Laugh, Laugh
by Present Perfect
Ponyacci wanted me to find him.
It's a funny ol' thing, this world, where somepony you only met twice in your life asks you to do something like that. I mean, yeah, the first time was just super! Getting to see him was unbelievably amazing, and talking with him was just the best, even if he was sad and thinking about retiring. Helping him just made me so unspeakably happy! I couldn't have asked for anything better. Then the second time happened and that was even more amazing than the first! He treated me like a long-lost friend, and we had a blast the way long-lost friends do, full of fun and energy and just life. Still, you don't expect a pony you were never really friends-friends with to ask you to do something like this.
You don't expect a pony so full of life and energy and fun to do what he did.
Most ponies wouldn't believe it, but I get death. Sure, after the first time I experienced it, I was devastated, all flat-mane and no smiling for what felt like forever. Granny Pie passed so soon after I had gotten my cutie mark, after I had finally learned how to smile and have fun, the way she'd always wanted me to. It felt like all the fun had been sucked out of my life all over again, and I couldn't find a reason to keep smiling, because she would never smile again.
But then my older sister, who sees everything totally different from me the way quiet ponies do, told me to think about what did matter. It was the best advice I ever got in my entire life! I'd started out feeling like I was in a hole under a big house that blocked out the sun. So I thought of all the times Granny had made me smile, and all the fun things she taught me to do after I saw that Rainboom. That made all the difference in the whole world! Even if Granny wasn't around anymore, I could smile again. I could have fun! I built a ladder out of my happy thoughts and climbed out of the hole.
That day, I vowed death wouldn't get me down. There were some kinks to work out -- wakes should be subdued parties -- but I got it. Death is the full stop at the end of a marvelous story, and the only thing you can do when it happens is read the story again.
So I was all set for Winona. And Rarity's dad. And Cranky Doodle Donkey. And Granny Smith. And Mr. Cake, and my mom, and Twilight's mom, and Mayor Mare, and...
Gosh, sometimes it seems like I know more dead ponies than live ones. It's a lot of stories to have to remember sometimes. It just goes to show, you can blink and somepony's story will have stopped, so you gotta keep up with everypony while you still can.
But Ponyacci's story should have kept going. It had so many unwritten pages. He was older than anypony else in the circus and still doing two shows a night. His ringmaster -- he outlasted two of them! -- told me there was something hiding behind his smile, some kind of sadness nopony wanted to admit was there. I can't blame them. I think I'd have ignored it too, if I'd been near. All anypony ever wanted to see was the fun parts of Ponyacci's story.
It's like we used to say: Dear Princess Celestia, today I learned that you can't skip the bad parts of the story. You either get the whole kaboodle, or a big, wet, cold noodle. A noodle that curls around on itself and looks like a zero, that's what I'm getting at. No cheatsies, no takebacks, no calling dibs. Once you've started that story, you stick it out to the end. That's friendship.
You can't skip the bad parts, but you can end it too soon. I understand death; I don't understand this. The story of life is so precious; why would anypony want to cut it short? Even if he was hurting, there were still pages left to fill with fun.
Weren't there?
Maybe he didn't see that. Maybe all those blank pages, to him, were filled with the same hurty words over and over. Maybe he was in a big house-clogged hole with nothing to build a ladder out of. I wish I could have been there, could have seen him just one more time, alive and laughing and squirting water out of a flower. He brought so much meaning to my life, I can't even explain it. I don't think I'd be the pony I am today if it weren't for Ponyacci. Now all I can do is remember him through his story.
After the inque-thingy and the autop-thingy, they asked me if I wanted any of his possessions. I thought about it really hard. He did have a great collection of vintage pie tins and a whole generation of party cannons, after all. But in the end, all that stuff had served its purpose. It needed Ponyacci to make it work right. I told them to make a museum in his honor. I hope they do. All I kept was his final note: "Thank you for one more smile." I kept it because I know it was meant for me.
I think...
I think none of us are getting any younger, even if I do still have the same spring in my step as when I met my best friends all those years ago. I think I've got so many other friends now that I can't spend as much time with them as I'd like. I think a few might even be feeling neglected. I think you can't expect everypony to continue their story without running into a bad part every now and then. I think, as Ponyville's premier party pony, it's my duty to fill up their blank pages with as much happiness as I can. I can't make all the bad parts of the story go away, but maybe I can give those meanie-pants parts a run for their money.
So I think I'll take this note with me when I visit Fluttershy. I'll tell her the story of Ponyacci, the greatest clown Equestria ever knew.
And I think that maybe, she'll smile again.
Author's Note
As many astute readers of the last writeoff noticed, this is my tribute to Robin Williams, written mostly to vent emotions. It's a tad late being published here because I wanted to enter it, and it takes a while to get those stories in good shape.
Writing a fanfiction isn't the best way to go about memorializing someone, but I figured using Ponyacci instead of an OC based on Mr. Williams would at least be a little less disrespectful. (A year later, when the full story comes to light, I'm extra-glad I wrote it this way.) I just wish I could get away from the Sad Pinkie trope for once. At least something changes in this piece, if subtly. I don't think I have anything else to add, save treasure those fun pages. They'll help you get through the not-so-fun ones.
Thanks to MaskedFerret and Cold in Gardez for feedback.
