I was once a human. One who never felt accepted in my original skin. The world around me was never something I could ever hope to understand. Well, not the world exactly. More, the people.
What they thought. Why they acted the ways they did. How they could be so cruel to all around anyone not them. Could they not see the pain they caused? How others suffered while they claimed to be so pious?
Truly, they were things I would never be able to understand. I stood among them, yet apart. My mind made it very clear as it screamed for me to do more and more to help. To take the pain of others and carry it for them often until my knees buckled and my back collapsed under the strain. Just so at least one other might be able to ease they worries for even a moment.
It took its toll. It always took its toll. My mind fixated. Repeating events over and over again as it seemed to take perverse glee in ripping me down, know that I couldn’t escape. Knowing that I could do nothing but listen.
It drove my weaknesses home. Every slight, imagined or not. Every encounter, every person I couldn’t help. It hammered them into me, over and over again. It took in the words, the looks it understood in its own way, the way people declared me useless, no mattered how hard I tried.
I knew I wasn’t like others. I never needed my diagnosis to tell me that. Scoring so high in the first three fields of testing that they didn’t really bother with the fourth. Aspergers. Autism. Take your pick. Same thing. A label all the same. An explanation for so many things. Why I couldn’t understand. Why the subtlest of cues which others picked up on so easily weren’t so much a struggle for me to grasp than they never even registered.
I drifted alone. Well, as alone as I could be with my mind forever reminding me of my lot in life. How, once my parents eventually pass, this world will pull me down and devour me. I was never meant for this place. It has only become clearer to me of late. Especially as my mind shows me the way out. The way I can remove my pain and only leave behind the fleeting memory of me in the minds of so few.
It would hurt them. I know. It was why I continued to fight the desire, the offer my mind brought forth. That of a gun. A single bullet would be all it would take and I would be no more.
Funny how life decided on a different path, yet one which still removed me from the world of humans. one which only left the memories of me behind.
Passing through the mirror, it wasn’t a choice I made. I didn’t even know it was possible. Once there, and after a sip of tea, I changed. Physically, yes. Yet my mind remained. Until even that was locked away by the will of another.
Once freed, my mind was just as it had been. It remembered my life as a human. The pains I had both witnessed and felt. The help I couldn’t give yet ached to do so. It was all still there, lurking in my head.
Yet, on this side, my shell was different now. I wasn’t one of them anymore. And yet, still I stood apart, knowing I was not like these people, these ponies, I now encountered. My body had twisted. The gun my mind craved for me to turn on myself could never be used by me now.
I had no hands. No dextrous fingers to grasp with nor pull a trigger. Only hooves. Useless stumpy hooves. Nothing that could help follow through with desire of my mind.
Sure, I have wings. Not the graceful feathered ones I see on so many others here. No. Mine were leathery, with a thin membrane stretching between the mockery my fingers had become. In this world of fantastic colours and creatures, my wings were just as purple as my new mane and tail.
Those I heard make comment in my passing always wondered why I never used them; why I stayed on the ground. I swear, these ears alone are a curse. I pick up even more of the whispers about me and others than I had back home and there had been many uttered in supposed hushed tones back there.
The picking and the proud. The snide remark and the sniping. So much just to bring anyone else down. Supposedly to make them feel better, if only to make others conform to their standards and ideals.
At least here, with hair as long as I have now, I am not ridiculed by those who think I don’t hear. Not like back there.
I couldn’t take to the air so freely as they claimed. I couldn’t stand the emptiness, the loss of stability beneath me. Why I had been forced into such a shape when its main purposed terrified me so, I will never understand.
Other changes felt more fitting, more right. Yet, still they left me alone. My mind made sure I knew that oh so very well. It continued its taunting of me, especially with me in such a different form.
Now, even that which had brought me even the littlest of comforts had been made all the harder. How was I supposed to tell my tales without hands with which to write? Even the mark upon me states it is my purpose, my calling in life. Yet, even now I struggle with it. At least it gives more reason unlike the ever unanswered why of rejection.
Why a publisher will ask for new and interesting voices, stories which bring freshness to the way words are delivered, yet only publish the works so similar to all which was already done, I could never understand? The hypocrisy and the failure had always dragged me down. Down to where my mind could torment me further, as if it was all proof of how useless I was.
Living in this new world, it was still oddly like the other one. I had nothing. No things, no connection. This place was just as alien as the one I had accidentally left behind. And yet, I was here…
The ponies and others, they were so open in trying to befriend, even as I did my best to hide myself and shy away. Their pain wasn’t as apparent as that of the humans I had been born amongst, yet it was still there. Something I could see and feel. Something I still did my best to help alleviate.
I will say this. One oh so wonderful blessing. I am no longer the giant, the unintentionally intimidating hulk of a being I once was. Here I was the small thing I had always wished to be. Even though my form was not common, and sometimes scared the younger ponies, I could feel just a little more comfortable in this place.
Yes, my world was different now. My body was different now and, even though my mind still tried to pull me down, this place had an odd way of making me let in just the tiniest flicker of light. Something to keep me going even though I and others continued to suffer. Something I was yet to pin down exactly.
Maybe it was a sense of freedom. That others have felt similarly. That more than just I strive to try and make things better, even in the smallest of ways. I don’t know. I doubt my mind will ever let me know. But, I do know this…
My name is Tael and I have found a home.
At least, for now, says my mind.
Author's Note
I know, this isn't the usual stuff people expect of me. Got to shut up my muse somehow. If this is what it takes, so be it.
