'd been working on, intending to bring the scroll to Spike the next morning and have him send it with his magic dragon-fire. One fifth became a second, and then a third, as he binged himself into a stupor and blacked out.
The next morning, on waking, he let out a long low moan at his pounding headache. Getting up on his hooves he looked at the letter, his heart racing. He grated his teeth so hard they hurt in his jaw, but he set fire to that scroll and watched it dissipate into ashes and fast-dying embers.
Fast-dying.
He felt the bile rise in his throat, but swallowed it down, and started off on the morning's chores, bucking apples. He would write Celestia again tonight, he promised himself. Just like he wrote to her every night since it happened. This time would be different, he thought. This time, for sure he would send it. He just needed one more day in the sunshine, enjoying his time with his family. Even if it meant one more day a man stood in his place, edging nearer and nearer to the gallows pole.
Dear Princess Celestia,
They finally did it. They finally hung that man for the crime I done committed. They strung him up and all I could think was that it should have been me up there in his place. I wonder, as he scanned the crowd of ponies and men gathered to watch him die, had he seen me? Had he seen the pony that framed him for murder and sent him to an early grave?
That man that was hung today was innocent. This is my confession. I did it. I killed the man that this other man was put on trial for. It's just plain wrong on so many levels that he should serve out my sentence. I'm sorry I hadn't spoke out sooner, I just couldn't.
Big Macintosh paused and reflected for a long time on the concept of death, his eyes watering. He didn't want to die, he just didn't want to live anymore either. It was wrong to keep enjoying life when he'd stolen that chance from two people, one at his own hooves no less.
Princess Celestia, you were there, weren't you? The first public execution in Equestrian history. Well, I ask because I didn't see you, but I reckon I'm glad if you weren't there. I wouldn't have wanted you to see my shame on display like that. How pitiful a creature I am, letting another man take the fall for my actions. As I looked around I saw all the faces of my friends and the faces of the man's enemies, all scowling. Nopony likes a murderer. Nobody likes them either.
I thought about how wouldn't they all be just plum shocked to learn that I was the real killer. All my friends would be so disappointed in me, but it's the truth. And I need you to know this, and I need you to do something about it.
Big Macintosh gulped, his tongue licking his abnormally dry and chapped lips. He reached for the fifth of cider he had stashed nearby, taking first a sip, and then another, and then a third. His eyes unfocused as he remembered the way the noose tightened around the man's neck. His stomach churned as he realized he may as well have put it there himself, for all he did to stop it.
Let me tell you something Your Majesty—it's a filthy and vile act: killin'. What a strange ritual the humans have for dealing with their worst criminals. I'm so sorry I brought it to your doorstep. I'm just so, so, so sorry. If there's a silver lining here, it's that the humans weren't able to find four ponies willing to help draw and quarter the poor bastard. Can you imagine? Ponies helping take part in the executin' of a man by pulling him apart from his arms and legs until his guts ripped open?
It was strange to watch a human execution. The man had looked oddly resigned to his fate. Angry, but resolute in his innocence to the last. Well of course—he hadn't done anything, after all. No, it was Big Macintosh, and not that man, and somehow the only two who knew this were the ones whose fates were juxtaposed that day.
I'm such a pitiful sight, a shameful creature, moanin' after my own remorse when I hadn't done anything to help spare that man's life. I could have jumped up on that stage and granted him the reprieve he so anxiously needed, so rightfully deserved...all the hope was dead from his eyes. He knew no such thing would happen.
There was no hope of some sudden injunction granting clemency. Not from me, anyway. I was too cowardly to do it.
Big Macintosh took another swig and thought back to the hanging. He had kept his eyes locked on the man's, hoping against hope that the two would not make eye contact. His face would have been the only one in the crowd not plastered with a scowl. He had wanted to give that man something in his final moments.
Maybe that was cruel? Big Macintosh couldn't tell anymore. He wanted to give the man the chance to see his unspoken confession, written there on his face that day. But the man never read it. Big Macintosh had watched sadly as they strung the man up and dropped the gallows floor out from under him. Big Macintosh heard that sickening snap as the man's neck broke, and an audible wave of nausea rippled through the crowd. Only Big Macintosh was the one pony that wasn't murmuring sickly to himself or somepony else.
This had not been the first time he heard a man die.
He had reacted with the stoicism of a trained executioner. The more Big Macintosh drank, the more he thought on how cruel and selfish it was for him to have sought closure in the very person he condemned to death by inaction. He didn't deserve it.
He didn't deserve it, gettin' hung like that. That man didn't do anything wrong. All he was guilty of was being a loudmouth in the wrong place at the wrong time. I should be dead right now, because I'm the pony that deserves to die,—
His hooves shaking, Big Macintosh looked over what he had written and nodded, as he gulped down another mouthful of hard cider. Quickly he found the bottle entirely drained, and as he reached for another, he only kept coming up empty. In a moment of blind rage he threw the empty bottle against the wall of his room, and flinched as it shattered loudly.
The tinkling of the glass shards mocked him as they fell to the floor, and he started throwing empty bottle after empty bottle at their scattered remains, watching as the pile grew larger with each fling, the laughter growing louder and more cacophonous.
Finally his hoof found a bottle that still had cider in it, and his mad tantrum of destruction was halted as he quenched his anger and sadness with the bitter brew. With a chuckle, he shook his head at the now empty bottle, and chucked it in the pile with the rest of them. It barely registered with him when it too exploded into hundreds of pieces, and absent-mindedly he made a note to sweep up all the glass later before Apple Bloom stepped on an errant sliver.
Somberly he returned to his letter, picking back up his pencil:
—that needs to be punished. I should be doubly punished, and have that second man's death hung around my neck as well. I don't ask for clemency at all Princess, rather the opposite. I want to make amends, for the murder of the first man and the wrongful execution of the second. I throw myself on the mercy of the court, expectin'—no, hopin' rather—to find none.
Big Macintosh's head spun. How much had he drank? Would this letter end up shredded to ribbons again like all the rest? He folded it up and put it under his pillow for safekeeping, seconds before passing out into the loving embrace of alcohol-fueled oblivion.
As Big Macintosh floated in nothingness, he was visited by a strange nightmare. The haze of cider pervaded the air, preventing him from making out the identity of his dark blue dining companion. He was at a Hay Burger, and the hung man was their waiter. The noose draped across the table as he bent down to take their orders.
"Pancakes," Big Macintosh drawled. His date merely nodded. The food arrived and he ate ravenously, the fluffy pancakes turning to ash in his mouth. When the check came, he ate that too.
Upon waking, Big Macintosh grimaced as he realized he had eaten through his pillow and down to the letter. A corner of his pillow was gone, and so was most of his confession. He groaned as again he was granted another day to walk Equestria. He crumpled up the tattered remains of his scroll and threw it in the dustbin.
Slowly with the grogginess of a pony hungover, he dragged his hooves across the wooden floorboards as he went to fetch the broom to sweep up the shattered remains of all the empty cider bottles he broke—an apropos metaphor for what his life had become.
Shattered remains.
