Everything was silent in the apartment. High Timbre was not shuffling about, muttering angrily as he sipped his coffee. Matte Black was not found on the ottoman poring over her gossip magazines. Nor was Shiny Veneer seemingly bickering with himself over some odd task. Even the hushed tones of the resident intern twins were absent.
Silence is golden. Orange Timber savored this moment in comforting sleep before slowly stirring awake. The room around him was an absolute mess; half-finished engravings and empty soda bottles were strewn about as if a tornado had passed through. Though the hypothetical tornado would be described as a ginger maned, Appleloosa hick—Orange Timber already fulfilled that role.
He swung his legs over the side of his bed and picked through the remains of sleepless nights on his floor. While searching for the engraving he was working on last night, he checked and downed the last drops of flat soda in the bottle on the nightstand. With the room being in the state of disorder that it was, Orange resolved to go on about his morning rather than continue his fruitless search.
The living room was as quiet as a graveyard. With the radio turned off, coffee pot unplugged, and no burning smell from the kitchen as evidence of breakfast, it was no wonder he slept so peacefully. However, it was strange that such a morning could exist in the apartment.
Orange raided the icebox for a soda pop and tuned the radio in to the local hoofball station. He plopped down on the divan with his hind hooves on the coffee table and listened in; as per usual, hype was building over some upcoming game—this one was scheduled for March. This caught Orange’s attention; had they not been advertising the next one for February 14th?
While sipping his drink, the game commentary cut away to the weekend forecast. The fizzy swill was spit out in shock when Orange heard the date: the 15th of February. The 14th was yesterday; the last he remembered, it was the 13th. Where did the day go?
Six of Spades and Orange Timber were chatting over lunch on the 13th. High Timbre was fretting over lack of jobs and mortgage payments while Shiny Veneer was off causing/preventing some type of cataclysmic event in his small world. They mostly stayed in that day until Six mentioned Hearts and Hooves’ Day. In need of a trip into town to pick up a gift, and hopefully a mare to give said gift to, the two made for Appleloosa once they finished their meal. It wasn’t as if the two had anything else better to do.
The duo exited their apartment to the warm, dusty roads of Appleloosa. The morning rush hour had subsided to an occasional drawn carriage passing their way. Oftentimes they would take a night out on the town together for friendly fun; however, today they were on a mission.
The crunch of the dry ground sounded in double time as they trotted towards the center of the town. It was strange being out with his friend during the day; at night, Six’s navy coat was less noticeable in contrast to the earthy tones of the native residents. Orange thought about how Six blended in back in Las Pegasus; despite being an Earth pony, he had a metropolitan air about him. Such musings quickly left Orange’s mind when they finally reached the row of shops and public amenities at the center of town.
The Nickel Shoe, the general store, had nothing romantic; every floozie they met was more apt to hold their hoof for bits than seek a lasting relationship, and every place they went did not have a decent root beer float. It was at the Roasted Sarsaparilla that they finally made some progress. Six and Orange stopped for happy hour when they met this dim ray of a mare.
The pegasus’ smile seemed weak and meager; it had a deal of humbleness in comparison to the commonplace grins brimming with southern pride. Her mane was a pale beige to complement her brown coat and small, ruffled wings. Six threw a glance at Orange, which he returned, and began to chat her up. After introducing herself as the daughter of a local sharecropper, she mentioned cooking for her family and friends for bits. This was supplemented with the offer of a pie she had brought—Appleloosa Fried Cherry Pie, as she called it. Finding no fault in free food of any kind, Six and Orange Timber quickly agreed in helping themselves to a sample of her pastry.
To be concise, it was amazing. It had the sweetness of sugar beets used in common cola, the tartness of cherry, and was all wrapped in a flakey crust. After such a morsel like that, it is no wonder all other details from the 13th seemed so hard to recollect.
Orange racked his brain as to what happened next while he downed the rest of his soda and retreated to the icebox for another one; he found something other than sugary drink, however. Inside, presented on a dish free of blemish, was a slice of the familiar pie garnished with heart-shaped whipped topping.
Pausing in dismay, he could only think about how the day that started with a good friend and ended with good food seemed to reverse. Now at the start of a new day, he has been greeted with good food and no friends. At least, he hoped the pie was inherently good.
Thinking correlation was not the same as causation, Orange Timber removed the dish from the icebox. He sat down at the dining table and hesitated before plunging his fork into the baked good.
“What in tarnation is this?”
After biting off a section of the pie, the fluorescent purple filling flowed out from the crust in a more ominous than appetizing manner.
“Oh well, why fret over an empty stomach?” Orange thought as he swallowed the bite.
All he felt was a mouthful of nothing, it was as if the morsel had disappeared from his throat. While recoiling in confusion, he also found that his mobility was limited by some cover draped across his form.
Sitting up in his bed, Orange could only wonder: “What just happened?”
Everything was silent in the apartment. High Timbre was not shuffling about, muttering angrily as he sipped his coffee. Matte Black was not found on the ottoman poring over her gossip magazines. Nor was Shiny Veneer bickering with himself over some odd task. Even the hushed tones of the intern twins were absent.
Silence is nightmarish. Orange bolted from his bed into the living area only to discover that no one was there. Standing only in his pajamas, he felt very vulnerable in what he considered his home.
The aberrant circumstances abounding were mind-boggling. He couldn’t think with his friends mysteriously absent, there being a missing day, and no soda pop in hoof. How can one solve a problem without first thinking about it over a soda pop? Out of muscle memory, Orange made for the icebox in the kitchen, reaching for the handle that would give way to a trove of colas and tonics, or so he thought. Instead, inside were only slices of pie; on the top rack, each pie was garnished with a letter in whipped topping. The pies read “Timber” from right to left while the one on bottom was garnished with a heart.
Orange began backing away slowly before bumping into the dining table. Swinging around, he was only greeted by the pie he tried to eat only minutes before. It even had the bite taken out of it, the filling still oozing in its Rorschach-like pattern across the plate.
Enough was enough, Orange was officially in a state of nope. He dashed from the dining room directly to the front door and pulled open the door with all his might. Rather than an archway to Appleloosa, he was greeted with a face-full of concrete
His breathing became heavy as his mind bent under the perverseness of the situation. He just wanted to get out. He wanted his friends back, and something to eat besides those rotten pies. He—
“Orange, please turn around,” a tender voice cooed.
Stilling himself the best he could and donning his best stoic façade, Orange Timber turned around. “Wh-who the h-heck are…?”
The sentence was uttered in vain, for before him was the same mare with the dim smile he had seen at the Roasted Sarsaparilla, the same, small-winged pegasus with ruffled feathers. She also had a pie in her hooves: an Appleloosa Fried Cherry Pie.
Adrenaline filled his veins. He tensed at the sight of her but was unnaturally rooted to the spot, unable to fight or flee.
“Will you please try some of my pie?” She raised the dish in her hooves up to his face, a fork included.
Orange, for some reason, was calmed by this. Despite still being filled with terror, his muscles relaxed and his jaw slacked. He reached out with an unshaking hoof and took a bit of the pie by the fork, placed it in his mouth, and closed his teeth around nothingness.
Orange Timber held his eyes as tightly shut as he could. There was no way he was going back to the limbo that was the apartment and that mare. He held them shut for a while, longer than he could keep track of, until something started to poke his side.
At first, he tried ignoring the discomfort, but after enduring it for what seemed like hours, he gained the resolve to face the bastardized reality again.
“Hey buddy? You awake?” It was Six, sitting on a nearby ottoman. Orange realized that he was sprawled out on the divan in his apartment.
“Huh? What happened? You’re back?” Orange asked, eager to ask a dissertation’s worth of questions, though he needed just the basics for now.
“Woah, slow down buddy. You just had an allergic reaction, that’s all. Something about an ingredient in the soda Belle uses in her pies. The doc had a look at you and gave you some meds. You’re fine now.” Behind Six’s broad shoulders was the mare—Belle he presumed—hidden by most of Six’s muscular bulk.
“Orange, I made you an apology pie. This one is hypoallergenic. I promise it is just as good as the last one!” She offered the pie towards Orange with the familiar, tender smile on her face.
Orange quickly knocked the pie straight out of her hooves onto the floor.
Author's Note
Inspired by a friend.
