Unusable Story Husk

by Yip

Rating: everyone
Tags: Random
Length: 1276

Unusable Story Husk

Unusable Story Husk

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2012-11-11 23:50:01 UTC

A Rock

There is a rock standing in front of you.

It's not a particularly large rock by any means; although you can barely see over it, you aren't necessarily the biggest of ponies around. Nevertheless, a rock is still standing right in front of you, blocking your way through the path. Something about the rock is making you forget just why exactly you were even going down this path, but that isn't the concern right now. You need to figure out why there's a rock in your way, and figure out how to conquer it, or it will haunt you for eternity.

But first, you choose to analyze the ground, and see if you can move the rock if the ground was going downhill. Sadly, it's only a regular gravel road going straight into the horizon, making it impossible to move the rock with your low strength ability. Maybe if you got out more, it might have been possible. Perhaps it wouldn't have been possible no matter how strong you were, but that notion is pointless, since you are stuck with your current strength and cannot get any stronger over the next little while.

Inspecting the rock closer, you notice that it is a dull shade of grey, as most rocks you see generally are. The shape, however, isn't similar to a sphere like most other rocks are; it's more like a big slate you can barely see over, reminding you of your boring desk job back in Manehattan, a job that you were probably happy to escape from to do... whatever you are doing, if you remembered it better. It completely covers the decently-sized path you are still standing on, much to your disappointment. This disappointment is quickly extinguished, however, when you discover that the rock is completely symmetrical. The beauty of the rock's complete perfection in equality, despite being quite dull in colour, fascinates your easily distracted mind. This isn't something you see every day, since nature is so unsymmetrical 99.9% of the time that you experience it (which is, frankly, only a few hours a month).

Taking an even closer look at the rock, you're able to tell what the rock is made up of. It's dotted with grey rocks all throughout its composition, despite your wish to see something that hindered the perfection you see on the stone surface. No jewels, abnormalities or indents appear visible on the rock, making it seem even more ethereal than real as it previously seemed. Looking to the sides, you realize that you could have just went around or hopped over the rock the entire time. You slap your hoof onto your head in an attempt to punish yourself for your stupidity.

You poise yourself to make your way around, choosing not to risk grazing your hooves on the rock were you to jump over it. Before you could move, though, something from the obstacle stops you from going any further; a "grappling force" on you, if you will.

You turn yourself back to the curious object that is still blocking your way, even preventing you from going around. Something about it, something peculiar, is keeping you drawn to the path, stopping you from going over or around the rock. There's only one option you have at this point, and it's calling your name.

Go through the rock.

In a fit of disbelief, your brain immediately shuts down the idea. But soon, your conscience's ability to influence your decisions begins to fade, leaving you with empty morals and values concerning your life. Your friends back in Manehattan, whatever business you had with the town you were heading towards, which you realize after seeing the clock tower in the distance that it is Ponyville, is soon forgotten. Small glimpses of your deity, your integral values and any ponies or living things you've come across show up, but once they've left, you're left alone with no memories of anything except this rock that is still standing in front of you, taunting you with its seemingly magical abilities. As your emotions have gone with everything else from your hard shell of a body, you feel no anger by the taunts, even if they are a figment of your imagination, which is also gone as of right now.

You could have just gone back. You could also have just lied there, and not considered attempting to defeat the obstacle in your path. You might have been happier. Happiness, though, is gone, just like the rest of you.

The rock would have appeared menacing at that point, had you not lost your ability to fear things. It has shown that it has an astounding power to change ponies' lives completely, as it has done with you over the span of one minute. If you still had the ability to think logically, you would have been able to realize that it is not a sentient object, and therefore cannot have the magical abilities you are claiming it has been using. It is also highly unfortunate that you aren't in the town you've forgotten about, as a memory you had before contained the name of a powerful unicorn that can deal with the sort of problems you are currently experiencing.

Without anything inside of you left, the rock suddenly vanishes. If you still had the will to discover inside of you, the peculiar disappearance would have made you realize that the rock was a figment of your imagination, and was never blocking your path. But even though it no longer exists, and hasn't ever existed, it did the job that is impossible for it to have completed.

You wander aimlessly for the rest of your life, not pausing to stop for anything. You never encounter a rock ever again, but if you had, it wouldn't have steered you off course, since rocks no longer matter for your life to exist. Does anything actually matter for your existence to be true? Most likely not, but things such as the sky, the sun and whatever else the planet has to offer is not affected by anything you do or become. Especially now that you have changed from a nearly worthless pony to a dead weight that is plagued with walking the world forever, without purpose and without reason.

Do you even exist? Perhaps the entire time, this story never even took place. You don't really have a sentience.

No, that isn't true. You did exist the entire time. But now, only a shell is actually present. And it wasn't even because of a rock, or your inability to go over a non-existent rock, or the magical abilities of the rock that you believed to be true before belief was removed from your system. Now that you don’t have anything, though, do you really exist? What is existence to you, or what was it like before? It must’ve been subjective, because you may or may not be real depending on your source. And most sources, however biased, incorrect or skewed each one may be, cannot have even the slightest sliver of reliability that could provide you with the correct answer. Even you, who supposedly knows the most about yourself, couldn’t hope to ever truly understand anything about your own existence.

So now, because of a rock, or possibly even yourself, you have nothing more to live for in an empty world you’ve done meaningless things to contribute to. Do you know what you’ve gained from all this, though? What have you gained that you can’t even do anything about, or feel satisfaction from attaining?

You are no longer standing in front of a rock.