I live my life one day at a time.
In many ways, it’s the way have to.
My work, for example. Two months ago the job centre did their job properly, and I, with my secretarial experience, landed a government job. Well, technically speaking, it wasn’t; The Office for National Statistics is actually an independent organisation funded by Her Majesty’s Government, but it’s a formality, if anything.
Even so, I’d thought at the time. A job for the Census. A job organising the files and records for the Census, rather than going around an actually collecting the forms, but a job with a national body nonetheless.
I remember just how wide my smile was when I realised that. How happy I’d felt. I almost sang. This job might actually lead somewhere…
It would have had to. The administration, or at least the department I’d worked in, lasted about a month.
And, predictably, it didn’t.
Six weeks later, I had to go back to the same job centre. Three wads of forms thicker than my arms, two cups of tea that couldn’t be described as fluid, and an hour sitting next to the man who smelt distinctly of urine later, and I walked out with a new job.
Delivering leaflets.
Happy days.
Which was why I sat on the bus now, heading back home, letting thoughts of my latest interview play though my head whenever the tinny speakers of the kid on the back row went quiet for three seconds.
“I’m afraid you don’t have enough experience, Mister Smith.”
Yes. They were right. I didn’t have enough experience of breathing through my mouth, and sounding like a crow as I shouted for the supervisor when the barcode scanner couldn’t pick something up from three feet away.
“And your character… it’s not quite what we’re looking for, sir.”
Hmm… I supposed they had a point.
How much store-brand coffee did you have to drink before you became so… devoid of thought as to keep smiling after nine and a half hours of pushing tins through a red bar that goes ‘bip’? You would have to be some sort of zombie…
As I looked out the window, and at the mass of grey, concrete lumps that loomed through the light mist, this city wasn’t too far behind.
At one point, this city was a major economic hub, and it had had a vibrant, thriving, beating heart. Back in the days when lace was the cornerstone of the economy. And bicycles.
Now, though, that was pure history. I’d learnt that back in school. The beating heart was gone, and this crumbling mass of concrete blocks still lumbered on, like a zombie, or an overcomplicated metaphor that didn’t actually work that well.
I wasn’t supposed to be here.
My head jolted forward as the bus lurched to a stop. I got off.
Three-fifty to travel seven miles. Small wonder there were seven people on that fifty-two person bus. Including the guy wider than he was tall driving it.
I supposed there were six, now.
A gust of wind nipped at my side. I held back the wince, but let the shiver ripple through me.
Home was only five minutes way.
A deep breath into my hands, and I set off down the road, trying to ignore the little twinges of my heels against the pavement. While I walked, I let my eyes wander as shapes materialised through the fine, wintry haze. I let them wander over the tall trees that sprouted every fifty yards through the pavement, devoid of their leaves but standing stoic nonetheless. Over the solid, red-brick houses, their curtains drawn but with light peering around the edges. Over the cars that lined the roadside, some pristine and sparkling even in this light, others festooned with the scrapes and bumps that stood as the medals of a lifetime of service. Or thirty seconds with a family who had children.
It wasn’t a bad neighbourhood, really. A little bit run down in places, yes, and a bit… Daily Mail for its own good, but nothing explicitly wrong. It was quiet, and clean, and still quite close to one of the few big industrial estates left in the city. It was…
My eyes burned, and I stopped for a moment. I shook my head, and took another deep breath before I carried on walking.
… It was the perfect place to start a family.
Like my parents did.
I sniffed, and bit my lip for a moment.
It shouldn’t hurt to just think about them, really. It had been two years, now. But it did.
Thinking of my mother’s smirk as she destroyed me and my father at brag? Paper cut. Thinking of those long summer afternoons in the garden, playing football with my dad as the sun left the whole world glowing gold? Stubbing a toe, then finding out it’s bleeding. Thinking of the times when we’d be sitting in the living room, me and Mum laughing as Dad choked on his tea again while watching a comedy show we loved. Lemon on the paper cut.
The worst, though, the one that felt like I’d been clumsy while slicing an apple, was thinking of their smiles as they waved me off to go to university. Their whole faces had just lit up, before I got back out of the car and sprinted back to them for one last, big, warm hug…
That was the last time I saw them.
And even then, even after I found out my parents had died by text in the middle of a business lecture, even after I went to the funeral and cried until I was empty, and even after I watched as they were lowed into the ground and sealed away forever…
I still shouldn’t have been here.
No.
That was when I got back to university, and I found out that the CEO of the company sponsoring my degree had been carefully and lovingly siphoning the company’s profits into his back pocket, before disappearing beyond the reach of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs.
Happy. Days.
Well, that had been the end of my degree, at the very least, before it suddenly tuned out to be one several revelations, that in-turn became the end of the British economy as we knew it.
So I moved back into my parents house, biting my knuckles as I picked up the phone to call an estate agent and settle on a starting price. A price that got steadily lower as the months went by, and it got slightly less painful to look at my mother’s armchair, my dad’s refereeing equipment, and to feel the very presence of Mum and Dad in the home that they’d lived in for twenty years.
But only slightly.
Happy… Fecking… Days…
I put my hand in my pocket, the cold yet comforting little ridges of the key digging into my fingers as I turned off the street and head up the garden path. I looked at the door, my feet aching for the seat by the telly, but my right one knocked against something and I stumbled. Lips pursing, I looked back.
It was the step. Again.
But something next to the step was something that kept my eyes from turning away. A box. A simple, brown, cardboard box that came up to just below my knee, and didn’t show any signs or bowing or scratches.
Did I order something? I wondered, bending down to peer at the side of it. My brows met as I darted my head around all four sides of the box, but there was no sticker or attached plastic bag of documents.
All it said on the side was “Free to a Good Home” in neat, black marker pen. There was no tape across the top.
I looked around through narrowed eyes, itching to spot the glimpse of white trainer, or the dim glow of a camera-phone, or to hear fevered giggles from behind the neighbour’s pine tree.
Satisfied that the next moments were not about to involve a massive amount of feathers, glue, and a couple of dozen views on Youtube, I pulled open the flaps.
And immediately closed them again.
My breath caught in my chest, and the cold air stung on my eyes as they widened further than they had in years.
No…
I looked at the box again, my breathing ragged. My hands shook a few inches from the box, as though it were filled with wires and bits of metal and a slowly-ticking timer.
It couldn’t be…
I’d seen the show before; what man who was my age and had an internet connection hadn’t seen at least a clip of it? But I’d watched every episode, religiously, craving the approach of Saturday afternoon, and then Saturday evening. I’d seen the comics. I’d read the fanfics. I’d even written one, before realising that intelligence does not equal writing ability.
And the memories came flooding back.
A sweet, shy little angel, with a voice that could sooth even the tensest brow and banish every fear, even the ones that she herself shared. Her cheering her friends on with the softest “yay”, that could still inspire greater achievements than any figure of the current government through sheer earnestness. Her gleefully prancing around her garden, and beaming as she showed her friend a huge menagerie of potential pets while singing. Her scolding a dragon dozens of times her size, before gently calming it as it burst into tears.
My chest tightened as I pulled back the flaps again.
It tightened even more as I spotted her, in all her buttery-yellow sweetness. And again as my eyes wandered to her thin, spindly legs, curled up against her chest as she curled herself around them, covering her muzzle with a tiny little hoof.
Sharp little somethings poked my left arm as is spotted her dinky-little chest rising and falling ever so slightly with each breath, making the soft, pinkish curtain of her mane wobble over he nose.
In short, sharp bursts, I could just about make out her gentle scent. It was warm, and rich, and earthy, with just the faintest hint of freshly-cut grass.
She shifted a little in her sleep, snorting quickly and stretching out one of her hind legs as my vision began to fade.
My arms groped uselessly for the sides of the box as I tipped backwards.
My head cracked against the concrete steps, and the grey skies above swam even more as I struggled to keep my eyes open.
Fluttershy! I clutched at my chest. I found… a… Flutter…
Fluttershy snorted a little as her eyes shot open.
They started to feel hot again as she saw the high walls of brown around her, and she buried her muzzle under her hoof. Her lip trembled, and her whole body shook as she sniffled. Twice.
Where was Mommy? Or Daddy? Where were they to hear her sobbing like a little foal? Where were their big, gentle hooves to pull her from this nightmare and into a big hug? Where were their fluffy, warm chests for her to snuggle against and cry away her fears, and their soft voices ready to remind her that she was safe and that they loved her and that everything was going to be okay?
Where were they to get her out of this box?
She sniffled again, and opened one eyes, peering back up at the high walls with the little ripples on them.
No. It wasn’t the box that was scary. The box didn’t do anything to attack her, or make her shriek, or make her feel as though she was having those freezing rain clouds that Daddy made at work dumped all up her legs.
It was that doggy that she saw which did that. But it wasn’t an ordinary doggy, like those nice ponies on the ground had. It didn’t have little beady eyes that danced with happiness and joy; it had dark, empty eyes, that narrowed when it saw her and took all her breath away as she gasped. It didn’t yip and bark at her, waiting for her to throw its ball; it growled, the noise rattling through its huge, scary, pointy, rip-a-pony-apart teeth that made her legs shake and her wings freeze and her fall back into the box. It didn’t jump and bounce around; it lowered its head and slowly padded closer, and made her curl up into as little a ball a she could get her silly, gangly legs into and wish that she could just disappear or that Mommy would come and save her and… and…
She buried her muzzle under her hoof again, before her eyes opened and narrowed as far as she could ever make them.
Get a hold of yourself, Fluttershy, she told herself. Firmly. Squaring her jaw to stop it trembling.
This was just some horrible nightmare. And even if she was scared of this box and how hard it felt underneath her, it was still keeping all the horrible things out and away from her.
Her breaths softened, and whatever had been pressing on her chest disappeared. This is just a nightmare. It was horrible, but all she had to do was stay in this box and go back to sleep, and then she would wake up in her own bed and Mommy and Daddy would be there and they would hug her and make her feel safe and warm aga—
“Eek!”
Her eyes shot open. Something cold had ruffled her wings.
She looked up, but where there had once been only the thinnest slit of light between the box flaps was a huge mass of swirling grey clouds. Her eyes widened. She gasped.
The box wasn’t keeping her safe anymore!
She tore her eyes away from the big hole, about to squeeze herself into a little ball again, when her ears twitched. She stopped as they kept swivelling around, trying to pick up something outside the box.
There wasn’t any growling.
She looked back up at the big hole. She couldn’t see a big, brown head poking in over the edge, sniffing around for her with its pointy, black nose and baring its huge, yellow, ready-to-snap teeth.
Has somepony chased the doggy away? Fluttershy raised a hoof to her chin, and kept looking at the wide open sky. If somepony had chased the doggy away, then they would have to be big and strong and brave.
Her wings gave a little flutter as a smile spread wide and happy.
Mommy’s out there!
Fluttershy leapt up, hooking her hooves over the rim of the box and peering over. Her eyes darted in all directions, looking for the big yellow pony, ready to sweep Fluttershy up into a warm cuddle and look at Fluttershy with her soft, brown eyes that were filled with love.
But she couldn’t find her.
Fluttershy felt her lip wobble again, and her eyes began to fill. But before they could spill over she spotted something else.
She didn’t know what it was, though. It was big, probably even bigger than Mommy and Daddy put together, with great big long legs, and flat hooves that seemed to split like tree branches. It didn’t seem to have any fur, but it was wearing clothes like Daddy did when he went to work in the factory, and it had a short, black mane. Its eyes were closed, and it had one of its hooves resting on its chest.
Was this creature… sleeping?
Fluttershy pushed herself out of the box, landing on the hard ground with a set of little clip-clops, still peering up at this creature. She’d met lots of animals before, and they’d always been really nice to her, but never had she seen anything this big. Actually…
She looked around. There was still no sign of that doggy.
She turned back to the creature, and gasped.
This creature… had tired itself out protecting her.
She had to make it up to it.
Putting the little shakes of her hooves out of her mind, Fluttershy trotted up to where the creature’s face was, pulling herself up a pair of steps with a little grunt, stopping next to its ear. At least she hoped that the weird spirally-thing on the side of its head was its ear.
She licked her lips, and took a step closer.
“Um… thank you,” she whispered, before dipping her head so her chin pushed against her chest.
It didn’t move.
She took another step closer.
“Thank you!” she spluttered, before darting back and crumpling into a little heap.
Again, the creature didn’t even stir.
Fluttershy raised an eyebrow, and walked back over to the creature.
Maybe it’s just a heavy sleeper? she wondered. After all, Grandma Posey wouldn’t wake up no matter how loud Daddy got after drinking from that special bottle on Hearth’s Warming Day, or how loud Rainbow Dash was when she played Wonderbolts while Fluttershy watched and cheered.
Still, she should thank this creature.
She stepped even closer to the creature’s face, pushing her nose outwards. She pressed it against the creature’s cheek, and nuzzled it softly before pulling back. She smiled, her eyes in happy little semi-circles.
Until the wind ruffled through her feathers again, and they shot open. She stared all around her.
Even if that doggy had been chased away, she was still in this horrible nightmare.
She was still in the horrible nightmare where the ground didn’t welcome her hooves with soft grasses, and held her back with… whatever this hard, flat stuff was. Where tree branches swayed closer and closer in the biting wind, as though they were trying to steal her away, and no birds flew out to sing her their sweet little songs. Where the sun couldn’t poke through the clouds and make her feel warm and snug on the outside.
Where she couldn’t see Mommy and Daddy, and she suddenly felt cold run all the way through her insides too.
She felt her legs begin to tighten, and darted back towards the box before leaping into it. Tucking her legs in, she squeezed herself into as little as ball as she could. The heat welled behind her eyes again as she hid her muzzle, but she kept them closed.
Maybe next time I’ll wake up and Mommy and Daddy’ll be here…
