Cure for Pain

“Wake up, man. It’s eight.” I said to Coleton. “Twilight’s gone with Spike to get parchment, and we need to look for some jobs.” It’s not like I expected him to get up, I just needed him to be awake. “Hmmm… we’re only staying for a couple of weeks, right? Why do we need jobs?” I winced. Twilight woke me up early to tell me this, and he deserved to hear it too. “Yeah, about that.” I started. “Twilight said to me that the transporter she planned to take us back in broke. Upon further inspection, we figured out that the battery it was using to run was faulty, and it wouldn’t work anymore.” Coleton was still half asleep. “Why don’t we just replace the battery, then?” he said in a daze. “Batteries are man-made objects, you moron!” I yelled. That woke him up good. “Oh crap, you’re right. What do you figure the chances of someone coming with the battery are?” He said, panicking. “I dunno, but I can figure it out. Just give me a couple of hours.”

“No way.” Coleton said, not wanting to accept it. It was a few hours later, and Coleton and I had gone for a walk around Ponyville. It was pretty complicated for a show we had been watching since we were teenagers. We sat down at a bench to talk about this predicament we were in. After a few calculations, I figured out that the entire battery situations wouldn’t work. The chances of someone coming to this exact dimension with the exact battery were… less than favorable. “It’s true.” I said, sighing. I liked this place, but I was feeling homesick, and the thought that we will most likely never return wasn’t a very good indicator that that feeling would ever end. “Well…” he said. “What were you saying about jobs earlier?” Before I could respond, Applejack came up with a smile. “Hey, y’all.” She said. “Hey, AJ.” I said, trying to fake a smile. She must have seen through it, because she stopped smiling too. “What’s wrong, sugarcube?” she said. “Well, for starters, the transporter that we were going to go back to earth in is completely screwed up, so we have no means of going back.” She gasped. “That’s terrible!”

It felt very weird to be this bummed about going back, because it directly contradicted what I was thinking about last night. I guess it was an interesting notion when I thought we were going to return eventually, but to know that that was very close to impossible changed my view completely; I had familiarity on Earth, and I didn’t really know this place other than what I’d seen on TV, which wasn’t very much.

“Well,” Applejack said in a comforting voice. “I’m glad you guys aren’t leaving. When I met you, even though it was only for a little bit, you guys seemed pretty cool. I was thinkin’ about it last night, in fact.” It felt good to matter to someone so much, especially considering the short amount of time you’d actually known that person. “Thanks.” Coleton said with a smile, standing up from the bench. “But it doesn’t exactly help us in what we’re looking for.” Applejack seemed concerned (at least, more concerned than she had been looking). “What were you looking for, exactly?” she asked. “We were looking for a job.” Coleton replied. “If we’re gonna be here for the rest of our natural lives, we might as well not leech off of Twilight.” I laughed. “Sure, you leech off of me, but once it’s Twilight, you’re concerned?” He tried to look mad, but laughed too. “Hey guys!” said Pinkie Pie, who just now ran up behind Coleton to join the conversation. Coleton jumped. “HOLY SHIT WHEN DID YOU GET HERE?” he yelled. “I was just responding to my Pinkie sense.” she said happily. “Did your Pinkie sense say something about someone needing a job?” I said, trying to joke around, but failing. “What are you talking about? My tail started twitching.” I thought for a second. “Doesn’t that mean something’s about to fa-“

“SHIT!” I heard right next to me. I looked back to see a soaking wet Coleton with a balloon-covered face, yelling up at the cyan-colored pony who caused it. “REAL FUNNY, DASH!” He tried to fly after her, but he realized that she was too far away for him to catch up. “SUCKER!!!!” She yelled, flying away. I looked at him. “You two would make a great couple.” I said. He then proceeded to smack me in the face. Hard.

Pinkie continued. “Anyway, I passed a music store on the way here, and it had a help-wanted sign on the front window, and because you guys are musicians, I figured you would want to know, just in case you guys are looking for jobs…” Did she ever shut up? I didn’t want her to, but it was something to think about.  “That sounds like a good idea, Pinkie. I’ll make sure to look into that. Coleton, you wanna go check it out?” He was still fuming over Rainbow Dash, so I just left by myself, hoping he would calm down by the time I saw him next time. “See ya, AJ!  See ya, Pinkie!” I waved as I went down the street.

I reached the music store Pinkie was talking about. It looked pretty small from the outside, but it was massive; It had separate rooms for guitars, drums, basses, and the store led into OTHER stores for electronics, microphones, symphonic instruments and marching instruments. I went to the drum room, where the help wanted sign was conviently located, and I found the cashier tuning the drum heads. “Hey, man.” I said, trying to get his attention. He looked up from the snare he was tuning. “What’s up? I don’t…. believe I’ve seen you around before.”

“Actually, I’m not from your dimension. A reality transporter took me from here, and I was transformed by Zecora into a pony.” I could see the confusion on his face and decided to change the topic. “So you said you had a job opening?”

“Yeah. You have the job if you want it. It’s basically selling drums, drumming peripherals and maintaining them. Sounds tedious, I know, but you can play everything in the store whenever there isn’t a customer.” My eyes lit up. “Is this heaven?” He shoved a cymbal box into my hooves. “No, it’s a family-owned music store. Now put these on stands and set them up by that drum set over there. My name’s John, by the way.”

I finally left the shop at around six that evening. I was tired and bored, but the job paid well and playing drums on the job definitely didn’t hurt. I finally got to the library, and when I went in, there were no lights on. Not now, I thought. Anytime but now.

“SURPRISE!” I heard before the lights flickered on, revealing just about every pony in Ponyville huddled into that library. I sighed. I didn’t have the energy to party. “Welcome to Ponyville!” I heard Pinkie say behind me, followed by a noisemaker going off. “Did you like the surprise?” She asked.

I put on a fake smile. “Of course, Pinkie. This was very considerate of you.” She frowned. “Stop talking like Twilight, Walker. It ruins the fun.” She said before running off and joining the crowd of people.

It was not four minutes into the party when I saw Coleton set up in the middle of the room with his guitar around his neck and his amp turned on. “Hey man!” He yelled up to me. “Come on, the people want us to play something!”

I sauntered down to my drums and picked up the sticks. Among the chatter of the party I saw Coleton mouth “Aneurysm?” which is my favorite Nirvana song. I nodded cheerfully. He looked at the microphone Twilight had set up for him. “Alright, this is song from our world called Aneurysm. Tap me off, man.”

It was like old times. We were each pouring our soul into what we were playing. Slowly but surely, I forgot that we were not in Seattle anymore; the music we played showed our origins, and I got more and more into my playing. When the song ended, applause roared through the crowd of people around us, and I smiled. I truly did not want this night to end.

Life here would be pretty good.