She’d come to a conclusion.
She preferred the old place; the tall white buildings. It had been brighter there; glittering, glinting, glowing. Back there, ponies talked to her more, treated her like the big filly she was. Back at…was it East Canterlot or Canterlot East?
She’d always gotten it wrong, but Mrs. Polanski had never frowned when she did, and the other foals had never laughed at her. Well, except Ruby…but all in all Ruby was an exception to the general rule of Canterlot, which was good because Ruby was most definitely not nice. Mrs Polanski had mentioned ‘family problems’ – she didn’t see how that made sense. Ruby’s family was at home, not at school. School problems then?
There were a lot of grownups like Ruby here in Manehatten, amongst the too-tall-too-dark buildings by which her grey-clouds-against-a-clear-sky coloured coat felt darker, blacker, less white. That was the thing, she reflected. The world wasn’t shades of grey. Grey didn’t exist, really. Grey was merely a compromise between black and white, devoid of identity save for that which others gave it.
The grownups here didn’t understand.
The other foals had been ok, and for a time she’d been able to forget. For a time, she’d been part of them. That was, of course, before the silence had started.
How to explain?
It had started in music. No matter how well she performed, no matter how much time she spent committing the black and white pages to memory; every single time she played there was nothing but silence. As a rule, the classroom was never quiet; the teacher, whose name she had yet to commit to memory, had about as much control of the class as he did over the weather.
The rain never stopped, here.
Silence had no place in the class and the absence, void, place-devoid-of-sound that formed every time she played wasn't a respectful cessation of movement, or chatter, but rather a divide that separated the class into her and them. Oh, she’d tried to explain to Mother, but she didn't understand.
Grownups never did.
Soon the silence had started following her, and the feeling of isolation had grown stronger. Ponies acted funny around her, began treating her differently, darker, less direct. That wasn't what Mother had promised, not the picture she’d oh-so-carefully painted, a canvas of exciting new pieces, and places, and ponies. She didn’t want the change, the difference. Only wanted for things to change back, to the way they used to be.
Should be. Was she not good enough? If she got better, surely the silence would. That was the way things worked, wasn’t it?
Yes. That was it. Those who were good at things were always treated well!
And so she’d begun to learn to make her own sound, and her brighter-than-dark light-in-the-dark teacher had begun to show her how to play a new song of rain, and storms, and dawns after the wind and hail, and silence only where it should be.
What was it called again? She always forgot, and the spelling meant nothing to her. Words on paper, black on white with nothing in-between to give them form and shape, were meaningless.
“Here, make the river flow over the rocks. Try again…there we go.”
“Here, imagine a mouse creeping. Gently. Quietly. Again. Yes, good, good! And now get louder!”
“Here, a nice little cadenza. What is it? Well, think of it as a flourish – a magician waving his wand”
She treasured the twilight hours spent there, learning how play, present, posture, choosing her own colour and context amongst the black and white manuscripts.
At the end of each year the school had all of the children play for the parents in the largest, darkest, dullest building in the school where she and all the other kids sat hind-legs-folded-back-straight for assembly ever Tuesday. Ordinarily, she wouldn’t have seen the point. She was pretty sure that none of the parents really cared about how any of the other foals were playing, and they’d heard their own children play at home.
Grownups made no sense.
Nonetheless, there she was, sitting in line on the side of the hall in the shadows with all the other kids, listening to the rain fall. Which was, if she was honest, nicer than the songs the others were playing.
And then it was her turn, and she walked up to the stage, exited the darkness of the shadows, entered the light, sat down on the stool, her ash-grey coat all the brighter in the spotlight. This was it. She started slowly, hesitantly, gradually gaining confidence from the reckless assurance that she was, to be fair, playing a bit nicer than the others.
River.
Mouse.
Cadenza.
Then, it was over.
At the time, she didn't notice.
The river flowed! The mouse had crept, and she’d pulled off the cadenza!
What stuck her most, looking back was not the silence as she finished but the not-silence; the stares and expressions only conceived by ponies attempting to decide how to mask their reactions to something conspicuously out of place. Then came the awkward applause, somehow too forceful, too enthusiastic.
At the time, she was oblivious.
It was only later, when the music teacher had taken Mother aside that she realised something was wrong. Standing in the hallway outside the charcoal black door, she heard fragments of conversation
“Amazing…prodigy…hard work…move class…new to school…must insist…Friday?”
She didn't want to move again. She didn't want to be different, darker. She wanted to gallop into the room, to tell the grownups they didn't understand, to explain that she’d only practiced so that ponies would stop staring, start talking, stop and cease the silence. But in that instant understanding of something beyond her grasp began to dawn on her, and she stood there blank, black, blunted from being. Paralysed by the creeping realisation that despite all her effort, she’d not only failed to succeed but in some foreign way made it even worse.
Behind her, the white door slammed shut; black door ahead.
Outside, far above the hall's vaulted ceiling, the rain continued to fall.
Author's Note
Well, that's my first story here. Please leave feedback below - especially if you disliked it. There's no such thing as unwanted constructive criticism!
