The Many Ways A Day Can Go Dramatically Wrong
Well, the day started out normal enough. Briefcase, tie, appointment in a little town called Knockemstiff outside Canterlot. Salespitch arrived to quiet streets, pretty much what you’d expect from a small rural town. The afternoon had an optimistic feel to it, like he might only get hassled about his wings and horn one or two times today and make a good sale besides.
Well, he was technically right. The citizens never got around to noticing the wings and horn.
The red-and-white flyers scattered like trash on the streets should have been his first clue. The outlandish and thoroughly smashed contraption in the town square, the second. But if he’d seen the large, crudely-painted sign declaring “DEATH TO SALESPONIES” at the far end of Main Street, that would have been more than enough to send him running. Unfortunately, he was prevented from seeing this by the pony who suddenly stepped in his path, wearing a glare fit to melt iron.
“What’s with the briefcase, buddy?”
Salespitch blinked. This was not normally the first thing he was asked when showing up in a new place. He looked at the briefcase hovering in his yellow magic, then recovered as only a professional can, smiling with just the right amount of polite friendliness. “Uh, good morning! My name is Salespitch, with Quills & Sofas Incorporated. I’m a traveling salespony on business here in—”
“IT’S ANOTHER ONE!” the earth pony suddenly bawled in his face, and Salespitch startled back a step. It was then that he noticed the horde of angry glares being directed his way. A horde of angry glares accompanied by angry ponies stepping out of stores and houses like a mob of stalking cats. Salespitch coughed and smiled nervously, his thoughts racing as he slowly backed away.
“Ah-heh… Um, hello… Sorry, did I say something wrong?” No answer – only more ponies gathering on the street in front of him, rage in their eyes. “I’m just here to keep an appointment with a Mrs. Piebald about ordering a new sofa…” He flared his wings a little on the dim hope that someone would notice his alicorn-like appearance and be surprised enough to snap out of their lase-focused wrath, but no such luck. It was about this time that his dad’s old adage came to mind: “The smart salespony doesn’t wear out his welcome, especially when he never had one to begin with.”
“Well, I can see I’ve come at a bad time…” Without another word, the alicornus imitato turned and bolted back down the street towards the edge of town. An angry shout of “Don’t let him get away!” rang out behind him, and the sound of pounding hooves spurred him into a dead sprint.
This is crazy! he thought frantically, wings beating to try and speed himself up even more – he’d always been better at running than flying. I’ve never been literally run out of town before! What did I DO?!
He was just passing the border of town when a flyer fluttered up in front of his face, explaining everything in a flash of red and white stripes and two grinning, disgustingly familiar faces. Salespitch’s yellow eyes narrowed to slits as he ground his teeth together.
Of. Freaking. COURSE!
Well, the day started out nice enough. Bag of bits, breakfast sandwich, nice cheap bed in a little town called Knockemstiff outside Canterlot. Clutterstep stepped out of his motel room, inhaling the fresh morning air. He’d have to see if there were any small jobs around town available before he moved on. Or maybe he’d stay here a few days. Marephy’s Law had left him alone for almost a whole week, and he wasn’t one to throw away a good deal when he managed to find it.
He should have known better than to tempt Marephy like that, even as a passing thought.
The distant sound of raised voices drew his attention towards town square. With nothing else to do and a hot sandwich to fill his belly, Clutterstep wandered that direction to see what all the fuss was about. It was easy enough to find the source: a modest-sized crowd for this early in the morning had gathered around a bizarre-looking contraption next to the town’s prize fountain.
Peeking over the heads of the ponies at the back, Clutterstep could spy two lanky yellow unicorns standing on the weird device. Both were dressed in snazzy blue-and-white-striped coats with straw caps perched on their red-and-white manes. Salesponies, Clutterstep realized, and felt interested despite himself. They must be selling something pretty intriguing to be drawing this much of a crowd so early in the morning. He definitely had no idea what it was supposed to be, but there were a lot of mechanical arms and brushes sticking out of it.
“And I tell you that nevah, in the history of this great nation of Equestriah, has a device of this magnitude and wondah been seen before!” the mustachioed pony on the left cried in a robust voice that carried easily on the morning breeze. “I tell you you’ll nevah find else like it in all your days! Gather closely now, my good sirs and ladies, as my brothah and I demonstrate the power of the indestructible, the indisputable, the inconceivable Clean-O-Matic 5000!”
Gasps and excited murmurs swept through the crowd as ponies were caught up in the hype. Clutterstep still had no idea what the thing was supposed to be, so he edged a little further into the crowd for a better look.
“Ah, yes, brothah, but perhaps it should not be us who demonstrate this wondrous device!” the second unicorn called back, waving his hoof over the crowd. “Perhaps these intelligent consumahs will believe that we merely make it look easy due to our intimate knowledge of our invention! But I tell you that any pony among you, no matter their age or mental acuity, can maneuver this a-maz-ing device on their very own! Do I have a volunteer?” His hoof suddenly shot out. “You, sir! Would you be so kind as to come up and help us demonstrate? No need to be shy, now!”
Clutterstep should have run the second he realized the hoof was pointing at him. He probably would have, except he froze in surprise long enough for the crowd to close behind and nudge him forward. With an all-too-familiar sense of impending doom, Clutterstep stepped up onto the Clean-O-Matic 5000 with the Flim Flam Brothers.
It was difficult later for anypony to say exactly what went wrong. Maybe it was the scrap of sandwich that fell into the gearbox. Maybe it was when the blue earth pony’s hoof snagged on a loose board and sent him tripping into the steering mechanism. But everypony could agree – with mounting anger and/or bewilderment – that the aftermath was both impressive and astonishing. Within sixty seconds, the contraption lay in a broken heap, coughing dust and smoke with a dying wheeze. The whole plaza was a wreck, and several shopfronts had taken collateral damage. But none of that was as bad as the spurting, shattered fountain at the center of town, which held its prized and now broken centerpiece and one badly dazed earth pony.
The stunned silence that followed was quickly shattered by angry shouts.
“You menaces! You’ve destroyed our fountain!”
“I thought you said this thing was indestructible!”
“Hey, part of this machine was held together by duct tape! What are you cons trying to pull?”
“Liars!”
“Thieves!”
“Tar and feather ‘em!”
The Flim Flam Brothers proved to be amazingly talented at slipping out of town fast. Clutterstep was less lucky, lying dazed in the fountain with water dripping onto his head. Fortunately, he had become an expert at recovering from the daze of catastrophe, and he pulled himself upright just in time to take off before several angry-faced ponies could lay hooves on him.
It was never smart to tempt Marephy’s Law.
Clutterstep hid in a barrel down the alley from the general store for two hours, trying to ignore the smell of rotting banana peels from the nearby dumpster. He could hear muted voices and the occasional angry grumble as ponies passed him on their way to the square to help clean up the mess, probably keeping an eye out for him so they could do… something unpleasant to him, he was sure. Well, he’d show them! He could run himself out of town just fine.
The belltower rang noon, and that’s when Clutterstep made his move. He crept to the edge of the alley and down the street, glancing back frequently at the crowd over by the fountain. They seemed to be focused on some brown pony, which meant now was the perfect time to slip away unnoticed—
Then he heard a cry that made his hair stand on end:
“Don’t let him get away!”
Ah, yes, the part of Clutterstep not currently panicking thought wryly as he bolted across the town border with a horde of ponies pounding after him. NOW it’s a normal day.
By sunset, Salespitch and Clutterstep had come to agree on four things:
1) They were pretty evenly tied at running speed.
2) There was no way to be sure which of them the townsponies were chasing, but they weren’t planning to go back and ask.
3) If either of them ever heard the names ‘Flim Flam Brothers’ or ‘Knockemstiff’ again, there would be problems.
4) And, in a bizarre and twisted way, it’s a little bit nicer to be run out of town with somepony than by yourself.
Author's Note
I drew the cover picture first, out of a desire to see what would happen if Silver Quill's Clutterstep and my OC Salespitch met. (JSYK Salespitch is my attempt at making an alicorn OC who avoids the cliches - basically he's a unicorn/pegasus mix with a genetic mutation that gave him the horns AND the wings. You can learn more on his blog.) Somehow it just seemed natural that their interaction would involve mutually running from a mob, although I’m afraid this sort of thing happens to Clutterstep more than to Salespitch. I wrote this mini fic to figure out exactly WHAT was happening, and subsequently liked it so much that I figured I'd slap it up on here in case anyone else might enjoy. ^^
Fun Facts:
This is actually a tie-in with one of Salespitch’s early Asks on his Tumblr Ask Blog, where mention is made of his getting run out of a town because of the Flim Flam Brothers. I enjoyed brainstorming the events behind that and how they could include Clutterstep.
Knockemstiff is an actual town in Ohio. Go on, google it. I found it while looking for interesting town names and it was too amazingly perfect not to use.
Kudos to everyone who caught the Aladdin reference from the pic. :Dd
Thanks for reading!
~ River
