Why do you even like books?

by Gizmopower

Rating: everyone
Tags: Twilight Sparkle, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Spike, Comedy, Slice of Life
Length: 1559

When Twilight is confronted with the question of why she likes books, it turns out to be the most difficult question Twilight had ever answered.

Why do I like books? WHY DO I LIKE BOOKS? It should be so easy to answer. It should be the most simplest answer ever to a seemingly easy question. But it's not. It's in fact the most difficult question Twilight has ever answered. She might even explode from it.

P.S. She doesn't actually explode.
P.SS. Or does she?

Published 2014-04-06 17:10:02 UTC
Last updated 2014-04-06 17:10:02 UTC

...

Twilight had finally finished her book on gravitational magic and black holes. It was an intriguing book about how the cataclysmic effects of gravity magic could effect us deeply in the long run. It hadn't taught her anything new however, she has read on the subject numerous times on countless other books. She decided to take a break from non-fiction and resume to her book series that were called the four corners. It was complicated and took a lot of commitment to fully comprehend and appreciate its literature. She was about to go upstairs when spike had called out to her.

"Twilight, do you want to go to Rarity's picnic? I heard she has vanilla fudge cake!" Twilight shook her head.

"Naw, I'm good. Besides, I wanted to read my book." Spike sighed in sorrow.

"Why do you even like books?" Asked Spike.

"Pff that's simple Spike it's because...it's because...why..." Twilight couldn't place her hoof on it. She tried to search for words that would help her in answering this question, none came to mind.

"Well you see Spike books are like...are...you know...books. They..." Twilight couldn't find the words. She was stuck, stumped, trapped by a simple easy question. It was a topic Twilight was so familiar with. One that she has lived with and loved since her very first book that was a collection of stories made by the brothers Grimm. She literally lived with books. She lived in a library for celestia's sake!

"Uhh, Twilight?" Asked Spike concerned.

She repeated the question over and over to herself.

"Why do I like books...why do I like books?" She said it numerous times saying it with different tones and speeds. The feeling of picking up a book and reading its contents was a feeling so indescribable. It was almost like trying to explain how to move your arm. It was a feeling that couldn't be described by any other feeling or thought. Perhaps it was because her love for books was so strong that no other pony could relate to it. She then did her best to describe it.

"Well it's like...it's like jumping into a whole new world...no that's not right..." Jumping into a whole new world? How could that be? Perhaps if it's fiction, but what about non-fiction? Then it would be like jumping into your own world, but it feeling like a new world, that was our world but wasn't exactly like our world, just a part of the world you hadn't known about? No, her definition would have to describe the exotic feeling of picking up a book, finishing a book, just the idea of books itself. How could she? How could she describe her love for books? Books almost gave her some sort of new emotion. A feeling that was incomparable to any other known feeling or has any similar features to this feeling. Was that why she loved books? To grasp this unidetifiable experience? Twilight hadn't thought so. There was a much wider range then simply wanting to have a feeling that she loved books.

The knowledge, the facts, the ideas! They were why she loved books. Right? Was it just so simple? For knowledge? The answer was so simple, yet so unsatisfactory. Fiction books don't really give you knowledge, they gave you an adventure. She liked different books for different reasons, but all these reasons felt as if they were part of the same reason. To put an analogy on it, she thought that it was like a tree. All the branches were unique in there own way, but came from the same trunk. No, actually, not really. It felt as if the tree was imploding and exploding at the same time to create this phenomenon, this feeling, this experience she called, the booky kind of feeling.

Her brain was hurting, malfunctioning, unresponsive even. How is it that an idea that she is so familiar with could be so foreign when trying to put it in words? How can she try and translate the biological feeling that books gave her into a description that was of the equestrian language? It was like trying to describe what the colour orange looks like to a blind pony. The more she thought about it the more blurred reality seemed and the more deeper she went into her own mind to help describe this experience.

Books, they swirled around her, everywhere from every direction. Words, and pictures and thoughts, they all couldn't describe her experience. They all couldn't fit the bill.

"Why do I like books?" She repeated to herself again. She then answered it with another question. What is a book? A book was a piece of literature. Some paper bound by a cover. Was that all it was? Just some piece of material with an assortment of 26 letters? No, a book is what goes into the reader. It's what captivates, inspires, it's the reader that makes the book what it is. But what did the reader make it? This wasn't helping Twilight. Nothing she did was helping her dilemma. Answers just lead to more question, those questions then lead to even more questions. When she did find an answer she then just got lost in all the questions and started from the first question. Why did she like books? What was it she loved about them?

She then asked herself a new question. "What is my favourite book?" Bad mistake. Really bad mistake. She couldn't control it. Her brain went on auto pilot. Favourite book? Favourite book!? A shelf appeared in front of Twilight. It was a collection of books that Twilight had considered favourable. She went through all of them at lightning speeds. Her brain was straining itself and was forcing Twilight to go through her memories. Twilight's conscious mind couldn't register anything. Only an insane migraine as her subconscious just sped away. She tried her best just to stop thinking about it all together but couldn't. It was almost like when someone asks you to not think of elephants. The brain just can't stop.

She wanted it to stop. She wanted it to end. The torturing question racked her brain sending her neurones into a hurricane of thoughts. Time didn't exist inside the brain of Twilight Sparkle. Everything was happening at once. The question was being played over and over again inside her brain and she was pulling her face off. She banged her head on the floor over and over again. She didn't even want to answer it anymore. She didn't even care. Her love for books was just unexplainable to be put into words that could be spoken by any equine tongue. It hurt. It hurt so much. It was as of some worm inside her brain was drilling, searching, thinking of all possible leads into solving the question. This tantalizing simple question. Why did she like books?

She just wanted it to stop. She wanted to end her existence. She was crying now. She was forcing herself to work, to think. She had no conscious control over her thoughts. Her brain power had almost the equal computing abilities as a quantum computer. She couldn't stop. It was torture. There was nothing she could do. She screamed. "Someone please just end it already!" But it didn't stop. It never would. She prayed, she cried out to make it stop. Maybe she would never stop unless she had a satisfactory answer. Maybe she would never find an answer. She was so confused and hurt. There was nothing she could do now. Just sit and wait.

Twilight woke up in a hospital bed. She looked around.

"Twilight! Your awake!" Said Spike who had been waiting on a chair beside her.

"Wha..what happened?" Asked a confused Twilight.

"I don't know, you spaced out after you tried to explain why you loved books so much and then after a while you fell on the floor and started having some sort of seizure! So I rushed you to the hospital!" Answered Spike,

"How long, was I asleep?" Asked Twilight.

"For like, a few hours I think." Said Spike.

Twilight looked at her hoofs. She couldn't exactly remember what happened, only that she hated it and didn't want to remember what had happened. She also had a strong hatred for books all of a sudden.

"Oh...wow...by Celestia what happend?" And from that point on Twilight never read a book and hated them...for about three days. How could she? She loved books. Books for life.

After quite some time she was over at Fluttershy's to help with some chores when a casual conversation lead Fluttershy to ask a question.

"Twilight, you said before how this was almost delayed because you like books right?"

"Yah..." Replied Twilight.

"Why do you like books?" You probably thought that Twilight would have another episode. But nope. She just replied with, " They are interesting and fun." And then she returned to help Fluttershy. But then she asked herself, what is it that made things fun, or interesting? What was it that made the pony's mind so entertained? Given the fact that Twilight was Twilight, how could she not have an episodic seizure dealing with the philosophies of existence and the pony mind?

Author's Note

I've made it so the ending would be more "satisfactory". :moustache: