“I can recall, upon the morning of Saturday, January 20th, one day after the 45th President of the United States of America was inaugurated, of a time when I appeared to speak on MSNBC. ‘Sir,’ an authoritarian woman with a fake, but nonetheless concerned face asked me, ‘as a man from Mexico, the events unfolding in front of you must truly be appalling. The membership of right wing nationalist groups has skyrocketed. A misogynistic, corrupt, billionaire tyrant who sexually abuses women and refuses to publicly reveal his tax returns has just been given the launch codes. And perhaps the worst of it all, there’s talk of a 70 billion dollar wall to be built on the border of the land you’ve long called your home. Given all of these things, these terrible, terrible things, is there anything you’d like to say to a battered nation moving forward in these troubling times?’
And for her, there was but one response: ‘Thank God for tacos!’”
-Some Guy from Guatemala
Everywhere.
That is where it had grown. All the way down to the streets of a nearby neighborhood did it spread, with no beginning, nor end in sight. A fleshy mass with the complexion of raspberry cotton candy had consumed the area--rolling across asphalt, lawns, and cement like slow-moving molten lava, fresh from the maw of an erupting volcano.
The sky had grown dark, and fittingly so, for the encroaching blob had, by this point, bulldozed half of every bit of infrastructure that made up the homes surrounding Canterlot High School. At its borders, there was a panic. People of all sorts, backgrounds, and incomes dotted around the damnable thing. Some ran in terror, while others stood and gawked. A news crew, by helicopter, flew over it, camera at the ready.
“This is Special Report,” Special Report said, “coming to you live with a special report. It seems that, this Tuesday, things aren’t looking all too bright for Canterlot High. The public school, formerly known for its good test scores and staff, has been taken over and leveled by what some are now calling a ‘national health crisis’.”
Down below, another house was crushed like a cracker under a rolling pin. From a distance, Aria stood in not too much concern for the carnage she was witnessing, pulled only out of the trance of her own errant imagination by an amber girl who she practiced and performed music with.
“Aria!” the amber girl begged, “Aria, we need your help!”
“We?” Aria asked, reluctant, “and who is this ‘we’, Adagio?”
The amber girl, Adagio, shook her head. “Aria, now is not the time to be one dimensional! WE’RE GOING TO DIE!”
“Good, this world sucked anyways.”
“ARIA! I SAID DON’T BE ONE DIMENSIONAL!! Do you even know what that thing is??”
Aria didn’t bother looking as another house crunched and caved in somewhere behind her. “No.”
“It’s Sonata!!”
“Sonata??” Aria’s eyes jumped up, “You mean the other girl in our band? The one with the raspberry cotton candy complexion? The one who we spend so much of our time in and out of school with on a regular basis?”
Yes, yes, and yes were all the answers to her questions. All in the form of anxious, affirmatory nodding.
“Huh,” Aria said, “too bad I don’t care.”
“ARIA!” Adagio was now only more serious, clasping her friend’s shoulders, “Don’t you see what’s at stake here?!”
“No.”
“Aria, I hate to admit this, but we both REALLY SUCK as characters. We make really terrible music, and we’re both poorly written cliches without any personality that never had any place in a story by Megan McCarthy. Sonata is the one and only girl in our band that anyone in the audience cares about! If we don’t find some way to help her, to save her and figure out what’s causing all this, then NOBODY is going to ever adore us like I always wanted! We HAVE to save her!!”
It took her a second to come around, but with that second, (and the groan of a teenager,) Aria was on board. “Finnnnnnnnnne.” Aria then paused for a moment, thinking on something. “Wait a second, I’m one of Sonata’s closest friends, and even though I don’t know about how she got to be like this, you do. So how did you find out?”
“Hmm… well, I could tell you, but in doing that, I’d be plugging a plothole, which would be doing a service to the author. Since I am a fundamental asshole, I’m going to not do that. Oh, and when I said ‘we’, I meant ‘you.’ Bye!” Adagio turned around and ran off, scampering away and laughing like a toddler in preschool who was chuckling at potty humor.
Staring up at the growing mountain before her, Aria went to her house, returned with a grappling hook, and did what any rational person would do in the face of a mountain: climb.
The surface was like quicksand, only with more sweat, pus, and hair. It tried to suck Aria in with every step, but her one dimensional-ness prevailed--guiding her through these shifting, oil-coated slopes to the center of what had once been the school she went to every week: Canterlot High. At the center, she could see it: the bloated head of her friend sticking out of the surface, with a small arm poised up, and a taco in her hand.
“Sonata?” Aria asked the head of her friend.
“Oh, hi Aria!!” the head said back, cheery as ever. “It’s Taco Tuesday today!”
“Cool. Do you mind if I ask what this is all about?” She asked, waving her hand in the direction of the still ever-growing mass. She noticed her feet sinking in, so she had to pace to keep from being absorbed.
“Oh, well, you know how I love tacos, right? Well, when I woke up today, I was hungry. Like, REALLY hungry, so I made tacos, and I ate. I ate and I ate and I ate and I ate. I ate tacos! Tacos everywhere! I ate every taco I had my house, at the restaurants, and finally at the school!” She stared at the taco in her hand like she were being magnetically pulled to it--hypnotized. “And this is the lasttttt one, and I’m not gonna let it go to waste, no matter what.”
Aria looked bored, as if waiting for Sonata to finally finish. “Is that all?”
“Huh?” Sonata was snapped out of her trance, “Oh yeah! So, you’re good with me just eating this?”
“Yeah, I don’t really care.”
“Oh, okay, well great!” Sonata opened her mouth, ready to sink her teeth into the poor thing and probably explode soon after.
“Er… wait, no, I do.” Aria said, realizing that not caring would cut the plot way too short and also probably kill her. “Sonata, you shouldn’t eat that taco.”
“Huh? Wadda ya mean? I just wanna finish my food is all.”
“I know, but look around you! Look at what all the food you’ve already eaten has made you become! It’s not good for you, and it’s not good for the town either. If you don’t stop, you might not just hurt yourself, but those around you, too.” Aria said, passionate in her speech, but still pacing to keep from sinking in.
Sonata looked down at her taco, almost shameful, but then, stopped for a moment. “Wait, what’s your motivation in telling me that again?”
“To be completely honest, I’m telling you that because I’m a predictable bad guy character that was in serious need of some depth, but my official reason is because Adagio asked me too and because I guess we’re supposed to mutually respect each other now or whatever.”
“Oh, well that makes sense.”
“Yeah... “ Aria thought she was finished, but strangely, she still had more to say. “Sonata, I wouldn’t say it’s just about the band, but it’s about me too. Every moment I get any screentime, you’re right there beside me. You’re my foil. My double. The exciting character that makes me not boring.” Aria held out her hand, as if asking Sonata to join her. “If it weren’t for you, I’d be nothing, and that’s why I really don’t want you to eat that taco.”
Sonata, with big eyes and a warm heart, looked back to Aria, touched. Despite Aria’s unlovable blandness, there very well may have been something worth caring about inside her. Sonata’s eyes darted back and forth. The taco. Her friend. The taco. Her friend.
With a deep breath and a heavy heart, Sonata took a second to collect her thoughts, then looked back to Aria, having made the right decision.
“I think I’ll eat the taco instead.” she said with that same cheery smile.
“No, wait, Sonata!” Aria reached out, but it was already too late. In one foul swoop, Sonata had bitten into, chewed, and swallowed her food. With that, the world shook like an earthquake. The helicopter pulled away, and the crowds of innocents ran and screamed for their lives.
“Crap” Aria said.
It was a bomb. A bomb on the atomic level. The mass had disappeared, but in its place took a sea of red, pink, and partially digested, latino food. Aria came screaming down from the sky, landing on her butt with a nice, welcoming splat, then got to her feet, careful not to slip in the spillage.
“Well, I guess that is why I’m such an ass.” Feeling no remorse for the pun she had just made, she looked around and saw a taco fall from the sky--the same taco Sonata had held in her tiny hand earlier--with only a single bite to its name. She brought it up to her gaze.
“That didn’t work out well, but at least I don’t have to go hungry, right?” She flipped the thing around and held it up to her mouth, ready to take the next bite, but then she noticed something. Inside the shell, there was not ground beef, lettuce, tomatoes, or cheese. There were only Tide Pods--mini edition.
She shrugged and bit into it anyways.