The Mental Maunderings of a Mad Man

Soft solar reflections illuminate my driveway and guide Miss Pie and I into my modest, for lack of a better word, home. Keys jingle, doors squeak, my tired and trembling hands fumble, and at last harsh, incandescent bulbs bring a sweet lambency to the barely furnished living room of my home.

“What a cool place,” Pinkie exclaims, joy returning gradually filling her words, “It would be perfect for…” her smile is stymied and her hair flattens a bit in what I can only attribute to sheer disregard for the laws of physics, gravity, and logic, “a party.” She finishes disheartened by the impossibility of such an activity at the current moment.

I kneel down next to her, clutching a stray chair for support as I lower myself, and stroke her frizzled hair. “Some other time Pinkie, when things are less… hectic… You can throw me a huge party if you would like to.” Her mane poofs back into its natural curls and her sorrow lifts to reveal a content, and slightly spastic, pony.

“As soon as we get back to Equestria I will throw you the biggest party you’ve ever been thrown by anypony named Pinkie!” She gulps in a mouthful of replenishing oxygen before continuing.

“That’s me by the way!”

“Why thank… you.” I ponder Pinkie’s statement as I flop unto my beaten old couch and nod for her to sit with me. “What do you mean?” I ask curiously as she hops up next to me and cuddles against my side.

“I mean that I’ll throw you a HUGE party!” her despondent sigh reminds me of frustrated and burnt out teachers whose patients with a particularly troubling pupil are wearing thin. Her added ‘Duh’ only adds to the simile.

“I understood that, don’t get me wrong I’m looking forward to it, but what’s with the ‘we’ and the ‘Equestria’ bit in there?” I shift my sore legs and she rests her head on my thigh. “You don’t honestly expect me to go with you? Do you?” already her lachrymose expression answers that yes, she expects and intends for me to do exactly such a thing.

“Don’t you want to?” she pouts, her lower lip jutting forward and thin tears trailing down her rosy cheeks.

“Well…” I stutter and stumble over my words until the come spilling out like drunken polio victims. “I can’t just up and leave, I mean, I have school and family and a job and… and… and I have a date tonight!” a quick glance at a nearby table and the radio alarm clock laying on its side shows that I’ve already missed my appointment to pick up Jocelyn. I swear under my breathe and look back to Pinkie.

“You said it yourself; this place is terrible, awful, horrible, and Twi’s told me what will happen, so why won’t you come with me?” What I had earlier mistaken for crocodile tears prove to be all too real, the glimmering streaks of liquid sorrow race down her short fur and glisten in the light. “I thought you liked us, the others thought so too, even the princesses agreed on saving you. Why won’t you join us?”

“Wait,” I stop her with a gentle touch and attempt to compose myself and my thoughts. “What are you talking about?”

“I want to know why you won’t come to Equestria! I thought that was obvious.” She sobs.

“No,” I shake my head and wring my hands, “No,no,no! I meant all that talk about what Twilight has told you would happen and why the princesses agreed to ‘save’ me! What is all that about?”

“They didn’t tell you?” she gasps, raising one hoof to cover her mouth and setting another on my hand.

“No.”

“How could they meet you and not tell you!? I mean, it’s just, what, I don’t, it doesn’t, what?” she babbles.

“Twilight mentioned a few things,” I explain in utter confusion, “But nothing like what you’ve said. Well nothing like it except for-”

“Except for the fact that she made this whole world by accident and now that she’s been here it’s dying?” Pinkie offers an ending to my sentence.

“Well…” I fall silent for a while. “No, just that first bit.”

“So you didn’t know? You didn’t notice?”

“No, yes, maybe.” I swallow hard and take it all in. “So those random visions, those things disappearing, all the glitches and such I’ve been seeing… this world really is dying, no, it’s coming undone, unraveling by its seems… Just because she came here?”

“Yep,” Pinkie nods solemnly, “but she didn’t know until after she came back what she’d done by visiting.”

“So why did you all come to me? Why would you want to save me?” my hands quiver so violently and my breath comes so raggedly I can only pray to Goddess that this is all just a bad dream, just a bad trip, just a… bad something other than reality. Eris, in all her wisdom, chooses to ignore yet another of my desperate pleas. I hope she knows what she’s doing.

“Because you’re important,” Pinkie tells me, “You’re the human embodiment of the Elements of Harmony, and you’re the only person, in this entire world, with a body strong enough, a mind sharp enough, and a soul pure enough to deserve salvation.” Pinkie smiles and giggles without apparent cause. “Twilight’s words, not mine!”

Her laughter is contagious and soon I’m keeled over cackling along with her despite the gloomy mood that filled the room mere moments ago. The ruckus dies down and we grow somber once more.

“So everything, everyone… They all have to die?” blinding tears well up as I ask the single hardest question I’ve ever had to.

“Yep…” Pinkie’s drop down and I pull her into a hug before she can be depressed by the awful knowledge of the impending events.

“How soon?” I whisper into her ear.

“As soon as the last bit of Equestria leaves Earth.” She replies gravely.

“Let me guess,” My arms slide away but I keep her close to me, “You’re the last piece, the last pony.”

“Yep.” She whimpers.

“And you’ll be leaving soon.” I do the math in my head and realize that soon will actually be any moment now.

“Yep.” Her voice is so small I can’t even hear it but I know what she said.

“Then let’s go,” I smile at her and wink mischievously, “From one world of chaos to another, now worries.”

Pinkie holds her forehoof out to me and I take it in a firm, yet gentle grasp. Her lips twist upwards slightly as radiant light envelops us and everything bleeds away in an instance. Our bodies shimmer and our weight vanishes. Together we close our eyes and hurl through the fabric, corduroy I think, of time, space, and matter. As our journey reaches its zenith I blink and see my world crumbling to ash and my Goddess waving at me.

“When a butterfly flaps its wings there’s a snowstorm in Chicago,” she speaks wordlessly to me, “And when a man sees the true chaos surrounding him there’s a parade in Valhalla, but today you have overcome that chaos, that discord, that strife, and for that there shall be a party, the greatest party ever thrown for you by one Pinkie Pie, in Equestria.”

“Praise Eris.” I cry and all sweeps away leaving only the darkest dark, the blackest black, the endless night.

But then it’s all over.