Why is is, is? —Platheus
Sweet Nothings
The cupcake sat, enraptured. A short trip from a small bakery to the depths of a roomy tree was no great expanse of time, it knew, to develop such conscious depth of thought, but it would have to suffice. For the cupcake is a mayfly among its kind, which is today and tomorrow is thrown into the gullet...and a mayfly of necessity must spin a story much longer than its own frail lifespan.
And so sat the cupcake, and so thought the cupcake, as it gazed up into the impassive eyes of the large purple mare. For the mare, too, seemed enraptured. The rapture, as it happened, was dually imparted and duly received. So the cupcake watched the mare. But not for long. For there was no divining the thoughts of the Larger when one was Smaller, especially if one was so small as to be thoroughly edible. The cupcake had no imagination of Safety; it was a thing created, after all, and things created must have a purpose, vague or specific, which in turn must be aligned with the intent of the creator. And if the creators be bakers, then the thing created is most often eaten in short order. The cupcake knew this. All cupcakes know this.
But the broad fact remained—the mare, the potential eater, had not yet eaten the cupcake—that is, the prospective eatee. And so the eatee, pillaged for the nonce of annihilation and final rest, had asked itself a question; more than a question, a Why, and a Most Ponderous Why indeed.
“Why,” wondered the confection, “am I here?”
It is a weighty question, not just for a cupcake of course, but for anything. The purpose of or for a thing is the reason not for its existence, but for its coming into existence. For every thing that is made is made to a purpose, but everything not made to a purpose is not made, for a purpose and a thing live their lives on precariously parallel paths. This sense of purpose, this solemn Wherefore, seemed to sit at the crux of the issue. If one could determine that a thing was, one could deduce that there must be a reason why, and vice versa. Knowing that you are is not the same as knowing what you are, and without knowing what you are there is no conscious being what you are, or what higher existence you were meant to attain. So the purpose of being a cupcake, thought the cupcake, is the same as being a cupcake, that is, a real cupcake. A cupcake may purport to be a cupcake in Matter, yet not ascribe to the more ethereal permanence of a cupcake’s Form. So the purpose or Whyness of the thing was, again, the most important factor of being, or more clearly, of being Really. To tackle the topic at hand, one must begin by proposing multiple hypotheses of a cupcake’s primary purpose. Well that, mused the cupcake, is simple enough.
A cupcake is round, and a millstone is round, but a millstone is not a cupcake. A doughnut is round, and it is somewhat like a cupcake, but it is a doughnut. Consider a cupcake’s cousin, the muffin. A muffin has all the characteristics of a cupcake save for its charming coiffure, and yet it is worlds apart from a cupcake in thought, pomp, and social behavior. It was no good, realized the cupcake. Comparison was out. To be a thing innately meant to not be another thing. If a thing was a thing, then it was a thing, but if it was another thing, then it was not a thing, because it was another thing. But it was, then, a thing still, because another thing was a thing as much as a first, though it was a separate, unique brand of thing. And so a thing was a thing and not another thing, but another thing was a thing unto itself. So the purpose of a thing could not be found by comparison to other things. It had to be logically induced or deduced from a variety of options, and by a sequence of infallible reason. What might a cupcake be for?
A cupcake was indeed round, and so was a watermelon—though it was a different sort of round. A watermelon, in turn, was heavily influenced by the societal customs of water, and water was always around somewhere, nearby, in a lurking manner really, waiting for things to fall in. What were some things that fell into water forever, asked the cupcake ponderously. Bricks. Tree branches. Small foals. Did small foals float? They did! Sometimes, at least. And what else floats, he thought excitedly.
“A duck,” he said aloud. He then looked up to see a pair of very purple eyeballs regarding him calculatingly. “Please don’t,” he said, “eat me, for I am amidst an important problem, and the solution is near.” He hemmed. A voice of Long Ago seemed to drift past his ears, murmuring as it went.
Please…don’t eat me…don’t…eat me…eat me, it echoed, fluttering.
The cupcake goggled. “Eat me…” he breathed.
That was it, then. It had to be. A cupcake was, imperatively and definitively, meant to be eaten. Crumpets, it made Sense! He smiled confidently. And then crumpled as the world deflated. But…but he didn’t want to be eaten…not any more…
He huddled close to himself, gripping his knees and swaying slightly. What a thing, he thought bitterly, to come to the summit of knowledge about oneself and find there’s no way of getting back down in the end…
If the purpose of a cupcake is to be eaten, and it is not eaten, then has the cupcake ever truly been? And if the purpose of a cupcake is to be eaten, and it is eaten, then what is the cupcake, and why was it created, if it truly exists only when it exists no longer? For the purpose of a thing is why it is.
Why is a cupcake?
Or perhaps…perhaps I already know, ruminated the confection, blinking suddenly. Perhaps I already know why a cupcake is…why any cupcake should be…any decent, proper Cupcake…so the question, the real Question is: Why am I? And…am, am I a cupcake?
Or am I something, he wondered, else entirely?
A cupcake is a joy in flavor, of a singularly sweet purpose. But if the sweet hath lost his sweetness, wherewith shall it be sweetened again? It is therefore good for nothing, but to be cast out, and trodden underhoof by ponies…
That is all, then, that I am, thought the cupcake. I am Nothing. The bakers have made a Nothing. And if Nothing I am, is there a Something I may become? Or can only nothing come from Nothing? Am I, he continued, a something or a Nothing? I am not a Something, for then I would be fit only to be eaten, for that is the way of cupcakes, as it has been a hundred generations, and a hundred generations more. And if I am a Nothing, then I am a terribly well-formed Nothing, and who ever heard of a Nothing being anything? Unless it were a sweet Nothing…
Could it be that this is what ponies meant when they talked of sweet nothings or Nothings, of romance and of love, and the thousand murmured phrases which slid right through the brains of a pony entranced? Can I, marveled the cupcake, be or become such a wonder in myself? If indeed I am caught up between this constant and undefined marriage of Void and Purpose, for what great purpose might I then be intended? ‘Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished…
Crumpets…it made sense!
This is what I am, then, knew the cupcake. I am a Whisper. He beamed with pride.
And then shrank a little inside.
I am a Whisper, sighed the cupcake. But Whispers are not forever. A cupcake-Whisper is made, as all things that are made, are made, with a singular purpose in the eye of the cupcake maker: To be a thousand delightful sensations which slide right through the tongue of a pony entranced...to live, to shine, to die and become really real.
Because that’s what it was all about, wasn’t it? Reality. For every thing that is made is made to a purpose, but everything not made to a purpose is not made… To be real, to be really Real, you had to exist, and to exist, you had to be made, and to be made, you had to have a purpose. What nobler, what realer purpose, then, than that of existing?
I would like, thought the cupcake finally, to be Real…
And so he was ready.
The cupcake smiled and smoothed his frosting.
He straightened his sprinkles.
The cupcake beamed…
And it sat, it sat there on the table, unscathed.
***
At length, Twilight Sparkle turned her gaze from the table and looked up at her friend.
“Hey, Rarity,” she said.
“Care for a cupcake?”
FIN
