Clockwork Firefly

Fiddle with a little block of wood. Cut it in half with the table saw, making sure the saw's not spinning too fast. Carve the blocks so that each form one half of a shape, but leave room inside them for the gears. Reach a hoof out, grab the miniscule cogwheel on the table, carefully lay it inside the hollow area. Flick the magnifying glass over, and gently, gently twist the other gears into place. Wind it up, make sure it runs smoothly. Lay the other, empty half of the wooden shape over it, and seal the little thing up into one small device. Sand out the roughness, perfect the curves. Voila. A wind-up boat, a foal's plaything, sits on the cluttered workbench in front of me.

I push myself away from the workbench, flicking the magnifying glass back into its position as I move. The little lamp I have beside me is starting to die, the wick slowly vanishing into the little metal clasp above a pool of oil. I reach over to it, and twist a knob on the side to give the flame some more fuel.

The flame lights up the small room around me. Before me, the workbench, with its saw and the wooden toy standing at attention while the tools lie scattered about. Behind me, my thin bed. To the left, a door set in the middle of a stone wall, along with a small window to the summer air outside. And to the right, above the lamp and on the wall, shelves holding various little knick-knacks of mine. I look down at the little toy sitting on the workbench in front of me.

It's unpainted, the little thing being nothing more than a glorified block of wood. But, I'm not the painter. I just build the mechanical contraptions, and give them to the toy vendor. She doesn't pay me enough bits for me to paint them. But, back to the boat. It's almost done, I just need to get a key so that it'll wind up and roll around the floor of some foal's home.

Finding a key's easy. Since these things are just toys, I use the same version of a key each and every time I make one. I fish one key out of a pile sitting on the workbench, and test it on the little boat, the gears clicking rapidly at the turning of the little metal tube. The little boat skims across the surface of the workbench, bobbing up and down as it goes, until it eventually stops at the edge. I smile.

Even though I've made hundreds of these blasted things, I still smile every time I see one of them work for the first time. Pride, I guess. Or maybe it's because they help pay the rent.

I pick up the little boat, and place it in a box holding others, ready for transport. I place the little box on my back, extinguish the lamp, and walk over to my door. I step outside, lock the door behind me, and start my little walk out into the town. It's a bit of a hike, since my tiny one-room house is on the outskirts of town, not far from the apple orchards. It's nice out here, in the little field around my shack.

I follow the narrow dirt path leading away from my house. To my left, in the distance, I can just see the edge of the orchards. Above me, that crazy daredevil pegasus is practicing some sort of flight maneuver. I'd stop and watch, but I need to deliver the little toys. I keep walking down the little dirt path, and my mind starts to wander off...

Flight. Soaring across the blue sky, not a care in the world. My mind's drifted off to the clouds, inspired by the daredevil's antics. I see myself gliding through the giant fluffballs, gently pushing them aside. Banking and twisting, careless and free.

I loop back, moving to the start.

Stormclouds ahead. Turn around, head the other way.

Stormclouds there, too.

Lightening.

Rain.

Everywhere, rain and thunder in a blinding, chaotic maelstrom.

Heartbeat quickens.

Breathing becomes short, erratic gasps.

Find a way out.

I need to find a way out of the storm.

Find a way out.

Twisting my head left and right, looking everywhere, looking for some way out.

A patch of earth. Crash dive, get down as fast as possible.

A blinding flash of light. A thunderous roar in my ears.

And I fall through the rain.

I plummet downwards, the ground getting closer and closer until-

"-ello, Equestria to Gears, you in there?"

My head snaps back, and I'm not falling through the storm anymore. I never was in the first place. I tell myself that, but it doesn't stop the sweating, or quickened heartbeat. I take a deep breath, and notice my surroundings. I'm in the toyshop, standing in front of the white and blue unicorn who orders the little wooden boats. Her face is a mixture of concern and annoyance.

"You were kinda spaced out there, Gears. You okay?"

Yeah, I'm fine.

Liar. Liar liar mane on fire.

I have your order for you, right here.

I place the little cardboard box down on the floor in front of me. The mare opens the box with her magic, and floats out one of the little boats. She turns it over and over in front of her face, her eyes squinting in concentration. She floats it back down onto the pile, closes the box, and walks to a square counter a short distance away. A bag of bits floats out of a desk, and she walks back over to me.

"Great job," -The little bag of bits plops into my waiting hoof- "I'll need another box of them in a week, Gears."

I thank the mare for the bits, and she wishes me a pleasant day. The storeowner walks deeper into her spacious toy shop, and I walk out the front door into the little market area of town.

I never complain about how that mare always pays me less than minimum wage. If I did, she'd probably just stop ordering those stupid wind-up boats, and find another big item to sell. Outside of the railroad, nopony has an interest in what I do. But the railroad's not looking for anypony now. So making these little toys is the only consistent job I have here.

Being a pony with a special talent in making mechanical devices, my prospects for a career have always been rather limited. As such, I take any odd jobs I can find on the town bulletin board. The tasks can be humiliating, and they can be stupid, but they pay.

This is my life.

Every day, I do this exact, same little routine. At the end of every week, I drop off a box of those boats to the mare who owns the toy shop. Every month, I pay rent to the Apple family for the field I live on. Every year, I go to the market and try to sell some new invention of mine, with little success.

This is my life.

I daydream whenever I'm doing those odd little jobs. The little fantasy's almost always the one about flying. Sometimes the lightening storm hits me, and other times I fly around the world. And then I snap out of the dream and see my tired, dreary face staring back at me from a window I'm cleaning.

This is my boring, mundane, stuck-in-the-background-of-it-all life.

And I wish to Celestia that it wasn't.