In the Apple household, suppertime was a little slice of heaven.
After a long day of sweating and toiling out under Celestia’s sun, it was a place where you could rest your aching bones and spend time with your family. It was where you and your family could experience the unique satisfaction of eating a meal you made yourself, with food that you grew yourself. It was the most relaxing, most peaceful time of the day...
“I’m tellin’ ya, it’s your turn!”
Well, most of the time, anyway.
Big Macintosh stood in front of a kitchen sink overflowing with dirty dishes, teeth bared.
“AJ, I did the dishes yesterday. T’day’s your turn!”
“Horseapples, it was my turn yesterday and I know it!.” Applejack snorted, pawing at the floor with a hoof. “‘Sides, I’m plum-tired. I’ve been workin’ my tail off all day!”
Mac ground his teeth. Heats. By the great Queen of the universe did he hate Applejack’s heats. His sis was already as stubborn as an old stump. With her hormones driving her crazy, she was almost unbearable. It was enough to make him break into the cider cellar and drink the entire place dry.
Something poked Mac’s side. “Mac?” said Applebloom.
“Not now, Bloom,” Mac said, forcing the words through clenched teeth. “And I haven’t?” Mac huffed. “I just’ spent the whole day tryin’ to patch up the barn after last week’s storm!”
Applejack gave a glare that stop a charging manticore. “Well maybe if ya’d prepared for it like you should have, ‘ya wouldn’t have to fix it in the first place, and maybe Granny Smith wouldn’t a wound up in the hospital!”
“Mac?” Applebloom tapped him again.
“Not now, Bloom,” Mac growled. “I did prep the barn for that storm!” He stomped. “It ain’t my fault that the weather team bucked up!”
“Mac?” Applebloom tugged on Mac’s tail again. “Mac, would-
Something snapped inside Mac. “Bloom, for once in your life, shut yer stinkin’ piehole and let me talk!”
Silence. Applebloom withered like a sapling in the summer sun. “I just wanted to know if ya wanted some pie for dessert.” She said in a choked whisper, tears welling up in the corner of her eyes. Before Mac could react, the little filly galloped out the kitchen door and up the stairs
Mac’s dashed off after. Idiot. Bucking idiot! “Bloom, wait!”
The little filly was too fast; before Mac could even climb up the stairs, Applebloom had dashed into her bedroom and slammed the door
“Bloom?” Mac trotted up the stairs and held an ear up to the door. He gave a gentle knock. “Bloom, can ‘ya hear me?” Nothing; all he could hear was a soft, pitiful sobbing. Every pathetic sniffle was a solid kick in his chest.
Applejack came storming up the stairs “Now look what you've done, ‘ya idiot! Wadd’ya got to say for yourself?”
Opened his mouth, then closed it. What could he say? With a huff, he plodded to his room, grabbed his saddlebag, and headed out the front door, mentally kicking himself with every step.
“And where the buck do ya think yer goin’?” Applejack.
“Out.” Mac patted a lump in the of his saddlebag, feeling the gentle slosh of its contents.
There was a little motto he’d coined for times like this: Surrounded by troubles? Go blow some bubbles.
-
In Mac’s experience, everypony had their own way of blowing off steam.
The exact method depended on the pony. The local hothead, Rainbow Dash, went for a fly. His sis would take out her frustrations on the Apple trees. The Princess’ student, Twilight Sparkle, would go for a walk.
And Mac, well, he blew bubbles
Macintosh gave himself a gentle push on the swinging chair in front of the farm house, holding a bubble wand up to his lips.
There was an art to bubble-blowing. You couldn’t force a perfect bubble out of your wand. If you blew too hard, the soap film would pop. Too gently, and it wouldn’t leave the wand. You had to find that sweet spot somewhere in between.
In a way, it was a lot like life.
Once the bubble was just the right size, Mac gave the wand a twist and a final breath of air, and the little sphere broke loose and took flight. For a second, it floated in front of Mac’s face, like a newly-hatched chick looking at its mother, until a stray breeze carried it off.
“That’s a pretty nice one.” Mac turned to his companion. “What do ya think, Smartypants?”
The stuffed donkey, being an inanimate object, said nothing.
Mac snorted. “Everypony’s a critic.” Call him foalish, call it a side effect of the “want it, need it” spell, but he felt a sort of kinship with the little doll. No matter what life threw at it - a popped seam, a lost eye, whatever - she just kept on going. The doll was both confidant and safehouse, a safe place to store all of his secrets, hopes, and fears.
Silly, yes, but in Ponyville, silly was the new serious.
Mac dipped the bubble wand back into its bottle, swished it around for a second, then lifted it with a fetlock. Threads of liquid soap slowly dripped from the little loop. It was just the right type of weather for bubble blowing; cloudless sky, gentle winds and just the right amount of humidity. For once, the weather team was earning its pay.
“All right, Missy, maybe this’ll impress ya.” Mac took a deep breath and blew a strong, steady stream into the wand. Streams of colorful little bubbles shot from the wand; magic from a plastic horn.
“How’s that?” Mac smiled. Back when he was a colt, after their chores were done, his mother and him would go out on the front porch. She’d bring out a cup full of dish soap and wand, and they’d spend the rest of the day blowing bubbles together.
Every time he blew a bubble, if felt like one of his worries was being carried away inside one of those little soapy spheres.
Mac’s ears drooped. And sometimes it felt like they just kept coming back.
Smarty pants fell against Mac’s side. Maybe it was just his imagination, maybe there was something funky in the bubble solution, but Mac swore that those twin button eyes were saying C’mon, tell me what’s wrong.
“I won’t lie t’ya, Smarty,” Mac said, dunking the wand back into the bottle and swirling it around. Smarty was more than just a friend, she was also a safehouse - he could tell her things that he didn’t dare tell anypony else, not even his family. “Things ain’t exactly goin’ smoothly ‘round here.” He sighed. “Granny’s in the hospital with a broken hip, the barn’s a wreck, sales ain’t been good.” Another stream of bubbles filled the air. “And of course, ya’ heard what happened in the kitchen.”
It wasn’t that things hadn’t been bad before. Here in Ponyville, disasters were pretty much a way of life: Discord, Nightmare Moon, rampaging Ursa Minors; just another Tuesday. But as threatening as they were, at least they had a straightforward solution; just use the power of friendship along with some magic and everything would be ok. Fixing Granny’s hip, or getting sales back up was a bit more complicated.
“Smarty, can I tell you somethin’ personal?”
The stuffed toy gave Mac her usual blank stare. He took that as a yes.
“A failure.” Mac sighed. “Ah’m supposed to be the strong one, Ah’m supposed to be there for everypony. And what do Ah do instead? Ah snap at Applebloom and get into a pointless fight with AJ.” Mac hung his head. “Queen above, Ah miss them, Smarty.”
Ten years. It’d been ten years since that horrible day, but it always felt like it’d happened just yesterday. He remembered it all: the smell of antiseptic, the sound of Applejack trying to hold back her tears, the forlorn expression of on the doctors’ face as Mac’s universe turned inside out and upside down.
“Ma and Pa were strong. When things went bad, they wouldn’t have whined about how life was goin’, or gotten into fights. No, they would have gritted their teeth, dug their hooves in, and bared it.”
Mac snorted. They said that time healed all wounds. They lied.
A few bubbles drifted low over the lawn, floating precariously low over the prickly grass. A sudden gust of wind blew them down to the ground against the lawn. To them, the sun-dried grass might as well have been a forest of spears; within seconds, nothing was left but flecks of soap film.
Something sparked in Mac’s head. “Ya know,” he said, picking up Smarty Pants. “Once, I heard a sermon down at the chapel.” Big Mac didn’t listen to the sermons very often; ever since his parents died, attending chapel had been more for his sisters’ sakes than his own, but this one had been an exception. “I heard them say that life was a road, and everypony was a traveler, walking along towards the destiny the Queen had set before them.” Mac snorted. “Ah say that’s also a load of hooey.”
“Ah mean, take mah ma and pa. Do ya know what it was that killed them?” He looked Smarty Pants in her shiny button eyes. “The wind. It’d been the wind that blew dirt into that coach pony's eyes. It’d been the wind that made him run that stop sign. And it’d been the wind that made him crash into my parents’ cart.”
Mac gritted his teeth. “Two good, hard-workin’ ponies dead, just because of a little wind. What kinda destiny is that?”
Mac blew a few more bubbles. “Ya see those, Smarty.” He pointed to the drifting spheres. “That’s what we are. Just bubbles, driftin’ around, goin’ wherever the wind blows us. Sometime’s it blows us all up into t’sky. Other times, it blows us right against a wall and just pops us. Don’t matter who you are; princess, pauper, farmer, it don’t care. It never cares.”
Smarty Pants just stared at him. If she had something to say, she was keeping it to herself.
“Basically, I’m sayin’ the universe don’t give a buck about us. We shout ‘Hey, I exist,’ and it answers, ‘so what?’” Mac hung his head. “Kinda makes ya wonder what the point of livin’ is.”
“No, don’t get me wrong. I ain't plannin’ on killing myself or nothin’. I just…” He threw up his forelegs. “It’s just…I just don’t know what the point of being’ here is!”
Mac just stared off at the setting sun. He bowed his head. “Great Queen of the universe,” Mac mumbled, his voice little more than a whisper. “I know we ain’t been talkin’ much lately, but I need help.” Mac thought for a second, trying to find the right cage for his thoughts. “If ya don’t mind, please, just give me an answer.”
The patio door slowly creaked open. “Mac?”
Mac opened his eyes. He turned to see Applebloom standing in the doorway. With a jolt, he quickly tucked Smarty Pants back into his saddlebags.
“Yeah, Bloom?”
The little filly trotted up to him. “Mind if I sit with ya?”
“Eenope,” Mac said, patting the space beside him.
With that, Applebloom leapt up onto the swinging chair. “Sure is pretty out.”
“Eeyup.”
Applebloom pointed at the bottle of bubble solution. “Ya blowin’ bubbles?”
“Eeyup.”
“Can I blow some?”
“Eeyup.” Mac hoofed his sister the bottle.
Applebloom gripped the wand with her fetlocks, dunked it in the bottle, then blew. The membrane bulged for a second, then burst. Mac shook his head.
“You’re doin’ it too hard.” He demonstrated. “Ya gotta do it softly. Got it?”
Applebloom nodded and raised the wand to her lips. She blew gently this time; a breeze instead of a gale, and was rewarded by a stream of iridescent bubbles.
“Good, now yer’ gettin it.” Mac gave his sister a pat on the back. Applebloom blew again. Another bubble flew off the wand.
“‘Scuse me.”
Mac and Bloom turned to see Applejack standing in the doorway. Mac tensed.
“Mind if I blow some?”
“Sure, Sis,” said Applebloom. Mac grunted an affirmative.
Applejack grabbed the wand, pursed her lips, and blew a bubble the size of an apple. Another smaller bubble floated inside it, like a goldfish in a bowl.
“Show off.” Mac chuckled, grabbing the bottle and blowing an even bigger bubble than that, with two bubbles floating inside it.
“Hah, that’s nuthin’!” Applejack took the wand. “Check out this sucker!”
“Bubble blowing contest!” yelled Applebloom.
The rest of the day quickly turned into a bubble-blowing frenzy. Bubbles of all kinds drifted all over Sweet Apple Acres, from swarms of small bubbles, like shimmering glass beads, to monster bubbles, wobbling through the air drunkenly. Some of the little spheres stuck together in mid air, , looking for all Equestria like monstrously enlarged water molecules.
Eventually, the soap bottle ran empty. Bubbles popped all over the lawn, turning the grass slick with soap residue, shining in the setting sun. The trio leaned against each other, laughing and covered in soap film.
“So,” Mac said, wiping solution off of his muzzle. “Who won?”
“I dunno,” said Applejack. “Bloom?”
“Beats me!” Applebloom said, straightening her bow. “I kinda lost count. Wanna call it a three way draw?”
“Eeyup.” Mac chuckled.
“Ahright, I declare us three the bubble-blowin’ champions of Equestria!”
“Alrighty then.” Applejack chuckled
“I ain’t gonna contest that.” Mac smirked. He turned to Applebloom “Hey, Bloom?”
“Yeah, Big Macintosh?”
Mac sighed. “I’m sorry ‘bout snapping at ya’ earlier.”
“It’s alright, big bro,” Applebloom nuzzled him. “Ah forgive ya.”
“And I guess I’m sorry too.” Applejack said, her ears drooping. “The barn, Granny Smith, they ain’t yer fault. Ah just have let mah heat get the better of me. Again.” She blushed. “If it helps, Ah did the dishes while you were out here.”
“S’ok, AJ,” Mac put a foreleg on his sister's’ shoulder. “I forgive ‘ya.”
Applejack smiled. “I don’t deserve ya, Mac.” She wrapped her forelegs around Mac’s neck.
“Hey, don’t forget ‘bout me!” Applebloom snuggled up to Mac and wrapped her hooves around his barrel.
At that moment, the universe shrank. All of existence contracted until all there was was the porch, the chair, and the three Apple siblings. As they lay there, a bubble floated in front of the group, the lone survivor of the contest. For a second, Mac saw the three of them reflected on its surface, surrounded by swirling colors.
If that wasn’t an answer, then he didn’t know what was.
