Lily Blossom's eyes snapped open. Steep breath in, steep breath out. A sharp twinge crossed her tired eyes. One blink. Two blinks. Her eyes fell into focus. Plaster ceiling. Blue-plaid bed covers. Small balcony overlooking the street. This was most definitely her apartment. Every muscle in her body seemed to get queasy as she pulled herself upright and attempted wring the exhaustion from her body. When she felt the strength slowly begin to flow, she creaked her neck sideways and looked at her alarm clock.
The red form of 7:45 am glared back at her. Suddenly, she decided, she had more than enough energy.
She sat up, and her eyes dashed across the room. Each subsequent item she spied reminded her of something she needed. Oh crap, oh crap, OH CRAP. She was going to be so late. Not good, not good. She flung the covers off and rolled onto the floor. Wristwatch, that was first. With her teeth she grabbed it from her night stand, wrapped it around her fetlock and pulled the buckle taut.
It was Tuesday, right? Or Wednesday? Her brain was a complete mess. As was her hair, she noted as she glanced in the mirror. She snatched up a brush with her wing and attempted to pull it into some semblance of order. Good enough, she supposed. Uniform, where was her uniform? Did she - oh no, she washed it last night, didn't she? Yes, there it was, out on the clothesline on her balcony. Tug. Okay, uniform on. It wasn't dry yet, but it would have to do. Was she forgetting something?
She was forgetting something, wasn't she? She was completely forgetting something, she just knew it. What was it, what was it, what was it? Ugh, she was so frustrated she could just-
Cash! Of course!
With a silent a-ha! she grabbed her billfold off the dresser. There. She had everything she needed. A single leap and she was on her balcony. Another leap and she was soaring through the air.
Her watch told her it was now 7:50 am. She'd have to fly her fastest to get there in time. Pumping her wings at full strength, she shot like lightning across the blue. Below her, car horns blared and pedestrians jeered at each other, creating an orchestral cacophony of city noise. The Neon El Train hovered through the air a few stories above street level, stopping just ahead of Lily at a station built into a bypass. Skyscrapers rushed past her face, or rather she rushed past theirs, as she tore through the metropolis that was New York City.
When she reached 8th street she took a sharp right. At the middle of the block she made a steep dive and pulled back slowly, letting her hooves connect with the ground. There in front of her was the building, with five minutes left to spare. She dashed inside and began pressing madly at the down call button for the elevators. Others waited too, but they were all going up, she could tell from their fine business suits. Reporters most likely. Lily stood there waiting nervously for what felt like an hour. Eventually an up elevator came, and all the people and ponies standing around her filed in. Their door closed as quickly as it had opened, and still no down elevator appeared. She glanced between the lift and a nearby access door. Was it worth it? She looked at the elevator lights again. No lift. She'd have to hoof it.
She kicked open the door to the access stairs and began to leap down entire flights. In a matter of seconds she reached the bottom floor. Out the door, down the long concrete corridor to a cast iron door labelled Service and Maintainence. She hastily slipped inside.
There, all of her co-workers were already dressed and lined up, ready to go. Before them stood her supervisor, Mr. Foreman, a tall man with a moustache that was about as prickly as his attitude. He glared at the new arrival.
"Lily Blossom," he noted, "you're late."
Lily Blossom took her place in line with an apologetic smile.
"Sorry, Mr. Foreman, sir. Won't happen again."
"You bet it won't. One more time and you're out of here, you got that?"
Lily Blossom lowered her head, and inhaled steeply before looking back up.
"Alright, is everyone ready?" Mr. Foreman glanced around at his subordinates, "Okay, assignments..."
He began to read names and tasks off a clipboard. One by one, Lily's co-workers ran off to do their assigned jobs for the day. When Mr. Foreman got to Lily, he read aloud,
"Lily Blossom...windows, east side, floors ten through twenty."
Mr. Foreman dismissed her with a wave, and she hurried off to grab a bucket. At least she was getting a good job today. It was infinitely better than emptying garbage cans or cleaning lavatories. The only thing that could have made it better, she thought, is if she had been given garden level duties.
She picked up a hose and began to fill the bucket. The sound of the rushing water pushed all thoughts of work away from her mind and she fell into the garden in the lobby. All the trees, and the grass, and the fresh smell of flowers suddenly surrounded her. The peace and tranquillity of it was like a childhood home of hers that she had forgotten about. But she had never known such a place; she had always lived in New York City. It was where she was born, where her parents had raised her, and where her parents passed away.
The water reached the top of the bucket and Lily stopped the flow. She picked up a condensed soap tablet and dropped it in, watching the suds foam up on their own. Her mind now wandered to the roof garden, a mountaintop sanctuary encased in clouds. This too reminded her of home, like a place where she belonged. Where she was just like everyone else. Oh how she longed for such a place; but such a place did not exist. It was a figment of her imagination, a fantasy.
Did she perhaps live in fantasy, to believe so strongly in this projection of her imagination? To feel it so vividly as if she had actually been there, perhaps had lived there her whole live? To long for it, yearn to find it, as though it were rightfully hers and had long since been stolen from her? She could not tell. But what was important was the here and now, in which she still needed to grab a sponge.
And so the sponge became the object of her grabbing as she dropped it into the soapy water. There, it was all prepared. And yet, she still felt unfulfilled. The task at hand was complete, so why wasn't she content?
She lifted the sopping wet sponge out of the water, and stared at it for a moment before crushing it between her hooves. Water splashed nonchalantly across the concrete floor.
What was missing?
* * *
Five minutes later, Lily Blossom hovered level with the tenth floor, a bucket locked into the crook of her foreleg, and a sopping wet sponge strapped to her opposite hoof. Despite her best efforts, she couldn't keep her mind off the garden. Something about that place had ensnared her mind, and she didn't want to escape. There was a pond in the lobby-level garden, and when she closed her eyes she could see her reflection in the pond's water. She saw herself. A pony, not a human. She was different. Maybe not unique, but definitely different. There was something slightly uncommon about her.
The pony she saw on the other side of the reflection looked like a friend. Like someone she could trust, someone she could count on. She wanted to dive headfirst into the pond and meet that someone. But she would pull back from the water, breathing heavily. She would pause, and slowly lower herself to the ground, gazing across the perfectly smooth surface of the pond. At the center, she would spy a white-petaled flower floating just atop the surface tension.
A lily.
Lily, her name was Lily, and she was washing windows. Focus, Lily Blossom, focus.
She put her hoof to the window, applying the soft sponge to the grime. Soapy water streaked down the glass. She swiped the sponge across, and there came a clear patch where she could look through and see the office workers. But there was another, like a ghost in the room beyond the window pane. The figure of a filly looking out the tenth floor window, staring back at her, with everyone within walking past like the figure wasn't there.
Her reflection, staring back at her, looking into her eyes.
"Oy, Lily, you alright?"
Lily Blossom did a double take as she was pulled back into reality. A pegasus colt carrying a similar bucket had materialized next to her wearing a concerned look on his face. Clockwork, she thought his name was, but she could have been wrong.
"You seem off, today," he noted. They exchanged a short glance before he said, "hey...if it's about what Mr. Foreman told you, don't even think twice about it. You know how he gets."
She looked away, and smiled gratefully. "Thank you," she murmured, before thrusting the sponge back into the bucket and pulling it out with a fresh stock of soapy water.
* * *
When her work for the day was done, Lily Blossom took a quick shower in the basement change rooms. It wasn't the most pleasant of places, but she needed someplace she could think. Someplace she could just be alone. Where she could think about things without being asked about her thoughts.
The water kicked on, and she leaned into it, trying to get all the sweat and grime off. One hoof up into the stream. Then another. She watched the soap and dirt swirl down into the drain as she rinsed out her coat and mane, drifting in a spiral like a hypnotic disk. She took a deep, shuddering breath and closed her eyes.
Is this what living feels like?
She didn't remember ever bearing this feeling before, and yet it felt so familiar to her. A sense of hopelessness, of joylessness. A feeling that told her she had never had a purpose and never would. That she was just a stepping stone for the more privileged members of society. The ones who stood upright, and had hands. The ones who could perform human tasks with ease, rather than fumbling with hooves in a world made for humans.
Four dollars a day. That's what she got, every day, for her troubles. That's how much it cost society to abuse her contribution to the workforce. She was only late because she was exhausted. She was only exhausted because she did more than her share of the work. She only did more than her share of work in hopes that she might get a pay raise. She only wanted a pay raise because she was earning a fraction of minimum wage. And the government couldn't stop them from paying her less than minimum wage because minimum wage laws only applied to humans.
"It's all just so god-damned stupid!" She shouted, and her voice reverberated sharply off the faded blue-and-green bath tiles.
Nobody heard her.
She leaned forward and rested her head against the tiled wall. She let out another shudder, and all the blood rushed to her face. She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream and thrash about and make the world feel what she felt.
The water soon stopped, and Lily shook herself dry as best as she could, and began making her way out of the building. It had been a long enough day, and she just wanted to get home. Back to her apartment where she had air conditioning, television, and a comfortable bed.
She pressed the call button for the up elevator to get her back to the lobby. The arrow sign up above lit up instantly and the door opened. Sure, NOW there's an elevator. She stepped inside, pressed the 'lobby' button, and promptly collapsed upon the wall. The door shut, as too did her eyes.
Lily blossom looked up into the sky outside her building. The sun was low in the sky and it couldn't have been earlier than 8pm. Could she make the flight home? She stretched her wings out to their full span, and a twinge ran through her body. She'd over exerted them for the day. No way she could fly home. She could always walk, but it would take her at least an hour. She wasn't sure she had that kind of energy, and if she did, she was very sure she didn't want to spend it running.
She had cash. She could just take the subway train.
Lily hated taking the subway, but the train ran just in front of her apartment. It was quite convenient. The only trouble was the sort of people you met on the train, but she supposed it was worth the risk. She couldn't afford a cab, if she could even get one to stop for her. She wasn't about to hitch a ride, and she'd already established that she couldn't walk nor fly that distance.
Subway it is.
She descended the stairs into the subterranean shaft. The cold, dank air bombarded her senses. A faint smell of tobacco and alcohol cowered behind the overpowering scent of urine and dying rats. The troubling part was, this wasn't even the reason she disliked the subway. As this thought crossed her mind, her pace quickened. She soon spied the ticket machine and hastily galloped over to it.
She hurriedly pulled a fiver from her billfold and inserted it into the machine. With the tip of her hoof she tapped 'single ride' and scooped up the subsequent ticket. A quick glance around. The subway seemed mostly empty. A couple of businessmen here and there. No other ponies, though, which made Lily Blossom wary. A train pulled up headed in her direction, and she jumped onto it without hesitation.
The car was completely empty. All of the businessmen were headed in the other direction, apparently. Her stop was nearly two hours away.
Two hours to herself.
A small smile crossed her face. Sometimes, she supposed, it's the little victories, isn't it?
And she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.
"Well, lookie here. A pony," a gruff voice spoke sharply into Lily Blossom's ear. Her eyes opened wide as she took notice of the three human figures looming over her. Her body soon became engulfed with involuntary quakes. She recognized the black arm-bands the three of them wore instantly.
Sapienists.
"You know, eh," the one on the left spoke, "we don't like you magic horses on our car. So, uh, why don't you scram before I do something you'll regret, huh?"
"No no," said the one in the center with a smirk, "let her stay. This could be fun. Or wait...are you a he? You ponies are all so effeminate, I can never tell."
"Like we care," said the one on the right.
"Oh, I care," said the one on the left, "colts are much less fun. I can tell the difference. This one, look. She's tremblin' all over."
Lily Blossom wanted to run, but there was no way out except up, and her wings refused to function. She was trapped. The one on the left leaned in next to her. His eyes glazed over and he put on a faint smile.
"Now there," he said softly, running his fingers through Lily Blossom's mane, "what're you so scared for? We're not gonna hurt you," with these last two words he pulled sharply on the bit of her mane that was in his grip. She yelped. She squirmed. The three towering figures laughed themselves to tears.
"Hey, so uh, boss," said the one on the left, "what do we do now?"
"Well, she doesn't seem to want to leave our car," the one in the middle spoke calmly, closing in upon Lily Blossom and further trapping her in her seat, "I think it's up to us to make her see reason..."
The two peripheral sapienists cracked their knuckles. Smiles flashed across their faces as their beady eyes glared at Lily Blossom. The middle one snapped his fingers. The next thing Lily knew, she was engulfed in a world of dark and lifted into the air.
"Quick, open the duffel bag!"
"I've got it, lay off me!"
"Faster, dumbass!"
Through the fabric that covered her head, Lily heard every word of their mad panic, and it equalled her own. She knew what came next. Everyone did. The sapienists made sure the whole world knew what happened to any non-human that didn't keep their wits about them.
Her hooves touched cold plastic and she squirmed. There it was. They were shoving her inside. Rough hands pressed her face in. She heard a zipper pull coming closer. This was it. She was-
"Hey," said a new voice, "what the fuck do you think you're doing?"
"Shit, let's scram!" said the middle one. Lily Blossom felt herself lift back into the air slightly, "no, stop! Leave her, dumbass!"
She dropped back to the floor with a dull thud. There was a cacophony of footsteps scrambling past her body. A new pair of feet paced their way up the car to her duffel bag. Soft, gentle hands brushed against her midsection as the bag came unzipped. The woven sack lifted from off her head, and she gazed up at a human.
Was he human, though? He certainly looked it, but... from a single glance, she felt as if she knew him. As if they were one and the same.
She knew that she could trust this man with her life.
