Nurse Redheart walked up to the podium reverently, but with a nagging thought in the back of her mind. Why? Why her? Why was she the most qualified to speak for the death of this idol of the community? All she did was the autopsy.
She approached the microphone and gazed out at the sea of ponies that had come to attend her address. Maybe it was a sign of the failing town that fewer and fewer ponies were coming to these funerals. Where she would gaze out at the crowd, a pony she would have considered a friendly face was replaced by an empty Abyss. Even pillars of the community were moving out of their humble hometown and one could only wonder why?
Red placed down the notes of her presentation and looked to one face she could recognize in the crowd. Anon. He was there. He would always be there. She smiled. Remembering the good times. There was something special about someone who was blindly hated. It helped you keep your mind off of the real problems in the world.
Like the deceased.
“Uhm,” she began.
She mentally kicked herself for doing what she promised she wouldn’t do today. No filler words. Public speaking wasn’t her strong suit. She didn’t want to be one of those people who knew it was breaking some form of rule, but refused to change because it was her style.
“I was asked to speak today regarding the pony whom we are burying. We aren’t sure who the pony is, given their unrecognizable state. However, from the autopsy we do know several things about the subject. And based on several accounts of identifiable information that we did find on the deceased, we asked for stories from the ponies in their life in an attempt to… cover all of our bases.”
Nurse Redheart looked up from her notes to the ponies in the crowd. Many looked in bemusement. Many with a guilty conscience. Many were angry. Still processing their stages of grief and in pure denial that the ride was over.
“According to the autopsy, the pony was unrecognizable due to the 569,373 stab wounds across the entire body. Using DNA evidence, we concluded that there were much fewer than that many individuals that actually performed the deed, and that the sheer number of factors that could have contributed to motive were immeasurable. According to some family members, they preferred to store files in a PDF format, an absolutely unforgivable character trait. Others insisted they were born that way, and that their eventual abandonment by their parents and lack of strong guidance is to blame for their eventual demise.”
She took a deep breath and eyed the crowd once more. There was an unrest building.
“That isn’t to say that hope was totally lost for the deceased. Those who came during the deceased's final moments to visit the unknown pony said that their life was far from over. This too would be just a flesh wound in the grand scheme of things and all we had to do to prevent this was to have a proper conversation. That our community needed better police to finally banish the individuals that could possibly harm our poor friend. Our poor families. Our children.”
“The deceased was the kind of person who always kept going in life. A follower rather than a leader. A Fluttery Pony, who even after they ran out of gas, and their wings fell off, would keep trudging forward no matter how hard things got. For these good deeds, we did everything we could to try and keep them alive. We crowdsourced funding. We advertised ways to make their life better and to try and cure the cancer that was growing inside of them. Some of the tumors were surgically removed, but once a cancer spreads… the battle is almost impossible to win.”
Nurse Redheart sighed and flipped through her notes. Did she really have so few positive things to say? She rose her eyes once more and barely saw any ponies she recognized. In their place, automatons are there strictly to promote their own agenda. Folks that didn’t even speak the language the town spoke. Not that she exactly minded… but one of the laws of the town was to speak English. Bots seemed to be taking over their beloved town. Over long enough of a time, would there be anypony left?
She felt like she was simply performing for herself at this point. Nopony was actually listening. Sure she had the chance to have this featured moment, but so many other ponies were trying their hardest to speak. Some in the crowd had their own speech ready to go and were simply praying for the right set of circumstances to get to the podium, but there always seemed to be somepony else who was a better speaker. And there always seemed to be somepony who was able to rig the vote and get to speak anyway. Some were able to speak because they had salacious details about the deceased’s life. Such not safe for work topics seemed to always have a way to leak out to those who didn’t want to hear it. But at this point, the police seemed to have given up.
Such is life, you suppose.
“We did our best for a pony that was in such poor health. The odds were stacked against them for the sheer number of medical issues with them. We really genuinely tried. But there’s a point where you have to ask… is all of this worth it? Would they simply be better off if they could finally rest? Would fewer ponies be harmed if they could be kept away from their… abnormal private life? Would fewer mistakes be made if their bastions of extreme political beliefs be pushed away? But I suppose that’s a matter of Freedom of Speech.”
“I’m sorry. I feel like I’m just rambling at this point. I didn’t know the deceased personally, but I know many loved… whoever they are, very much. And they will never be forgotten.”
Then, from inside of the closed casket, a muffled cough could be heard.
The crowd roared in applause and swarmed the casket, raising the corpse that moaned in pain above their heads in jubilee.
Nurse Redheart wanted to shout over the crowd. This didn’t mean anything. Sometimes corpses would off-gas and make sounds after life had left the body. But she didn’t want to crush the hopes of the town people. Their hopes were high and their loved one was alive to them once more.
There was no use beating a dead horse.
Author's Note
Thank you Kendrick for the idea.
