And That's Good Enough

by Soufriere

Rating: everyone
Tags: Sunset Shimmer, Slice of Life, Equestria Girls
Length: 5823

Sunset Shimmer goes on a walk one Sunday morning and allows her mind to wander.

Sunset Shimmer's mind had been shattered – literally and figuratively – but over the past half a year, she has tried to rebuild it into something that works at least sometimes. Part of her self-therapy is a daily walk. One Sunday morning in Spring, she must decide where to go. In so doing, she ruminates on just about everything in her life.

This story is part of Sunset's Recovery Arc.

Published 2018-04-27 06:50:07 UTC
Last updated 2018-04-27 06:50:07 UTC

I Tell Myself...

The massive redwood forest is eerily quiet as I make my way along the banks of a crystal clear pond at sundown. Do I hear cicadas despite it not being the correct season yet? Or are my ears playing tricks on me? Regardless, I climb up an earthen ridge – too flat and straight to be natural – and walk astride it as I stare at my clipboard on which I should be taking notes. That gets boring after awhile, so I head back down to the pond, sitting myself upon a conveniently placed log at the water’s edge. Maybe there were other people with me too, but at this point I don’t care anymore. I look into the water; its visibility is at least thirty feet before it fades into inky blackness, while at the same time serving as a perfect natural mirror to the orange-tinted forest around me. It looks so inviting. I want to feel it on my body. I want its chill to envelop me. Forget disrobing; I gently fall in.

I feel nothing. No wetness. No cold. No pressure or anything particularly obstructing my ability to breathe as I slowly descend into the abyss. Merely a pall of nothingness enveloping my body, the existence of which I should question but don’t. What do I see? Do I see?

Just like that, I find myself back in the school building. Those square-foot white tiles with the fake scuff marks on them to hide dirt and thus save on janitorial costs are a dead giveaway. So are the orange bricks and metal doors painted a shade not dissimilar to vomit. Well, it matches the bricks at least. Is this my school? Am I a student? I’m here, so the reasoning sections of my prefrontal cortex tell me I must be.

Students walk to and fro – obviously it will be class time in just a few minutes. Do I recognize any of them, perhaps from a different time or place? I walk up a random ramp and turn left into a classroom. I know this is where I am supposed to be, but everything feels off.

Then it hits me. I signed up for this class and meant to drop it but never got around to doing so. And the deadline to drop classes passed a couple weeks ago. I stand just inside the doorway (out of the way of the good students) as my mind immediately goes into a tailspin panic. I never wanted to take this class, and now I’m going to fail it and there’s nothing I can do about it. Crap. Crapcrapcrapcrapcrap…

I hear tinny music. No one else hears it. It’s coming from my cellphone. I don’t have my cellphone. Where is this noise coming from? Why won’t it stop?

My eyes snap open. I see only the ever-present darkness – thank you, light-blocking curtains – punctuated with almost total quiet except for my alarm. Slowly, I roll over in my bed, reach over, and grab my phone. Even if I have no service currently, thanks to how many months(?) of not paying my bill, several internal features work just fine, including the alarm. With a grunt, I turn it off. My eyes narrow as I attempt to decode the numbers on the backlit screen into something my brain can comprehend.

Somewhere off in the distance, a dog barks.

I also hear a car or two drive past. As I live downtown, traffic is kind of a given, muffled though it may be thanks to my living four floors above street level. Even on a… What day is this? I don’t know. I don’t much care at the moment. I turn over to go back to sleep – just give me five or ten until then. The police car speeding by below my window has other ideas. Its siren’s piercing wail quickly rising then falling in pitch thanks to the Doppler Effect shocks me out of my stupor. I briefly consider opening my window for the first time in years and throwing a potted plant at the noise, but reconsider as (1) it’s already passed, (2) attacking a police car is probably illegal even if it is being a nuisance, and (3) I only have one potted plant.

Oh, right. That reminds me.

With all the energy and speed of a three-toed sloth, I raise myself out of my bed and put my feet on the floor. In a bygone era, I would have encountered lovely but cold hardwood. The wood is still there, but covered up by off-white carpet in an ill-conceived remodel decades ago. While I do enjoy the aesthetic of wood flooring and have considered ripping out the carpet, I also like my feet being not cold first thing in the morning, at least that’s what my phone’s screen is telling me. It also says today is Sunday. Weekend. I ponder that as I raise myself to a standing position.

That’s one thing about humanoid feet that make them inferior to hooves – actually feeling things. One can literally nail an iron shoe into the mass of keratin that is a hoof and feel nothing.

As I gradually find my balance and walk with no due haste to my bathroom, several pieces of glossy paper stick to my feet. Junk mail. Some of it has been sitting around for years. Maybe one of these months I’ll actually clean it up. Oh, who am I kidding? I won’t. I shake the offending expired offers off me, making them flutter down to the floor where I no doubt will encounter them again soon. Perhaps tonight.

After ten years of living in this apartment, I can navigate it easily in the dark. Once in the bathroom, however, I shut my eyes as I turn on the overhead light. I hate overhead lights; they’re far too bright for a girl who’s just woken up. Lamps with low-wattage bulbs are preferable. I must ease into this, or else my head will hurt.

My head hurts anyway once I open my eyes. My bathroom is small enough no sane person would be able to lay down in it – I last managed it a few months ago during an off day; my back ached for a week – indeed, “bathroom” is almost a misnomer since all I have is a shower (that took some getting used to), toilet, sink, medicine cabinet, and mirror, none of which are original to the apartment… probably for the best, given the age of this place. I’m reasonably certain this hovel of a privy came from a different cheaply-done remodel during the least aesthetically pleasing, least competent manufacturing period possible. But, junk fixtures help keep the rent low, so I can’t complain too much.

I regard my reflection. After ten years, I have long since become used to this humanoid form and its oddities – tiny nose worthless in the olfactory department preeminent amongst them – so I am able to focus on lesser things. Like the dark circles under my eyes. I know it’s the arteries and veins running through the lower eyelid coming too close to the surface, caused in part by my constant fatigue and poor sleep habits – spending months wishing you were dead will do that – but it’s still unsightly. However, I ignore that for the moment as I take time to brush my teeth. One nice thing about having dexterous digits is the ability to take care of such things. Having to apply deodorant is a rather unfortunate side-effect of this body, but I’ve reluctantly become used to it.

A built-in platform on the side of my mirror’s frame – one of two, obviously meant to hold candles or something – is instead home to Albert, my pet succulent cactus and most faithful companion. I tilt his pot to see if he needs water. No, not today. I touch one of his needles to prick my finger. Why? Why not? It helps me realize I’m awake and alive and can still feel. I need to buy a fluorescent light in here to help him grow; the nightlight can only do so much. My goal is to get him four feet high, even though I’m fairly certain that’s impossible for his species.

Albert reminds me, in his own silent way, that I should ready myself for the day. I tell him to screw off. I’m pretty sure I don’t have anywhere to be.

Back to the mirror. I look terrible, with bits of my hair sticking out in odd directions, like I got into a fight with my oscillating floor fan and lost. But you know what? I don’t care. It’s not a school day – not that I’m required to be there anyway – so I have no reason to look presentable for anyone. I give myself a double-snap finger-point and head back into the squalor of my room, making sure to turn the light out along the way – anything I can do to save on my electric bill.

I walk the few steps to my kitchen – Maybe kitchenette, given its absurdly tiny size – to put the kettle on and try to scrounge up some food. Have I gone to the store on the ground floor within the past week? Maybe? It’s easy to lose track of time: a combination of age and living in doldrums that may as well be a time-loop. Still, what else could I have done to maintain access to that portal besides live a lie? What will they think of me once they find out?

The black-rimmed wall clock confirms what my phone told me. Do I have any muffins? I open my refrigerator. Mostly empty of course, save for a stick of butter, some bread, and a few random vegetables. And in the back I see the remainder of a tin of bran muffins. There are three.

After filling my kettle and choosing my tea for the morning – Earl Grey, hot – I pour myself a glass of water and scarf down one of the muffins. Bran is good for you, and it’s yet another thing besides the tea that reminds me of my old life. Even with a gas range it will take a little time for the water to heat up, so I make my way to the television to see if the antenna has picked up any useful stations.

Before I can sit down on my couch – bought at a factory-defect outlet for thirty Bux – my magic diary, sitting on the upturned wooden cable spool I stole from a nearby construction site and now use as my coffee table, buzzes, complete with lavender aura. Only one mare at the moment has the means to contact me via that thing. Why so early in the morning, Twilight? You’re not really fitting your name here. Oh well. I open to the first blank page, over two-thirds of the way in, to see a message appear in scratchy black penmanship. She’s not dictating this one.

Sunset, I was bored last night because I wanted to read but I had read all the books in my library that I hadn’t told Spike to dust and reshelve so I took a look at some of the early pages of the Princess’s diary. What are all these runes? They’re nothing like the spell runes I use for Star-Swirl’s formulas. It reads like total gibberish! I don’t want to admit to Princess Celestia that there’s something I don’t know! What if she decides to demote me? What if she’s disappointed in me? What if she decrees I need to go back to…

And the message trails off into typical paranoid rambling, as she is wont. I chuckle. Twilight Sparkle, Little Miss Super-Genius, can’t read Ancient Equestrian at all? This knowledge, or lack thereof, might come in handy down the line. I spent years studying those damned runes to get as close to fluency as I possibly could, so I could better communicate on Her level. This is one thing I won’t give you a leg-up on, my friend. After all, didn’t She teach both of us that some things are better discovered on one’s own?

I’ll answer Twilight later. Maybe. My kettle’s screaming. Better remedy that.

The downside of making tea the proper way is it takes forever to cool enough that you can drink it. But it makes for better taste. If you’re using a pot as a middleman, as I do, always add milk or cream before the tea or else it will heat unevenly or possibly scald. I drink tea straight, but that is still a lesson I learned from Her that I will carry to my grave, wherever and whenever that may be.

Do I really want to attempt to stomach Sunday morning television? It’s so inane. I might fall back asleep. No cartoons today — not that I, uh, indulge in such childish pursuits. Oh who am I kidding? Of course I do. But today it’s just men with fancy hair and nice suits talking about some guy who died and invisible cloud monsters, and also send them all of your income so they can buy a helicopter or something. At least I don’t have to pay for the over-the-air crap I watch; I feel sorry for those who got suckered in by the siren song of Cantercast Cable. Maybe it’s a nice thing if you’re made of money. Although I certainly have some savings I almost never tap into, compared to the opulence I encountered back in Canterlot I am far from wealthy. Plus I grew up basically destitute; that never leaves you.

I change the channel to news. Nothing interesting; there rarely is in as safe a city as this. The weatherman, a hefty jolly fellow with dark skin, glasses, and not a lot of hair, informs us that today will be pleasant, slightly warmer than usual for this part of Spring, but a cold front is set to move in later this afternoon bringing rain, and it will be breezy. Always on the weekends.

That settles that. Normally I take my constitutional in the evening, but this time it will be a morning…ish one. Actually, aren’t constitutionals supposed to be taken in the mornings? Certainly, She always did.

I return to my room to throw on some clothes – ponies may not normally wear them, but I learned the hard way that humanoids are much more sensitive about such matters. One of the few times I was able to play up my dodgy immigration status to my advantage. So, what today? My sky-blue shirt with the tiny sleeves and low neckline is clean and its fabric is lightweight. White brassiere and panties; my black bra would be visible under that shirt. I shake the undergarment in my hand. Why did humanoids evolve such oversized, bizarrely shaped teats? And why are mine in particular noticeably larger than average, becoming such not long after my arrival? Nothing about my original form was out of the ordinary for a Unicorn – if anything I was smaller than normal despite being mixed-blood… oh boy did that make me popular with all the purebloods at the Academy. Genetics are strange no matter the species.

Jeans or skirt? Jeans. My loose ones have unidentifiable stains on them, so I guess the hip-hugging ones will have to do. Flash always enjoyed it when I wore those. Rarity has said the same thing. But then her eye is always attuned to fashion, and these do have a nice design on the pockets and cute steel buttons. She’s always so conscientious, that girl. Best friend. I appreciate she trusted me enough to show me those racy photos last week, knowing I wouldn’t laugh. I hope someday she’ll tell me the name of the boy or girl with whom she’s so infatuated. Whoever it is, they’ll be lucky to have her. Luckier than any poor sap who chooses me, for sure.

Socks… white, blah. Which shoes? Normally I’d just wear my boots, but these boots are not necessarily made for walking long distances. My white(-ish) low-top sneakers? Well, I still have trouble tying the laces sometimes – it requires a different kind of finger dexterity than playing guitar or typing. Eh, my boots are long since broken in, so I think I can get away with it without being in excruciating pain. Slip in some gel insoles just in case. That was a good investment.

Okay. I’m dressed. Now what? I sip my tea as the news drones on about local issues related to potholes and parkland.

Where do I want to go? Connemara Square is too far a walk if it’s going to start raining later today. CHS? Pay a visit to the Statue? I don’t know; that’s my normal route and gets boring after awhile. Riverside Park? That’s only, what?, seven blocks due north of my home. Farther than the school and in the opposite direction, but doable. I haven’t been to the river in awhile. Maybe it’s for the best that I go there.

Next to my door is the hook that holds my keys – all five of them (pathetic) – along with my ten-Bux coat-rack. Who today? Sasha or Rachel? It’s warm out right now, so Sasha it is – she has no inner liner. Just leather. Maybe I should consider buying a cutoff jacket for the summer months, or even a sleeveless one with spikes on it like those little girls who sing hard rock during the Riverfront Festival Music Fest.

Hang on. Is that today? I pull my phone back out of Sasha’s pocket and look at the calendar. I think it is. Ehhh…

I don’t know if I want to go to a place full of people. Crowds have never been my forte, and the constitutional is meant to be my happy place, where I can let my brain wander amongst the clouds or errant wisps of wind, always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom. Whatever freedom is. It’s an extremely nebulous concept when you think about it.

As I make my way out of my apartment building, these things swirl through my head not unlike an attempt to add a caramel drizzle to a rotating bowl of vanilla ice cream.

Ten years ago, I fled to this world desiring not only power and control, but also freedom. I felt deceived by the one lady I had loved and trusted most, who was more a mother to me than my biological one (fat cow) could ever hope to be. What did I discover when I arrived? Was it freedom? Who knows. It could easily be that I exiled myself to my own personal prison. Certainly that’s how it feels sometimes. After all, I ran away from my problems rather than facing them, and caused untold misery for others in the meantime.

I want to believe I’m not the same as back then. But that’s not for me to say.

How can I call myself “free” if I can’t bring myself to return to my real home for good, even though the opportunity presented itself three times before I finally took it… and that went disastrously. In my impotent defense, discovering how much my old world had changed was quite the shock. It always is to learn you’ve been replaced and forgotten – intentionally or not (probably the former) – by almost everyone you knew… except for the one pony in the world who never gave up trying to be your friend no matter how often you spurned her. Caddy…

Ah. Finally the walk sign turns green; I can cross the street. Why is it that some walk signs are white and some are green, but all ‘Don’t Walk’ signs are red? The red I can understand – it’s a colour that stands out to the humanoid eye, demanding to be seen – but why can no one agree on its opposite? And what about those who are colourblind? I’m not, but I’m certain there are those in this world who are. What do they do? Do they walk into traffic and get flattened by a bus? If the person in question were terrible to others, would it be amusing to watch?

Am I still a terrible person? Can sins be cleansed? Forgiven but not forgotten, is that how it goes? Or is it the other way around? I can’t remember. I should probably concentrate on not bumping into anyone or wandering into traffic.

But I have to walk into traffic; I’m crossing the street. After all, I have a destination for once. Not usual for my constitutionals. However, this isn’t a usual one, is it?

Another east-west road crossed and I’m a block closer to my goal. I’ve found throughout the years that distances are easier to cover on foot if one is not acutely aware of them. The brain is an amazing organ… but can also be, ironically, incredibly stupid. You can trick yourself by simply concentrating on something else if possible. For example, for my job at the Canterville Underground Weekly Daily, if I can’t think of a good idea for a column, or if the idea I come up with does not hit the word limit, I just prattle on about traffic and things. One time for All-Hallows Eve, I wrote about one day of my life of my foalhood in Stalliongrad. I had to pretend it was a fantasy because no one here would ever believe war and want are actual things that happen, to say nothing of magical creatures. Though many can identify with familial rejection.

The buildings on both sides of Harmony Street are multi-storey, but would never count as skyscrapers; most have two to four floors counting the ground level. In this city, nine storeys (not counting possible basements) seems to be the maximum, and that’s only in the area immediately around Connemara Square. I’m not sure if this is due to a city ordinance or simple lack of population to support taller buildings.

Every block or so, I pass what appear to be houses of worship. The brick, stone, or stucco towers jutting into the sky remind me of the soaring marble parapets of Canterlot Palace and some other grand buildings nearby like the Royal Academy, where I studied magic for a time – not happy memories in retrospect; the Great Museum, where I whiled away many an hour learning history before realizing a lot of it was missing (intentionally, it turned out); and the Royal Library and Archives, scene of my greatest triumphs and greatest failure. Curiosity kills a cat… and an overly curious and ambitious Unicorn. However, I cannot understand the places here. What are the people worshipping? Some sort of sky-god like those good-hair men on TV? When you spent several years of your life under the direct care of what amounts to the closest thing your world has to a god, and conversed with Her every day, everything else seems, well, lame by comparison.

As I cross another street on my way to the park, visions of Her suddenly bombard my mind. I try to shoo Her away but She won’t leave just yet. She says nothing, but gives me that look of disappointment I had long become used to. Never did She have the heart to tell me I was a complete failure and that She had made a mistake… until the very end when we together burned our last bridge. Sure, I may have struck the match, but She did nothing to quell the flames.

Damn it! I don’t want to see that look from You anymore! I’m trying my best in this tomb of freedom! I have friends now! Well, one very good friend and several other hangers-on. Can I call them friends? I suppose so. After all, they did try to help me out of my funk, and they generally mean well (even Rainbow Dash).

Is that what I should call it? “Funk”? Does that cheapen it? I slashed my wrist open. More than once. I can’t even explain why; it was just something I needed to make happen. It’s stupid, but then I’m not the smartest genius. That much I have taken to heart. After all, they say the first step to fixing a problem is admitting you have one in the first place.

I now have one or two friends back home maybe. But then again, what is “home”? I’ve lived in this strange world, in that dump of an apartment, for a full decade. Longer than I’ve lived in any single other place – eight years of hell in Stalliongrad and then just over seven years in the lap of luxury (and hypocrisy) in Canterlot.

It’s not just a model. Any time I try to explain that world to the others, they pretend to take me seriously, but I know they don’t. They can’t. Honestly, insurance and citizenship woes aside, that’s the real reason I’ve refused to see a therapist about my issues. If I told them the truth, I might find myself committed to the Withers Institute For The Hopelessly Insane: a handsome castle-like brick building just past the other side of the railroad tracks near the train station. Not my scene.

What is my scene? I guess where I am right now. Another intersection. Great. The crossing sign beeps as the seconds count down to the point where vehicles can resume their benign rampage. I wonder if I would taste good as a pancake. I guess I’ll never know. In addition to being dead, I could never eat me; I’m a vegetarian. I have tasted my own blood though, out of curiosity. Tastes like centibux – the rarely used, basically worthless coins made with copper plating. Why they bother minting them, I have no idea. How many centibux convert to a single one of the gold Bits I smuggled to this world? Hundreds of thousands, I expect.

All sorts of things change when one passes through that magic mirror – species, writing, measuring devices, sometimes even one’s age… though barely if at all in my case. And yet, it has no effect on gold. This seems to be an ironclad law of the multiverse – nothing can transmute gold. Ever. Pity gold isn’t accepted as currency in this world. That was a headache to deal with. At least I found a nice man willing to help out the scared teenager I was then. He asked nothing in return, except that I try to set him up with the owner of the jewellery store next door, and also be wise with my riches.

I fulfilled that promise to a fault, rarely even paying my bills because I don’t want to tap that reserve except in emergencies.

What would happen to Her if She crossed that threshold? Being thousands of years old, would She wither and die on the spot? Or would She simply de-age to be in Her forties like Her equivalent in this world? What was She like at such a young age Herself? Did the world as we know it even exist? After all, the sun forms first before the various remnants of space dust eventually gravitate toward each other to form planets, planetoids, moons, asteroids, and other sundry objects.

Sundry objects like balloons and multicoloured umbrellas. Just one more crosswalk to go – Water Street – and I’ll be at Riverside Park. One more automated backlit sign to tell me whether I’m likely to be run down, cited by cops, or given the benefit of the doubt if I step out into the road. I’m not sure I want the sign to to tell me to walk. It does despite my desire to stop time. With no good reason to turn around as I’ve already come this far, I cross into the park.

Most days, Riverside Park is a lovely place with well-kept porous asphalt paths and gardens, dotted with trees from every species the City Parks Department could get to grow, and tiny undulations punctuating the land as it gently slopes down toward the River Ferrus before a much steeper incline where the riparian zone begins. On one end of the park, east towards Connemara Square, is the large blue & white gazebo where musical acts play during festivals. Popular for marriages too.

Immediately I am met with the smells of concessions – the pleasant yet relentless assault of sweet, salty, and savoury from the various stalls laid out near the electric and water connections inside the park. At the stalls, and at other not-food tarp tents scattered around, I see people. Dozens of people, maybe hundreds. Part of my brain starts screaming to turn around, walk home, run home. Get the hell out of here. Biting my lip, I opt to override my brain’s flight instinct for now. After all, it’s been a while since I’ve been to any sort of festival.

The presence of a festival turns a humble park into a completely different beast. Carefully laid out rows of tents make the place seem bigger than it really is. Perspective is strange like that.

I have absolutely no desire to interact with anyone this early on a Sunday morning. Or at all, really. But I use time for an excuse as I slip past other passers-by as if they were constructed of hot lava and make my way to a small grassy knoll home to a maple tree in which is a nest of yellow birds. I sit down on the ground, not underneath the nest – birds can be jerks and I’m not that stupid – and try to relax as I people-watch.

I’ve always enjoyed observing, be it for school, fieldwork, or just existing. It makes me feel like I have some level of distance from my surroundings, an invisible wall, psychological barrier. Useful for dispassionate analysis, perhaps less so for being a functional entity.

Amongst the throngs, I notice police retained to keep the peace at this bit of merriment. Not like there’s any sort of danger here, but rules are rules. I steer far clear of them as best I can – this is not a tiny hamlet, so the force is of a decent size, but there is still a chance I could encounter an officer who knows me, and that would be catastrophic. When I dumped Flash, his father the Deputy Chief, in his rage, printed out a Wanted flier with my face on it and hung it in the CPD’s main building. It informs any cop who encounters me to, I quote, ‘Shoot On Sight’. Yet another reason I prefer to stay around the school where I have some control. How many ways am I in a quid pro quo arrangement with the principal? I forget. Fortunately, none of these officers are looking at me askance… for now. Should I risk venturing in further?

I recognize not only the occasional CHS students, but also people who bear more than a passing resemblance to my old classmates back at the Royal Academy. Twilight told me that all of my new friends are doppelgängers of her friends back ‘home’. That didn’t surprise me much since She has an equivalent version, albeit a high school principal rather than a demigoddess queen (who prefers the title “Princess” as it’s less threatening to the rabble). Still a rather pathetic demotion. I wonder if this world has an alternate Twilight. A distinct possibility but, if so, I’ve yet to encounter her. Would she be as neurotic as my Equestrian friend?

Do I have a doppelgänger here? After ten years, I have come to conclude that I do not. That said…

After about six months of my living here, certain people I passed on the street – usually around my age but who I did not know – would double-take upon seeing me, as if they’d encountered a ghost. Even though it didn’t happen that often, I got sick enough of it that I reluctantly tapped into my savings to buy my red wig and dork glasses, assuming an alternate identity for a few years as I acclimated myself to reality. Or this facsimile of reality, the veracity of which I still doubt.

Spending time as someone else and working as a tutor was a pleasant distraction. Honestly, I enjoyed tutoring; I got to rub my assumed genius in people’s faces and gain some income. But too many stupid kids wore me down. Especially those stuck-up Crystal Prep lunkheads. Also Trixie and her *ahem* tendency to be touchy-feely. Once I was more secure in my own boots, as it were, and I was turned down for a teaching position due to lack of certification – being the best tutor in the city was insufficient – social manipulation was the logical next step, I figured.

In so doing, I nearly killed the girl who would turn out three years later to become my best friend. I know she forgave me, but even now I still can’t forgive myself. Most importantly, would She forgive me? That is the question that constantly hangs over what’s left of my mind like a stratus cloud.

As I stand up from my respite to head the several blocks back to my hovel of an apartment, since I can see the clouds are beginning to move in, some random boy smiles at me and waves. I don’t know him. But, She taught me that politeness can break down barriers; I smile and hold up my own right hand in a friendly gesture, gently nodding my head. The entire exchange only takes maybe a second or two, but receiving an unbidden smile – and then a few more from passers-by as I attempt to leave the park – makes me feel… fulfilled in some way.

The friends I’ve made here might make a bigger deal out of it than it probably is. However, as recently as a few weeks ago, if I could even leave my home, I would certainly not be able to put on even a fake smile, so I guess I’m in a better position psychologically today. Rarity might say so, if not in such big words.

The band – is their guitarist one of Pinkie’s sisters? – begins their sound check; evidently they intend to play their set regardless of the weather. Me? I’m out.

Leaving the festival in the park after less than half an hour, I know I’m far from being a functional individual, but I want to believe I am making some progress. And that’s good enough.

For today.

Author's Note

Twelve down, two to go.

Click me, please?