The Music Maker

It must have been thirty minutes of just sitting there with that vet pony staring and asking questions. I even tried to write down what my answers were. She didn’t understand earthly writing either! We finally just stuck with me nodding and shaking my head, with the occasional shrug if I didn’t know the answer. I think the best thing about her questioning me was that she could show her personality while still on the job. I guess here in this world, everyone is required to be themselves. Why can’t it be that way in the human world? Why can’t people still be themselves rather than being taught that a person stripped of their individuality is far better than someone who actually has a soul?  These are the questions I ask occasionally to myself. I think that’s why I wanted to be a musician. It’s the last industry left where you can express yourself through your product. I will get there one day. Or at least I hope I will… after I figure out how to get back of course.

A lavender pony with a dark violet mane trotted into the room. If I recall correctly, her name was Twilight Sparkle. (Even though the show was amazing, I still had trouble learning the names of all the ponies… Another tick of my disorder…)

“Thank you for coming Ms. Sparkle!” They both glanced at me. Twilight however made the glance into a wide-eyed stare.

“Wow… It’s stranger than I thought,” said Twilight.

“That’s what I thought too, but then… well just watch.” The vet pony looked back at me. “Will you do that again? For her this time?”

I was being asked to play my keyboard to show someone; or rather, somepony. I didn’t care. It felt so great… I didn’t miss a second. I turned on my Casio and got ready… but, I couldn’t play with that feeling a second time. I had to play something different. That’s just how I am. So I switched the setting to OctiveHorn, and decided on the best theme song I knew. I practiced it many times, but never once had an audience for it, and I hadn’t really played it in well over two years or so. It was the theme to The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. Sure there was no singing, but it was still a beautiful piece. The C minor chord is by far one of the most powerful and moving ones, and even if one didn’t know what it was from, Morrowind was still beautiful to listen to. I took a deep breath, and began to play the upward scale…

I was caught. Captivated. My mind was blank, and all I could think, all I could feel was the beauty of this song. Pressing these keys made something magical. No longer did I circulate blood. Rather nostalgia and chills were coursing through me. Although short, the moment was well needed. I reached the final C minor chord. Finishing the piece, I slowly looked back up to the eyes of my ‘audience.’ The vet was beaming vigorously, and Twilight could not stop gaping.

“Didn’t I tell you? Isn’t it something!?” the vet exclaimed. (I didn’t know if she was referring to me, the song, or my Casio.)

“It’s… I… I never…” she paused and turned her head towards the vet. “I never heard anything so beautiful… ever…”

"I knew it! it’s not just me!” squealed the vet. By this point, I was the cool kid in school. No… more than that… I had something that made me important. Even if it was just for colorful ponies who couldn’t understand me, it still was a great feeling to have. I never wanted to let it go.

=====================================================================

Twilight decided to take me home to study me a bit more. She eventually got it figured out that I was male. Luckily we didn’t need to remove my clothing to do so. Instead, she found a spell that allowed animals to be understood by them. We had a pretty good conversation for a while. Then she began the q-and-a of my keyboard.

The first question she asked was “I know that thing is some kind of piano, but… how does it make that sound?”

“It’s actually not a piano,” I replied. “It’s a keyboard. And the sound is adjustable through the certain numbered buttons I press here.”

We talked for hours about it. This was the most attention I had ever received from anyone. I played three intro riffs for her: My Immortal by Evanescence for depth an heart, Money by Pink Floyd to get a rhythm going, and Welcome to the Jungle by Guns n’ Roses just because I always wanted to show that one off. She loved every one of them. She still wanted to hear more, so I decided to show her every sound my keyboard had to offer. Her favorite setting was 280. The Ocarina. So I played her a small tune with it: Legend of Zelda: Lost Woods Theme. As I played, she looked almost like she was going to cry… She said I played beautifully… I couldn’t believe it… my playing a random tune made somepony cry. I felt like I  mattered to someone… I felt… Worth something…

It must have been three hours before we reached the peak of the conversation.

“You know, I do know a pony who would really love to see you and the songs you play. She’s a really well known musician!”

“Really?” I asked in earnest. “Who? And how well known if I may ask?”

“Well, I don’t think you know about the Grand Galloping Gala, but it’s one of the most anticipated yearly events in all of Equestria. Not that it’s much fun, but almost everypony goes, and she is the cellist of the classical band that plays there every single year! Her name is Octavia. She is also the leader of her own orchestra!”

I was taken back in shock. I, an unshaven drop out musician in need of a shower, was being suggested, or perchance referred to an orchestra leader in a little less than a day. If this was a hallucination, I hoped to high heaven that I wouldn’t wake up.

“Though… you might want to be careful,” Twilight added.

“What do you mean?” I asked curiously. I hoped this wasn’t some kind of catch…

“Well, if you want to at least have a chance of staying on her good side, never bring up a mare named Vinyl Scratch.”

“Why? Who is that?” I knew of course, but I wanted to at least seem like I was completely new here. Besides, I wanted to know what was up between the two mares.

“Vinyl, or DJ Pon-3 to the fans, is a Disc Jockey and a dubstep musician. Their musical tastes don’t really see eye to eye…”

I could understand. I was never big into the whole dubstep genre. I appreciate that it’s a cool style but honestly when you break it down, to me, dubstep is to techno as rap is to RnB. The quality is toned too far down, there’s little or no melody, and let’s face it. When has anything of the 2000’s era been comparable to the 90’s? But what I mostly didn’t understand was why all these happy cheerful ponies liked that kind of music. I suppose there were some ‘party hard’ personalities here too. Regardless, I still embraced it. Music is music after all. But if love and tolerance was the underlying theme in this universe, wouldn’t these musicians at least tolerate each other? I suppose when you have your own dimension, anything can happen…

“Alright,” I finally said. “But I still would like to meet her too.”

“Well I don’t know her that well,” replied Twilight. “I only know Octavia because she was my music teacher in Canterlot for a long time. But she’s really good. I think I should introduce you. She won’t believe it!”

I didn’t really like the thought of my like for both mares having to be torn like this. Maybe it wasn’t such a big deal. After all, I didn’t know how long I’d be staying in Equestria. Maybe there was still a chance to meet Vinyl even with whatever was going on between her and Octavia. I suppose the only thing to do was just hope for the best and see where the opportunity took me. Regardless, I was still really excited to play for an upstanding musician!

“When do you think we can go?” I asked. “Next week? Next three weeks?”

“Well why not now?” She replied as her horn began to glow.

Suddenly, Twilight, my Casio, and I were enveloped in a very loud magenta glow, and within seconds we were standing in the town of the royal Canterlot palace.

“This is where Octavia lives. Follow me!” She squeaked.

I unfortunately couldn’t move. I was frozen. My disorder had responded to the sudden change in environment and loud noise of teleportation, and I began to pant heavily and sway back and forth dropping my keyboard to the ground…

I might as well come clean on this… My disorder is called Asperger syndrome; which is a type of neurobiological, pervasive, developmental disability… I should probably break it down into simpler terms shouldn’t I? My brain for some reason doesn’t seem to equate to one that would be considered ‘normal’. Rather, my mind is so far on the literal/logical side that I can’t seem to get sarcasm very well. I also have trouble reading the subtle facial cues that everyone else seems to get at a young age. It’s not as hard for me as it was then, but I always used to have a little cartoon book of emotional faces to help me understand them a bit better. But then, that leaves out why I’m reacting like this so much doesn’t it? Well, that brings me to what categorizes me into the ‘antisocial’ variety…

Because of the Asperger’s, I am so incredibly hypersensitive that it’s almost sickening. Loud noises and unexpected physical contact are really difficult for me to handle… I get very skittish and mentally unwired, as well as silent, or I hyperventilate in extreme situations… Luckily, I had a remedy. Whenever I had my ‘spasms’ as a child, my mom would play a song by Blind Melon called No Rain. I don’t know how or why, but for some reason it always worked. Maybe it was the joyful and carefree riff in the intro, or maybe it was just the overall fact that good music calms the soul. Either way, whenever I heard that song, even at two years old, all was right with the world…

“What’s wrong? Are you ok!? Snap out of it!” I heard Twilight yell through all the short circuiting in my head. Not that it did any good. She was shaking me; which only made it worse! I had to get out of this spasm and fast. Otherwise… an anxiety attack could ensue… Those are quite nasty for someone like me… I jittered my fingers around as I searched for my iPod in my pocket. When I finally pulled it out, I jammed the earphones in and hastily selected No Rain.

It was like my whole body had just been released from a vice. I had just submerged from a full minute of being underwater. I could breathe again. I took long, smooth, deep breaths while the song weaved its silky smooth sound and soothed my soul for the moment… This was therapy at its finest. I loved every slide of the guitar, every click of the festive snapping, and every word Shannon Hoon sang. I was finally calmed and content. When I pulled out the earphones and opened my eyes again, Twilight, and several other ponies were staring at me. This time I just felt ashamed… I hated being so different… I hated being so…. Weird… I couldn’t help what made me who I was… I just wanted to be accepted…

I almost drowned in my sadness until Twilight whispered something to me. “Play the keyboard.”

As much as I wanted to just crawl into a hole for the next year and a half, I felt like I could trust her with this. I sighed, sat down, placed the Casio on my knees, and began to play my favorite piano song, Piano Man by Billy Joel. I didn’t sing though. I was too embarrassed to go that far… But this time when I looked back at the few ponies, they weren’t looking at me with a look of surprise or distaste. Rather… they looked at me with… cheerfulness in their eyes. They had never heard the song before, but they still stopped what they were doing and came to watch while I played my instrument. When I was finished the song, they all pounded the ground in a small applause for me. I looked up at all of their smiling faces… Then I saw the smile of Twilight.

“Thank you…” I managed to say… I never knew playing songs in front of others, no, for others, could be so fulfilling. And I never felt so alive before. I wanted so much more of it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

All I can say is that my life is pretty plain

I like watching the puddles gather rain

And all I can do is just pour some tea for two

and speak my point of view

But it's not sane, it’s not sane

I just want someone to say to me

I'll always be there when you wake

Ya know I'd like to keep my cheeks dry today

So stay with me and I'll have it made

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(AUTHORS NOTE: I promise to finish this story soon. I just have a small problem this month: My internet is being cut off tomorrow. I don't know why, and there's nothing I can do to fix it. But that doesn't mean I won't stop writing, or using the internet somewhere else. I have means of uploading the rest of the story, but just be patient. Thanks so much for the support!! keep reading and sending this around! I really appreciate it everyone!

And thank you for the suggestions!!! I appreciate all of them!)