Starting Up

Waking. A thoroughly common exercise that I have done quite a bit of in the past few days, waking up three times in the first few days and now again a day later. I reach back up to my nose, remembering the healing process, a quick painless spell which the doctor said could be used by any unicorn who studied medical medicine for more than two weeks. Although, the hospital business was still booming due to injuries that the doctors decide to let heal naturally, a normal process for if a pony uses the injured area a lot, as the healing process would strengthen it. I’m not sure if that’s how it worked on earth, but apparently it works in magical ponyland where anyone clinging on to a semblance of logic goes to die.

I was just heaving myself up out of the hospital bed, when Redheart came in. She was just going to introduce me to the current janitor, who would show me the ropes of cleaning the hospital, which seems a relatively easy task, hell I might even be able to use my spare time to start penning a little something small, or start planning something big. However, if there is something I’ve learnt since coming to Equestria, it’s that if something can go wrong in such a way to bring me grief, it will. So you can understand why I was wary to meet the janitor.

Having no choice in the matter, I simply followed Redheart through corridors and wards, until we came to a door labeled, as you’d expect, Janitor’s closet. Redheart knocked on the door, with a crash coming from the other side in response. After a couple of seconds, a brown earth stallion with a brush attached to one hoof and a dust pan on the other stepped out. Using the end of the brush and the dust pan in lieu of his front hooves, he stares at me, before bringing out a brush that I could hold in two hands. Giving it to me, I overheard him muttering something about finally finding a use for that stupid thing.

From there, he guided me around the hospital, showing me what kind of procedures I need to do for each area. Turns out that being forced into being a janitor was not only degrading and aggravating, but I could also add dull as hell to make a list of three. My only hope was that his place might be the least bit exciting with it’s cleaning, although apparently most mages don’t think to make any good enchantments for cleaning, or if they did they certainly kept them for themselves.

Eventually, I was sent to work on another area of the hospital by myself, cleaning and scrubbing the floor free of any grime or dust. removing stains and slowly making my way across the corridor. The benefit of this time when I had nothing to think about but to brush, brush and scrub, was that unlike in my hospital bed when I was thinking about the future and what I should do next to run away from this debt. I was now able to think about the past, more specifically just exactly who I hate most. While Rarity obviously takes the top spot at the place of prime bitch, it was now a close race between Redheart and Sparkle for second place, with the minor noble from the train taking third. It was at this moment of ranking that I realised, I don’t need to hate the entire pony race, like I would eventually have done, I only have to hate the bloody unicorns!

Yes, the unicorns who since I had exited Canterlot, been nothing but a nuisance to me. First, noble guy or girl, whichever it was they were really boring on the train being nothing more than a pretentious piece of shit. Then there was Rarity who I have hated for a while now, with her massive ego, stupid and gaudy house and her 100% encounter rate of me leaving with a broken nose. Finally, there was Sparkle, who got into a massive argument with me because I insulted her friends house and then abandoned me here when she could have easily healed. Have I really been a big enough arse to deserve all of this?

That mental rampage was interrupted by me reaching one of the rooms which I had to clean. It seemed mostly empty, but when I got in I knew that this worlds form of luck was really shitty. Sitting alone in one of the beds was that journalist from earlier. Broken, well, broken everything really, the only thing that seemed to be working was his head, which of course meant that as soon as I entered the room he started trying to start a conversation. He started going on about how he would have got a brilliant story. The Pinkie Pie, element of Harmony, having sex with a cake, a double layer victoria sponge if he assumed right. He was about to get the picture when he fell out of the tree he was watching from.

Ignoring that, I finished cleaning leaving the room and continuing on. Corridor after corridor needing cleaning and time seeming to crawl at a snails pace. I saw janitor guy going around a ward, but I saw Redheart a disturbing amount of times. As in I would leave one ward and she would be in the next, go into a corridor where she’s just around the corner. I’ve started a theory in my mind that this place is cloning a master Redheart and these are all her little healing minions, feeding her with the suffering of others, provided by rubbish hospital food.

The day did slowly move on though and while nothing more of note happened, I did check the janitors closet and it does seem like I could sleep there, if I can just avoid the evil armies of Redheart. I could hardly believe it when the end of the day came, having cleaned seemingly endless amounts of corridors. I was just heading to the janitors closet to put my stuff away and sleep when Redheart came up to. Nothing much was said, only a brief “Here’s your pay, one bit for and one bit to your debt,” putting said debt at an even lower 23,229. This reminded me to check the ticket price, so I put my stuff away and walked to the door out the hospital.