Gifts from Friends and Strangers
We live in a world of mostly mundane things. Simple. Drab. Boring. Each day, we wake up, we eat, we go about our daily routine, and then we sleep. And yet... there is magic, as well, isn’t there? From a simple beauty, like the rainbow over a misty forest fall, to the wild joy of a happy child or the imagination of a creative mind. As we grow up, it’s easy for the mundanity of our existence to slowly but surely replace these simple, magical wonders with the fears and banal processes of adulthood, but it doesn’t make them any less real.
And then, there are other magics as well. Things less easily explained. Some call them miracles; others, simply unexplained phenomena. Most people don’t even believe in these kinds of magic, referring to tales of fairies and spirits and artifacts as little more than superstition and delusion. However, we do know that there are some things in this world that seem to defy explanation.
This story is about one such unexplained thing: an object, unspectacular in appearance, and yet capable of incredible things. A simple and small wooden cupboard which, when opened with the proper key, will help one little girl find hope, friendship and love in a world sorely lacking.
Chapter One: Gifts from Friends and Strangers
Angel is nine years old. She has light brown skin, and blue eyes, which her mother tells her she got from her daddy. Her mother doesn’t really like her daddy, though, so Angel supposes that her blue eyes are a bad thing. Her Mother’s eyes are brown, and so are her older brother’s eyes, and sometimes Angel wishes that she had brown eyes as well.
One time, Angel asked Father Carl if maybe God accidentally put her in the wrong family, because everyone in her family has different eyes then her. Father Carl just looked at her like he was sad, and told her to remember that we are all in His family. He’s always saying things like that; Angel thinks it’s supposed to make her feel better, but it doesn’t really work. Father Carl has green eyes, and Angel wonders if his family also has green eyes.
Angelique is her real name, but everyone calls her Angel. She likes that name better, because Father Carl tells her that Angels were the first of God’s children, and that they are beautiful, and live in heaven with God, and have wings that let them fly around. Angel wishes that she really did have wings, because then maybe she could fly away from her Mother and Samuel when they are fighting, and maybe she could go see her real Daddy.
Angel’s Mother and Brother fight a lot. Her brother, Samuel, is a lot older then her, and is an adult like her Mother. Her mother is always mad at him for some reason, and when they fight, they always yell at each other. Sometimes, Angel wonders if the reason neither of them talk to her very much is because they’re too busy being mad at each other.
Angel doesn’t have many friends. There are a few girls at school that she plays with, but when it’s time to go home, she never invites them over to her house, because she’s embarrassed about the fighting. Father Carl is kind of like a friend, and he’s always really nice to her, but he’s a grown up, and her Mother gets angry whenever she sneaks away from her apartment building to go see him. Father Carl says she has a right to be angry, but that she is never the less always welcome in the House of God.
One day after school, Angel went to the church where Father Carl lives to help him clean out his attic. Her Mother said this was okay, which she didn’t usually do. It was a lot of work, and both her and Father Carl got really dirty and sweaty from all the lifting (Father Carl lifted all the heavy stuff while Angel mostly carried books and boxes), but Father Carl told her that in the house of God, no good deed would go unrewarded. He told her that if she found anything in the attic that she liked, she could have it as a reward for her hard work.
There were a lot of interesting things in the attic. Some of it was old church stuff, like a candelabra, a crucifix or a small statuette of the Virgin Mary, but he also had other stuff too, like books, a few toys, an entire box filled with umbrellas, and one thing that she found most interesting of all: A small, ornate wooden cupboard.
It was a very pretty cupboard, made from some kind of wood that Father Carl called Rosewood which looked red in the light. It was old looking and dusty, but when she wiped off some of the dust, the polish still shone. It’s doors had flowers carved into them, and on the corners on the top were small wooden rose heads, attached by screws. The doors were locked, and no matter how hard Angel pulled, she couldn’t open them.
Father Carl told her that he got the cupboard a few years ago as an anonymous donation to the church, but he never really had a use for it. Angel didn’t know why, but she decided that she really wanted that cupboard. Father Carl gave her the key, and helped her carry it home. There wasn’t anything inside the cupboard, and Angel couldn’t think of anything to put inside of it, so she left it empty.
And that’s how Angelique got her cupboard.
~~~~~
A few weeks ago, the family who lived in the apartment next door moved away. Angel didn’t really know them, but the little girl who lived there went to the same school as her. Her mother said that the Father of the family couldn’t pay the rent, so the Landlord made them leave. Angel was afraid of the Landlord, who was a mean and kind of smelly old woman, and she hoped that her Mother and Samuel could always pay the rent so that the landlord wouldn’t make them leave as well.
Mother and Sam argued about the rent a lot.
Only a few days later, a new person moved into the apartment. He was a nice looking man who was a bit chubby and had blue eyes like hers. For some reason, Angel got in trouble when she asked her Mother if this man was her Daddy. The Man didn’t look any older then Samuel, however, so she guessed his eye colour was just a coincidence. Still, sometimes when her Mother and Samuel were fighting, she would imagine the nice man was her Daddy, and he would take her away from the yelling. In these dreams, they would play games together, and he would take her to the mall, and to the zoo, and he would always listen when she told him stories. But Angel knew that this man wasn’t really her Daddy, and she never told her Mother about these dreams, because she didn’t want to get into trouble.
One day, Angel did really well on a test in school, and even got a little golden star in the corner, and she was very excited. She hoped that her mother and Samuel would be really happy with her for working so hard, like her teacher said they would be, but when she got home, her Mother and Samuel were yelling at each other. Angel tried to tell them about her test, but they didn’t seem to hear her. She tried tugging on her mother’s shirt, but then her mother said “Not now, Angelique!” in an angry voice and pushed her hand away.
Angel was really sad that her family didn’t seem to care about her gold star, and went out to sit in the hall. She does that, sometimes, because the yelling is less loud in the hallway then it is in her bedroom. Usually, she just brings out some toys to play with, but this time, she just cried, and wished again that the Man next door really was her Daddy, and that she could go live with him instead; she never heard yelling coming from his apartment.
Angel just sat outside of her room for a long time. She didn’t know how long she was out there, but even after the yelling stopped, she didn’t go back in. She tried to do her homework, but she couldn’t concentrate on her Spelling words or on her math, so she just kept sitting out there.
At one point, she saw the Man next door come out of his apartment. He gave her a funny look as she was sitting there, but he didn’t say anything, and quickly made his way down the stairs leading to the door of the building. Angel just kept sitting there for a long time. No one came out of her apartment looking for her, and after a while, the yelling started again, just like she knew it would.
Eventually, the Man next door came back. He was carrying grocery bags from the same store that Mother buys groceries from, and he gave her a funny look again before he went into the apartment. After a few moments, he came out again, and just continued to look at her for a while. Angel tried not to look at him, but she couldn’t help it. Eventually, he came over to where she was sitting, and sat down beside her.
He asked if she was alright, but she didn’t answer. After a few moments, he asked if her parents fought like this a lot, because he could hear them yelling through the door. She didn’t bother telling him that Samuel wasn’t her parent, and instead nodded. Then, he asked if she had been sitting out here alone the entire time he was at the store. She nodded again.
He was quiet for a while, before asking if she had any relatives she could visit when they were fighting like this. She shook her head no, and he asked if she had any friends she could be with. She started to shake her head, but then decided to tell him about Father Carl from the church. She also told him that she got in trouble when she went to see him without permission, so she usually didn’t go.
The man asked if Father Carl knew about all the fighting. She told him that he knew they did fight a lot, but she hadn’t told him that they fought all the time. The man nodded, and was quiet for a while again.
Suddenly, he offered his hand to her, and when she shook it, he told her that his name was Lee. She told him that her name was Angelique, but that everybody called her Angel. He smiled, and told her that that was a nice name.
After that, they talked for a long while. Lee told her that he was a Counselor, and that his job was to help people feel better. Angel told him about school, and when she showed him the Gold Star on her test, he congratulated her. He smiled a lot as they talked, and that made her smile. He always seemed interested in her stories, and laughed at her jokes. She never told him about how she wished he was her Daddy, but now she wished it more then ever.
Eventually, Lee looked at his watch, and told her that it was Eight O’clock, and that they should both be going to bed. She started to feel sad, but then he told her to wait right there for a second, and he rushed into his apartment. After a very short while, he came out and he seemed to have something in his hands.
“I know you’re not supposed to accept gifts from strangers, but... I want you to have something, Angel.”
He opened his hands, and showed her what he was holding.
It was a small toy; a plastic pony, like the pony toys some of the girls at school played with. It was light purple, almost pink, and had really big diamond-shaped eyes with purple irises. The pony’s hair, which was also plastic, was a darker purple then the rest of her, with a pink stripe running down the right side. There was a small horn on her head, as well as a funny-looking pink ring attached to a small piece of plastic, which looked out of place on the toy’s head. Instead of being made out of plastic, the pony’s tail was long and frizzy, and was kind of like hair. The strands were oddly shiny, and were a combination of dark purple and pink, just like her hair. Near her tail, on the right side, was a large pink star, surrounded by five smaller stars that were also pink.
“Her name is Twilight Sparkle.” He said. “She’s a Unicorn, and she represents Magic. All unicorns can do magic, but her magic is special, because her magic comes from Friendship. So, I guess you could say that Twilight Sparkle here embodies Friendship.”
Lee showed her how the plastic right could be detached, and how it was actually a brush for the frizzy tail.
“Twilight here... means a lot to me. I found her one day on the side of the road. I don’t know why, really, but I decided to take her home and wash her up; I even trimmed her tail, to get rid of some of the access frizz!”
Angel giggled at the thought of a grown man washing, combing and even trimming a the tail of a small pony doll.
“Hey now... don’t make fun! The thing is... when I found her, I was having a rather sad time in my life. Somehow, fixing her up and talking to her helped me through that hard time. I needed a friend really badly, and I still think she was really the one who found me that day.”
Angel felt bad taking her then, even if it still seemed funny to think of him playing with the little toy. She tried to give it back, telling him that she didn’t want to take away his friend, but he didn’t let her.
“I can tell that you’re a very special girl, Angel, and I want you to have her. Once upon a time, Twilight was my friend when I needed her, and now she can be yours. It will make me happy, knowing that Twilight is making new friends. It will make me happy knowing that she’s watching over you.”
Angel could see tears in his eyes as he walked away from her and went back into his apartment. She looked down at the toy pony for a moment, and smiled as it seemed to smile back up at her. Angel shed her own tears as she hugged her new friend to her chest.
And that’s how Angelique got Twilight Sparkle.
Author's Note
When it comes to writing and ponies, I have no regret greater then what I did with this story. I mean... everything was perfect, and things were going exactly as I intended. People seemed to like it, and I had a hell of a time writing it.
But then... then I finished chapter two. And even though I knew exactly how I wanted it to end... I typed that last sentence, right at the last moment, and ruined everything. honestly, I don't know what I was thinking... all I do know is that, after I posted this chapter, I realized that I had no plan that worked for that final, ill-advised twist. What started as writers block eventually became ambivalence, and before I knew it, Pony in the Cupboard fell into the realm of "permanent hiatus".
Well... enough of that. I'm going to do now what I should have done two years ago. I'm editing that final line, taking a step back, and Sun willing, finishing this story.
Of Things Lost and Found
While discussing Quantum Mechanics, Albert Einstein once declared: “I, for one, am convinced that He does not throw dice.” This brings us to the contradiction of Fate and Chance. I, for one, choose to believe that nothing is an accident. My mentor once told me that “If something is in your life, it is there because you drew it there, and on some level, it serves you.” Everything in our lives, the bad and the good, serve us in some way that we ourselves might not understand right away. As such, he and I both believe that nothing is an accident.
Take the doll, for example. When I found it that day, laying in the dirt, I could have left it there. But that’s not what happened at all, is it? Despite running late for the bus, I picked up the toy that had inexplicably caught my eye, and took it home. Imagine... a full grown man, being late for work because he had to save a Twilight Sparkle toy! And yet, home I went, with my new prize, filthy and tangled, in my pocket. As an interesting side note, my bus ran late that day, ironically allowing me to arrive at work on time.
How was it that that tiny spec of purple was able to catch my eye, even from across the street? What was the chance that it would be, specifically, Twilight Sparkle, who had been on my mind just earlier that day? Why would I risk tardiness just to save a toy, after I had vowed not to collect such toys myself? Simple. I do not believe in chance.
Years later, I would see a young girl in need of a friend, and it was then that I understood. I had found Twilight for a reason, and if the events to follow would be any indication, it was certainly the right thing to do. Now, I can’t vouch for God, or some other higher power leading events from one to another, but I do know that I was meant to find that toy, because the little girl I eventually gave it to was meant to have it.
Call it fate or random chance, but I, for one, am convinced that He does not throw dice.
Chapter 2: Of Things Lost and Found
Twilight Sparkle had a special place in Angel’s room; Even though it was hard to make her stand up without falling over, Angel liked to stand her on top of her rosewood cupboard, near her bed, so she could see her when she woke up in the morning. Angel had lots of toys, but none of them were as special as Twilight. The purple Unicorn was given to her to be her friend, after all, and Angel decided she would love Twilight most of all.
For the next couple of days, Angel played with Twilight a lot. Sometimes, she would imagine having a little tea party where Twilight was the hostess and some of her other dolls were guests, and they would talk and gossip about whatever ‘they’ could think of for hours and hours. Other times, she would play with Twilight’s tail, braiding it or brushing it out. Angel liked to talk to Twilight, imagining that the little pony doll was actually listening to her, and when her Mother’s fighting with Samuel was at it’s worst, she would hug Twilight tightly to her chest, and she would feel better.
Even though she hardly ever saw him, Angel and Lee would always share a smile when they passed in the Apartment building. One time, her Mother asked her why she acted so friendly to him, but Angel only told her that sharing a smile with someone felt nice. She didn’t tell her mother about that time he gave Twilight to her, because she was afraid she would be mad. After all, her Mother had always warned her not to speak with strangers.
Every day, during the week, Angel would take Twilight to school with her, and play with her at recess. Other girls played with different pony dolls, and sometimes she would even play with them, pretending the Ponies were all friends in a world one of the girls, named Shannon, called Equestria. Angel thought Equestria was a funny name for a world, but Shannon said that Equestria was the name of the world in the Pony cartoon.
Angel had a television, but she only had a few channels, because her Mother couldn’t afford cable television, so angel didn’t get to watch the Pony cartoon at home. Shannon’s Television did get the channel however, so she knew the most about ponies. Shannon told her that the princess of Equestria ruled the whole world, and that she taught Twilight how to use magic. This excited Angel, so when she was at home, she imagined being a Princess, and teaching Twilight how to use magic.
One day, though, Angel nearly lost Twilight Sparkle.
It started one morning before school. Her mother saw her packing Twilight into her backpack, and asked where she had gotten her. Angel didn’t want to tell her mother that Lee had given her the toy, because she wasn’t supposed to accept gifts from strangers. Instead, she told her Mother that her friend had given it to her, which wasn’t really a lie, because Angel thought of Lee as a friend. Her mother asked her which friend it was, and then Angel did tell a lie, and told her mother that Shannon had given it to her. Her Mother seemed to be okay with this, so Angel went to school and forgot all about it.
A couple of days later, when Angel got home from school, her mother was really mad at her. Her Mother told her that she had spoken to Shannon’s mother, and that Shannon’s mother said that Shannon had never had a purple pony... Shannon had only ever had one pony doll, which was orange. Mother was cross that Angel had lied to her, and demanded to know where she had gotten the toy. Angel still didn’t want to tell her the truth, but her mother threatened to ground her to her room if she didn’t tell the truth.
Really, when you spend most of your time in your room anyway, being grounded isn’t that big of a deal. However, the words “You’re Grounded!” still carried weight with the young girl, if only because she knew she was in deep deep trouble. For fear of being grounded, Angel decided to tell her mother the truth about her toy.
Angel’s Mother didn’t yell, so at first Angel thought everything would be okay. She told her Mother all about how she had met the nice man next door, and how he had talked to her and smiled to her, and finally, that he had given her the toy. When she finished, her Mother had a very concerned look on her face. She gave Angel a very stern lecture about talking to strangers, especially strange men, and then she gave her another stern lecture about accepting gifts from said strangers, just like Angel was expecting.
The next thing her Mother said, however, was something she did NOT expect: her Mother told Angel that she had to give her the toy.
Angel became very upset when she heard this. Twilight was her favorite toy, and her best friend! How could she give her up? Her Mother explained that losing the toy would be a punishment and a lesson about accepting gifts from strangers, but Angel didn’t listen. Rather then giving Twilight to her Mother, she held tightly to her school bag, where Twilight was hiding, and angrily told her Mother that she wouldn’t give Twilight up. Her Mother became cross, and demanded the toy again, more forcefully, but Angel just yelled that Twilight was hers. Even when her Mother threatened her again with grounding, Angel refused.
Finally, her Mother made to grab for her school bag, but Angel pulled it sharply away and ran towards her bedroom, slamming the door. Rather than simply following her in, her mother stood outside her bedroom door, demanding to be let inside right that instant. Panicking, Angel pulled Twilight out of her school bag, and began looking for a place to put her. When her Mother started counting down from three, she saw the cupboard, and opened it. Once the counting finished, she opened the door. Angel threw Twilight into the cupboard right then and there, and locked it.
Unfortunately, Angel’s Mother saw this, and now was demanding the key. Once again, Angel willfully denied her mother, making her even angrier. Seemingly fed up with Angel’s behavior. Her Mother began to make her way across the room. At the spur of the moment, Angel opened the window, and tossed her key into the street below. Watching as the the key fell several stories to the ground and out of sight, Angel suddenly realized that now the key would be lost, and that she would likely never see Twilight again. She tried to race past her Mother, intending to look for the key, but her Mother stopped her by standing in the doorway. With nothing else to do, Angel flopped onto the bed and cried.
Her Mother calmed down a lot after that, but Angel was still grounded. Even worse, now Twilight was locked up in the cupboard that Father Carl had let her keep, and she would never get to play with her or talk to her again. Perhaps her Mother felt bad for her, because she didn’t take the cupboard away, but to Angel it didn’t matter because it was locked anyway. She decided then that she hated her Mother, and didn’t speak to her again for a whole week.
~~~~~
It was two weeks before Angels Mother decided that she wasn’t grounded anymore. To Angel, the grounding was never the true punishment, anyway, and Angel still blamed her Mother for losing her key in the first place. A week or so into the grounding, Angel started talking to her Mother again, but it was mostly out of necessity; after all, living in a house with someone without talking to them was hard to do, especially when you’re Angel’s age.
Angel had tried to find the key, but when she dropped it it had fallen out of sight. Now, even though she was looking around below where her window would been, she couldn’t find it. There was a storm drain there, and Angel thought it must have fallen down.
At school, Shannon offered to let Angel play with Applejack, her own pony, but Angel didn’t want to. Angel tried to explain that it wasn’t the fact that she was a pony that mattered, but that she was her friend. After a few days, Shannon stopped trying to play with her, and this made Angel feel even worse.
While she was grounded, Angel was expected to come straight home after school. One day, instead of going home, she went to see Father Carl, and she told him about everything that happened. Father Carl listened to everything she had to say, like he always did, but like always, he wasn’t able to help. He told her that sometimes we lose things that are dear to us, and that even though it hurts, we can always push through our pain as long as we perceiver and have faith in God. He was always saying things like that. She knew it was supposed to make her feel better, but it didn’t really work. When she got home, she got in trouble for deviating from the path, and for the rest of the time she was grounded, her Mother walked her to and from the school.
Eventually, the grounding was over, and her Mother stopped walking her home. Angel was still angry at her, but was able to appreciate being allowed to walk by herself. Every day for another week, she took as long getting home as she could. Sometimes, she would walk the long way around her block, strolling through a park near the school and stopping for a swing. On one day, she took the Main Street, enjoying the smell of apple and cinnamon from the nearby bakery, and skipping home through the alleyway. Her Mother seemed worried sometimes that she was getting home so late, but never told her to be more punctual. Angel hoped her Mother was feeling sorry for being mean, but she still didn’t forgive her.
It was on a Wednesday that, while walking home through the alleyway, she saw something metal on the ground. She went to investigate, and saw that it was an old key. It was a small key, like the one she lost, but it looked very different. For one thing, it was plain and round, rather then rose-shaped. Secondly, while her key was a cast-iron key, this one was brass, and badly tarnished.
As she was inspecting the key, a voice spoke from behind her, startling her.
“That’s lucky, you know.”
The voice came from an old looking man wearing tattered and ragged looking clothing. His skin was black, like her Mother’s, and he had a long grey beard and hair. She had seen him before, and her Mother had called him a Vagrant, which was a kind of mean word meaning that he didn’t live in a house or an apartment. Even though she got in trouble last time she spoke to a stranger, she asked the old man what he meant.
“Ya know... some folks say it’s lucky to find a coin on the ground, but me? I find coins on the ground all the time, and I’m not all that lucky at all!” He laughed as he said this, and Angel could see that he was missing some teeth. Suddenly she understood why her Mother always made her brush her teeth, and wondered if this old man’s parents ever made him do it, too. She supposed not.
“What’s a coin really mean, anyway? A few extra cents? Bah. Maybe a whole dollar, if yer lucky. Nah, a coin doesn’t really mean nothin’! But a key, on the other hand... a key has meaning. Symbology. Every key opens a lock. Might not be the lock you need, but the meanin’s still there.
Locks keep things in, and keys... well, they let those things back out. So, if you find a key... I call that pretty lucky! More lucky then some old coin. Now you just need to figure out what that key unlocks!”
Angle didn’t really understand why, but suddenly she was very excited. She gave the old man the dollar-twenty-five she was supposed to spend on chocolate milk at lunch time, and raced home. When she got into her apartment, her Mother and her brother were fighting, but she didn’t care. Tarnished old key still in her hand, she ran into her bedroom, threw her bag onto her bed, and looked at the cupboard.
The man had asked her what this key would open, and even though she knew this couldn’t possibly work, she tried to put the key in the keyhole.
Angel felt the key thrum in her fingers as the tumblers clicked into place.
Special thanks to:
Nathan Traveler
Gyrofest96
Inoeitall
For moral support, as well as some editing from Gyrofest96. Without you guys, this chapter would have been very hard to write ;)
