The Second Renaissance

Old Mare Mabel was breathing her last. She spent her later years falling ill, laying in bed waiting to die. Any moment she is going to taste the sweet relief of death.

Still, there was something that plagued her mind ever since her youth. It haunted her wherever she went, and when she thought she had purged it from her thoughts, the smallest of incidents triggered her memory. She never told a soul about it, for nopony would believe her, but it drove her to madness countless of times.

It was a cold night when Old Mare Mabel died, full of rain and rolls of thunder. Before she passed on to gates of Elysium she had one more visitor. It wasn’t any of her family members; they were long gone or had severed connections with her. It wasn’t her friends neither. Her final visitor was a young stallion. A nurse led him to Mabel’s room, then looked at her sympathetically as she closed the door. The stallion removed his hat and his raincoat, swung a chair beside her bed and sat down. There was silence. Mabel gazed at him with weak, sickly eyes.

“I have heard a great deal about you,” the stallion said. His voice was soothing, almost like an angel. “I was wondering if I can talk to you before it’s too late.”

“I don’t think there’s anything much to talk about,” the old mare said. She coughed.

“It took a lot of time for me to find you. I need answers.”

“Why are you so interested in me?” asked Mabel.

The stallion was silent. “Because you’ve seen things,” he finally said. “And I need to know what you have seen.”

Mabel coughed violently. The stallion was anxious. He wanted to have this talk before she faded away.

“I’ve seen many things,” she said.

“Then maybe you can tell me what you saw. I know you’ve experienced something when you were fifteen years old. I need you to remember. It happened at night, didn’t it?”

The old mare was silent. “I never seen anything.”

The stallion leaned closer. “You have. Tell me, please.”

“Why do you come for me?” the old mare asked feebly.

The stallion gently placed his hoof on her forehead. Her skin was cold. The eyes of the old mare grew. There was fear in them. Mabel gasped for breath, and then she coughed some more. The stallion held her thin hoof. She moaned in pain. A moment passed. Mabel closed her eyes and images and sounds she thought were buried forever found its way out. Her time on earth was almost up, and she gathered the last of her strength to speak.

“I remember… I was outside. I was lost. Then… there were these lights. The lights were colorful, they blinked. Then there was this awful sound. A light came down and took me away like I was going to Elysium.”

“Is there anything else?” asked the stallion.

“I was taken away. Far away from here. Those ponies… they weren’t ponies, I finally realized, but it was too late. They got to me. They hurt my head.”

“And then what happened?”

“... They spoke to me. They told me things. Terrible things.”

“What were the terrible things they said?”

Old Mabel gazed at the stallion. Her breathing slowed, then ceased altogether. The stallion touched her hoof for a pulse. There was none. The stallion fixed her blanket so she’d look dignified in death. Like the nurse, he too looked upon the old mare in sympathy. He grabbed his raincoat and hat and exited the room. The nurse came to him.

“I was able to talk to her before she passed,” he said.

“Were you related to her?” asked the nurse.

“No I’m not. But she has met… ponies I knew.”

The stallion nodded and crossed the hall until he found the stairway. He came out of the nursing home and into the wet and stormy streets of Fillydelphia. The stallion looked up toward the sky and wondered what was in store for this world, and for himself, and how much time this world has left before they arrived.