Good girls don’t run away.
They told us in school that there is a magical place, way up in the clouds, where ponies go when they are too tired to do normal pony things. They told us that there were kind ponies there to care for them, and so nopony ever cried. They told us to not be sad, and to let the adults cry, and to go have cookies in the other room, because everything would be alright in the end.
I used to believe them. Not anymore. They only told us that so we wouldn’t run away from the hospitals.
My hoofsteps were slow and steady as they echoed off the white tiles, onto the white walls, and out the white double doors. White, white, a blinding white. A color of peace and healing, they said. White was the color of puffy clouds and pale faces, of a blank piece of paper and eyes rolled back in the head, of an empty room and bones bleached dry.
But most importantly, it was the color of surrender.
As I walked, I could hear the war drums pounding in my ears. They drowned out every other sound: beeping monitors, quills scratching at paper, and quiet – oh, so very, very quiet – whispering. Yet the drums seemed only to amplify the words of the stallion waiting outside the white walls.
“Be good to her, Screwball.”
You could be good to me too, I wanted to say. You could come in with me instead of staying outside, you coward. But of course, I didn’t say those things. I was a good girl.
Just then, one of the nurses spotted me, recognized me. She had a washed-out green mane and – surprise! – a bleach-white coat of fur. At once, I was conscious of my bright purple mane, pink coat, and violet eyes. I didn’t know what color eyes the nurse had. I didn’t like looking into their faces. I only did once, on my very first visit, and it made me run away.
I hung my head quietly. Part of it was to let her lead me down the hallway. More so to blend in as best I could with the other ponies shuffling up and down the hallway. But mostly so as not to betray my own face. I had a horrible, horrible poker face, and I cursed myself for it every visit.
Because you should never betray your emotions to the enemy.
Then I turned the corner and saw my mother.
It was always the little details I noticed first. Unsheared forelocks because she couldn’t have sharp objects. Uncombed mane because she couldn’t be bothered to care for it. Unoccupied chairs because she couldn’t be with anypony else but me.
That round, white table approached all too quickly as I mentally went through my selection of weapons. My head was filled to the brim with words that may or may not be said. And many times, that’s all you really need.
“Hello, Mommy,” I said, keeping my voice even as I took a seat in the chair to her left.
She smiled and brushed a few stray locks of her curly blue mane. When I was little, I used to imagine it as cotton candy. Now, I didn’t know what to see it as. “Hello, Screwball,” she answered sweetly, the way any proper mother would, if it weren’t for the note of desperation in her voice. It was chilling, nauseating, the way she turned my name into a prayer one would choke out just before tumbling off the edge of a battlement.
“I’m sorry Dad couldn’t be here,” I said. I had practiced these lines well before coming in, and I knew them so well that I didn’t even have to think about their meaning as they dribbled out of my mouth. “You know how the flu’s been going around.”
“Yes, I know,” she said in a voice that told me she had no idea. She hadn’t practiced as well as I.
“How have you been?” I asked out of common courtesy.
“Oh, things are fine here.” She waved her hoof dismissively about the white visiting room. “How are you doing, Screwball?”
I was fine, I said before launching into that month’s recap. I told my mother how I had gotten straight A’s on my report card, how I had done brilliantly at my baseball game, how the school play had been a smashing success. I told her these things, and she was happy, happy to hear the things she wanted to hear.
Yet I didn’t tell her other things. I didn’t tell her how I had invited my friends to my house for the first time in three years, or how it felt wonderful to walk to and from school by myself, or how Dad and I had gone to the cinema with the nice office lady Sea Swirl. I didn’t tell her what a relief it was to go to sleep at night without headphones to block out the shouting. I didn’t tell her that Dad was happier than I’d ever seen him. I didn’t tell her that this month had been the best month I had had in a long, long time.
No, I told her that the house was quiet, things didn’t feel the same without her, and we missed her very much. Because I was good. Because I was afraid. Because I was a liar.
Yet my mother drank those words, both the truth and the lies, with a greed that didn’t know the difference. I could see her lean forward and tighten her grip on my shoulder. Her smile grew wider and her wide eyes grew brighter, yet they didn’t give me the comfort they should have. Because they were hungry, so very hungry. Her fortress was surrounded on all sides, and not the tiniest morsel of food could come in. The only possible nourishment could come from me. And then, amidst the pounding drums, I could hear my father say to me:
“She loves you, Screwball. You know that, don’t you? She loves you with everything she has. In the end, that’s all that matters.”
No, it doesn’t, I wanted to say. She doesn’t love me like that out of sacrifice. She only loves me like that because her love has nopony else it can go to. Because you hate her, admit it, you hate her.
You hate her like I do.
But I didn’t say it out loud. Because I was a good girl.
With unsteady hooves, I opened my saddlebag and took out a package, wrapped in bright candy cane paper and tied with a neat little bow. “Happy Hearth’s Warming Eve,” I told her, holding out the gift to her.
I could see tears well in her eyes as she leaned forward to hug me. I stayed perfectly motionless, the way a soldier lies in the trenches as shots are fired above his head.
“Oh, it’s lovely, Screwball, thank you so much. And tell your father too, please.” Her face fell. “I’m sorry I won’t be able to celebrate Hearth’s Warming Eve with you two.”
“It’s alright, Mommy,” I answered blankly.
Then she shifted in her chair, sitting perfectly straight, and fixed me with a serious gaze I knew all too well. “See now, it’s because the government still won’t let me go. They want to keep me quiet. It’s dangerous now with what’s happening in Saddle Arabia, and now that they’ve taken my scrolls…”
Ah yes, there it was. It was about time those came along. Those words, those bombs, falling like rain in a storm.
I let the rest of my mother’s words drift away from me in the flood of rain. My eyes wandered around the rest of the mental ward. I saw a mare pushing aside an incomplete puzzle. I saw a maintenance stallion trying without success to fix the sagging Hearth’s Warming lights hung on the walls. I saw a doctor pouring six candy-colored pills into a little white container that sat next to a vase of sunflowers. And I saw a stallion, one hoof on the bar and the other gripping a cane, shuffling along the hallway from which I had just came. I watched as after a great effort, he arrived, trembling and out of breath, at the door. He didn’t glance even for a second at the two little windows before turning around and shuffling off to his room.
I wanted to pretend to go to the bathroom. I wanted to leave this place all together. But my mom was still talking.
I remembered when I was a little girl, and my mother told me how the princess would shower my family in bits once she was done writing. She told me how she would buy me a bounce house and a pink dress and whatever else I wanted, for the rest of my life. She told me that Daddy was wrong, that she was working hard at her job, and that I should love her because of the important work she was doing. And I remembered always smiling and nodding and giving my mother the biggest hug. Because in school, they told us that good girls should believe their parents without question.
But after a while, I wanted to ask questions. Why did I have to stay home from school on days when I wasn’t sick? Why were there days when I couldn’t go outside with my friends? Why did the fillies at school ask me if my mommy had an addiction problem? Why didn’t Mom leave the house like other mothers? Why wouldn’t she let me into the library? Why were there cut-up newspapers and magazines lying around? Why would she say that the radio could hear her? Why would she be so afraid of my aunt’s cats? Why would she think we weren’t safe? Why would Father leave me in my room whenever there was a barking noise downstairs? Why would Mother tell me she thought she was going to die?
And my mom would kneel down to my height, just as she had when she promised me the bounce house and the pink dress, and told me that I would know when I was older.
Now, I wondered whether she really knew why she did what she did. Whether she was capable of realizing her whole life didn’t add up. Wasn’t it obvious? Wasn’t it simple?
Perhaps not, I thought to myself. Not in a world where everypony lies.
“Can’t you just divorce her?” I asked.
“Now, Screwball, it doesn’t work like that,” my father answered as he sat next to me on the bed. “We can’t just get rid of ponies we don’t like. Besides, she has nowhere else to go. You don’t want your mother living on the street, do you?”
“Maybe I do,” I retorted, crossing my forelegs. I looked up into my father’s face and only saw the bags around his eyes. “You don’t deserve this,” I whispered.
“Do you think your mother deserved to be born the way she was? Life isn’t about getting what we deserve, Screwball. I know it’s hard, but you… you have to love your mother. Is that really so hard?”
My mouth was a thin line as my eyes searched the cracks in my bedroom floor. “Then tell me this,” I said to him, “and you have to promise to tell me the truth.”
“I promise, Screwball.”
“How do you feel about the day you married Mommy?”
My father knew. I knew. And he knew I knew. All that was left was to say it out loud.
“It was the biggest mistake I’ve made in my entire life.”
“…promised your daddy things will get better real soon,” my mother said. “And when they do, I’ll finally get all that money I’ve been promised, and everything will be alright. Do you understand?”
There was nothing else to do but nod my head. It's what I always did.
“I hope you understand that there’s nothing we can do. Do you, Screwball?”
I nodded my head slowly, though the gears inside were whirring. “Maybe….” I began hesitantly. “Maybe we could take away her ink and her chew toys. Wouldn’t that help?”
“Oh, I don’t know about that…”
I stared into my father’s face with my eyes glistening like silver. “Just for one night,” I pleaded. “Maybe that’s all she needs. Maybe she’ll come around finally, after all this time. Maybe she'll realize that we're more important than those silly scrolls. Please, can’t we try?”
My father firmly shook his head. “I’m sorry, but we can’t. We don’t know what could happen to your mother, or to us. You understand, don’t you?”
I nodded once.
That night, the space beneath my floorboards was filled with all the inkwells and dog bones in the house.
That night, my mother wrote like never before.
I glanced down at the now barely visible gashes in her front legs. “How do the doctors say you’re doing?” I asked.
“Oh, don’t worry, I’m healing just fine. The only reason I’m still here is that they want to see how the new meds are working for me.”
“So you’re not…?”
Her smile faltered like a flickering lightbulb. “No, sweetheart, something like this will never happen again. Mommy just did what she did that night because Daddy did something silly that he still won’t admit to. But don’t be angry with him. He only did it because he thinks the ‘Dog Conspiracy’ is me being crazy.” A dangerous look flashed with the ferocity of cannon spark across her eyes. “He thinks I should be locked up, I’m sure.” Then the gunpowder abated, leaving an empty green field. “But you know better. You believe me, don’t you?”
Many times this question has been put to me. Many times I have said yes. Many times I have told myself that I will one day have the courage to say no. As if given one silver bullet, I would choose to finally fire, and in a life of throwing curvy pitches, I would make sure my aim was dead straight. And maybe the shock would cause my mother – my real mother – to wake up.
Or maybe she would snap.
“Mrs. Screwloose?” came the clear, calm voice of the nurse who had brought me in. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but you’re scheduled for your therapy session now.”
“Thank you,” said my mother, giving her a gentle smile. “I’m sorry you couldn’t stay longer, Screwball.”
And just like that, I heard the faint chink of an empty revolver echo in my head. “It’s fine,” I answered, choking down the bile. “I’m glad I got to see you, Mom.”
“Oh, come here, sweetheart,” she said as she stood up and opened her forelegs wide. My nose wrinkled at the smell of chemicals when she nuzzled my mane. “Merry Hearth’s Warming.”
“Merry Hearth’s Warming to you, too.”
“I love you, Screwball,” she said. “I love you so much, you know?”
“Mm-hmm,” I murmured before walking away, letting the nurse take over. But just as I was about to turn the corner, I saw out the corner of my eye that the nurse was still there, and my mother too, staring back at me with the same expression I had seen every day for eight years, every time I went to school and had to leave her behind.
The expression of a lost puppy.
In school, they told us that there is a magical place, up in the clouds, for all the good boys and girls of this earth. It is a place where no hospitals are needed, and nopony has to work, and everypony gets what they deserve. It is a good place, a very good place, and all you need to do to get there is one thing: love other ponies.
And I knew that they were right. That my father was right, that everypony else was right. Love is the only thing that matters. My mother loved me, and that should be enough. Her actions weren’t her fault. She was just a poor, ill, defenseless mental patient who didn’t deserve to be treated so coldly by her daughter. In the rooms I walked past, there was some good little boy or girl clinging to the bedside of a parent and hoping, wishing, praying to trade places with me. I should appreciate what I was given. Otherwise, I would go to the other place they told us about in school, the bad one where ponies cry and demons run wild. I should be afraid, they’d say. I should love my mother, they’d say. How dare I not love my mother, they’d say.
How dare I indeed.
And as I walked, I was running. Running from the present of dog treats and the shuffling stallion and the sad row of Hearth’s Warming lights. Running from the war drums and the white flags of surrender, but most of all from the lost puppy waiting, just waiting to be called a good girl.
My name is Screwball, only daughter of Screwdriver and Screwloose. I am 78 years old. And I am the coward who ran away from the war.
Demons run when a good girl goes to war
Night will fall and drown the sun
When a good girl goes to war
Mercy dies and family lies
Night will fall and the white will rise
When a good girl goes to war
Demons run, but count the cost
The battle's won, but the child is lost
Author's Note
The poem is a modified version of "Demons Run When a Good Man Goes to War," as featured in Doctor Who series 6 episode 8, written by Steven Moffat. Internet cookie if you read it in River's voice. 
I know this wasn't a very happy story, but have fun, appreciate your family, and have a Merry Christmas, everyone!
