Twilight had got herself distracted in a death-spiral of bookhopping, as she so often did, and in her distraction she had entirely forgotten to eat anything on that particular day. This had predictable consequences: a rumbly tummy, and a sudden desire to resolve this rumblyness.
Her timings were off though. She’d missed breakfast but it was still far too early for lunch, leaving her in some sort of nebulous limbo zone. What could she do? A snack would be too insubstantial, wouldn’t fill the hole. She needed something else, something more. Some sort of meal that fitted between, something that lay in the middle of breakfast and lunch.
Leakfast, perhaps.
She could come up with a proper name for this mysterious new meal later, after she’d had something to eat. Couldn’t invent these things on an empty stomach, after all. But what to have?
There were a plethora of options available to Twilight, an almost overwhelming amount, in fact. Ponyville was not lacking in places to grab a bite. And while she initially planned on going out and heading towards the first place she clapped eyes on the sheer variety overwhelmed her in moments. She just couldn’t choose!
But then one establishment in particular stuck out to her. A sandwich shop.
Sandwiches were nothing new, of course, if anything they were something old. Sandwiches crafted by the hands - the hands! - of Art the resident human, however, were a little different, and not just because of the novelty factor (though that was a big factor). Art was an artist, a sandwich artist. He could do things with bread and any given filling that could leave his customers in need of a sit down and a short break. It was uncanny.
The sight of the shop brought back the memory of the last time Twilight had had one of Art’s creations, and the memory clinched the decision for her. Her stomach would brook no arguments. She headed on over.
Twilight must have picked her moment well as she was the only pony present, the bell above the door jingling out into an empty shop. Or at least, empty barring herself and the human working behind the counter. No waiting! Maybe there was something to be said for this ‘leakfast’?
“Good morning, Art!” She said brightly, clip-clopping her way to the counter.
“Morning,” he said, glancing at her once and briefly, most of his attention on whatever his hands were doing just out of sight. Something in his delivery gave her pause.
It was often hard to get a read on him with Twilight not knowing him all that well to begin with and what with humans being so inscrutable generally. Who knew what was going on behind those tiny, beady eyes?
“Are you okay?” She asked. Best to be blunt.
He paused, stopping what he was doing and setting down whatever he was doing it with and looking up at her properly (or at least looking at her. The size difference was such that Art didn’t really look up at ponies, as a rule).
He tried to smile, but it barely reached his mouth let alone the rest of his face.
“Oh, it’s fine. A lot like yesterday. And the day before. And tomorrow,” he said, adding: “Probably.”
Twilight frowned. This answer did not fill her with confidence. If anything it drained what little confidence she’d already had, leaving her with a void of confidence that filled quickly with concern. Art’s misery was palpable, lurking behind his every word and those aforementioned tiny, beady eyes.
He noticed that she noticed and his smile stretched wider, growing thinner in the process.
“Heh, sorry. Not the most buoyant today,” he said.
“Did something happen?” Twilight asked.
Art picked up his sandwich tools once more and resuming what he’d been doing. Making sandwiches, Twilight assumed, or at least doing something related to making sandwiches.
“Oh, nothing happened, everything is fine. Some days you just wake up and everything feels bad. Or I do, at least. I imagine everyone else is more on top of things than me,” he said.
“I wouldn’t be so sure.”
“Hmm.”
There wasn’t a lot that Twilight could with ‘Hmm’ so instead she took moves to be proactive:
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Art shook his head, eyes on his work.
“No, it’s fine. Nothing you need to worry about it,” he said.
“It might help. Don’t have to if you don’t want to but don’t feel you need to keep it to yourself. A problem shared, you know?” Twilight asked.
He did not know, or at least did not know the other half of that particular expression and so did not know that it was widely expressed that a problem shared was a problem halved (or quartered, or whatevered, depending on the numbers involved). But he got where she was coming from.
Ponies were wellsprings of honest sincerity, something he still wasn’t completely used to despite his years spent living amongst them. He was still wired to expect the blank eyes, empty nods and rapidly dwindling patience of humans when it came to things like this. It was what he braced for, and not having it was rather like missing a step on the way downstairs.
“If you’re sure,” he said, giving her one last opportunity to back out.
“Of course, you’re my friend,” she said, and damnit she meant it, down to her core, right through her bones. The words penetrated whatever fug had wrapped around Art and cut to his own core. She cared. And he knew she wasn’t the only one, either. Damn ponies and their damn sincerity. It was so unnatural!
Once more putting his things down Art took a moment stretch before reaching back and dragging over the stool he kept behind the counter to perch on. He perched on it once his bum was within perching range.
“There’s really not a lot I can tell you, Twilight. Nothing happened, like I say. Just woke up and, well, this. I just feel a little, ah, melancholy, I suppose would be the word. A little down. Bit of a wet blanket,” he said, lamely, shrugging.
“We all feel sad sometimes,” Twilight said, feeling at once that this was an incredibly platitudinous thing to say but having been unable to stop it slipping out. She bit her tongue.
Art what she’d said entirely at face value however, and frowned, as though the taste of the words involved were not to his liking.
“It’s not so much feeling sad. Or feeling anything, really. Nothing much at all, really,” he said, still frowning. He frowned harder a moment as he thought of how best to describe it.
“It’s like - it’s like - “ he thought for a second longer and then managed to come up with what he felt was a sufficient analogy: “It’s like I’m looking out of an open window onto the world most of the time. I can see the sights, hear the sounds, smell the smells, and everything’s just wonderful. But now someone has closed the window and the window is filthy. I can’t hear the sounds, I can’t smell the smells and I can still see everything I could see before but now it’s through this layer of dirt and grime. It’s all the same, everything is the same, it just looks worse to me and I’m cut off from everything good.”
He paused here and looked at Twilight:
“Are you following this?” He asked.
“I think so,” she said.
“Good, because I’m not sure that makes sense, now I’ve said it,” Art said, sighing and scratching his head.
“No, I think I get it.”
She did, mostly.
He sighed again.
“Everything’ll be back to normal soon. It’ll pass, it always does. Peaks and troughs. But it’s here for now. For however long that ends up being. And so here I am, whining to you about it.”
“You’re not whining, I asked you and I asked you because I care. I don’t like it when you’re miserable,” Twilight said emphatically. Again with the sincerity. She meant it.
“Not really miserable, not really anything,” Art said.
“I don’t like it when you’re not happy, then.”
“That’ll work. Heh. Semantics. First refuge of a scoundrel. Probably.”
“Maybe you should do something you like doing?” She suggested, somewhat feebly. This wasn’t what she’d come out to do, and she was feeling as though the whole thing had caught her flat-hoofed. She was trying her best, but was concerned her best right at that moment might not be quite up to snuff.
“That’s kind of the problem, Twilight. Or one of them. I’m not sure what it is I like doing. I mean, I know what I spend a lot of my time doing, but now I’m not sure I actually like doing it. Did I just imagine it? Or is it just because, right now, everything feels the same no matter what I’m doing? Did I ever enjoy anything? Probably. But that’s not right now. Ah, I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t know,” Art said.
He stared down at the board and the ingredients and the bread and the knives before heaving up from the stool.
“Besides, I’ve got work,” he said.
“You could always take a break?”
“No, sorry. I’ve got orders to fill. Lunch is coming up. Gives me something to do, at least. Good to be distracted.”
The bell jangled again and Twilight turned to see another pony enter, Breville.
Breville was the co-owner of the shop and the other half of the operation. Where Art handled building the sandwiches themselves owing to his freakish human dexterity and preternatural sandwich-sense, Breville handled delivery, marketing, supplies and basically every single other thing that kept the whole enterprise running.
The exact nature of their relationship beyond the business side was unclear. They’d arrived together and apparently lived together, and that was all anyone really knew.
Breville nodded a polite hello to Twilight as she passed, moving around the counter and flipping open the saddlebags she was wearing, both of which were empty.
“Right, that’s the brunch run done, where’s the first lunch round?” She asked. Art pointed without speaking to a heap of paper-wrapped sandwiches off to one side. Moving over, Breville quickly loaded up, doing so with professional briskness.
“Need anything?” She asked once the sandwiches were all packed and the saddlebags buckled. Art shook his head.
“Alright. I’ll be back,” Breville said, affectionately butting into his side and making a nuisance of herself there until he gave her a pat, a pat which quickly graduated to a scratch behind the ears. Breville hummed happily and stayed for longer than she’d initially planned, pulling away with great reluctance.
“Alright?” She asked, head tilted, smiling.
“Alright,” Art said.
And off Breville went again, bell signalling her exit. Art watched her go. His smile reached his eyes this time, even if it was small, even if it didn’t last much longer past her having left.
He then remembered Twilight was there and jumped.
“I’ll just finish this one then I can get to you, Twilight. I assume you did come in here for a sandwich?” He asked.
“Oh. Yes! Oh yes, sorry. I’d forgotten about that!” She said. She really had, too. Her hunger now came flooding back. Oh, how she wanted a sandwich. A very specific sandwich, too. Like the one she’d had last time, only more so. She could picture it vividly...
“All the excitement, no doubt. Give me a second,” Art said, knife twirling.
-
Later, some days later, it was sunny outside, and Twilight was going from here to there.
Halfway from here to there she spied Art, out and about, sitting at a table. Seeing him reminded her of their last meeting. He looked better now, more cheerful, but she felt it would be nice to check. So over she went to do just that.
She arrived at his table while he was attempting to fold his napkin into a swan. He was meeting with limited success, but this didn’t seem to be bothering him much. His tongue poked out his mouth in rapt concentration. He was so focussed that Twilight felt it would have been rude to interrupt, and so she kept quiet until his napkin unfolded and he sat back, noticed her waiting there, and nearly fell over backwards.
“Oh but you’re a sneaky one, Twilight! Really got me there! How the devil are you?” He asked once he’d caught his balance, grinning.
“Fine, fine, getting along. How are you?” She asked.
“Me? Wonderful! Look at this weather, eh? Swear the sunshine here is a notch or two above what I’m used to. Hard to put into words!”
“Heh, I wouldn’t know. Well, it’s good to see you doing better.”
“Better?” He asked, confused. Then he got it. “Oh, that. That was nothing, that wasn’t anything, that’s all gone now. Barely a memory! All breezy now, free and easy, light as a feather. Peaks and troughs! How could I be anything less on a day as beautiful?”
“I don’t know?” Twilight ventured, entirely taken off-guard and utterly at a loss for how best to respond. It was nice seeing him a little back to usual, yes, but she hadn’t quite expected this extreme level of usual. It was at least twice or maybe even three times as usual as he usually was. It was a lot to take in.
Before either of them could continue Breville appeared from out of frame. She had no saddlebags this time, only a bottle clutched in her teeth, and this bottle she popped onto the table in front of Art.
“They’re still making mine,” she said, turning to go back to wherever she’d got the bottle from so she could get her own drink only to be swept up in the long arms and noodly appendages of Art, who scooped her up and held her triumphantly aloft.
“A good day gets better! A drink! Ah, Breville, I could marry you!” He said.
“You could,” she said flatly, dangling, smiling albeit only a little. The casual way in which she dangled suggested she was used to Art doing this to her.
He paused then, and seemed to realise that maybe he’d gone further than he’d initially meant to. Delicately he put her back down on the ground and cleared his throat.
“Yes, well,” he said, not elaborating any further. Breville just rolled her eyes and wandered off again. Art, quite red in the face, watched her for a second and then with a practised ease used the edge of the table to smack the cap off the bottle.
“A good day, a better day. Drink, Twilight? Could go get you one?” He asked, gesturing.
“No, thank you. Stuff to do, you know?” She said. This was true, she did actually have stuff to do. It was why she was going from here to there, so she could do stuff there that she couldn’t do here.
“Of course, of course. Busy lady! Ah! Sunshine though. Glorious here, isn’t it? What a day,” he said, taking a swig and spreading his arms to the sky.
“I’m glad you’re feeling better,” Twilight said.
“The best, the best! Now off you go, busy lady. Drop in the shop sometime, anytime. You can place orders ahead, you know? Breville sorted out a whole system, it’s tops!” Art said.
“I might look into that.”
“I’d recommend it. But I would, hah! Now off you go, busy lady. Off, off. Be good!” He said, mock-shooing Twilight, who left with a wave.
Alone again, Art leant back in his chair, glancing over to where Breville was still stood waiting for her drink. Art took another sip and then closed his eyes happily.
“One minute you’re down, the next you’re right back up again…”