The world made sense to her. Why wouldn’t it have? It made sense to her, just like it always had.
She poured a glass of vodka into a glass, two small, round grapes etched onto its surface. She took the glass up to her lips and took a sip. It wasn’t like her, she thought. It just wasn’t something she did. Not her. She didn’t ask for any of this. So she left. It’s not like she cared about the place, anyways. It was just somewhere she went. She had no more emotional attachment to this particular establishment than to the next, and it’d be a stretch to say that she could even recall the name of the place. It was just a place to her and nothing more. So she left.
A plastic bag danced in the wind, blowing about in a gust, waltzing first with a maple leaf and then abandoning it for a stray paper that had been lifted off a nearby table. She took the bag with her mouth and dropped it into a public trash bin. She looked around herself. Where was she? She didn’t know. She never knew. Maybe back home in Ponyville. Maybe off in Manehattan, or Fillydelphia, or Canterlot, or even Dodge Junction. She’d been there all before, but she never remembered.
A cloud blew overhead. It looked kind of like a fish. Or maybe a cloud. Was it really a cloud? The scent of rain. The smell, the feeling of mud on her face. It wasn’t pleasant, and it’s not like she asked for it. The ground swayed and stood up, then sat back down and whistled a tune in the grass. Ponies all around her, some familiar, some not. So many colors. So many faces and even more cutie marks that she wanted others to remember, but not herself and nopony that she knew, or for that matter, that she cared about.
Behind her was the building she had just left. To her left were more buildings, to her right were even more. The road went in both directions, curving, twisting, looping and crossing back. Ponies walked about, uncaring, impassive, carrying bags of vegetables and fruit and bread. One had on her baskets filled with freshly cut flowers. Another, a cheap cotton Hawaiian shirt and a three-bit pair of plastic red sunglasses. She knew both of them. Whether or not she could say the same of them with her, she didn’t know.
They were talking to each other. They were fighting. They were talking again, then singing, or at least, that’s what she thought she heard. She shook her head. Talking, fighting, rolling around on the dirt, letting the flower petals scatter like beads in the wind or bowling pins on a meadow. Their voices grew louder and louder. She saw the two kissing deeply, eyes closed, ears perked, muzzles interlocked without so much as a blink from any other of the passersby. She blinked. When she opened her eyes, the two were gone from their spot on the ground. They had gone their separate ways, each of them walking in opposite directions in the street.
It wasn’t easy, she pondered. It never was. The only easy thing in her life was that one time in fourth grade when the teacher had told the class that the book report was canceled and everypony celebrated and played in the playground and everypony was happy and the teacher said everypony would get A’s for the entire year so she brought a tray out from under her desk and the tray had ice cream on it and the ice cream was her favorite flavor, coconut. Except it wasn’t coconut, it wasn’t her teacher, it wasn’t even school back then; it was some pony off to the side of the road ringing a small metallic bell, standing next to a pink and purple striped tent in the middle of a rolling field of wheat sprawling in all directions in a cloudy overcast rainy sky and she had no idea where she was or how she got there, but it didn’t matter because now she had ice cream that was not coconut and the sound of a ringing bell that was actually annoying. She looked down at her hoof that should have held the ice cream cone. It held a pocket watch with both big and small hands directly on the 5 mark.
She looked up, and she was alone again. In all honesty, she preferred to be alone. It wasn’t like she didn’t enjoy the company of her friends. Her most cherished memories were with her friends. It was only by herself, however, that she felt free. To her, solitude was priceless. Everything else was worthless to her, whether she realized it or not.
A small, steady stream flowed under her hooves, splashing up against her legs. It was cool in the afternoon breeze, but it was not refreshing. Tadpoles darted around between several stalks of the golden swaying wheat. Watching them reminded her of her childhood. Watching them from above, like how she watched her friends play outside from inside the classroom through a fogged window decorated with construction-paper snowflakes faded in the sun and crudely painted caricatures of ponies holding hooves and standing in an oh-so-happy circle. Hooves interlocked with one another, they had. So close together, pulled tight like iron fillings on a magnet. Nothing could overcome the forces that drew them together, happiness and friendship. Nothing at all, like trying to make room for another pony to join in.
She threw her head up and shouted. She didn’t know what she shouted. She didn’t pay attention to silly things like that. But when she threw her head up, she fell back over in her stool and had to get back up again. The ponies around her asked if she was okay, but she ignored them. She took another sip of her vodka and drew out a deep, long breath. She lifted her head. An azure sky with white clouds, soft and fluffy and shaped like fish, drifting through it rolled above her like an ocean. Just as deep. Just as blue. Maybe bluer. But it didn’t matter to her, because everything made sense, and all was right with the world.
