Pipp Petals Has An Existential Crisis at 3:00 AM
A fic starring Pipp Petals by OneLonelyPickle
The littlest hand of the bedside alarm clock pounded with each of its miniscule twitches. Pipp heard each flick like it was a pounding crash into her ear drums, and every time it happened it rumbled around inside her skull like a rabid animal let loose. Her every nerve throbbed as one second took forty years to roll over. She blinked slowly – first the left eyelid, then the right. Bags weighed down the flesh below her eyes.
It was dark inside the Crystal Brighthouse Friendship Sleeping Quarters (the name was a work in progress). Pipp had adjusted to the darkness inside. She had spent a lot of time in the darkness, waiting. Waiting for something to happen.
She sat up, and every so often her hoof would flinch forward as if to touch something that wasn’t there. A cold sweat gripped her fur. She looked to each of her roommates in turn.
Zipp was quietly breathing, asleep in her bed. Her blanket rose with every inhale and fell with each exhale. Zipp did not snore.
Hitch was murmuring to himself and cuddling his Bunny Bear stuffed animal. He looked like a little colt. His snore was a “hooooooonk mi mi mi mi”.
On the other side of the Friendship Sleeping Quarters was Izzy sprawled out on her bed. She was smile-snoring and her horn lit up every so often, illuminating the otherwise dark grey or black nothingness that often plagued most places at 3:00 AM. Izzy snored the classic “honk shoo honk shoo”.
Lastly there was Sunny. Sunny had her cover pulled up to her chin. A smile was on her face as she dreamed about, no doubt, adventures and making friends. She did not snore – Sunny was a mumbler.
Pipp wondered what sort of snore or mumble she would have if she could sleep. She wondered what kinds of dreams she could have if she could sleep. She wondered why everypony only ever seemed to snore in one of two ways: Honk shoo and hoooonk mi mi mi mi. Pipp wondered why she even thought of such a thing. She looked to her hoof tips and shuddered.
Each hoof seemed to pulsate with a white glow for a second, right in the middle part of the hoof. Pipp blinked a few times and wagged her tongue out of her mouth. She wagged it about and made a strange noise. What was she doing? She had no idea.
Her head felt heavy. She held it between her front hooves and drew in her hind hooves. Then Pipp rocked back and forth. Her bloodshot eyes were wide open, sleep nothing more than a pen pal to the princess pegasus. It was a strange idea, sleep as a pen pal. Pipp wondered what the name of her pen pal would be if she had one.
She settled on Cloudface. Cloudface was a name that seemed to work well.
Time was creeping forward so slowly. So sickening slow. Pipp covered her eyes with her hooves and rolled backward. She rolled forward. Then Pipp rolled all around her bed, becoming the closest thing to a pink pegasus bowling ball that she could manage. She would be a great bowling ball. One day, some bowler would grab her in his big hoof, do a tip toe run to the start of the lane, and throw her. She would hit a strike. Pipp would make a great bowling ball.
Roll roll roll. Pipp rolled for who knows how long.
When would it end?
When would the suffering pass for Pipp?
She stopped rolling and sat up. Everything was still dark.
One side of the room was honk shoo honk shoo.
The other side was hooooonk mi mi mi mi.
Pipp looked rapidly from Izzy to Hitch. Hitch to Izzy. Why didn’t they just stop snoring? Who chose to snore – what an annoying habit. She would need to talk to her friends the following day – the snoring had to stop.
Pipp tried to close her eyes but she couldn’t. Then she used her hooves to force her eyelids down, but that didn’t work either. The eyes knew what they wanted, and what they wanted was to be open. Pipp didn’t know why – she never knew why. Why did anypony do anything? Why did anything ever happen, anyways? These were life’s mysteries. She talked to herself, not loud enough to wake anypony though.
“Fine eyes. Fine.”
Pipp shifted her weight to the other side of her bed and stared out the window. The moon was not visible from Pipp’s vantage point, but enough of its light revealed that it was a cloudy night. Clouds reminded Pipp of flying, though it was not something she had ever enjoyed, not really. The fake flying or the real flying. The fake flying involved wires which always caused a rash on Pipp. Rashes were a big faux pas.
“Why? Why is it so bad having a rash? It’s a fashion statement!”
Pipp laughed incredulously to herself at 3:00 AM in the dark.
“There is nothing wrong with having a rash!”
Pipp made a funny noise with her tongue inside her mouth and started to roll about in her bed again.
She stopped and looked out the window again.
No, Pipp found absolutely zero comfort in the clouds outside. Would she go outside? The fresh air, perhaps, could work wonders on her deteriorating mind, or at least that’s what mother always said. Mother also used to say don’t eat the cotton balls under the sink, but that never stopped Pipp from indulging in the forbidden candy. It might have been precisely why she grew up to have such fluffy, white wings. It might also have been the reason for Pipp’s infrequent seizures.
Pipp reminded herself that the outside was sometimes scary – no. NO! It was always scary. It was a scary, scary place. Inside was better. Pipp’s ear twitched.
She sniffed the air. Something changed.
Her eyes darted from side to side. The noises disappeared. Smells?
Pipp sniffed the air again. There were no smellz beyond her own perfume of lilac and dandelion. It was a rich scent that was popularized by a very successful series of black and white advertisements back in Zephyr Heights. They were immensely more popular than the animated advertisements featuring corporate new-age style pony designs.
“Ponies are shaped like ponies, not rectangles and triangles! I HATE triangles!”
Pipp growled to herself. She blinked.
“Wait. Rectangles.”
A feeling like a blanket of fuzzies covered Pipp. Her eyelids fluttered though they refused to fall completely. Pipp felt the muscles in her body relax and she slunk back onto her pillow. When she did, she looked up at the ceiling. It shifted back, far away, then turned into something else entirely.
“Rectangle.”
What she saw was not the Brighthouse ceiling – no no no, it was something else. Something… familiar.
Home-y.
Pipp blinked, and every time her eyes closed, when they opened something had changed about the vision she saw. The Brighthouse ceiling had turned into the inside of a shop. Pipp turned to the left.
There was a wall lined with various rectangles, sitting on various shelves. In the darkness it was impossible to tell what they could be.
When Pipp turned to her right, it was the same story.
Then…
A light flashed.
Pipp’s head snapped forward and she saw it.
The light engulfed her. It was a beautiful light.
Pipp’s legs carried her toward it – at least, that’s what the vision showed. Pipp wasn’t sure if she actually moved. One way or another, however, she was face to face with it before long.
The light came from a thin rectangle on the wall – specifically just part of the rectangle’s middle, so that it had a black outline on all sides. Pipp knew when she saw that shape that her eyes chose to remain open for the best reason.
She smiled wide.
The rectangle light changed shape and form and revealed its true self. Inside was a whole new world – one with limitless potential. Multiple blocks, separate worlds, lay before Pipp. What would she choose? What could stop her from choosing them ALL?! Pipp knew the answer.
Nothing.
She was free to do whatever she wanted!
Pipp’s little pupils darted about, investigating every millimetre of the rectangle’s illuminated middle portion. The background had all manner of colors and shapes, but the foreground of the rectangle was comprised of boxes that Pipp could tap with her hoof. When she did, the rectangle would change again and sometimes take her to new places.
She could play a game of horse checkers by tapping one of the little boxes!
Or, she could find out what the weather would be tomorrow!
She could even check the average sell price of a home in Bridlewood leveraged against the historical high during the economic downturn of the last half century!
…
Pipp wasn’t sure why she thought of the last one. She shook her head and tentatively raised her hoof again. She brought it forward. When the end of her hoof touched the rectangle, a slither of joy snaked through the hoof, up her chest, and into her head and also down her spine. She drooled out the side of her mouth. The rectangle’s inner part changed color and shape again. What would it show?!
A giant logo appeared. It was a giant white “W” with a solid blue background. Pipp’s smile widened. She felt so giddy her wings shook and her plot jittered. Pure happiness – unbound frivolity! Mind-gripping exhilaration! Pipp tapped the rectangle again with her hoof, and then again!
And again and again and again and again.
Nopony could stop her! At 3:00 AM they were all asleep, and she was free to tap on the glowing rectangle! Her brain synapses fired on all cylinders and rushed dopamine to all the sections of her body as she tapped away. The images flooded her head so fast she couldn’t possibly process them all, but nonetheless the sensations produced a singular result in her pleasure center:
“THIS IS GOOD. THIS MAKES ME FEEL JOY.”
Pipp’s head and eyes moved rapidly, back and forth. She swiped her hoof along the rectangle, moving from one smaller rectangle to the next. She didn’t slow down for a second, letting the images and colors and shapes change again and again and fly by until she could barely tell what way was up, what way was down, and what flavor Sunday was.
Little hearts and smiling yellow pony faces popped up on the rectangle. They whizzed toward Pipp, like snowflakes in the winter, except coming right at you and not falling down. Pipp giggled and let them fall onto her tongue. A giant, floating, red set of zeroes counted up as each of the tiny symbols landed on her tongue. She heard a faint cheering.
“Pipp Pipp Pipp Pipp!”
Little pictures of ponies appeared in front of Pipp, and if she turned they appeared there, too. The pictures showed ponies eating at restaurants, taking pictures of themselves at the park, sucking back smoothies, playing at the beach, shopping at stores… it went on and on. There were so many duck faces it looked like migration season. There were so many photo bombs the blast could cause a nuclear winter.
The pictures turned into videos. Pipp’s eyes widened as did her mouth, shaped into an “O”. She gasped in awe.
One of the videos was of a husky brown stallion shaking his rump. It bounced around like a slab of jelly. Pipp clapped her hooves. A giant circle appeared beside her with a green checkmark in it. Another circle appeared but it had a red X inside. Pipp hit the green checkmark circle with her hoof and the entire circle lit up green. A pleasing ding! rang out.
“Yay happy noises!”
The next video was a pony climbing stacked milk crates formed into stairs, for some reason. At the top he fell down and cried out in pain. Pipp frowned. She hit the red X. A loud wwommp! sound played instead and the video disappeared.
“Boo! I don’t like that one!”
Again and again the videos came, and Pipp selected either the green checkmark or the red X during the course of each. There were makeup tutorials, ponies playing video games, animated videos detailing ancient battles and historical events, and even videos where for some reason ponies just talked about old cans of food from sixty years ago!
Pipp’s pupils turned into spinning stars and her entire body convulsed as she hit the buttons faster and faster, sending the videos zooming past as soon as they arrived. Pony heads turned around Pipp, talking gibberish as the princess of Zephyr Heights lost herself in the non-stop world of movement, sound, and flashing lights.
* * *
Back in the Friendship Sleeping Quarters, Sunny stood next to Zipp, both mares’ eyelids heavy with fatigue.
“What uhh,” Sunny asked. “What is she doing?”
Zipp sighed and rubbed her face. Pipp was tapping in front of her, eyes closed, tongue hanging out of her mouth, drool coming down in a constant drip. Zipp spoke as if she were explaining why her sister was dumpster diving behind the high school.
“Pipp is going through… cell phone withdrawal.”
“S-should we do something?”
“No, she’ll fall asleep eventually.”
Zipp turned to Sunny, deadpan written all over her face.
“You didn’t buy any cotton balls for the bathroom, did you?”
“Yeah, why?”
Zipp’s head hung down.
