Ask Not For Whom the Trash Dove Flops, It Flops for Me
They came in the night.
The trash doves, that is.
It started innocuously enough. A plum-coated bird fluttered into Ponyville. It was wearing a breezy woven sunhat and galoshes. It seemed pretty innocent. Rarity took a fancy to it. "How adorable! Simple, yet chic. A herald for spring fashion!"
"It is pretty cute," Fluttershy agreed.
Then another appeared in Twilight's breadbowl. "Aaaaagh! I did not order pigeon soup!" she shrieked. The bird flapped away, flinging broccoli soup everywhere.
"Twilight, that's not a pigeon," Pinkie corrected her. "It's a trash dove!" Twilight just rolled her eyes and continued wiping the soup off her fur.
Lyra was the next victim. A bird stole her phone. Most ponies weren't sure what she was talking about though, because most ponies didn't know what phones were. Twilight made a note to check the access log on the mirror to the human world.
Soon, these purple pigeons were everywhere. Every day hundreds more flew in. Some slid along the ground like Sweetie Bell. Some shrieked constantly. Some wore ties and others wore detective outfits. They seemed to have a predilection for absconding with various bread products, but some stole pizza and some stole donuts. One at least paid for its drinks, becoming a regular patron at Mocha Delight's coffee shop. Some--usually near Sugar Cube Corner--were seen to have little party hats and noise makers. Pinkie Pie swore she had no involvement.
But mostly, they flopped.
Within a week, there were thousands of them, rarely flying, but instead standing in squares, in alleys, and in roads, all repeating the same motion. They flung their heads down, their beaks almost touching the sky, before launching their necks back up again. Onlookers described it as flopping. One could not trot ten yards without encountering a contorting trash dove. Soon, it became the latest dance craze.
But it was annoying. Very annoying. One was hardpressed not to accidently step on a bobbing bird on one's way to the market or the bank. More still flew into windows or caught the bird flu. Hundreds of dead and injured birds were being sent to Fluttershy. She labored to help them all, and to give the ones that didn't make it a proper funeral and burial, but the numbers overwhelmed her, and she quickly resorted to mass unmarked graves or even funeral pyres. The inside of her home looked like a war hospital, with hundreds of little beds arranged as if this were a disaster triage. Let us not begin to mention the smell. You know what pigeons do.
Fluttershy was stoic, a mare evidently familiar with death and pestilence. This was no new experience for her.
But injuries, cats, and sickness were not the only things to cull the numbers of the floppy trash doves. Soon, they just started dying.
In houses. In restaurants. In streams and in gardens and sometimes in flight, formerly floppy birds flopped dead. Barely a fortnight had passed, and the flock was thinning rapidly. At least two ponies went to the hospital with concussions sustained from dead birds falling on their head. Another nearly had her back broken. Dozens of ponies contacted avian-borne diseases. Griffins and other carnivores came up with new feathery culinary dishes. Quills and Sofas had to lay off their feather procurrer, for never had feathers been so easy to procure.
"This is a health crisis!" Twilight declared, holding a press conference with Nurse Red Heart.
"This stinks!" Rarity declared, holding her nose.
"At least the crops will grow well this year," Applejack added, holding a bag of fertilizer.
For once, Rainbow Dash didn't really have anything to say. I just felt I needed to mention this since the other Mane 6 all show up.
By the end of the third week, all the birds were dead, and by the end of the month, they were gone, having been buried, burned, scavenged by predators, or simply dumped in the Ponyville landfill. As quickly as they had arrived, they had departed. The stench lingered though. Occasionally, a lone straggler would wander in, but on the whole, it appeared the creatures' day in the sun had passed, so to speak.
In the aftermath, Twilight called a meeting at her castle to discuss the strange event. The Element Bearers and Spike assembled in the map room.
"So, that was a thing that happened. What have we learned from this event?" the princess asked. Most of the others didn't really have any conclusions to draw from the bizarre incident. But after a few seconds, Pinkie Pie raised a hoof.
"Yes?" Twilight asked.
Pinkie Pie began: "Are we not all trash doves, eating from the garbage can of life?"
"Uhhhh," Twilight responded.
"Y'all're gonna have to elaborate, sugarcube," Applejack replied.
With serious tone, Pinkie continued:
"The trash doves flew in, lived vigorously, and died, all within a month. Their existence was short and--seemingly--meaningless. But are we not the same, living and dying in the blink of an eye? What is our presence to the trees or the mountains? What is our presence to the stream or the sky? We may alter the Earth, but will it care when we are gone?"
Rainbow looked like she had something to say, but Pinkie pressed on.
"Our lives are fragile, ephemeral affairs. Our creator has abandoned us, and our gods are weak. From all sides we are assaulted by obscene monsters on a daily basis, and every breath may be our last. What meaning dare we attempt to draw from this absurd existence? What joy dare we extract from this cruel joke called life?
"None. None, I tell you. There is no point, no purpose to this mad dalliance of living. To dare declare so is folly at its finest."
The girls sat silently, jaws dropped in shock at this dreadful declaration by the normally perky party planner. But Pinkie was not done.
"Alas, ye fellow equines, why are you so shocked by my proclamation? Are your ears offended by this bold truth I preach, or dare I say, are you simply in denial? How appropriate then, that I of all ponies should be the prophet to deliver this truth! For from she most jovial, shall the most serious of testimony issue! Listen up comrades, for though I issue a fowl (pun intended) denunciation of meaning, in its place, I offer liberty!
"Yea, truly I declare, we must shed the veneer of higher purpose for only then are we free to construct our own. My testimony is this: If life has no meaning or purpose, then it becomes our singular duty to construct our own meaning and our own purpose. The world declares existence to be futile, but we are not beholden to the world. We are only beholden to ourselves, and so we promise ourselves that we shall not sit idly beneath the shadow of death."
"No! We spit in the face of death! We spit in the face of futility! We face our mortality head on, and shout into the void: 'You may take me in time, but you shall not take me now!'" And now, for the first time in her speech, Pinkie smiled:
"Do you not see? When life has no purpose, we are free! Free, girls, free! We can do anything! We are no longer slaves. We are now masters! We alone are captains of our fate, and we alone can bring ourselves happiness.
"This is not meant to be a kind truth. There are times that I have teetered on the edge of despair, and indeed many less-fortitudinous ponies have fallen victim to ennui and depression upon reaching this conclusion. But it is a liberating truth: Do what makes you happy, for tomorrow you may die.
"Making ponies happy makes me happy, and in making ponies happy, I myself am happy, for I have given myself purpose. I thus declare that seeking joy is a worthy pursuit. Let me then expand my claim: Devoid of meaning, a life of happiness is worth pursuing.
"This is why I party, and this is why the trash dove flops."
Author's Note
Slavoj Žižek sniffed, lifting the lid of the trash can. Four pigeons fluttered out. "I thought I was going to get a joke in this.
