Threshold

The morning is when I feel real.

I’m not sure why that is. Maybe it’s because I’ve just woken up from a dream, and the real world is so much more real by comparison that I feel almost normal. Not that I ever remember my dreams, of course.

Maybe I don’t dream anymore at all.

Or I guess it could be that the morning is the part of my day that feels most different. After all, I have my choice of greasy breakfast at a roadstop diner. The paper and the patrons can give me a little glimpse into the lives other ponies get to live. Things are loud and unpredictable, and I remember what it’s like to be part of a group.

It’s a way of looking back into the kind of life I used to live, I guess. Not that I want to.

Feeling real is a blessing and a curse, isn’t it? On the one hoof, it’s great to be real. It’s great to talk to ponies and touch things and feel like you’ll remember it all tomorrow. But, on the other… well, you have to be there, don’t you? You can’t be picky. You have to feel things. Have to talk. Have to consider things and make choices and exist.

I remember the way it used to feel to not exist. Back in Ponyville.

Early in the morning, I’d make myself breakfast. I’d go out to the orchard, before the sun was even up, but there was somehow a light that brightened everything without leaving a shadow.

Sometimes I’d start working right away. But sometimes I wouldn’t. I’d sit back against a tree and watch the world. There were never birds or bugs or even wind; just an empty world. An unfinished world. One that somepony had forgotten, I guess. It wasn’t quite Luna, and it wasn’t quite Celestia. Not night or day. Just an empty time with no ruling deity and no purpose.

Now, non-existence feels like waking up in the cab of an autowagon.

In those few minutes before I open the door and enter the world, I do not exist. I could die, could fall off the planet, could get kidnapped and defect to an opposing nation. Nopony would have the slightest clue, long as I disappeared right then.

But I never did.

I’d get out, I’d wander into some diner, and I’d order an omelet with onions and mushrooms. Then ponies would talk to me, and I’d get to be real.

Then I’d get on the road, and I’d lose that right once again.

Just like that. A vicious cycle of meaninglessness, all to deliver stupid cases of stupid apple jam to stupid distributers.

Nothing could matter less than apple jam.

Drive, drive, drive. Stop for food. Drive some more. Always another few miles. Always a highway disappearing over the horizon. Always more ground to cover.

And, when the sun finally dropped below the horizon, sleep.

Even sleep had been taken from me. No more sleeping in a bed, or even on a futon. No more reading a few pages of the next great Equestrian novel before turning out the lamp and sinking into pillow. Just curling up on the overstuffed seat in the back of the autowagon’s cab and passing out from pure exhaustion.

Except tonight.

I rolled my hips to one side. My flank squealed against the vinyl seat cover.

The dirty, old blanket I had brought with me was more for looks than warmth. Why had I picked this one? Why not the worn comforter, or a hoof-stitched quilt?

I scoffed aloud. I knew why.

The pillow, not just old and stained but lumpy as a head of cauliflower, did nothing to soften the hard metal edge on which I usually propped my head. I sat up, mashed the stuffing around a bit, and laid back down. No better, and now the stuffing crackled in my ear as it expanded.

I sighed. A deep and affected sigh, which nopony at all would hear.

It had been years since I’d had such trouble sleeping. Some dim and distant memory of an ill-fated sleepover flickered in the recesses of my mind. But, otherwise… well, I had never been one for counting sheep, that’s for darn sure.

“End of the road,” she said.

Who said?

I sat upright and peered out the window, into the inky darkness of the woods beyond the autowagon. Somehow, without any sort of sunlight, the trees seemed to be oozing an eerie yellow haze. I scrubbed at the window with the back of my hoof, but the haze remained.

“H-hello?” I called. I couldn’t help but think how muffled my voice must sound from outside the cab, when the voice I had heard sounded so clear.

A creeping feeling snuck up my spine, and I leapt forward to check the front for unwanted visitors.

Nothing but empty seats.

“What in tarnation…” I muttered, flopping back into the seat. “Musta been my imagination.”

And I knew that wasn’t true, but what else could I do? Stay awake all night, hoping to catch some mysterious intruder, and then crash my autowagon into the median the next morning because I couldn’t keep my eyes open?

I laid down again, pressing my back into the cool metal wall at the rear of the cab. My hooves tangled themselves into the blanket and pulled it up to my chin. It wasn’t much more comforting than holding a bunched-up t-shirt would have been.

Adrenaline faded. Exhaustion overtook me, and I slept.

I dreamed about standing at the edge of the Everfree forest, sweaty and bleary-eyed. Cicadas buzzed around me, but not in the normal swelling and rolling way I knew from summers at the farm; no, it was more of a low and constant droning that at once roared in my ears and faded so easily to the background.

My hooves were covered in little dew drops. I lifted one hoof, shook it off. The drops did not release.

I looked down, shook my hoof again. Still nothing. Just cold and wet, clinging to my fur.

“What in the…” I mumbled, now stomping my hoof down in the grass. The blades seemed to compress under my hoof, yet did not lose any dew drops, either. “Consarnit!” I hissed to myself.

Then, I looked up. A familiar figure stood at the edge of the Everfree forest, having come from nowhere.

There was a suitcase on her left, and a ‘slow, curve ahead’ sign on her right. She was looking to her left, craning her neck and rocking just slightly forward and backward on her hooves. She suddenly stuck her hoof out, pointing to her right. Hitchhiking.

“Pinkie?’ I asked, more to myself than to her.

Her head turned slowly, as if watching some invisible autocarriage pass her. A silent wind buffeted her relaxed mane and tail as the imagined driver passed her.

She stamped the ground emphatically.

“Pinkie!” I shouted.

She looked up. Looked right at me, almost seeing me, when--

The extended blast of an autowagon horn woke me with the power of a physical blow. I grasped at my chest and tried desperately to get control of my breathing.

Yellow light filled the cab. Little specks of dust floated through the early-morning sunbeams. It didn’t smell like vinyl in here anymore. It smelled like rain, sand, and sage. Besides the sound of the vehicles passing me on the highway, there was nothing to be heard at all. No breath of wind, no rustle of leaves.

I couldn’t help but think that the dream had felt more real than the morning.

To be continued...

P A T H W A Y

Second Installment of The Chronicles of the In-Between