Total Eclipse of the Heart
In the heart of Canterlot's business district, among the high-end stores housing the latest fashions and designer accessories, there stands a donut shop. It has seen many a boutique and vendor come and go over the years; it is, in fact, the longest-running business in the area. An outsider might think that the shop feels out of place, with its simple storefront and garishly tacky linoleum checkered floor, but to any pony who has lived in Canterlot Donut Joe's is a foundation, a legacy, a bedrock almost as solid as Canterlot Mountain.
How has it managed to stay in business for so long, while all the niche stores and trendy cafes have had brief moments to shine and then guttered out like spent matches, the slow and steady champion in this business race? It isn't the donuts, which are appropriately sweet and fluffy but far from the greatest donuts you would ever taste, or the coffee, which is adequate once sugar and cream have been added. The answer lies in owner Donut Joe himself.
If asked, Donut Joe would say it was something about his friendly, welcoming attitude that keeps ponies coming back, and he would be close but not entirely correct. What Joe has failed to notice over the years of running his donut shop is that, while he serves a steady stream of both stallions and mares every day, his repeat customers are overwhelmingly female. Completely unbeknownst to Joe, his intentionally-generic demeanor while working leaves a gap for many mares to project upon him exactly what they desire out of a stallion. Is Joe secretly a passionate lover, willing to wait on hoof for his special somepony? He could be. Or perhaps the strong-but-silent type, good with tools and mechanics and other sweaty masculine activities? Or a burgeoning artist with a hidden beautiful gift just waiting to be released into the world? He is all this and more to the ladies whom he serves donuts and coffee to.
As two sisters are about to find out.
-/-
"Ooh, look at all the donuts, I don't know how I'm gonna choose! Oh, wait, I want that one, it has a smiley face. That's super-cute! Can I have that one?"
Sunshine Smiles pointed to a donut covered in bright pink frosting, with a simple smiling expression made of chocolate sprinkles, her hoof tapping on the glass.
"Sure," Donut Joe said, scooping the happy donut into a bag. "And what'll it be for you, miss?" he asked Sunshine's sister.
"Coffee," Moonlight Raven told him, her voice like a death rattle.
"How do you take it?"
"Black," she said. "Like my soul."
Without missing a beat, Joe poured her a mug of murky black coffee. "Here ya go."
They paid for their purchases and found a booth, Sunshine beaming and Moonlight looking like she was attending a funeral. A moment of silence passed between them as they chewed and sipped, respectively, then together their heads turned, watching Donut Joe deal with another customer.
And together they said: "He's cute."
The two sisters glared at each other.
"I saw him first," Moonlight droned. Her voice was devoid of emotion or investment, but her eyes shone fiercely through the heavy rings of dark make-up.
Sunshine giggled. "That's silly, we came in here at the same time. Anyway..." She made a show of fluffing her mane and batting her eyes. "...He'd be way more in to me."
Moonlight flicked her eyes to Joe without turning her head. Back to her sister. Back to Joe. Back to Sunshine again. "I don't see it."
"Come on! He makes donuts and coffee! And what do donuts and coffee do...?" Sunshine leaned over the table and held a hoof to her sister, like she might physically place the answer in it.
"Represent another cog in the consumerist machine that is society?"
Sunshine giggled again, her smile wide on her face. "No! They make ponies happy! All these ponies coming here for a break, they need to recharge and unwind for five minutes, and he gives that to them and they go about the rest of their day happy. He makes ponies happy! And I love happy things!"
Moonlight's eyes narrowed. "That's just the sugar. It's a delusion, one everypony will realize after they leave the comforts of the store and go back out into the bleak and uncaring world. Relief is hollow like a donut and empty like a discarded paper coffee cup."
Cocking her head, Sunshine said, "That mug isn't made out of paper..."
"It's a simile, Sunshine," Moonlight sighed. "Anyway, he wouldn't be more into you. I understand his pain." She glanced off into the far distance, somewhere way beyond the hat store across the street.
"Huh?" Sunshine craned her neck around to look at Donut Joe. "He doesn't have any pain. Look, he smiles at everypony!"
"You would think that. A smile is a mask."
Moonlight hunched over her half-emptied mug, holding it with both hooves.
"Here's this stallion, who has to put on a smile every day when he trudges to work, who has to force himself to be bright and chipper because that's what everypony demands you should do, and it eats away at him like a worm inside an apple. Every day he asks himself: is there something more than this? is this all my life will ever be, meting out forgettable food to ponies I will never know? And every day, there is no answer. He's Ponyacci, the tragic clown."
"Is that another simile?" Sunshine asked, turning back to Moonlight, still smiling. "He doesn't look like a clown!"
"Metaphor."
"Whatever."
The sisters stared at each other for a long moment. Sunshine took a bite of her donut. Moonlight sipped her coffee.
"So..." Sunshine ventured, "we need some way of settling this."
"Coin flip? Let entropy and whims of the universe decide." Moonlight did her best to look nonchalant, but having a bit ready to flip on the table betrayed her.
"No," Sunshine said, waving her sister off with her hooves, "something more solid than that."
"We should just ask him which one of us he likes. Cut through the needless imposed lies of society like a--"
"Are you kidding, no!" Sunshine clapped her hooves to her mouth in shock. "You can't just ask ponies that, we're not in school any more!"
Moonlight's gaze drifted to the two bags they carried with them, their purchases from the hot new store that had been closing down and, suddenly, not closing down after all.
"What if," she said, "we asked him which princess he liked?" Moonlight made a rare facial expression: she raised an eyebrow.
Sunshine rolled her eyes and smiled at her. "Just because Mom grounded you for like three months because she caught you smoking those disgusting clove cigarettes in the house, it doesn't make you like Princess Luna."
"Well, just because you can wake up before your alarm goes off, it doesn't make you like Princess Celestia, either."
A male voice cut through their argument. "Everything okay here, girls?"
Donut Joe had appeared at their booth, checking tables during a break in customers. It was both perfect and unfortunate timing, as neither sister knew just how much he had heard.
"Super-duper!" Sunshine said, grinning.
"We were wondering..." Moonlight said in her monotone.
"Which princess is your favorite?" Sunshine asked up at Joe with a huge expectant smile.
"Gee," he said, putting a hoof to his chin, "that's a toughie. But I think, if I was pressed, I'd hafta say..."
And then, he gave them the answer neither had expected.
"...Twilight Sparkle."
Leaving Sunshine and Moonlight and their stunned expressions, he went to check on another table. There sat a mare that had been at the clothes store with them: gangly, red frizzy mane, glasses. She had looked awkward and nerdy even in the classy dress she had ended up purchasing.
But as the sisters watched Joe speak with her, they could feel it. The attraction he was barely managing to keep in check. The secret yearning he had for the gangly, frizzy, bespectacled mare who no doubt shared a whole host of traits with the most awkward and most nerdy princess, and how she had been in love with him from the moment she had set hoof in the donut shop.
Their eyes narrowed. "I hate her," they said in unison.
Author's Note
Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart" is about as cheesy a song as you can get, and gloriously so.
