Still Falling | Still Smiling

by publiq

Rating: teen
Tags: Sad, Drama, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Other, Suicide / Self Harm
Length: 999

A unicorn has fallen off a cliff. He's still falling to this very day. His smile remains undisturbed.

What would you do if the cliff you jumped off had no bottom? Me? I choose to smile.

Written for 2023’s edition of the Thousand Words Contest.

Published 2023-07-30 22:30:01 UTC
Last updated 2023-07-30 22:30:01 UTC

Descent

I’ve fallen off a forever cliff—and I’m smiling.

Some ponies may wonder how a unicorn such as me ended up in such a pickle. Falling off a cliff and alive to tell the tale after endless days of plunging to the doom that never arrives. Neither gravity, nor fear, nor cold, nor starvation have claimed me. Should things continue on this trajectory, the two remaining challenges between me and inadvertent immortality are lightning strikes and old age.

The truth is, I don’t remember how I ended up here. Was I pushed, did I slip, might I have lept joyously into the void? This is just the way things are—and always have been. May this cliff be beginningless as well as endless?

I jumped off a forever cliff, and the view remains better halfway down. Just wait until you’re three-quarters descended. That’s when things look even better. Why bother living life as an untalented unicorn, especially in Canterlot? Release yourself from the prison of the physical body and wish yourself luck upon reroll.

Halfway, if only I had someone to advise me in time. Three-quarters, I never expected a unicorn to fear the sight of the ground (rapidly approaching!). Seven eights, the ground didn’t seem so angry. Fifteen sixteenths, I should’ve gone splat by now. 31/32? There’s no way a pony’s thoughts could move this fast to think this before the end. Before 63/64, I turned to look one last time at the sunny sky. The view remained the same as that from halfway. I persisted.

Glancing at the ground again, I was reset to halfway. Over the years—has it been even one week, let alone a year?—the most I’ve pushed my luck is to 8191/8192. Was I distracted, bored, or scared when I turned to the stars? No honest answer exists.

I was pushed off a forever cliff, yet I smile.

Did a pony push me as a final act of kindness? Did ponies mentally push me to jump? I felt somepony’s hoof before gravity and vertigo gripped my senses, contact too brief to know its intention. Hostility, reassurance, a breaker of indecision, a blessing that I may never touch the ground?

After falling for even thirteen minutes, one stops the stomach feelings. As the minutes turned to hours, the adrenaline faded. I napped to return to Canterlot from this nightmare. No such luck. Instead, a different stomach feeling rose: hunger.

I am not a strong unicorn. No such luck at levitating food from the family so far away on top of the cliff to satiate my hunger. No luck teleporting myself, not that I’d know how to try. Hunger, too, passes once ignored long enough. As night fell, I accepted my fate as a desiccated corpse. Sleep and pass time until my moisture is gone. Thirst never arrived, even when I woke. Sun rises and sets, yet I require no nourishment. Sun shines; I feel no burn.

I slipped off a forever cliff. It was a happy accident.

Gallop away from fear, from those who push. Gallop until soil no longer supported my hooves. Neither regolith nor lithosphere keeps me afloat. I now trod atmosphere. I focused on escape so hard: I failed to note when my hoofsteps stopped being steps.

I am the ghost colt of Canterlot. At least, that’s the snippet I hear most from the passing earth-bound fillies & colts. Silly foals, I may be small, but I was already a serviceable stallion when my descent started. It is funny hearing their misrememberances in the ghost stories they share. Some say I was defenestrated for the seduction of a Princess. Others, because I was successful and her sister was ashamed. Those are my favorites.

Up here, the sky is forever blue. Local pegasi like to say “hi” and clear the airways. They have enough respect for a pony to keep me free from rain to the best of their ability. I rarely can say more than “hello” in response; the flighty ponies are bizarrely insistent on maintaining the same flight level and I’ve plummeted far below them before my next word. As soon as we’ve lost sight of each other, we may say “hi” again.

The best days are the ones where I fall through the clouds. Staring up into the empty blue sky and feeling the cool splash on my back with each cloud I pass must be the joy that makes pegasi leave home each morning. Protected by the pillow of winds, I punch through cloud after cloud. A perfect cooldown after a sweaty summer day.

There is one pony who makes me hot and cold. A unicorn mare with a mane and coat that easily contrasts the grass.

This pony shouts spells to me one word at a time. Sometimes I suspect she is Princess Luna when blurry shadows imitate wings; others, I suspect that “Twilight Sparkle,” the name she loves to shout, is her name. She longs to teach me the cloudwalking spell. She promises it’s infinitely easier to cast despite being monstrously heavier in theory than teleportation. I don’t know if I want success. Will the moons of accumulated momentum cause clouds to act solid and kill me as I stop? Will success mean I merely return to the life I came here to exit?

Some days, I smile—even during the lessons. I envision myself returning to stable ground after pegasi pack the surrounding cliffs of Canterlot with a fogbank. I imagine the stories I tell and book deals I publish. Spite is a powerful emotion. As one of my few friends said before she moved away, “When life gives you lemons, make orange juice and leave them wondering how.”

Hey! I’ve never talked to the same pony for this long since I fell. You must be forever falling, too! Everypony else would have long ago taken off to go splat, teleported away, or flown into the distance. You stayed for my entire story. May we be friends?