Midnight Fragments

Echo heard the alarm clock ring and opened her eyes. She had dreamed that again. It was the third time this month. She wiped her eyes with a hoof and tried to relax.

Even though it had happened in her foalhood that dream was always hunting her, as if her mind wanted her to keep remembering. Through the years that memory had become crystal clear, but she only wanted to forget that ever happened, forget about her father, forget about everything about that night.

But with that... wouldn’t she lose mommy? Her mother. Mother.

Mommy.

There was an icky smell from mommy’s chest and it was wet but it was warm so it was okay and she tried licking it but it tasted like coins and mommy told her never to put coins in her mouth so she stopped. Mommy had woke up quickly after she had licked her and was shivering a lot and holding her close and they were moving and she nestled in her hooves and mommy was clattering her teeth and Echo thought they were flying back home but she was flying very slowly and one time she fell down in the snow and she started crying because the snow was bad and it made her really cold. Now she was very very cold because it took mommy a bit to pick her up again and she thought it was like when she swooped her up from the pavement in the kitchen so she giggled even though she had still some snow in her mane.

Mommy was panting really hard and the warm stuff was coming out from her chest a lot and it was getting kind of sticky when it got on her and Echo tried to scratch it off but they still kept flying and she asked mommy if they were going home because it was cold and she wanted to get under the sheets with mommy, even if when she was under her wing she was still warm, but she said they were going to the hospital. Echo didn’t know what the hospital was but she hoped there were comfy beds there too because she was really tired so she asked mommy but mommy didn’t say anything and flew a bit faster so she stayed quiet like a good little pony should.

They fell down a couple more times and it always took more time for mommy to get her up even though she was calling for her and she couldn’t feel her hooves already and she was scared and was crying really loudly but then they got in a warm place where she heard many people and Mommy was screaming and she didn’t like screaming so she covered her ears and mommy fell down again and she didn’t pick her up but one other pony did and it wasn’t mommy and she cried because she wanted her mommy and that pony didn’t smell like mommy and then they gave her something that was sweet like berries and she started eating it and stopped crying because she got berries just once and when she did mommy had told her she was a very very good pony and good ponies don’t cry and she felt sleepy as they put her in a bed that was very soft and warm and she finished her candy and fell asleep thinking of mommy.

She didn’t remember anything of her mother except for those memories. The same she wanted to forget but at the same time couldn’t because they were the only thing that was left of her mother, even though they were like a candy sugar coated with venom...

Night. A time when it was too dark to see, the other ponies had told her. She smiled sadly at the thought. It didn’t make any difference. Whatever they called it, to her the world was always dark, black. Other ponies used to sleep during that part of the day, but she liked to take strolls and fly at that time. During the night she couldn’t hear anybody pity her, no foals asking their mothers

Mommies

why her eyes were white, no one to bump into. She felt free and careless while the gentle breeze sang in her ears and all around her.

All around her there was only void, just like her eyes. She would never see the brightness of the moon, or know what the word “bright” could mean, swimming in an endless sea of nothingness to which she had grown accustomed... The world to her was nothing but the darkness shrouding her eyes.

She knew everyone else thought she was losing much, but only because they didn’t know what seeing without their eyes meant. She had a whole tactile universe waiting to be unravelled, an infinite amount of sounds she still hadn’t heard, flavours she would one day try, enjoying every second of freedom from her “cage” of nothingness.Those who took pity in her took sensations for granted, but in reality she thought she was luckier than anyone else. Those who had the burden of sight were, for her, the ones to pity.

Ponies based their entire lives on seeing and always craved more. Their senses were overexcited, always stimulated. They lived in an ocean of visual images, completely submerged, overwhelmed, addicted to their own natural drug and always needing a larger dose, a variation of the basic formula. They travelled to see new places and new views, to admire new landscapes.

Why did they do that? To her, the quiet murmur of the crickets in the long summer nights was more pleasant than any symphony. The feeling of cold water roll over her sweating body, making her shiver for a second and then washing away all her fatigue, was the purest sensation of bliss. She was the only one who could experience the true taste of meals, even the simplest ones. It made her laugh how those who saw always searched for new exotic places, trying to find pleasure in change... and she was the one they called impaired! The sheer idiocy of those ponies made her laugh, as they ordered foreign plates filled to the brim with strange spices. To her they were simply hedonists, seekers of new sensations, dulled by their state of constant fulfilment. She couldn’t understand them.

She followed the trail from her bed to the front door. She could feel where she was going because the cloud’s texture was grainy under her hooves,

Grainy: from the bedroom to the front door; curved: kitchen; striped: bathroom; everywhere else, smooth

an ingenious idea the home designer had suggested her years before. She stopped in front of the door and opened it, letting the warm summer air caress her face. Midnight. No one bothering or even caring about her. Just she and night, completely alone and free. She stretched her wings and took off in the direction of the park.

Flying. Peacefulness at last. She found an ascending current and let herself float in nothing, not feeling anything under her, not attached to the ground. That was her Nirvana, pure nothingness, just the wind guiding and supporting her on its great motherly currents. Where was she? She was alone and happy, unheeded, she was an atom in the cosmos, a crazy fragment dancing with the world, itself just a bigger grain of sand in the universe.

What was reality if not what she knew and felt? She was nothing but a speck of dust, endlessly whirling with the earth, lulled swiftly by the currents. She was a bird, a leaf, a snowflake. She was nothing as the void sang its silent song with her, telling her of pleasures unknown, feelings unfelt and melodies unheard, rocking with her to the same gentle beat of the wind.

Slowly, she let go of the current’s loving grasp and landed on the ground, chained but free, her wings capable of releasing her from the torment of being bound to the earth whenever she wanted. She stopped and listened to an owl sing its song of eternal rest in the distance, feeling the still warmth of the night on her coat, as the grass under her hooves bowed to her, mistress of the night. She inhaled.

Oh magnificent pleasure! Oh faint sensation of the soul, sweet scent of roses, unpicked fruits and blossoming flowers! She smiled and her eyes watered. Every atom that composed that nature, every molecule of air that brought the scent from its source to her nostrils was a hymn to joy, a hymn to life, beauty incarnate! Show me your twilight, dying star, blind star, so I shall bask at your last gleaming. I’ll feel nothing and everything at the same time, for I am the non-seeker, the All-in-one, the true unwilling hedonist.

I shall climb mountains and savour the ice that never melts, I shall drink the lymph of the young, rippling leaves, I shall hear the roar and the whimper, but I will never bask in your light, oh passionate aster of the dawn. I shall never gaze at you, beautiful jewel of the night. I shall look into the nothingness, silent, as it slowly speaks me words of wisdom no one will ever understand. I shall taunt you, seer of the light, by not revealing then... and even if I could, why should I? You already know them, but refuse to understand them. You have gorged your eyes with great maggot-feast of the sight, weakening your body and mind.

Close your eyes if you want to see the truth and hear what you’re too busy to listen! Stop and feel what your eyes have shut before you, if you dare. You’ll find a new universe to make up for what you’ve lost, more valuable than the one you’ve bartered.

Echo rolled in the grass, moving her hooves in the air. She didn’t hate the ground, how could she? It had a rich smell that the air couldn’t possibly have had, it had trees, it had flowers. If being bound to the earth was the only price she had to pay in order to feel that sensation, she did it with a smile on her lips.

She felt a butterfly lay on her nose and stopped moving her hooves, to keep it from flying away. She crossed her blind eyes, looking and at the same time not looking.

“I bet you look beautiful...” She whispered to herself. The small insect tiptoed on her nose and took off quickly, scared by her voice. It was time to go. The butterfly was a sign, it was getting late.

Echo flew upwards again and followed the trail backwards to get to her home again. She was tired, but happy. As she entered her front door and followed with her hooves the line that led to her bedroom, she was still smiling. She had to wake up before noon to try some new stunts Spitfire had told her about and she could feel by the air’s warmth that it couldn’t have been more than one hour past midnight. Plenty of time to get there after breakfast.

She lay on the bed on her side, feeling the softness of the pillow on her cheek, covering her eyes with a second shroud of darkness that left her vision unaltered. Those midnight escapings always made her feel better after that dream came to her, after she lost herself into the world around her.

***

An aquamarine pegasus was peacefully sleeping in her bed, her white hair gleaming in the pale moonlight coming from the window. She looked like a pony just like any other, with her eyes closed and half of her face pressed into the pillow, but there was one detail that a keen eye wouldn’t have missed... a soft smile lighting up her face.