The life and times of Lafayette Ryder

With wings pumping, heart pounding, and mind racing I travel from the deserted city of Haven to the bustling but frozen village of Ponyville. The passing glimpses I catch of ponies immobilized as they go through their day disconcerts me a bit but a more pressing matter controls enough of my attention to distract me from the disturbing still lifes.

I twist and turn to dodge each of the stone-like inhabitants of the town as I head for the few human households near Sweet Apple Acres. I leave the outskirts of town and land outside a small homestead constructed out of logs and bricks.

“A1, A2, A3, A4, and…” I count the addresses aloud as I pass each of the identical cottages. “A5!” without so much as knocking on the door I barge in and unfreeze time in just this one room.

“To be honest pasta sounds better.” A blue unicorn lying on Dallas’ lap speaks without even noticing me.

“Yeah,” Dallas says, “but we had spaghetti last Tuesday and…” he notices me and his words trail off.

“And?” the stallion asks.

“And what on Earth are you doing here Lafayette?” Dallas asks bewildered at my sudden appearance in his living room.

“I need to talk to you,” I tell him, “it’s urgent.”

“Uh,” he mumbles, “Ok. What’s up?”

“Long story short; I fucked shit up and went insane. Now I need to reconcile with all the parts of my mind in order to regain my sanity and prevent the deaths of all my family.” I explain.

“What the buck?” the blue stallion swears.

“Umm,” he stutters, “what does that have to do with me?”

I sit down on the couch next to him and take a deep breath.

“We live in one universe in a multiverse where every possible anything has it’s own universe. In one of those universes we all stayed on Earth, my wife died, I met you, fell in love, and then you died. Through a serious of overly complicated events led my mind to break apart into several different personalities and you were one of them due to the link you and I have in the future in a universe other than ours because of that shit I explained a second ago. Right now all of the personalities except for a depressed, suicidal one have abandoned me and I literally cannot live like that so I’m going to each of the living versions of those mindsets and talking to them so I can get my part of my mind back from them.” I stop talking and start franticly trying to catch my breath.

“What the fuck?” Dallas asks. “Are you high?”

“No, but I really wish this were all just a bad trip.” I tell him.

Dallas and the blue unicorn just stare at me.

“Uh, I think I’ll just head home for now and come back when things are less weird.” The stallion says, leaning over and quickly kissing Dallas on the cheek as he does. “Bye babe.”

“Bye Pierce.” Dallas smiles and waves as the pony hops off the couch and walks to the door and then outside. Dallas turns back to me and sighs. “So… yeah.”

“What?” I ask, slightly confused at his now shy tone.

“Um, well that was Pokey Peirce and he’s my new…” Dallas waves his hands in the air above his lap and takes a breath. “Coltfriend.

“Ok,” I say, “so anyway about all this shi-”

“Ok? That’s all you have to say about it?”

“Uh… yeah. Anyway I nee-”

“You’re really Ok with that?”

“Dude!” I hold my hands up in exasperation. “I’m MARRIED to a pony for fuck’s sake! I’m not going to judge you on who or what you fuck unless you break any laws, besides I’ve fucked… uh,” I think through the list and count on my fingers as I do so, “four, five, six… Six ponies while I’ve been here!”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

We sit here for a moment without talking; instead we just stare at each other silently.

“So you were sayin..?” Dallas asks.

“Oh yeah, so basically you’re the gay, feminine part of my mind that led me, in part, to start liking guys but only ones that resembled you in one way or another.”

“I see.” He says though he clearly doesn’t.

“And I think that when I started getting really violent in the last few years that part of me; you, left because you’re so calm and peaceful and you can’t stand violence.”

“Mmhmm.”

“So now I need to figure out which part of you is really a natural part of me.”

“Ok, how do you plan to do that?”

“No fucking clue.” I admit.

“Well that might turn out to be an obstacle.”

“Yeah.”

We sit quietly for another minute until Dallas blurts out a thought.

“Tell me when these personalities first started to develop.”

“Uh, well the first one, Jeffery, started talking to me just after… an incident I was involved in my senior year of high school.”

“Ok then, any homosexual tendencies or feminine traits you had before then are yours and not mine. Ever find any boys attractive prior to that or act girly or anything?”

“Hmm,” I ponder the question, “well there was this one guy…”

“Yes.” Dallas prods.

“Harley or something like that. He was incredible effeminate, even more so than you, and he was always nice to me, he even tried to hit on me a few times but I shot him down as soon as he started. I guess he was the first boy I ever found to be attractive at all but it might have just been because I was lonely at that point in time and I really wanted to be with someone.”

“But you thought you might want to be with him.”

“Yeah, a little.” I confess.

“Anything else?”

“To be honest I’ve always kind of wanted a big, strong someone to hold me and promise me that everything would be Ok.

“*Cough* Gay! *cough*”

“I heard that asshole.”

“Sorry.” Dallas apologizes and ducks away from the swing I take at him.

“So… that’s about everything I felt prior to senior year… I don’t feel any better.”

“Really?” Dallas asks.

“Yeah,” I say, “why?”

“Because you just acted really gay while you were telling me about all of that.”

I look down to find my legs crossed and my wrists limp.

“Shit.”

“Feel better now?”

“A little.”

“So now what?” Dallas asks.

“I don’t really now,” I tell him, “I guess I go and talk to the next persona.”

“Well I’m glad that I could help.”

“I’m just glad you actually believed me.”

“Hah!” Dallas laughs. “I still think you’re high as fuck.”

“Heh, I wish. Thanks for the help Dallas.” I stand up to leave but stop by the door and turn around. “By the way, how’d you get so good at this?”

“I was a psychiatrist back home,” he tells me, “actually the stress from that job was part of how I got here.” he chuckles nervously.

“Don’t worry about it bro,” I point a finger at my head and snap my fingers, “it happens to the best of us.”

“See you around.” Dallas calls out as I leave his house and start to fly away.

One down, six to go.

Next up: /B/.