The Fable of the Rainbow Dash of Mount Sutro
Look Up
Once upon a time, there lived a pony plush who, with the aid of her once-loyal caretaker, explored the streets of San Francisco. Today, she is known as the Rainbow Dash of Mount Sutro.
Rainbow Dash of Mount Sutro was one of a million factory-made carbon copies, each and every one with the singular name “Rainbow Dash”. Despite this, her caretaker called her Rainbow Dash, and so we shall call her Rainbow Dash. And I can guarantee you that despite her common name, the story she has to tell is truly singular.
Rainbow Dash of Mount Sutro didn’t always call this mountain home. Her journey begins almost ten years ago, when she sat at a Toys ‘R Us in Daly City that is now shut down. When she was finally bought (one of the last on the shelf), Rainbow Dash expected to suffer a similar fate to all the identical toys next to her. But no, she was not stuffed into a unicorn backpack with Grade 2 schoolbooks, nor taken out of a pink polka dot toy box.
Instead, at least for the past two years, she lived outside. Where a free spirit like her truly belonged. She was carried by her caretaker in the open air, feeling the fresh ocean wind of the Bay pounding against her face. And this is what she had always dreamed of—what kind of Rainbow Dash would she be sitting inside like a homebody, only taken out to be played with an hour a day, two hours a day on weekends, zero when grounded by Mommy?
Rainbow Dash's caretaker, he walked her around the city almost every day, showing her the cloud houses around San Francisco. These were no plastic imitation playset cloud houses. These were like real cloud houses—the closest that these flightless humans could possibly get to them, at least.
Skyscrapers.
Forty, even fifty stories tall, struggling to defy the laws of gravity. Some with crumbling brick, some sinking into the mud. Most rectangular, but one in the shape of a pyramid, almost pointing to the sky, beckoning her.
He would walk her down the street, tilt her soft plush head skyward, and point his finger up at the tippy top of the pyramid.
“Look up at that beautiful sky, Rainbow Dash.” He pointed up with his finger. “And the fog rolling in over the top o' the pyramid—is that you who did that Rainbow Dash? Was that you and your weather team?”
What was going on below her, Rainbow Dash wasn’t sure. She was embarrassed to admit that she didn’t know her caretaker very well, despite having been with him for ten years. He was a man—a grown man. She knew little else, only hearing his voice, or sometimes seeing his finger pointing skyward, directing her to look up. She only caught blurry reflections of his face from high windows. Of all the parts of his body, she knew his hands best—long, dark colored nails, softly cupped around her, like a divot in a cloud, where she could snuggle and nap.
“Look up, Rainbow Dash. Look up.” Rainbow Dash could only see above and beyond, for he would only tilt her head up and away.
He only showed his best to her, for she was the best part of him.
Views
Each week, Caretaker would take Rainbow Dash to watch some old videos of her life back home in Equestria. Just for Rainbow Dash to remind herself of how awesome she is, of course.
They would go to a corner store and sneak inside to watch Twilight’s famous documentary show about friendship, the one that got so popular here on Earth. Cradling her gently in his hands, he glued her gaze upward to the television. They watched replays of her proudest moments, like when she hugged Scootaloo after that camping trip, or when she heroically saved Rarity from falling out of the sky.
Every Saturday morning, 10:30am Pacific Time, he would walk with her into the shop, and tilt her head up to the upper left corner of the room above the cashier. Up there was a tiny, clunky TV screen that made a buzzing noise and had distorted colors. The perfectly coordinated color wheel of her legendary Sonic Rainboom was streaked with foreign horizontal lines,
—the color of rainbow vomit.
Back home, there was a giant screen TV at least twice the size of this little puny one in the corner store. Excellent brightness, realistic colors, no weird fuzzy lines; and Rainbow Dash was one who could truly appreciate the value of good resolution—she had to have excellent vision as a Wonderbolt, after all. That screen was good. So clear, almost like a sparkling window into her old home back in Equestria.
This old TV was no sparkling window. In fact it had been two years since her caretaker took Rainbow Dash home to see the big screen. Rainbow Dash wondered if it was because he disliked her.
And as he and Rainbow Dash watched the TV, she caught a glimpse of a wet tissue, that he must have used to wipe his tears. Was that why he was crying? Because the resolution was so unbearably atrocious?
That must have been why.
Then after the morning show, he would take her to $5 dim-sum in Chinatown—he’d order take out, then eat it outside in the open air—followed by a free hike up Mount Sutro. It was a short but steep hike to the top through dense forest, and at a break in the trees, facing north, you would get a full 180-degree panoramic view of the whole city, the Golden Gate, and the brown hills beyond.
Rainbow Dash’s plush head was pointed outward, over the bluff, eyes locked at nothing else but the view.
“You really love lookin’ out at that view, huh, Rainbow Dash?” he said to her. “I’ll betcha, if you look real carefully, you can see Canterlot in the distance.”
Rainbow Dash did look real carefully, and by 2:30pm or so the shapes in the fog did coalesce into something resembling Canterlot.
Even though she never saw her caretaker’s face, she knew he had a beautiful voice—though “not as beautiful as yours,” he would insist upon her—and he would entertain her by singing songs from back home.
“Tonight, at the gala, at the gala…” he sang. “Now it’s your line, Rainbow Dash. Remember it? Hmm? Been dreamin’, I’ve been waitin’…” He held her with cupped hands and gently rocked her to the beat of the song.
Rainbow Dash just looked out at the view, listening to the sound of his voice.
She saw his finger, pointing out at the horizon.
“Is this what the world looks like to you, Rainbow Dash? When you fly 1000 feet in the air and patrol the sky with your Wonderbolt troop, or your weather team. It’s so beautiful. And this beautiful city is our home. Our humble little life in this city.
“You make our humble little life so goddamn beautiful.”
Dizzitron
On the last day they were ever at home, two and a half years ago, Caretaker told Rainbow Dash, “It’s okay. Money isn’t real. They can take away my home, but they can’t take away me.” He clipped Rainbow Dash to the handle of one of his suitcases, sat her in the back seat of a van, and drove off to a non-permit parking spot sheltered by the underpass.
Then on the last day they were ever in the van, only six months ago, Caretaker told Rainbow Dash, “It’s okay. They can burn my van down, but they can’t take away me.” He did not reach in to rescue the remaining half of his possessions—his kettle, his spare blankets, and extra Ziploc bags. He just clutched Rainbow Dash in his hand and kept his distance. “All the parts of me are safe. The rest are just things,” she heard him mutter as the fire gave way to wet, dark ash.
“They can’t take away me,” he repeated, petting the rainbow mane of the best part of him.
All the parts of him were now able to fit into a single shopping cart, overfilled with suitcases, a tent, and blankets. Rainbow Dash would stay leashed to the handle of one of the suitcases. Sometimes the cart would hit a rough part of the sidewalk and she would suddenly gain one, even two seconds of air time. And he would do that on purpose, pushing through only the roughest sidewalks in the city, just so Rainbow Dash could get maximum air.
In spite of it all, he loved Rainbow Dash.
But there was one thing he loved more than Rainbow Dash. His mistress. His thrill. His fetish. And Rainbow Dash was terrified of the mistress.
Miss Dizzitron, Rainbow Dash liked to call her. Because whenever Miss Dizzitron came, it made both of them dizzy, like the namesake device back at Wonderbolt Academy. It tumbled and twisted and turned them upside down until they were on the verge of puking. And as he carried her around the streets, she could hear him vomit onto the sidewalk.
He succumbed to Miss Dizzitron—but not Rainbow Dash! She was made of strong stuff, after all!
Except for one day.
There was a quarrel over Miss Dizzitron. It was a quarter to three on a busy afternoon downtown, outside a storefront with immaculate mannequins swaddled in French gabardine coats and sturdy rain boots. Pretty pointless, Rainbow Dash thought, considering the mannequins were behind glass and protected from the cold winter drizzle in the street.
Someone approached her and Caretaker outside the shop. A madman, with disheveled hair, frayed clothes, and bloodshot eyes. His nails untrimmed, and darkened with soot.
The madman was yelling at the mistress. What had she done to deserve such treatment?
“Whore! Slut!”
It was true. Miss Dizzitron slept with every man and woman on the streets of this city. In contrast, Rainbow Dash was proud to say she belonged to Caretaker, and him alone.
Now if only he could hold up his side of the bargain—
“But I don’t care!” the madman continued. “She’s mine! She’s my whore! She’s my whore to kiss and fuck and caress up my vein! An' I won't let anyone else have her!”
Caretaker never caressed Rainbow Dash up his vein. What did that even mean, exactly? She tried to imagine the madman doing that to her, if the madman kidnapped her and forced her body into his veins through a surgical incision, smothering her tiny face with liquid blood while rupturing his blood vessels and killing him painfully through rapid internal bleeding, fatal for both of them, that’s how it would go, she knew that from Wonderbolt field medic training—
The madman continued to yell. “So get out! Get the fuck out with your humanity in one piece! And leave me with the slut! Leave me with y—”
The glass storefront broke—
And the madman finally went away.
(The gabardine raincoats at last served their purpose.)
Rainbow Dash breathed once—
Suddenly, the sky exploded. She felt herself being tumbled around, pummeled by wind, leaping over tops of fences, escaping sirens, as they ran away from the madman. The Dizzitron, a rainstorm, strobe lights, and a flight maze all in one!
And make no mistake, Rainbow Dash relished a challenge like the Dizzitron. But what fun was the Dizzitron when she could never correct her flight back to normal? Making yourself upright again after spinning around was just as much a part of the Dizzitron experience as getting dizzy. So what was the Dizzitron without righting yourself? Just being dizzy and in pain forever.
As he ran from the sirens chasing after him, he clutched her in his hand. Hard. She felt her head squished against his vein. Rainbow Dash was crying. She was—
—frozen. Lifeless.
He dropped her.
Rainbow Dash lay on the ground for a moment. She wasn’t too badly hurt from the fall—she’s made of tough stuff after all.
And for the first time, she faced him.
“Oh. The fog is rolling in,” the madman said to her, as he reached for her with his untrimmed, soot-stained nails.
Rainbow Dash didn’t weep or puke, she was lifeless and if you’re lifeless you don’t feel at all.
“Was that you Rainbow Dash!? Was that you Rainbow Dash and your friends in the weather factory!?”
Rainbow Dash looked down.
There was feces and broken glass in the street. Honking cars. A scared child who quickly ran off to catch up to Mommy. Cold commuters bundled in jackets looking at their phones while artificially keeping a ten-foot-radius around the madman holding a pony plush and wandering aimlessly in the crosswalk.
And the walking man light was about to turn red.
Haze
11pm that night. In his stronger right arm, he carried Rainbow Dash, in his weaker one a brown paper bag wrapped faintly into the shape of a bottle.
The starry sky was turned upside down. Thousands of little lights, some moving along thin straight lines, others twinkling in building-shaped constellations.
They were back on Mount Sutro.
Rainbow Dash's head whirled as she was turned away from the view. She saw a dark silhouette.
She was facing him.
“Is this what the world looks like to you, Rainbow Dash!?”
He’d asked her this question already, right? Did he want her to answer? Or perhaps—
“SCREW YOU! FUCK YOU!” Suddenly the madman screamed.
“I thought you would understand! You’re so naïve. What can you understand about me from 1000 feet in the air? What can you understand about anyone? That's why you're so inconsiderate. Can you see the rats from up here? Can you see the shit and piss on the cement? Can you see THIS!?” He rolled up his sleeve,
and Rainbow Dash could’ve sworn she saw the ghost of Miss Dizzitron—
—except she was still alive so unfortunately that wouldn’t be possible.
“Fuck you, Rainbow Dash! Because from up here the city looks so beautiful. Well guess what? I’M NOT BEAUTIFUL. This life is not beautiful.” He picked up the brown paper bag and put the opening to his lips, taking a drink. He pointed out and behind with his finger, his back turned to the view. “Guess what, there’s no Canterlot out there. I lied to you—but you believed me didn't ya?! ‘S what happens when your big pony head’s stuck in the clouds all’a time. 1000 feet in the air you can pretend any fucking lie you want is true.
“D’ya hear me? Well? Do ya!?”
The 3-inch blue plush toy did not respond, fabric eyes facing him.
“Well!? Speak! I know nothing about ya if y’ say nothing!”
Silence.
Exhausted from running all afternoon, he fell to his knees on the dirt trail, the brown paper bag rolling off the edge of the bluff.
“I know nothing about you if I say nothing,” he whispered—so quiet that he could’ve been saying nothing. Like when a tree falls in a forest.
He crawled over to an old stump perched along the steep switchbacks, and sat down.
“There was once a tall eucalyptus here,” he said out loud. “Some asshole cut it down. For what? Huh? For what?”
He searched his arms and hands for the brown paper bag. Finding himself empty, he picked up Rainbow Dash instead. He gently dusted her off with a single little finger, and rested her in the center of the tree stump. Slowly, the view became covered by a blanket of low fog rolling in. Turning the derelict buildings, the tech campuses, and the glimmering glass tower blocks into an equally ethereal haze of warm light.
The best part of him was not real.
And so all he left behind on Mount Sutro was a 3-inch pony plush toy. The Rainbow Dash of Mount Sutro.
Author's Note
While hiking alone in the beautiful Mount Sutro nature reserve in San Francisco earlier this month, to my surprise I found this abandoned Rainbow Dash plushie on the trail. She was seated nicely in the center of a tree stump, as seen in the cover photo. It inspired me to write a fictional backstory about her.
Took me ages to write this story, though, out of both laziness and reluctance to post due to the edgy angst. It unsettles me how all my stories always end up being so dark.
Thank you for reading. Please direct typos to PM. Happy Halloween folks!
