My Little Pony: A Grillfiction
Finally, after years of waiting on the sidelines, it’s my turn to manage the summer sun barbeque! But i’m getting ahead of myself here, my name is dusk shine (weird name, I know), but my friends call me Dusky for short. I am a student at the Solaris School for Gifted Individuals, one of the best boarding schools in the country. Every year the school holds a charity barbeque to benefit mental illness research and, after years of campaigning for the position, I have finally been awarded the position of project manager for the whole thing! There hasn’t been one single project manager that hasn’t gone to the Ivy League school of their choice by the time they graduated. I know it sounds like superstition, but it never hurts to have a little bit of extra luck on your side, right?
My first stop was the grill station for the charcoal grills. Even though this is a community barbeque, people from all across the county come in and show off their grills, so we set them up in stations. Anyways, as soon as I verified that yes, in fact, those were charcoal grills ( I never said the job was that hard), the participants were all there and had their meet, and the right kind of charcoal was being used, I checked them off my list. I was about to move on when a warm, southern voice called my name
“And just where do you think you’re going sugarcube?” the voice asked. I looked around. All the participants were prepping the same as ever. “Down here dusky”. When I look down there is a grill I hadn’t seen before. This one, unlike the others, is painted in a kind of orange hue with apples all over it. I stare at it. “Bingo city boy” the voice drawls
“You’re a grill!” I sputter out. “A talking grill!” I look around, the others hadn’t seemed to noticed this impossibility in front of me. In fact, THEY were the ones giving me weird looks, not the grill. I decided it would be prudent at this point to shut my mouth and ignore it. Just post-finals stress getting to me. Then the damn thing decided to speak again
“Hold on there sugarcube, you’re not going crazy. I can talk and i’m definitely real. See?” The grill somehow moves itself in front of somebody and trips them. I scramble to help him and this abomination up. I’m shaking at this point “I know it may seem strange to you sugarcube, but there is a world you never knew about. You aware of reincarnation?” I nod “Well, souls aren’t always reincarnated into living things. Sometimes they end up in nonliving things, usually to fulfill a purpose”
“So why are you here?” I ask
“Dunno, just know that me and the others were supposed to find you for some specific purpose and introduce ourselves.”
“The others?” I ask dumbly.
“Yeah, I have to stay here for now, you know, can’t be rolling me around everywhere, my owner might get suspicious.” I look behind me to see a blonde-haired refrigerator (how can a man be that big?” with a cowboy hat on and a concerned look on his face.
“You ok son? I’ve seen guys talk to all kinds of things, but never a grill.” he asks in a deep voice. I gulp nervously
“Yeah, of course, guess it’s just the heat getting to me”. The refrigerator smiles knowingly and hands me a water bottle
“One thing growing up in Georgia taught me is to always pack some extra hydration” I take a few deep gulps
“Thank you sir, that’s a beautiful grill you have by the way, did you decorate it yourself?” I ask, trying to save face in front of this massive man
“Eeyup, call it applejack, on account’a my father’s favorite drink.” he gets a distant look in his eyes. I decide to take this moment to exit stage right. Refrigerator man was probably right, just dehydration. I continue over to the flash frier. This one is decked out in a kind of cyan with a cloud and a rainbow lightning bolt on it. The owner of this one is a skater-looking girl with an orange shirt.
“Like it?” She asks “Pops calls it the Dashernator 5000, on account of it being so dang fast. This thing can cook a turkey in ten minutes flat. You can’t find that kind of speed and quality just anywhere.”
“Hell no you can’t!” The source of the voice is, of course, the fryer. This day is just getting weirder.
Real name’s rainbow dash. and little scoots is wrong. I can fry a turkey in 8 minutes tops. The rest is just basking in my awesomeness for flavor. That’s the real secret. Nice to meet ya. Want to see me fry an entire ham?” I do my checks and walk off “Wait, you haven’t even seen what I can do with a chicken!”. I take a few more gulps of my water. I seem to be dehydrating quite fast today.
My next stop was the big, shiny consumer grills, the kind you’d see at an upper-middle classman’s house. I always enjoyed the kind of competition between the owners of those. Whoever had the shiniest grill with the best features would be the “winner”. They even made a little trophy (I didn’t even know you could BUY steak-shaped trophies). The one that really caught my eye was almost blinding in its brilliance. Chrome everywhere, twelve burners,more buttons and switches than a stealth fighter, and to top it all off three diamonds inlaid into the handle. Never seen these owners before, although I knew the type. Football dad, trophy wife, adorable little daughter on the verge of the boy-crazy stage of life. The dad caught my eye and slowly shook his head as if to say “one hand on my daughter, you’re dead”. I was about to turn away when a cultured voice came in from there direction “Don’t worry about him darling, he’s just protective of his little sweetie belle. He’s really quite nice most of the time, although his wife has a horrid taste in fashion. Oh where are my manners, my name is Wondergrill 3955 customized, but I like to think the diamonds make the girl, so I call myself Rarity. Might I say your hair is a wonderful shade of black.” Great, a super-fancy grill is complimenting me on my hair. I decide to try the thought method at this point
“Th-thank you rarity....or do you prefer miss rarity. It’s nice to meet you too. Might I say you’re probably one of the most beautiful grills i’ve ever seen...if that doesn’t sound weird.”
“Not at all sweetie, and just rarity. Try not to shout when you mindcall though dear. Try doing it like this” She sends a...sensation? instruction? I don’t know what it is, but it conveys what to do to not “shout”. At least this one seemed to know how weird this all was. If only I could find a girl like that....anyways. My next stop was the little portable grills. Foremans, some gas grills, most of the stuff you’d see on a campout or on a kitchen counter. Turns out some of them forgot to get propane and a few need extension cords. I pick up the supplies from the self-styled “quartermaster” (military types...). As I bring one back a camp grill (basically a flat top with two burners) catches my eye. This one has a yellow trim and butterflies on the burner knobs. Knowing the pattern I mindcall to it.
“So what’s your name?”
“...” Weird. the other ones were so eager to introduce themselves
“Don’t worry, i’ve met the others. What’s your name?”
“umm...it’s...umm...*squeak*”
“Sorry, didn’t quite catch that.”
“it’s fluttershy”
“Nice to meet ya fluttershy. The other grills seemed somewhat sheltered, but i’m sure you must have some great camping stories.”
“Camping? Did you say camping? You like camping too? Ohmygosh you tell me your stories first!” All it takes is one story from me for her to get going. Apparently her owner is some kind of prospector-contractor guy. Finds places for mines, spends most of his time outdoors. She entertains me about stories of mountain lions until I reach the final station, a large commercial grill run by one of the local bbq chain owners. I’d seen this one many times before, but this year it seemed...different. They decided to paint it pink and hang balloons for it. When I ask them if they need anything I inquire about the color change. While they’re slapping meat onto the grill, they explain Some rich guy had a party for his daughter recently and wanted everything to have a pink theme and they liked it so much they kept it. Suddenly I get hit by a wall of fast,high-pitched speech.
“Hii’mgrillmaster5000butyoucancallmepinkiepieisn’tmypaintjobgreatmyoldpaintjobwasBLEHbutnowit’sallyaysomycolorareyouduskshinealltheothershavetoldmeallaboutyoueventhoughwedon’tknowwhyyou’resospecialalthoughraritylovesyourhairand-”She goes on in this vein for some time. She’s still talking an hour later when i’m going around checking the meat with my Spike-30 meat thermometer (brand new just for this occasion). Rarity (apparently the others can pick my brain at the same time) finally butts in and explains to her that I have a lot of work to do and probably don’t need the distraction.