Note: Some names and events have been changed to protect the innocent.
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I sit in a large and open room, the lobby of a local church, attending yet another group meeting. I am not an alcoholic, or a narcotics abuser. I am a Brony, and this group is not about admitting that we have a problem and trying to fix it. There are no steps to this program, no pamphlets or books, no cute little slogans. It is a place where we get together and share our stories. We are Bronies Anonymous, and we all share one thing. More than a love of the special characters of My Little Pony, the characters have all saved our lives.
Tonight is a special night, for tonight two new members have joined us. Together with them I decide it is time to share my story. I have been a member for almost a month now. I have shared and spoken with others about their stories, but I have not yet shared mine. There is no pressure to share, no requirement, but it is hoped for that in time every member will share their story. I brush down the edges of my cheap stick-on nametag, nervously watching as our unofficial leader calls us to order. With several of my fellows I step away from the mandatory coffee and donuts set up on a table not too far from the circle of chairs.
Sitting down we all go around the circle and introduce ourselves. We run much like a support group, but there is something in the air here, an air of friendliness, of companionship that is lacking at most support groups. My time comes and passes, and we once again have ended where we started. I take moment and look around the room, the little monikers that sit upon the small white tags upon our chests that for this brief moment in time will define us. Names like Red Dancer and Pony Lover sit in bold black strokes that stand out against the white. These are not odd or strange names here, we do not use our real names, we enter and leave this room without the knowledge of each other in real life. Here our lives join for but the briefest moment, weaving together in a tangled fabric that we have come to enjoy. Here we use the names that we use online on brony society, on the various works that we produce in our love of the show.
The leader stands up and introduces our two newest members. He invites them and anyone else who wants to share their stories to raise their hand. I raise mine, noticing that both of our newest members have also raised theirs. One by one the three of us share our stories, one by one letting out our secrets to these people who have and will become closer than family, closer than our closest friends….
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The first to share is man who goes by Sergeant Cuddles. For a moment the irony does not escape me. I myself have Lieutenant Bubbles sitting upon the small white square on my chest. I resist the urge to giggle, and listen closely. When I decide to share, I would hope that Cuddles will listen to my story, and so I will listen intently to his.
“Hi. My name is Sergeant Cuddles, and this is my first time here. I know that we aren’t supposed to talk about what we do in
the outside world, but to fully understand my story I need to tell you that I am in the military.”
He takes a breath, his head hung low. I figure that he is composing himself. For many of us our stories are hard to tell. We are all survivors of near death experiences. In many ways that is as hard to deal with as anything else. It does not matter if the event was large or small, it can still be horrifying. Telling your story is many times the same as reliving it, and that can be just as hard to do as it was to live it the first time.
“I never really watched the show, even though my daughter loves it. I had gotten the news that I was to deploy the day before the show aired. I promised my daughter that I would sit and watch the episode with her. I will never forget that episode. It was Feeling Pinkie Keen. I shipped out less than a week later. Just before I left, my daughter came running up to me. She pressed a small toy into my hand. ‘Take it Daddy. Pinkie will protect you.’ She looked like she believed it, and even though I didn’t believe it, I put the crystal Pinkie key chain in my pocket.”
Another breath and a this time a shudder. Everything is leading up to the moment, the big reveal. That is the moment where we are at our lowest, our most vulnerable. It is the reason we all come here. Those small little moments in which our lives were at risk often scar us forever. That’s why we have the group. We wear our little nametags, drink the discount coffee and bulk donuts for that moment. The moment where we open up and let ourselves be friends, sharing with each other those little intimate moments that make us who we are.
“When I was deployed, I started to go on patrols. We were in the desert, I can’t really say more than that, but we were in a Humvee. After the first couple of weeks we started to learn the spots to stop at to get a good view of what the enemy was doing. I’d put the the Pinkie in a pocket on my vest. She stayed there, my good luck charm and reminder of my daughter. I didn’t often think of it, but when I did, I would run my hand against it.
One day things were different. We’d gone on patrol like usual, but that day I kept hearing something in the back of my mind. At first I couldn’t place the voice. Twitcha Twitch. The two words getting louder and louder in the back of my mind, it felt urgent like something I needed to figure out. We were stopped, surveying the land around us. Suddenly I realized what it was. Pinkie’s voice, her pinkie sense, something falling, I didn’t understand it but I knew that we needed to move. I shouted, screaming for us to get moving. Once we’d gotten the humvee running and moving it happened fast. Not seconds later, three shells hit the exact spot where we’d been. Pinkie saved my life. I’ve watched the show ever since.”
There is silence in the room. This is the first time that we’ve ever heard from a military man. It was by far the most dramatic life saving story we’ve heard so far. One of the other people coughs, somewhere in the background a sink drips, the sound louder than any we make. It happens at once, all together, “Thank you for Sharing.” It might not be a support group per se, but it followed many of the same rules, the members realizing that it was far easier to follow a common structure than blindly stab about on their own. We sit in silence after that, reflecting on what we’ve heard. Nobody says anything yet, we wait for the next person to share. It’s an unwritten rule that everyone shares before we talk about it. The next man moves forward. His tag just says X, the stokes thick and dark against the whiteness of the tag. The anger behind the strokes screams out like an angry splash of red on a dark background.
“Hello. My name is X. Rainbow Dash saved my life.”
He seems aggressive, angry with the world. He’s not too different from the way I was when I started watching the show. I’d found my happy place within this community, and I sincerely hoped that X would too. I look in his direction as he talks, the sheer anger radiating off of him in waves.
“I’m a night janitor at a bank. I also know the rules, but I don’t care if you know that about me. I was cleaning up and I found a little Rainbow Dash figurine on the floor. I don’t know what made me pick it up and put it in my pocket, but I did. My chest pocket on my coveralls, mainly since there aren’t any actual pants level pockets on them. I forgot that it was there when I left, and so it stayed in the pocket when I left.
The next night the manager handed me a bulletproof vest. Apparently there had been a tip that there was going to be an attempted robbery. There were police stationed there, and they thought that the risk was low since they’d been tipped off, but they wanted to take the precautions just in case. It turned out that the informant was right. The robbers burst in and didn’t even try to take hostages, they just shot. The bullet hit me in the chest and I was blown backwards. I don’t remember much of the rest of the action, mainly since I was on my back for it, but I do remember afterwards with the paramedics. “
The silence in the room is stifling as X pauses for a breath. This is remarkable, two stories that are so similar and yet so different. I wonder to myself where the anger comes from, trying to figure out from what little he has said what it could be. I am stumped and part of me hopes that the answer will be forthcoming in the end of his story.
“Apparently the bullet had gone right through the vest. It was some kind of armor piercing round. The paramedic held up a piece of twisted blue plastic with a bullet obviously embedded in it. It was the Rainbow Dash figurine. It had saved my life by giving it’s own. I’d never seen the show before, or even really heard of it, but I did some research after that, and I fell in love with it. I couldn’t believe how courageous and daring Rainbow Dash was. It hurt me to know that a small piece of her, even a little toy had given it’s life for someone as unworthy as I.”
X’s story ended abruptly. The stifling silence continues, the faucet in the background still drips. The thanks are said, and the group turns its attention to me. I had agreed to share this time, and now, the last person left who’d raised their hand, it was my time.
If I had ever thought that it would be easy to share my story, I was wrong. Maybe my story wasn’t as dramatic as X’s or Sergeant Cuddle’s, but for me it was very personal, and even though it had been over a year now, it hurt just as much as it did when it first happened.
“Hello, my name is Lieutenant Bubbles. I know that many of you have seen me here for the past few weeks, and some of you have even read my stories online. But this is the one story that isn’t fiction…..
To be continued….