The First Feather on Earth

May 30, 2015

The screen flickers on, revealing a mirror showing Alex with a camera on strapped onto his head and wearing a pair of aviator sunglasses, sitting down in a sink inside a small bathroom. A static sound erupts for a second, before fading away to a very faint buzzing and barely audible clicking sound.

"Finally! OK, first of all, apologies about the background noise. Chatty's bugs just won't shut up. Not that I'm complaining or anything really, as it does make for some nice night-time noise that I have been missing severely. I just REALLY want to hear the sweet, sweet sound of a train again... Yeah... I even miss THOSE things, when they would drive through town like 3-4 times a day! But anyways, I decided that this will now be strictly video-logs with a written/typed recap at the end. So... let's go see what's Chatty's up to! Probably just some more boring bug diplomat stuff though."

After that little spiel, he stands up, the camera shaking and then jerking about crazily as he turns around and jumps down off the sink, landing on his hooves with only some unsteadiness. "Hah! I am getting better at this! Take that world!" Alex then walks up to the door and is just about to open it, but then it opens by itself and he gets slammed into the wall, the screen going black as a very loud THUD resonates.

The screen flickers back on, showing him in the mirror of the bathroom again, his head wrapped in a couple bandages. "OK, Let's try this again. Sorry about that. Chatty almost broke the camera with that little stunt of hers! She couldn't have at least knocked!? I mean come on! Some people just don't have manners these days... Anyways, why don't I give you lovely viewers a tour of Home Base?" He then turns around and jump's off the sink again, landing a bit less unbalanced than last time. The camera swivels to the door again, showing a pony-shaped dent in the wall and door. "Yeah. When a lady has to go, apparently she has to go." He sighed as the screen shakes a little, showing that he was shaking his head.

He then walks up to the door and opens it with no problems, trotting out of the room. The camera swivels around as he walks around the giant library, showing multiple igloo-style cocoons with various symbols above the door frames around the building. He walks forward past them all, explaining what each one was for, the "igloons", as he called them, symbol matching what they were for. The one with a red cross was the medical igloon, the bedrooms have beds with a bubble saying "Zzz" on it, the entrance-way to the electrical supply covering the door upstairs has a lightning bolt, and the entrance-way to the farm has a crossed carrot and leek.

After that Alex goes to another igloon with a throne symbol on it, this time going in. When he gets inside, there is indeed a hybrid web throne with Chatter Bug sitting on it, looking very confused at a millipede and a ladybug, who seem to be arguing with each other. Just as he enters, he is immediately spotted by Chatter who waves and apologizes to the critters, then telling a large tarantula to finish the job. "That's Mr. Gobbles, my pet Goliath Bird Eating Spider!" She cheerfully explains. Alex just simply nods, indicated by the up and down motion that the screen goes through. She then giggles and suddenly perks up, "Oh! I just remembered! Let's explain to the viewers what goes on throughout the hive, ok? Ok. So each species of bug, insect, arachnid, etc. each have their own place and role right?"

She then goes on a rant about the different roles and responsibilities of each species. The audio cuts out for this part and instead, a list of the comparisons floats onto the screen like a PowerPoint.

1: Construction Team:

-Many kinds of web-building Spiders

-Most Worker and Honey bees

-Most Ants

-Caterpillars for the Nursery

2: Demo Team:

-Termites

-Specialized Ants (e.g. The Leaf-Cutter Ant)

-Hercules Beetle

3: Self-Defense Team:

-Most Spiders

-Fire Ants

-Black Widows/Brown Recluses for VIR (Very Important Rooms)

-Beetles

4: Search and Exploration:

-Basic Flies (that's really all you need to say)

5: Assault Team: (Tuney Likey Alot Team)

-Hornets/Wasps

-Mosquitoes

-Horse/Black Flies

(Yeah. If you saw a swarm of THOSE guys coming at you, you'd freak out too right?)

The list disappears after a bit and the sound kicks in again to Chatter telling the end of a joke "And then I said 'Muffins? Are you crazy!?' And then he sa-." She gets interrupted rather rudely by purple hoof being shoved into her mouth and Alex simply stating "I think that's enough for today Chatter. Your name is being a little bit too on the nose here. It's kinda creepy." With that he lowers his hoof and turns around and trots to the entrance to the Generator Room, going inside.

The Generator Room is surprisingly on the bottom floor of the building, and inside is this big dirt clearing and a giant pipe sticking out of the room, which Alex completely ignores. He instead continues on, going into a tunnel leading to outside. This time there were a bunch of solar panels set up on elevated platforms, which were connected to a transformer. He gives no explanation about it and instead looks around, checking side to side a lot. Then he sighs and sits down. He pulls off the camera and turns it around to show himself.

He is on the verge of tears, desperately trying not to cry. He starts mumbling different names and with each one he utters, the more tears form. "Dawson... Mickeala... Simran... Josh... Charlie... Tommy... Even that asshole Trenton... they're all gone... EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM!!! ALL OF MY FRIENDS! DEAD! GONE! VANISHED... My family too... Momma... Rudi... William... Dad... Zach... even little Andrew... he was only 10 FUCKING YEARS OLD!!! AND YOU FUCKING GET RID OF HIM!!! I BUCKING HATE YOU WORLD! AND YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT? I'm not going to do it. I'm going to stay here, right here. I am a Canadian, through and through. We are resilient. We are strong. And we don't fucking back down to anything. Whether that be a human, god, pony, or hell, even a magic spell if that's possible. YOU DON'T MESS WITH THE CAPRICORN CANADIAN!"

He pants heavily and sighs, looking towards the camera. He then takes a shaky breath, "Listen. If you really are watching this, then all you need to know is this one thing. Don't EVER fucking give up on living. We may be Ponies, the Canada I knew and loved may no longer be the same, and we may have even less chance of survival than before, but you know what? I don't give a flying feather about that. This is still Canada. I am still a Canadian. The True North, Strong and Free is, and always will be, my home. And I will stay here until the bitter end, even if it kills me." He takes another deep breath and straightens his back, closing his eyes, before looking towards the camera with a will of steel. "Canada is my home, my cradle, and my tomb. It gave me life from it's ever freezing womb. I declare this for the generations to be. We are Canadians! Born True, North, Strong and Free!" His wings flare for that last sentence, creating a rather impressive image as the sun conveniently showed itself from behind a cloud at that moment.

He then lets out a deep breath and sighs, silently picking up the camera and turning it off, the screen flashing off.

May 30, 2015.

Dear Journal

It's me again. I'll keep it short this time.

The Video Log was a complete success! Nothing else really happened.

Yours truly

--Alex J--