How many pancakes does it take to make a doghouse?
According to the internet, it takes approximately five hours and twelve minutes to get from Chicago, Illinois to Flint, Michigan. Surprisingly, every mode of transportation besides walking and flying takes the same time: five hours and approximately twelve minutes. Ignoring Breakdowns, flat tires, refueling, debris on the tracks, inclement weather, or the hand of God itself reaching down and preventing transit, a train, a car, and a boat could leave Illinois -provided the boat goer could use a car after they dock- and all reach their destination at the same time.
If one was in Chicago and needed to reach Flint without selling their kidney for a plane ticket or putting one foot in front of another and hiking, then it would take them the same amount of time to get to their destination. The only difference was the means.
Some individuals have problems with boats, and I don't blame them. The Great Lake’s tide conditions can get as bad as the oceans, and besides that, after arriving across the lake there is still the issue of coordinating for another car. Many people would not take a bus for two reasons, its outrageous price and having to buddy up with the rather... interesting characters who take long range bus trips nowadays. Now, while cars seem to be the obvious choice due to the sense of American Freedom a set of wheels and an open road can instill in a driver as well as being the cheapest option, there comes a time when one doesn't happen to possess a car. Like the sight of an open parking spot among the congested streets of the Windy City, these four wheeled wonders are a hassle to own in a city like Chicago, and in the event of someone actually owns one of these godsends, nobody in their right mind wants to make the five hour and twelve minute drive to Flint just to turn around and take another five hour and twelve minute drive back.
Now with all other options exhausted, we come to our final alternative, the outdated, germ-infested, stinky, static traveling, noisy, jerky, accident prone, canned-people-mover-on-tracks; trains. Thus we come to me, standing in the shadow of the Sears Tower looking into the Union station with a fifty-two dollar piece of paper that read: "ONE WAY: CHI > FLN". A train has its purpose, to get people from one place to another. Boarding train 364 was not a choice, but a necessity. I have taken the trip across 3 states in order to perform one of the most noblest and manly quests that one man could ask of another in this world: move out of one apartment and into another.
I could go into detail about helping my older brother move out of one apartment and into another halfway across Chicago, that would be a tad bit unnecessary, but I digress.
The locomotive was a standard silver bullet Amtrak train. The floor was covered with some cheap and thin, easy to clean, blue carpet that you'd expect to find at some shitty rundown local motel where the owner knew that the hookers and johns that made up their main clientele wouldn't notice how cheap it was. The seats themselves were rows of standard airline seats that could bend back a little but not actually be comfortable, and each headrest had a white towel pinned to it so that the greasy people who rode in trains nowadays couldn't stain it with their unwashed hair. In most cars, the right side had a double row of seats while the left had a fast food joint-style plastic tables with two chairs on each end that were all stained by the never-ending barrage of spilled coffee, soft drinks, and condiments. If any more vindication over the quality of the train was needed, then I'd go no further than that the luggage compartments above the passenger area didn't even have doors to the cabinets.
But that’s enough about this moving tube of crap. Being that this was a shitty Amtrak to Flint, Michigan and nobody in their right mind would want to go to Flint or any of the other stops along the way, the train was running very far under capacity. As soon as I boarded the train and found an unoccupied window seat, I plopped my bags down next to me, put my headphones on, and logged into YouTube.
It was going to be a very long and equally boring ride, so to deal with it I was going to load up my YouTube Playlist for TV shows. I've watched some of these shows so much that I didn't even watch them, I just listened while it played nonstop in my pocket.
Out of all the playlists I had, I think it was just either dumb luck or divine intervention that I chose Season two of My Little Pony; because there was no particular reason I chose it.
Many people need ambient background noise to help them go to sleep. I'm no different in regard that it helps to have something playing so I don't have to listen to other people's conversations or snoring, but what makes me different is that it helps to have something familiar to listen to -like a movie or a TV show- to help me drift off to sleep.
It was about the time that Discord was introduced that I finally did fall asleep.
Maybe it was that the sun set and made everything dark, maybe it was that my headphones stopped when my phone ran dead, or maybe it was a rogue jolt from the train making the side of my head crack against the pane of clear glass that woke me up, because all I knew was that several hours had pass, and the train was far along in its trip.
I sat in my seat much like before, just quietly minding my own business, but then I began to notice something.
The crying of little kids
The talking of friends
The snoring of passengers
The stomps of people walking to the bathrooms
The munching of prepackaged food and the crinkling of its packaging.
It was all gone.
Without standing, I poked my head up and looked over the seats, and what I had assumed was true. Everyone was gone.
A cold, heavy sensation began to build up in my stomach as one of my greatest fears of taking a train seemingly became a reality. The hairs on my arms stood up as a chilling sensation took my brain. I missed my stop.
But, before I went into an all-out panic of being stuck on a train and having to get off at God-Knows-Where, Michigan, I happened to catch a glimpse of a piece of paper above my seat with a “2” on it. The conductors, in order to make sure my nightmare doesn’t happen to more people, left a paper above my seat relating to my destination and its distance from the end of the track. Flint was the second to last stop for the Amtrack, and because nobody besides the people who lived there would travel to mid-Michigan, the absence of other passengers would be natural after all but the last few stops.
“We’re almost there.”
I turned my head towards the aisle, expecting to see a super-sneaky conductor creeping up beside me after my near panic attack, but I was mistaken. Maybe I didn’t see them when I woke up, but as it turned out I was actually not alone in the train car. Sitting below a vandalized sign that read “Thank you for ~~not~~ smoking.” With a lit cigarette in his fingers and a coffee thermos that read “I love Mondays” was a man with a battered old fedora hat. I’m not sure why, but it was something about his unruly goatee and his thick rimmed glasses as well as his half-fastened tiger pattern tie, or the way his nicked dress shoes and suit-coat clashed with his ripped skinny jeans, obnoxiously stripped wrist-warmers and scarves that made me want to rub my eyes and moan: fuckin' hipster.
This stranger sitting at one of the tables opposite of the seats picked his hand up and waved at me, slowly, in order to show the fact that each finger individually rose and fell as it moved from one side of his hand to the other. I put my hand up, blurring the line between a return wave and a “stop, I don’t give a shit” motion as I returned my attention outside of the window.
There was a mechanical hissing sound, and soon after that the automated door to the car opened behind us.
Once again, I looked at the aisle expecting the conductor to come by to inform me that we would be arriving in Flint shortly, but once again, I was wrong.
Instead of a uniformed member of the National Railroad Passenger Corporation entering our car, my fellow passenger and I were joined by a woman. She walked down the aisle and took a seat at the table opposite of the other person in the car. She was wearing a tight grey pencil skirt and a pink dress shirt that was so pale that it was almost white. Her shiny black hair accented her toffee colored skin pretty well, and other than one of those small pink hair extensions that was hanging from her bangs, she looked to be some sort of uptight business professional, like a lawyer.
I wasn’t against biracial couples or anything, but it seemed like those two were either together or they had arranged to meet, so I gave them some privacy and looked away. But, before I could do anything like put my headphones back on or try to go back to sleep, I heard something, something that made me go as tense as when I thought that I had just slept through my stop.
“It’s good to see you, Discord.”
No… No. No. No. No. No!
I looked back at the two sitting at the table, there was no way… It didn’t make sense… it was just a mistake, maybe I misheard something, because there was no way that hipster looking guy was a character from a cartoo-
“I can’t say the feeling’s mutual, Celestia.”
It was… Oh dear god… it was real.
I started to panic again, what should I have done? If the incarnation of chaos somehow broke out of a cartoon and was now walking around our world then God only knew what could happen. With a snap of his fingers he could raise all kinds of hell, like make Hitler president, or make Velociraptors come back from extinction! What was I supposed to do? Summon the conductor to arrest him or call the pentagon to nuke the countryside? It was just mid-Michigan, so it's not like anybody would notice or care. I mean, unless these two were doing some sort of sick roleplaying as cartoon characters, then it may come down to me doing my duty as a Michigander to dish out a Mid-Michigan beatdown on his ass.
Then I realized something. If this was the Master of Insanity, then why was he being so… normal? If he was the allegedly omnipotent psycho that the show led me to believe, then why did he look so weak? Instead of something like pole dancing Chihuahuas or having potato chips snowing from the sky, why did he look like the most mischief he could cause would be to call in a bomb threat or pull a fire alarm in a packed movie theatre? I think I needed to watch and listen before I did anything hasty.
“How are you feeling?”
“Positively awful,” he said, rolling his eyes and crossing his arms across his chest.
“Really? You seem to be doing well.”
“This place bores me.” He raised his hand up and rapidly snapped his fingers like an exhausted lighter that wouldn’t light. “It makes too much sense, all this chemistry, and physics, and biology, I just can't understand how it doesn’t drive them all mad. Where's the fun in having all of the answers to everything?”
Celestia cocked her head sideways, “How so? This world is defined by rules, but it does allow for some obscurity to exist.”
“Well riddle me this, Princess,” Discord said. “You’re flying down the highway on a canoe when all of your wheels fall off. How many pancakes does it take to make a doghouse?”
Now, for a genuine second, I think Celestia may have actually tried to think of a logical solution to the riddle delivered by her opposite, but after a millisecond, she gave up and shook her head at him. “Touché.”
“I thought you knew me better. By the way, the answer is purple, because Ice-cream doesn’t have bones. Anyway, why did you summon me here? You’ve never given me the pleasure of a visitor before, so are you planning to gloat?”
Celestia furrowed her brow and stared Discord straight in the eye with an evil glare that could give you a sunburn. “Discord, You’ve ruined lives, leveled kingdoms, corrupted the innocent-”
Discord gave out a laugh, “Oh come on, you’re sister was asking for it.”
Celestia tightened her hand up into firm little fists. If I didn’t know better I could have sworn she was about to bitchsmack him or –if I knew that someone was responsible for messing up my sister like that- pull out a gun and blow his brains out his ass. Alas, Celestia continued with a deadpan glare and spoke through gritted teeth “And have been a thorn in my side for too long.”
“So what?” He spat. “Just get on with it and smash my statue into gravel for good. Jeez, it's like you like me or something.”
Celestia took a breath, and regained her composure, returning with a more pleasant tone and a smile on her lips. “For as much as I would love to fix our little problem, I don’t see the solution in the same way you do.”
“Wimp.”
Celestia smirked and shook her head. “Discord, you don’t understand my conviction, I do intend to destroy you, but not in the means that you see.”
Discord leaned back in his chair and raised his eyebrow. “How so?”
“I intend to release you.”
I remember at that point I was thinking, “What. The. Fuck.” And apparently Discord felt the same way.
He stuck his finger into his ear and rubbed it around, pulling out a gob of sticky yellow wax and said, “I’m sorry, Celestia, but I don’t think I heard you correctly.”
“No, you heard me right the first time, I intend to release you.”
Discord sat silently for a moment with his index finger pointed up, preparing to make a statement. After a few seconds, he pointed it at the Princess, “I… I’m sorry, but did you happen to drink any of that funny water they have here, because I’m supposed to be the one who’s insane.”
“No. I’ve made up my mind, and you’re coming back with me.”
Discord gave a great and hearty laugh, something that would have woken everyone in the train up if there happened to be anyone in there besides us. “I… Oh dear… you’re so cruel, you came all this way just to try to pull a trick on me? Good try, TROLLestia.”
“I’m not joking.”
Discord stopped for a moment, and then he started up with even more wild laughter, “Oh, you ARE serious!" He laughed."I guess your old age is finally starting to ruin your memory, or else you would have remembered the other times I’ve escaped! This is going to be fun. Tell me, do you want to be corrupted, or is Grey the new Black in Equestria?”
Celestia shook her head once more. “I do remember what happened the last times you’ve escaped, but this time I intend to do something different, release you, give you a chance to be free on my terms rather than wait for you to escape and run amok on your own.”
Discord leaned across the table with a large toothy grin on his face and an evil sneer poisoning his words, “and how is that going to ‘destroy’ me?”
“A wise man from this world once said that ‘I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends’, and I intend to destroy you as my enemy, removing the threat you pose upon my ponies by making them your friends.”
“How sure are you that I’ll just give up being me cold turkey to be your B.F.F.?”
“I don’t expect it to be easy, and I don’t expect it to be fast, but I know that you’re just a wounded animal on the inside, trying to lash out and force others give you the love and attention somepony would be willing to give voluntarily as your friend.”
Discord gave another laugh, this time just a single “ha” that wasn’t as obnoxious as the earlier ones. “What are you going to call it? Operation Keep Calm and not freak out over Discord’s redemption?”
I was surprised to see it, but Celestia actually gave a bit of a chuckle and added, “You know, that actually might work.”
“Oh, I can see it now,” Discord continued, “you’re going to write a letter to that student of yours that reads-” Discord cleared his throat and stuck his hand out like he was reading a speech. In a voice that sounded like he was mocking the Queen of England, he read,
“Dear Twilight Sparkle, my most faithful student: Today I shall be paying a visit to Ponyville, along with a very important guest. Please meet me at the outskirts of town along with all of your friends. All will be explained upon my arrival.
“Hope to see you soon,
“Princess Celestia.”
The Princess raised her eyebrow. “You know, I was expecting something much more crass and insultin-”
“P.S.
“I want you and your friends to bang me like a bass drum at marching band competition.”
At that moment, two faces simultaneously met palms as the Princess covered up her grin and muffled a genuine laugh.
“You know, for all the things you’ve done over the years, you do know how to make me laugh.”
Discord reached across the table and put both of his hands around one of Celestia’s, “Oh you know I’m not bad, I was just voiced this way.”
Celestia yanked her hand away from Discord’s readying a strike if he tried to move any closer. Discord put his hands up, showing that he wasn’t trying to do anything other than retreat to his own side of the table. I’d be lying if I didn’t get a little tense over the whole ordeal as well.
The escalation of the situation caused the two to freeze in a stalemate, Discord trying to show that he was not attempting any malcontent to the Princess while she was standing by in case he struck at random. After a few more seconds, Discord lowered his hands and finally surrendered by saying, “You know what, Celestia, I do like the sounds of this… there’s so many random variables, chances, and things that could go so delightfully wrong that it's like we’re playing a game! If you’re right, then friendship and all the other hooey that you try to jam down everyone’s throat will be the solution once more. But if you’re wrong… well… I don’t even know what I’ll do when I’m free this time!”
Celestia brought her hand to her cheek. “Well I suppose that’s one way to look at your rehabilitation, and if a game is what you want, then a game is what you’ll receive.”
Discord gave a smirk. “Well, then if this is how its going to be done, then its customary for opponents in this place to shake hands over their agreements. So…” Discord stuck out his left hand. “Put ‘er there, partner!”
I suppose Discord must have assumed Celestia didn’t know much about human customs, because he was exercising his mastery of the silver tongue and trickery. He must have been burying an ace in the hole with this, because shaking with a left hand is actually an insult and would not finalize their deal. Tricky Dick.
Surprising me, Celestia nodded and said, “Well, you’ve got yourself a deal.” And reached out with her right hand and took Discord’s. For a moment, his dirty, hairy, calloused hand hovered while Celestia’s smooth, clean digits tightened around his.
As soon as they touched, Discord began shouting and writhed in pain in his seat. The sounds he made startled me and caused me to stand up, ready to either attack or to get out of harm’s way. While all this was happening the Princess remained seated, firmly gripping the Incarnate of Chaos’ hand as if it was nothing while he writhed like he was holding onto a clump of dry ice. Finally, Discord grabbed his left wrist with his right hand and pulled it out, falling out of his seat and landing in the aisle. He stood facing away and hunched over, cradling his wounded hand.
He whispered something, breathing heavily and twitching over the pain his hand had caused him.
“There’s no need to be alarmed,” she said. I tried to step out from my seat and into the aisle, but she repeated it again, at which point I realized that, for the first time on this train trip, she was actually talking to me. “He’s a clever one, but every now and then hubris gets the better of him.”
Maybe it was because of the revelation that I was not just some ghostly interloper to this meeting and that the two knew full well that I was there but didn’t care about one human spectator, or that if these two were the human incarnations of gods visiting our world and that my best efforts would be as effective as fighting a SWAT team with a potato gun, but for either reason I slowly moved back to my seat as Discord’s breathing slowed down a normal rate.
Still with his back to me, He began to chuckle. “Clever girl,” he said, slowly turning around and revealing his hands to me.
His two right hands.
Author's Note
Written during a five hour and twelve minute train ride...
