My Little One-Shots - A Rumour That's Not Quite What it Seems
A Rumour That's Not Quite What it Seems
I was once told I would do great things, and that my destiny was to change the world, I was told that I would gain the love and trust of everybody, I was told wrong.
It all started after I had just finished college, I went out into the world and decided to help it survive. I bought a few different seeds and started my own little vegetable patch. I planted the typical things, carrots, lettuce, tomatoes and a few other plants like aubergine and rutabaga. I carefully tended to the plants every day, ensuring no harm befell my children. That was ten years ago.
When the next harvest season came around I found that, with all the extra seeds from the vegetables I'd planted, I would have too little room to completely empty my seed reserves, so I started searching for a small house with a sizeable parcel of land. It took time but eventually I found one. It was a small cottage on the outskirts of town, it had two bedrooms, a surprisingly spacious living room with a wood burning fireplace. It wasn't much, but it was home. That was nine years ago.
After the last few boxes were unpacked i started designing my garden, i tried planting some of my surplus, but nothing would grow, so I decided to get an agricultural expert to test the fertility of the soil.
“Too acidic, nothing will grow here, you need to neutralise the soil some first” I had been told, apparently there was a reason that the land had never been used for farming before.
I asked him how I could neutralise it, “Add some like to it” he said, and told me that it could take anywhere up to a year to neutralise soil this acidic, so I went out and bought some lime and populated my soil with it. That was eight years ago.
Three years passed and I had almost bankrupted myself trying to make make my land fertile, I planted the last few seeds I had and waited. A month passed but finally a small shoot emerged from the soil, I think I actually fell to my knees and cried a little. I had finally managed to grow something. Things were finally going well. That was five years ago.
Some time passed and I started selling anything I grew that I didn't need, it started off making me a little bit of extra money to help manage my little farm, it grew into something huge, restaurants and supermarkets started requesting my produce and paid well for it. I finally felt that my efforts were paying off. I had become a household name and I loved it, I became a celebrity in my own right, I felt as good as I could only imagine the rich and the powerful felt being at the top of the world. My life had turned around, instead of being in a small cottage trying to make some extra money or desperately trying to grow something so I could eat I was revelling in fame and fortune. That was three years ago.
A year passed without incident and I grew comfortable with the amount of work I had to do. Seeing the fruits of my labour was one of my favourite times of the year. Then they happened. Swarms of insects plagued my land, devouring my crop and destroying my harvest. I had nothing more than what I needed to feed myself, I had no time to plant anything new before harvest season came, my work was ruined. I had no other option but to call all of my clients and inform them that the year’s harvest had been destroyed and that they would have to look elsewhere this year. They were very supportive and told me that they'd be looking forward to seeing my crops back in stock. That was two years ago.
Using the surplus I had left I cleared the ground and started replanting. I bought some electric bug zappers and created some stands for them. I went out into the fields on a morning to clear everything out and check for any damage to the plants. The leaves of the larger plants were sparsely peppered with small holes but it didn't seem to be any worse than that. The harvest season came and sure enough my harvest was rich and plentiful. My crops were sent out by the truckload, and I was happy, my crops were happy and I was making everypony else happy. That was a year ago.
Now I lay on the street in bedraggled clothes, hungry and unwanted. The world...My world, crashing down upon me, reality splitting at the seams and everything I worked for, gone. All because somepony supposedly found a half dead worm in their potatoes. What was I supposed to do? Poison the ground with pesticide and hope that nopony noticed? That’s not who I was, who I am, who I wanted to be! Though maybe it should have been. Maybe then I’d still have my house, and my farm, I’d still have everything, and not nothing. I wrap my arms around my knees and cry, I cry until my voice is hoarse, and my head is pounding. I pick myself up, walk to the nearest hardware store and buy a length of rope. I tie a loop into both ends, thread one through the other and, after several failed attempts, I loop it around a lamp-post. I take one final step and accept the inky blackness that overcomes me.
Four Months Later:
A vicar stands with a closed casket on his left, and a wreath and a picture on his right hand side. He solemnly looks at the crowd before him “We are gathered here today to mourn the loss of a dear friend of ours, somepony who worked to make as many ponies as they could happy” as he speaks the wind picks up, drowning out his voice, it settles as he says “God rest their soul”.
Author's Note
This is my third one-shot and I'm open to feedback as I'm currently writing another and would like to know any mistakes I've made so far so I can (hopefully) correct them before the fourth story is published