It was a sunny day in Ponyville.
Pinkie Pie was trotting gaily along, humming to herself. Sugarcube Corner rose in the distance as she passed lampposts and store fronts and mailboxes and limp pegasi lying in the road and flower bushes and picket fences and—
Pinkie Pie skidded to a stop, blinking. She icily backtrotted past the picket fences, the flower bushes, and then—
“Hiya, Dashie!” she chirped.
The limp mare continued lying on the road, belly-first. Her limbs didn't move; her tail didn't flick. Everything about the pegasus was drooped and dull and dismal—from her ears to her fetlocks and all the fuzz in between. Even the colors in Rainbow's mane looked a duller shade than normal. A gust of wind blew over the street as she sighed into grass blades and aphids.
Not one to stand apart for too long, Pinkie Pie flopped to her side and laid nose-to-nose with her best friend. Grinning.
“Whatcha doinnnnn'?” she melodically exhaled.
“Dying,” Rainbow Dash said.
Pinkie Pie blinked. “Oh.” Her eyes darted about. “Since when?”
“Since I was foaled,” Rainbow droned. “I came out of the womb screaming and it's been all downhill ever since.”
“Huh.” Pinkie Pie's ears twitched—one after the other. “Well...” A bright grin. “Do you need any help with that?”
“Life is short, confusing, and cruel,” Rainbow exhaled. “I've got all the help I need.”
Silence.
“Oki doki loki!” Pinkie Pie hopped back onto her hooves in a blink. “I'm gonna go get some sweets!” And she bolted towards Sugarcube Corner in a fuchsia blur.
Rainbow Dash sighed.
She didn't move.
Minutes passed.
A bird flew in, landed on a nearby lamppost, preened itself, chirped, then flew off.
A fly buzzed past Rainbow's ear. The fuzzy blue lobe didn't even bother twitching to shoo it away.
Then, at some point in the glacial passage of time...
...a lavender winged unicorn shuffled down the street. Twilight Sparkle had her smiling muzzle stuck deep in a levitating book, which might have explained the inevitable clockwork that was her comical tripping over Rainbow Dash.
“Gah!” Twilight flapped her wings, balancing herself before the princess could take an unsightly plunge into the ground. Panting for breath, she twirled about and frowned at the cause of her floundering. “Rainbow Dash?! What are you doing lying in the middle of the road?! You could hurt somepony by tripping them!”
“Yeah, I guess,” Rainbow muttered.
Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Don't you have better things to do?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Did... that... erm...” Twilight's wings coiled at her side as she tapped her fuzzy chin. “... … ...the Wonderbolts! Don't you have to train with them sometime this week?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Rainbow!” Twilight Sparkle stomped her hoof. “Quit it! What's wrong with you?”
“Meh.” Rainbow exhaled. “Nothing. I'm fine.”
“Well, you don't look fine.” Twilight trotted closer and her book levitated beside her. “Are you sick?”
“Nah.”
“Did... you fly into something and hurt your wing?”
“Nah.”
“Hurt your leg?”
“Nah.”
Twilight frowned. “Hurt your ego?”
“Meh.”
“Hah!” Twilight grinned, pointing. “That last one wasn't even an answer!”
“Did I promise you an answer?”
Twilight opened her muzzle... but had nothing to respond with. Clearing her throat with regal poise, the princess slipped her book inside her saddlebag, straightened the bangs of her mane, and trotted over to squat in front of the limp pegasus.
“Rainbow,” she began. “We're best friends. If there's something bothering you, I really want to help. But I can't help unless you tell me what's bothering you.”
“Nothing's bothering me.”
“Then why are you lying in the middle of the road like a dead raccoon?”
“I don't have anything else to do.”
“Why s-sure you do!” Twilight chuckled, gesturing in the air. “You could be doing flight stunts! Practicing for the Wonderbolts! Kicking clouds! Flying east!” She grinned, wagging her eyebrows. “You could even be playing practical jokes on the rest of us like you always used to.”
“Meh... none of that is very funny any more.”
Twilight fidgeted. “Uhm... you could... uhhhh...”
“Besides, what does it matter?”
Awkward silence.
“What... does what matter?” Twilight stammered.
“Exactly.”
The alicorn frowned. “Rainbow, you're not being very helpful.”
“What's to help?” Rainbow breathed in. “Someday we'll all be dead.” She breathed out. “And every joke we've ever laughed at will be just as dry and pointless as the jumbled words they were long before anyone ever thought them up.”
“So is that what this is all about?” Twilight remarked. “A fleeting case of existential ennui?”
Rainbow's eyes narrowed as she stared into nothingness. “Must be reallllly convenient to have a name for things you can't fix.”
“Huh?”
“'Existentialism.' 'Ennui.' 'Anxiety.' 'Taxes.'” Rainbow sighed. “They're just words, Twilight. So is 'Twilight.' Common names... proper names—none of them are worth any more than the other. Doesn't matter how hard we chisel them into granite. Either they fade away or we fade away. Both the life and the awareness of life. It's a race where nopony wins.”
Twilight was chuckling at this point. “I can't for the life of me actually believe that the Rainbow 'Danger' Dash would be grounded by a fear of death!”
“I'm not afraid of dying,” Rainbow droned. A slow exhale. “Just tired of it.”
“Oh.” Twilight's tail flicked. She looked left... then right. “Well... h-how about all of your accomplishments with the Wonderbolts?” She smiled. “Doesn't that bring you satisfaction?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“And all of the victorious adventures we've been on as the Elements of Harmony! Doesn't that bring you pride?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“A sense of catharsis?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Rainbow!” Twilight gnashed her teeth, her eartips turning red. “Stop repeating yourself! Don't you realize how annoying that is?”
“Is it?” Rainbow's ears actually moved for once, although her body remained limp as a noodle. “I miss being annoyed.”
Twilight blinked.
But—right that very moment.
“Mrmmmfff!” Pinkie Pie slid back into frame, landing on her side next to Rainbow Dash. The fluffy mare was scarfing a mouthful of baked goodness. “Banana bread! Rommmff!” Another bite. Sugary crumbs christened the dull earth between them. “Scrumptious stuff! Always makes me super duper happy!” She smiled a dirty smile and offered a morsel to her catatonic friend. “You wanna bite?”
Rainbow took a very long time in responding. “Ever think about the last time you brush your teeth?”
“Huh?” Pinkie Pie blinked.
“Lots of ponies think about the last meal they'll ever eat... or the final pair of shoes they put on before some freakish event ends their lives.” Rainbow sighed. “I think about the last time I'll ever brush my teeth. Such a boring... stupid thing to do. And yet—we're all programmed by society to do it. As if it'll make us healthy... as if it'll extend our lives.” A gulp. “Kinda ironic—then—that long after we've rotted in the ground, it's our teeth that'll outlast the rest of us. Detective ponies even use them to identify murder victims. So maybe it makes some sense to polish them with such dedication in the end. Our teeth are all we'll ever have... long after the last thought of who we are and what we've done is vanished and forgotten.”
“Oh.” Pinkie Pie progressively curled up into a somber pink ball, clutching the banana bread to her tender tummy. “Well...”
“It's probably why so many ponies have nightmares about losing their teeth,” Rainbow Dash continued. “They fear the inevitable: being reduced to a blackness that's even less discernible than calcified dust.” She cleared her throat, blinking slowly into the grass. “I haven't dreamt about my teeth in a long time. I haven't dreamt about anything in a long time. But... I do sleep. I sleep a lot. And I've been gaining weight. I'm the heaviest I've ever been right now.”
“Oh...” Pinkie Pie sniffled, her mane turning straighter... glossier. “That's so... sad.”
“Not really,” Rainbow droned. “Just boring.”
“Rainbow...” Twilight frowned. “Stop bringing Pinkie down.”
“Twilight's right, Pinkie,” Rainbow breathed. “None of what I said matters.”
“Th-that's not what I meant!” Twilight exclaimed, stomping her hoof for the third time. “Rainbow, what's gotten into you?”
“Oxygen.” Rainbow droned. “It comes out carbon dioxide.”
“Heehee...” Pinkie managed a giggle. “Dashie made a nerd funny!”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Shouldn't that be Twi's line?”
“Doesn't matter,” Rainbow muttered. “We're all meat and bones in the end.”
“Grnnngh...” Twilight face-hoofed. “Rainbow...”
“Did I come at a bad time, darlings?” Rarity spontaneously shuffled up, gazing down at Pinkie and Rainbow. She sipped on a levitating cup of coffee and shifted the weight of her shopping bags. “I'm all for discussion of 'bones' and 'meat' but usually not out in the open.”
“Hiya, Rare-Rare.” Pinkie Pie bit into the banana bread. “Mrmmff... Dashie's dying.”
“Meh.”
“Dying?” Rarity nearly dropped her coffee cup. She took another sip and placed it into a strap of her saddlebag. “Dying of what?”
“Of living,” Rainbow muttered.
“Yeah, what she said,” Pinkie sighed.
“Don't pay attention to Rainbow,” Twilight Sparkle groaned, nearing her limit. “Of all her foalish cries for attention, this latest is the worst.”
“Twilight!” Rarity frowned. “How could you be so callous! We're friends! Cries of attention simply cannot be dismissed!” Rarity shuffled over and rested a hoof on Rainbow's shoulder. “When our loved ones are depressed, we must be there to support them and nurture them back into the light!”
“I'm not depressed,” Rainbow droned. “I'm just bored.”
“See?” Twilight gestured.
“Besides.” Rainbow gazed off, dead still. “There's no such thing as depression.”
Rarity squinted. Hard. “I beg your pardon?”
“I just realized something,” Pinkie mewled, gazing lethargically at her banana bread. “The loaf is half-eaten...”
“Rainbow, would you mind clarifying that last statement?” Twilight asked.
“Yes, what Twilight said,” Rarity added with a nod.
“It doesn't matter,” the pegasus droned.
“Then why did you say it?”
“Good point.”
“Rainbow, now you're just trolling us,” Twilight grumbled.
“What's to troll?” Rainbow didn't have the energy to shrug. Her shoulder lay like limp tissue under Rarity's gentle hoof. “'Depression' is just another convenient word we use to classify something that we can't control, so what's it matter to even try labeling it?”
“Oh, is that so?” Rarity bore a sarcastic grin. “And what of the poor unfortunate souls who harm themselves and even choose suicide over living with crippling depression?”
“Knives are real,” Rainbow droned. “Nooses and arsenic are real. 'Depression' is just a word.”
“Rainbow Dash...” Twilight clenched her teeth. “That is a cruel and unfair thing to say in light of the millions of struggling Equestrians clinically diagnosed with the illness on a yearly basis! Day in and day out they work to climb their way back into the light... to free themselves from... from...” Twilight shook her head and spat: “Sometimes it's even genetic! Ponies can come into this world with a neural predilection for chemical imbalances in the brain! Are you going to blame ponies for being born?”
“It isn't exactly a smart idea in hindsight.”
“Ugh...” Twilight face-hoofed. “Rainbow...”
“Rainbow, you're the most awesome specimen of Pegasopolitan breeding!” Rarity exclaimed. “You've mastered the Sonic Rainboom and accomplished countless feats of awe-inspiring wonder!” She smiled, caressing the pony's prismatic mane. “And on top of that, you're absolutely gorgeous in your own way, darling...”
“And I'm a Wonderbolt and countless ponies like to get my autograph and I have practically free tickets to waltz into the Royal Palace at Canterlot and chillax like the celebrity athlete that I am,” Rainbow droned. “So many cool and awesome things. You're right, guys.” She sighed. “I don't deserve to be depressed.”
“Nrnnghhh...” Twilight shook her head. “Rainbow, that wasn't what Rarity was trying to say at all.” She craned her neck. “And it's okay to admit to feeling depressed. In fact, it's a fantastic sign! That's the first step to take!” She smiled. “And then you can go on the road to recovery! Therapy... psychiatrist visits... even medication if it's needed—“
“Is there a cure?”
Twilight blinked. “Uhhhh...”
“Is there a cure?” Rainbow repeated, her voice dull and dispassionate.
“I... er...” Twilight lifted a hoof, avoiding Rainbow's gaze. “Well...”
“You know how many once-ripe bananas had to die for this bread to be scarfed by a big fat pink pig?” Pinkie Pie sniffled, her mane drooping limply around her scrunching muzzle. “A lot. That's h-how many!”
“Let me answer that, Twilight,” Rarity said. She faced Rainbow again. “Rainbow, with treatment, a pony can easily surpass the psychological hurdles of—”
“What is cancer?”
Rarity froze in mid-speech. “... … ...come again?”
Rainbow redirected the question elsewhere. “What is cancer, Twilight?”
“Oh! Uhm...” Twilight cleared her throat and spoke in a librarian's voice. “It's when the cells of one's bodily organs grow abnormally and encroach upon other organs—occasionally leading to malignancy and even death.”
“So it's basically when parts of the body have free reign to run to the finish line, no matter what the rest of the body tells them.”
“Uhhhhhh...” Twilight fidgeted left and right. “I'd say that's far from the scientific way of describing cancer. You're kinda generalizing—”
“A cell's job is to grow and regenerate, right?”
“Well, for the most part—”
“So isn't cancer basically a cell doing what a cell does best? What that body part was grown and programmed to do?”
“Hold on, Rainbow. It's a lot more complicated than—”
“Did something happen to ponies?” Rainbow droned. “Did some super evil dragonequus drop a bomb on the entire Equestrian populace that caused us all to mutate? Can we blame a magical freak accident for poisoning our bodies so that we all have a risk of developing cancer?”
“Well, no, Rainbow. Cancer is usually the body's reaction to common harmful chemicals, bad diets, diseases, unhealthy habits...”
“But can ponies who get involved with none of those things still get cancer?”
“Well... yes. Absolutely. While abnormal, cancer is... often a natural occurrence. But not all tumors lead to—”
“So it's natural, then.”
“Didn't I just say 'yes?'”
“And there's a cure for cancer?”
“Uh. No.” Twilight coughed. “There's treatment... ways of putting malignant tumors into remission, but there's no end-all, be-all cure.”
“And why should there be?” Rainbow muttered. “Cancer is just a product of life. Your body does what it does best—what it knows how to do—and still it ends up being a knife in the back. And isn't that the final irony? That the parts of ourselves that we're born with to sustain life will ultimately end it.” Rainbow's nostrils flared. “It's the same way I feel about depression. We're mortal ponies. We're finite things thrown into an infinite everything. We're programmed to want unlimited stuff... but we're smart enough to know that we can't have all of the stuff. And every little thing we do to amuse and distract ourselves have diminishing returns. Because we just know better. Death is bigger than all of us—even the thought of us. How can you be alive in this world and not be 'depressed?' It's just the natural state of existing.” Another sigh. “Ponies who are 'clinically depressed'... even those who are so bad off that they dwindle into obscurity and even kill themselves—their fault wasn't being depressed. They were just 'more alive' than the rest of us... and the rest of us are simply kidding ourselves until—by age or circumstance—we become just as alive as the ponies who eventually blended in with the shadows. And all we'll find there is ourselves.”
Twilight cocked her head to the side, squinting at the mare. “There are... some flaws in your analogy.”
“Nothing's perfect, Twilight,” Rainbow droned. “Even if I cared enough to be the world's smartest pony, I'd still be wrong.”
“Well, it's no crime to philosophize.”
“No. The only crime is getting up in the morning,” Rainbow said. “After sleep and its empty dreams have failed to do their job of erasing all of the futility and pointlessness from your mind. And you live out your humdrum day like a somber abridgment of the slow whimper into twilight that awaits us all.”
“That... sounds less like a crime and more like habit.”
“No.” Rainbow summoned the strength to shake her head. “The real crime is going back to sleep... and waking up the next day to do it all again.”
“So is that why you're lying here in the middle of the road?” Twilight asked. “Because after all of that psuedo-philosophy and ontological analysis, you feel guilty for the 'crime of living?'”
“Nah.” Rainbow exhaled. “I'm just bored.”
Twilight face-hoofed. Hard. “Celestia, give me strength...”
“I... I-I have so many unfinished dresses,” Rarity murmured. Her mascara was running a little. Sniffling, she stripped of her shopping bags and slowly collapsed to the road beside Rainbow and Pinkie. “I'm always coming up with fashion projects th-that are far too epic for me to ever accomplish.”
“Oh, jeez, Rarity...” Twilight clenched her teeth. “Not you too!”
“And what does it matter if I utilize an entire lifetime in engraving m-my name against the unfeeling tombstone that is the fashion industry?!” Rarity half-sobbed, curling up into a fuzzy white ball. “At some p-point, a meteor or gamma ray burst of cosmic happenstance will erase all that ponidom will ever accomplish in the totality of our civilized existence!”
“For crying out loud...”
“It's all so... v-very unfair...” Rarity hyperventilated, her eyes growing misty and mistier as her body grew limp and limper. “Death isn't an end! It's a return to form! We are merely the detritus of star dust, after all. We only burn faster!”
“Rarity...” Pinkie Pie whimpered. “The banana bread! Look!” She held her morsel out in her hooves. “It's nearly gone!”
“Let us leave it uneaten, Pinkie, darling!” Rarity cried. “Allow the next evolving species to feast on the crumbs... to savor the delicacies of our fossilized remains so that they too may be blind to the ontological anxiety that plagues us all!”
“Also...” Pinkie outright wailed. “The universe is expandiiiiiiing!”
“Blast it, girls! Knock it off!” Twilight growled. “You live in Ponyville! Ponyville is not expanding!”
“Yeah, I guess,” Rainbow droned.
“Rrrrrgh—Rainbowwwwwwwww.”
“Whew-wee!” An apple horse on apple horse legs drifted by, dragging an apple horse cart as she drawled in her apple horse voice. “What in the hay are y'all lyin' in the street for? Is this the new 'dabbin' fad that the young folks are all into?”
Pinkie lifted her fluffy head with a smile. “No, you're mixing it up with 'planking!'” Her mane instantly re-drooped as she sobbed to the heavens: “And we are all born alone and die alonnnnnne! Waaaaaaaaaaaah!” She fell back to the earth, curling up in a fit of hysterics beside Rarity.
“Allllllllllrighty then...” Applejack nervously tipped the brim of her hat back and slowly pulled the cart towards Sugarcube Corner. “...and this is why I never subscribe to Facebuck.”
Meanwhile, Twilight trotted over and knelt before Rainbow Dash. “Are you seriously going to just lie here in the road all day?”
“Meh.” Rainbow meh'd. “I guess.”
“Is there anything I can do to convince you to get up, go out there, and enjoy life?”
“I dunno.”
Twilight tongued the inside of her muzzle. She looked around. “Would it... make you feel better if I joined you?”
For the first time that entire afternoon, Rainbow didn't have a retort. Not even a sigh.
Before either of them could produce another thought...
“Oh! By the way, y'all?” Applejack looked back with a smile. “We produced an overabundance of cider this season! So I brought an extra keg with me! Gonna unload at Sugarcube Corner! First round's on the house!”
Rainbow Dash froze in the middle of being frozen. One ear moved. Then the next. Finally—with the grace of an exploding interrobang—her deadpan face lifted. “Did she say cider?”
“Why, yes, Rainbow,” Twilight droned. “I believe she did.”
“… … …” Rainbow shifted her leg muscles... her wing muscles... and then—“Hmmmm...”
Twilight slowly smiled. “Is that enough to pull the 'miserable mare of meh-dom' out of her funk cloud?”
“No.” Rainbow slowly... achingly stood up on all fours. “But it's not a bad thing either.”
“That's the spirit!” Applejack called from the entrance to Sugarcube Corner. “Now wipe yer hooves clean and come inside, y'all! I'll pour each of ya a tall glass!”
“Well!” Rarity stood up, wiped her mascara clean, and levitated her shopping bags beside her as she trotted briskly towards the cafe. “A nice passionate drink sounds quite lovely right about now!”
“Woohoo!” Pinkie Pie—fluffy again—hopped after her. “I just can't wait to drink the comments section! Er... I mean whole pint of cider!”
“Hahahaha!”
“Eeee-hee hee hee hee!”
As Rainbow Dash limped after them, Twilight trotted by her side.
“Y'know, Rainbow,” she said, leaning in. “It's okay to have fun once in a while... especially when your heart and soul feels against it.”
“You say that now...” Rainbow muttered. “But after all the cider is gone and I wake up from the reverie, I'll just be back to where I was again.”
“Mmmhmmm...” Twilight nodded. “...and sometime after that, you'll be happy again also.” She wagged her eyebrows. “Is that a crime too?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
Twilight laughed.
Rainbow wasn't smiling; perhaps it would have ruined it.
Nevertheless, Twilight wrapped her wing around Rainbow and Rainbow returned the gesture as they both shuffled into Sugarcube Corner... and into the warm echo of friends.
Author's Note
