The Hollow Kingdom of Big Macintosh

Ladies and Gentlemen, the One-Second Theatre is proud to present
Act II of The Hollow Kingdom of Big Macintosh

Exhibit N

Big Macintosh walks into his house grinning a floodlight. Applejack is nearly blinded by his appearance. He looks so happy it is as if he is almost begging for somepony to question him. He is advertising his happiness as if to say he has discovered some secret and he is willing to tell you what it is, but you have to act now. He can only be like this for a limited time offer and supplies are running out. Happiness is just flying off the shelves.

"Have a nice day?" Applejack asks, even if it seems silly. If Big Macintosh had anything other than a nice day, he would have meandered in the door like any other day of the week, month, year.

"Eeyup," he replies with an uncharacteristic chuckle that denotes that he is keeping some amusing secret. Applejack would like to be happy for her brother, but recent events cause her to be more concerned. She smiles, but only because the situation merits it. She stops smiling, refusing to let the situation slide.

"What made it so nice?" She will not let him slip away with just an "eeyup" or "nnope."

Big Macintosh has to think about this. If he had to sum up what made today great, he would say it is because he found a pony who cares enough about him to help him keep his secret. This pony is also has cute little hips and a habit of kissing him in public, two aspects about her he enjoys. She's more than just a playground or a player, she's a comrade.

Never did they say they were special someponies to one another, but given time Big Macintosh could only see things ending up that way. They may very well end up being married one day in the future. At the moment, she's just a very good friend he would really like to bed. To say anything more would be presumptuous of him.

"I made a friend," he says.

Applejack furrows her brow and cocks her head to the side. She hesitates replying, busy adjusting to such a rare situation.

"... You did?"

"Eeyup, why?" he asks. "I can make friends, right?"

"Well, yeah... but..."

"But?"

"Now don't give me that," Applejack says, approaching him and poking him in the chest with a hoof. "You ain't exactly a social butterfly." Applejack stops as a thought hits her. It amuses her so much she starts laughing. Big Macintosh was already a bit insulted at his sister's disbelief that he could make a friend, but now she appears to be flat out mocking him for it.

"What is it?"

"It's just-" She can barely speak between her bursts of laughter. Her speech is high pitched, like an excited filly. "It's so rare you make a friend that I guess it would be a reason to be real happy."

There is a certain grating quality to being called antisocial. You know the claims are based in reality and you may even acknowledge them as true, but it as if the world has paved the way for constant ridicule. If he lingered by himself, he lingers by himself. If he lingers by himself, he will linger by himself. Despite this, common opinion seems to be the reclusive are not in a hole but a cave. You can walk out of a cave. If they haven't walked out of the cave, they either aren't trying hard enough, refusing to come out, or hopelessly lost within the darkness that there is no coming back for them.

He gets tired of it because it is constantly implied that there is something wrong with him. Perhaps there is, but that doesn't mean it causes him to be alone. That doesn't mean all the lonely ponies are fatally flawed. It doesn't mean the quiet, reclusive types are some sort of undesirable breed. A pony is not born lonesome so that his parents take a look at him and then at one another and then back to their child to make confused faces and say, "is this the best we can do? A lonely child?" From then on, when they go out in public the lonely child is made to stand on the other side of the market away from his parents, alone. This is his only birthright.

To say a pony is lonely is to say he has no friends, and a lonely pony can not deny this by rattling off their acquaintances any more than a sick pony can prove he is not at death's door by shakily getting to his hooves. This leads Big Macintosh to believe loneliness is a qualifiable and not a quantifiable trait, but that's the real kicker: he has never felt lonely. Feeling lonely is a power held only by ponies who don't seem lonely.

"So, who is this new friend of yours?" Applejack asks once the power of language becomes easy again. "Anypony I know?"

"Nnope," he says. He is certain of this and has reason to be certain of this.

"How did you meet her?"

"We just met." The circumstances of meeting Hippocampy were exceedingly odd by anypony's standards.

"Well, how exciting." There is still something in Applejack's tone that Big Macintosh feels is belittling his story. "So you two hit it off? Got something in common?"

Big Macintosh thought about that for a moment. He didn't know much about Hippocampy, aside from her being perceptive, amorous, and pushy. There are many things he still needs to ask her about, one of them being the reason why she was standing in the fountain wearing goat horns. Big Macintosh is patient. He can discover the answers one by one.

"Are you both loners?"

Big Macintosh looks past his sister and out the kitchen window while he mulls over his answer.

"Eeyup," he replies. "Whatever makes you happy."