Should I Stay Or Should I Go
~*~
It was almost evening, and Maureen had hadn’t moved from her living room armchair for most of the day. She’d always prided herself in how busy she was, how diligent in keeping her house clean or tidying the shop she worked retail at. She was always making sure her life was full of activity. But now, she sat, just staring at the table in front of her without moving or saying a word. All those little busy bee activities suddenly seemed so unimportant to her.
This sitting was the most important thing she’d ever done in her life.
In front of her, there was a tall round bottle of almost sparkling purple liquid. It looked thick, like grape cold syrup, but the smell that wafted off of it was like sunshine, newly cut grass, flowers, and stones just before it rained. It smelled like newness. Like hope. But she stared at it with something close to hatred.
In that bottle was a potion. And not just any potion, but one given to her by an organization of odd beings. When one had showed up at her door, a blue creature with bright rainbow hair, she hadn't known whether to laugh or scream in fight. It was a potion that could save her life. And if she’d had the guts, Maureen would have gotten up right then, and smashed it.
She’d had the bottle for a few days now, and it felt unnatural in her small city apartment. It sat there on the table, without shading, without depth. It was like a drawing made real, and even that reminded her of what it would do.
With a heavy sigh, she glanced out her window towards the horizon. The sun was dipping lower and lower towards it as time passed, but also on that horizon was a small, brightly colored blue bubble. It looked like a second sun might be rising, and over the last week or so, Maureen had seen it grow from a blue pinprick, to something more the size of an apricot. It was getting bigger, faster now. She was fairly certain it had grown some even since she’d sat down.
She was running out of time.
All she had to do was drink that potion. Then, it would twist and transform her body into a strange, artificial shape. It would turn her skin to a bright, happy color, maybe a pink or purple. It would make her brown hair long and solid, an undulating wave of bright hues. She would become a quadruped, and her face would morph into that of a large-eyed fake looking cartoony horse. She’d become a pony. And she’d have to live in the new land of Equestria, before that bubble of a new reality swept over her. If she didn’t transform by the time it overtook the city, she’d be dead. Gone forever.
It should have been easy to make the decision. Be a pony, or be dead, it shouldn’t have been that difficult. And yet?
Maureen looked away from the window, over to a small desk drawer with a lock on it. She knew where the key was, and knew how easy it would be to open that up and take what was inside. She hadn’t opened that drawer in almost two years now, ever since her fortieth birthday. She had hoped she’d never open it again, forget where she’d hidden the key. But that hadn’t happened, and the drawer called to her now and then. Recently, it was louder.
She could feel her body aging around her, getting more mortal. She was single, she was alone most of the day, and her cat, Biggles, had passed away three years ago. She still worked a small retail job, still did her best but barely made ends meet. She was developing joint problems. She wasn’t happy with her weight. She wasn’t happy with her life. And she knew it was only going to get worse.
It was only natural for someone like her to have a drawer like that, she’d comforted herself. It was only natural to want an escape route, some way to stop the aging and make a hasty exit before things started to really go downhill. It was only natural to have the occasional impulse to be so tired you wanted to stop the struggle and just sleep, all with the simple pull of a trigger.
She hadn’t done it, but it now raised the question of whether this life was worth preserving. Whether she was worth it. She’d have to get a pony job, learn to walk on four legs, try to scratch out a living in Equestrian too. It would be a new start, which sounded more exhausting to her than hopeful. She didn’t have much here, but she’d lose it all and have to begin again. She’d age as a pony too.
Once more, her eyes were drawn back to the sparkling potion on the table. She wasn’t sure which called loudest to her: The blue bubble on the horizon, the desk drawer, or this potion. There didn’t seem like a correct decision.
Maureen breathed in heavily, held it for a moment, then let it out between pursed lips. She didn’t have much time to figure this out, and she wasn’t getting anywhere just sitting here and thinking. She needed another voice in her head besides her doubts, anxieties, and sadness.
With a surprisingly steady hand, she reached out for the phone on the side-table next to the chair. She punched the first autodial programmed into the phone, and waited as it rang a few times, then picked up with a distant click.
“Hello?” said a wizened female voice.
Maureen hesitated, then spoke.
“Hey mom.”
She waited for a response.
“Maureen?”
“Yeah, it’s me.”
She could hear how hollow her voice rang, even with the phone pressed against her ear.
“…Honey, are you still home? This says you’re calling from your apartment!”
“Yep. Still here,” Maureen said, trying not to laugh. “It’s sort of why I called but… how are you?”
“Oh, don’t you mind me,” her mother said with a sharp chuckle. “They treat us okay, they give us meals, make us listen to godawful fifties cover singers who volunteer here… probably to fulfill court orders, I’d wager. The Conversion Bureau hasn’t even payed the home a visit yet, should be weeks before they do. But you’re close to that dome now, aren’t you? I figured you’d have been contacted by them, been all… ponified.”
“So,” Maureen said haltingly, “I wanted to talk to you about that.”
“Shoot.”
Now Maureen again hesitated. She’d never been close with her mother, but now that she was in a nursing home, they’d finally developed a sort of rapport. It was one of the things she was worried about losing in the transition.
“I’m… not sure I want to take the potion,” she said haltingly.
“Well why not, fool girl!” her mother’s voice exploded on the other end of the line. “You drink it or you die, this isn’t like your algebra courses, I’m sure you can figure this one out.”
“I know, I know,” Maureen said quickly. “But there’s more to it than that! The blue pony with the wings who brought it to me, told me that when I took the potion I should expect… changes.”
“That’s kind of the point, dear.”
“Ugh, no, would you just listen? They say that you’ll change on the outside, but that you could also change on the inside too. Not just organs, all that. You might change who you are as well as what you are. And… I’m not sure I want that.”
“You don't have much of a choice,” her mother said.
“But I do,” Maureen said with a sigh. “I could just wait for the dome to eat more of Earth. Just… let it happen.”
There was a piercing silence, and Maureen spoke quickly again before her mother could think of what to say.
“I’ve lived half my life now,” she said, almost smiling at finally getting to put all these feelings to words. “I’ve grown up, had my childhood, settled into a sort of rhythm. My life isn’t much, maybe it isn’t even one worth saving, but it’s one I’m used to. I don’t know that I want to start again. Besides all the little things, losing my thumbs, losing my ability to walk around on two legs, living in a world where they don’t eat meat… I’d lose what it was to be human. I’d stop being, well, me. And that’s terrifying to even think about. I’d have to become someone entirely new. And I’m tired, Mom. I’m so tired. I don’t know that I have the energy for that.”
She took a few steady breaths, liking that it was all laid out now, that it sounded so logical when she said it aloud. After a weighty pause, she heard a strange noise through the phone. She at first thought it was a sob, but she soon recognized the sound of her mother’s scornful laughter.
“Of course you’re tired!” she said with a scoff. “We’re all tired. Life makes you tired, and it gets worse the older you get. But you’re being offered something here, something real. A new chance. If you end it, sure you don’t have to work hard anymore, but there’s no chance to change your lot in life, alter course! And right now you have a magic bottle that can give you a shot. It might make you feel younger, might lead you to meet true love, might make you feel more like yourself than ever. Had you thought of that?”
Maureen found herself at a loss. She’d thought of that before, sure, but she didn’t expect her mother to put it so clearly.
“Honey,” her mother said. “I’m in the last years of my life. I’m getting old, and I’m still gonna take that potion. Never pass up the chance to try a new path, because at least there’s a chance there. A mystery. Something new. Something undiscovered. And discovering stuff is the best part of being alive. That curiosity… that’s what makes us human. And even if you look like a pony, I’m willing to bet you’ll never lose that part of your humanity.”
She sensed her mother was done, but as Maureen tried to speak, the other woman cut her off. It was something she’d done countless times int heir history.
“Now, drink your damn medicine, and call me when you’re a horse, okay? From horse world. If they have phones or all that.”
“…Mom?”
“What, it’s almost pudding time.”
“…Thank you.”
She heard a short laugh at the other end of the phone, then a click to show the line was dead.
Maureen sat a moment longer, wrapped in the quiet Then, wordlessly, she stood up from her chair and picked up the bottle. It felt oddly warm under her fingers, and she clutched it tightly to her chest as she walked to the door of her apartment and made her way down the stairs.
It was eerily still out on the streets, nearly silent. Almost everyone had taken a potion now, gone to be in Equestria. Maureen had waited so long, almost too long, and she stood in the solitude of the human realm, looking down the street at the area where the sun was now kissing the skyline. There, she could still see a bubble of blue, like a marble or a rising planet. But now, for the first time ever, that shape looked almost inviting.
She hesitated only a moment longer, just long enough to again feel her aging body around her, feel who she was, who she had worked and suffered to be. Then, she shut her eyes, and raised the potion to her lips.
“To curiosity,” she said out loud to herself.
Then, she began to drink.
-END-
Author's Note
Write a Conversion Bureau story, they said. We'll pay you, they said. It'll be fun, they said! WELL HERE'S YOUR FUN. Anyway, I've never written this sort of world before, so I hope it's at least entertaining for those who know it. I tried. If there's all sorts of rules I didn't follow or align to for this universe, well...
I do not at all care.
I hope you liked it, Griseus. I took it seriously, just as you asked. This story was written as a commission for Griseus, and if you'd like to commission me as well, check my blog posts and user page! I may still be open to them!
-pencil
