It was yet another morning.
Waking up to the constant ringing of the alarm clock on my right, I threw my blanket off my body hastily, stretching. Trying to deactivate the alarm in my comatose state, I sleepily slid my forehoof along the surface of my bedside table over to wherever I perceived the clock to be.
CRASH!
If the alarm hadn’t already woken me up, the piercing sound of shattering glass surely did.
I rushed forward, leaning over the edge of my bed to gaze upon the broken remnants of that stupid beeping device that reminded me of the work I had before me.
For a time, I remained on my bed, staring blankly at the now defunct device.
I had to admit, it was strange for me to be looking at this small, useless pile of gears and pistons when I should have been rushing to work before getting reprimanded at work again.
But now, I had broken it. Just like that.
I should have been angry then. I had had to give up part of the money I had set aside for the telescope I so dearly wanted JUST to purchase this irritating device that only served to give me a sudden injection of stress, fear and worry at any moment. And now, I had to buy another one of these devices again?
Well, to be fair, I was upset in so many ways I sincerely wanted to beat myself over it. But yet, strangely, I felt something new, something I hadn’t experienced in a painfully long time.
Empowerment.
Watching the life of this now inanimate device being sucked away by the convenience of my otherwise rash actions somehow felt satisfying to me. I felt as though the wrought iron chains that I was always bound to had been, like the alarm clock before me, smashed into bits.
It was…glorious.
Without thinking, I leapt off my bed to crush what remained of the lifeless machine. Shattering, pulverising, even obliterating the device, unleashing the stress, the hatred, everything that I had trapped in the depths of my tortured soul.
As the remnants of my alarm clock quickly disintegrated into forlorn heaps of scrap metal, the grim memories of work flooded back into my mind almost instinctively, as if my mind wanted me to hurl out everything I had to vent. My actions grew more manic, seizing the few bits of unbroken glass in my magical aura and smashing them at the wall with as much force as I could muster.
CRASH!
I took a deep breath. “I hate you and the stupid, irritating, ridiculous ways you manage my work schedule!” I shouted uncontrollably. “I can’t believe I have to work for you with my life, for peanuts!”
I panted heavily as my mind tried its hardest to calm the rush of emotions seeping out from every corner of my heart, to no avail.
“So what if I’m a few minutes late? I still work more than the others, even if they may come to work punctually! And I get penalised on my pay just for a few TENS OF SECONDS?!”
I paused for a moment. My breathing grew unsteady and erratic as my mind tried desperately to process the very words that had just escaped my lips.
I couldn’t imagine myself screaming out words like this, even privately. This...this simply wasn’t me. It was almost painful for my throbbing mind to even consider it. But somehow, all these grievances that I had accumulated over time as I was trying to put up with everypony around me had made me such...a monster...
My neck drooped down, bringing my eyes to gaze into the emotionless wooden floor.
“Why? Why...why did I do this to myself?”
Unsteadily, I rose to my hooves and crashed onto my bed, sobbing. As my tears slid past the confines of my eyelids, memories streamed under my tear-blurred vision. Every admonishment of every little, minute mistake I made flipping those burgers, every criticism of who I was as a pony and every disparaging remark thrown around by my colleagues flashed into my head. And everything I had that was contained within me imploded in one single moment.
I collapsed. Physically, mentally, psychologically...in every way I could possibly think of.
I was broken, and I knew it.
But even as I cried into my tear-soaked blanket, I knew that it was only a matter of time when I couldn’t carry on throwing myself into the bottomless pit of constant sorrow and shame, wallowing in the comfort of crying just to calm myself down.
As my tears eventually lost any meaning or significance, I took a deep, recollective breath as I rose up to bring myself to my ramshackle table to grab a quill and paper.
I knew that I had to quit. I knew that I was only causing myself such grief for a measly sum of bits that this seemingly wealthy and successful corporation could afford to pay me. Surely, I could look for work elsewhere, at a place where I wouldn’t be mistreated, or misjudged, or mis-anything!
Drenching the quill into the ink bottle hurriedly, causing a copious amount of ink to splash out, I hastily worked on the letter I would slam onto my stupid supervisor’s desk. My quill danced about in a maniac frenzy on the crumpled, rough surface of the paper I seized, before folding the tattered paper haphazardly into a spare, yellowing envelope on my cluttered desk.
Guess what? I didn’t care how rough or sketchy my resignation letter looked. If anything, it was the level of respect I felt my manager didn’t even remotely deserve.
I seized the letter. There was no time to waste. There was no hesitation. I knew it...I knew that the grass could only be greener on the other side.
As I stepped out of my dilapidated apartment, being careful to avoid the shards of metal and glass lying around, I could already see the fields of grass on the way to The Hayburger looking greener than ever before.
