Insomniacs are a strange breed; we're up much longer than normal ponies, and we seem to get even less done. That’s why, as usual, I was up when the sun rose.
I was just lying on my couch, the firm red velvet refusing to give, almost pushing me away with its quiet insistence. I was staring out the window at the retreating darkness, the last traces of black being driven away by the unrelenting light of the sun. My thoughts wandered aimlessly, as they often did in my half-dream state made up of exhaustion and reluctant acceptance of my life situation.
The thinning darkness made me wonder. Where did that unquantifiable mass of infinite nothingness go when the light touched it? Did it just fade away into nonexistence? What about when it came back? Were we seeing the same darkness, or was it an entirely different entity that greeted us every night and in the corners of the room where the light didn’t dare to tread?
I watched the light grow longer, driving the shadows toward the side of my house like the rolling tide of the sea. The shadows inched along, growing slower with each passing second, until they finally disappeared from view, hiding from my inquiries behind the windowsill.
Apparently, the moon turned me into a poet.
The heavy weight pulling on my eyelids made me blink, and then blink again in the hopes that it would grow lighter. It didn’t. I exhaled a long, heaving sigh and rolled off the couch, misjudging my trajectory and bumping my head on my oaken coffee table. I don’t know who Murphy was, but his law annoyed me to no end.
I pulled myself to my hooves, stopping for a moment to allow the room to settle in my vision. Front door on the left, kitchen straight ahead, bedroom on the right. Everything seemed to be in order, so I started forward.
I turned the coffee maker on and pulled a plastic jug out from under the counter. It used to hold milk, a gallon I think, but now I just used it for coffee. Caramel told me it would kill me to drink so much caffeine, but it got me through the day. Besides, I probably would’ve committed murder had I not gotten my fix.
The coffee finished doing whatever the action is that coffee does when you make it and I poured the contents of the pot into the jug. The next step in my morning routine was to dunk my head into a sinkful of frigid water. Just like every morning, I held my head underwater for as long as I could, thinking about how easy it would be to just leave it there. I wasn’t really depressed or anything, more curious. What happened to us when we died? Could it be better than my existence, working at a job that I hated and serving ponies that only served to irritate me? How could it not be?
I pulled my head out of the water and dried myself with a towel.
I was out and about earlier than most ponies. That was fine with me; I wasn’t really social. I stepped out into the warm summer morning and immediately went on autopilot, eyes fixed on the ground in front of me, ignoring the scenery and thinking about nothing in particular. The shop wasn’t too far away from my house, so I got there in no time. When I arrived, I looked up at the sign.
“Quills and Sofas,” I read under my breath. “We only got two things, so you know we got ‘em.”
The door gave way easily as I pushed through it. I used to lock it every night, but there had never been a reported crime in Ponyville in the entire history of the town, so I figured I was okay. The shop was dark, only lit by the rays of the sun just now pulling the rest of its body over the horizon. I went around and systematically turned the lights on and procured my vest and nametag from the back like I was programmed to.
Quills and Sofas wasn’t huge, just enough space for about twenty couches and the counter, with another room in the back. The quills were displayed in jars lining the shelves behind the counter. I took my place behind the register, not bothering to check the drawer for missing funds. I stood there for a minute before taking a swig of coffee and collapsing on the sofa I had stashed out of sight, a fluffy brown thing that swallowed you whole when you lie on it.
The familiar notches and grooves in the ceiling held my rapt attention as I contemplated my station in life. This was what occupied my thoughts most of the time, even though I always reached the same conclusion. My general thought process was as follows.
I don’t like my job, so I should quit. I can’t just quit; I own the place. Then I should just sell it. I couldn’t for two reasons. One, property in Ponyville wasn’t worth dirt, and two, even if I could sell it, the money I would make would be too meager to keep me stable for long. So if I ever managed to sell it, I should just find another job somewhere. Then what? Work service doing a slightly different job for even less money? No thanks. So I should go back to school, right, get a degree in something and work at a job that I liked. School cost too much, so that was pretty much out. Still, shouldn’t I try to find anything that I like better than doing what I was doing now? But I was comfortable where I was, and therein lay the problem.
I was comfortable, but I wasn’t happy. I was sure that all I had to do was wait for the right opportunity to cross my path, and then I would escape this place.
The bell above the door rang, interrupting my thoughts. I pulled myself to my hooves, concerned for a moment with how far the sun had moved across the sky. It looked like it was almost eleven. How long had I been lying there?
“Welcome to Quills and... oh. What’s up, Caramel?”
Caramel sauntered into the shop like a pony who had just won the lottery. Come to think of it, that’s pretty much how he walked everywhere. He flashed me his perfect white teeth and I rolled my eyes.
“Nothing much,” he said, lessening the intensity of his smile by a few notches. “Just coming in for work, boss.” He mock-saluted me.
“Geeze, is it twelve already?” I asked. I had been lying there for over four hours without a single customer. How encouraging.
“You alright, man?” Caramel asked before disappearing into the back room. “You seem a little out of it.”
“You always say that,” I replied.
He reappeared with his own vest and nametag. “That’s because it’s always true.”
I snorted and fell back onto the couch, forcing Caramel to stand behind the register. Seniority rules.
“Just thinking, you know?” I said, not taking my eyes off the ceiling. “About my life, this place.”
“Are you about to start complaining again?” he asked, casting a sideways glance in my direction. What a nice pony.
“So what if I am?” I challenged, though it was weak. I had been about to start complaining again.
“So, if you’re about to complain, I’d just like to be prepared.” He grabbed a jar of quills and hoisted it, turning his foreleg into a catapult aimed straight at me.
I held up my hooves. “Fine, fine, I won’t say anything.” I waited until he replaced the jar. “But if I were, I would say something along the lines of ‘I hate this place and I want to get out.’”
Caramel sighed. “Are we gonna have this conversation again?”
“All I’m saying is, this place is destroying my soul, and if I don’t leave soon, I might kill myself.” I shrugged. “That’s all I’m saying.”
“Then why don’t you leave?” he asked with a creased brow. “You’re always talking about getting rid of the store. Just sell the place and move on.”
“I can’t,” I said, covering my eyes with my foreleg.
“Why not?” he asked. I heard his hooves shuffle as he turned to face me.
“I’ve explained this to you already,” I said into my arm.
I could feel him looking at me. “Explain it again,” he said.
I peeked at him with one eye from underneath the shadow of my foreleg. “If I sell this place, I won’t get enough to do anything with it. School’s too expensive, and I’ll just end up working another dead-end job for less money, and then I really will kill myself. I’m comfortable here.”
He just stared at me, mouth agape.
I waved him off. “I know, I know, if I’m so comfortable, then what am I bitching about?” I rolled over and stared at the side of the counter, hugging one of the couch cushions. “I don’t know. I have a house and a job, enough money to get by, at least one friend. What am I complaining about?”
The conversation lapsed into silence. I didn’t really expect Caramel to say anything, and he didn’t. I was just lying on the couch, listening to my own breathing and trying to figure out why in Tartarus I was so miserable. Comfortable, not happy. Shouldn’t they be the same thing? Everypony else in Ponyville seemed content with their jobs, with their lives, just doing the same thing day-in and day-out with nothing to break the monotony. Why couldn’t I just be like them, unaware of the pointlessness of their existence? If I was comfortable, but I wasn’t happy, then what could I do to change that? All lines of thought led to being uncomfortable as the cure for all that ailed me.
The thought itself was uncomfortable enough. Why should I risk anything when my surroundings were doing just fine? What if I failed and couldn’t go back? Being comfortable and unhappy certainly sounded better than being miserable in both spirit and situation.
I settled back into the couch, sighing. It wasn’t worth the risk. If life was determined to get me down, who was I to stand in the way?
I heard Caramel serve a few customers, just handing out quills and taking bits. I always wondered how he could do it with a smile on his face. When I ran this place alone, I had to bite my lip just to keep from slamming my head on the counter every time a customer asked “Do you have anything besides quills and sofas?” or “How much is it for five quills?” That one was great. I glanced up at the sign hanging above Caramel’s head that read “FIVE QUILLS=ONE BIT” in the largest, most obnoxious lettering I could manage. Caramel must’ve had the patience of a saint to deal with those blathering idiots all day. I guess that’s why I hired him.
Most of the day passed without incident, Caramel and I talking about the same pointless things we talked about every day. I wondered if it was possible for a pony to literally die of boredom, hypothesizing that if it was possible in the first place, then it would’ve already happened to me. As I watched the same customers come in and buy the same things they did every day, a thought occurred to me.
“Did you ever feel like you were living somepony else’s life?” I asked Caramel when the shop had emptied out.
“What do you mean?” he asked, turning to me.
I propped myself up on my elbows. “Think about it. Think about how you live your life. What do you do for fun?” Caramel laughed and turned back to the register. “I’m serious, Caramel, what do you do for fun?”
“You know what I do for fun,” he said. “I go to the bar after work every day, then I go home and sleep, and then I come here and work.”
“Every day?” I raised my eyebrows.
“Every day,” he said with a nod.
“So tell me,” I said, “when was the last time you didn’t do one of those things. When was the last time you decided to go straight home after work, or stayed at the bar and got so hammered that you had to be carried home?”
Caramel seemed to seriously considered it for a while, his eyes wandering to the ceiling. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “But what does that have to do with anything?”
“You know those famous ponies that live here?” I asked, sitting up.
“The Elements of Harmony? What about them?”
I gestured toward the door. “They live their lives, battling evil, and it seems like every week they solve some crisis or another. How can their lives be so varied and exciting, and ours be the same thing every single day?”
Caramel laughed. “You’re insane.”
I glared at him. “Think about it. Maybe they’re stealing all the excitement and fun out of the world and we’re stuck with the leftovers.”
“I hope you realize how crazy you sound,” Caramel said, shaking his head.
“You can call me whatever you want,” I said. “It isn’t crazier than anything else that’s happened to those ponies.”
We fell back into the rhythm of the store, me breathing, Caramel selling. I asked myself at this point, as I often did, why I even bothered to come into work. I barely did anything while I was there, even serving to be detrimental to the business by distracting Caramel and otherwise being a nuisance. I could balance the books at home, coming in once a week to take inventory and place orders, and I would still make the same amount of money.
I think I didn’t do that because I would’ve hated to be stuck at home all day. I didn’t socialize, there weren’t really any mares I was interested in, and Caramel was my only friend. I would just sit in my empty house, surrounded by the space occupied only by me and my own unhappiness. If those walls could talk, they wouldn’t have anything to say. I couldn’t stand to be alone with myself for that long, and I am thoroughly convinced that, after a week of isolation, I would’ve either been institutionalized or dead.
I listened to Caramel talk to a customer for about ten minutes. I don’t remember what was said, but I remember the horrible tone of voice the customer used. It lacked any sort of inflection, just droning on and on in this grating, nasally monotone, like a mosquito buzzing in your ear that you just couldn’t shake.
I stuck my hoof under the couch and pulled out a red rubber ball, anything to distract me from that voice. I tossed the ball up, and caught it when it came down. Up and down, up and down, making a bouncing noise every time it hit my hoof again. I saw the customer glance at me out of the corner of my eye, irritated. I started throwing the ball harder, letting it ricochet off the ceiling and bounce off the floor a few times before catching it.
“Excuse me,” the customer droned at me. “Could you please stop that? I’m trying to purchase a sofa.”
I caught the ball and turned to face him as slowly as I could manage. Then I snorted, and in my best imitation of his voice, I said, “Excuse me, could you please not sound like somepony filled your nasal passages with cement when you talk?”
“Well,” he mosquitoed, “I have never.” He huffed and turned to leave. I rolled my eyes when Caramel ran after him.
“Now, don’t be so hasty, sir,” Caramel said, putting his foreleg around the pony’s shoulders and guiding him back to the counter. “My friend here was just kidding!” He looked at me. “Weren’t you, Davenport?” he said through gritted teeth.
“Yeah, whatever,” I said, waving my hoof and pretending to ignore them.
“And you’ll apologize now, won’t you, Davenport?” Caramel was going to do some serious damage to his teeth if he kept them clenched like that.
Why should I apologize? It was my store. I stood up and sighed. “I’m sorry,” I said, more than a hint of sarcasm in my voice.
Caramel smiled. “That’s better—”
“I’m sorry your mother dropped you on your nose when you were a foal,” I finished. From the look Mosquito Pony gave me, I thought he was legitimately going to hit me, and I don’t think I would’ve minded if he had. Anything to make this place more interesting.
Instead, he shrugged off Caramel’s foreleg and left without saying a word. Once the ding signaling his departure had faded, Caramel turned to me.
“What’d you do that for!?” he shouted.
I fell back onto the couch. “This is my store. He was annoying me.”
Caramel apparently didn’t like that response. “You can’t just drive away customers like that. You run a store, and you have an obligation to serve customers that come into said store.”
“So, what, if somepony is annoying me to the point of psychosis, I can’t be rude to them, is that what you’re saying?” I was baiting him. I knew it was foalish; that’s why I did it.
He stamped his hoof. “Why can’t you just be like a normal pony?”
I gaped at him. “You expect me to deal with every single one of those ponies, day-in and day-out, and not flip a gasket every once in awhile?”
“I do,” he stated.
I threw my hooves up into the air. “Well, I apologize for not having the same capacity that you have to deal with ponies that make my life miserable. Maybe I’ll take notes next time.”
“You know what your problem is?” Caramel asked. He lowered his eyebrows and pursed his lips like he was about to impart some divine knowledge unto me.
“I’m not in the mood for a lecture,” I said, averting my eyes.
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.” This time I met his gaze. I knew what was coming, and I really didn’t need to hear what he had to say.
“You complain about how you want change, how miserable your existence is, but you shoulder the blame off on everypony else. The customers are too annoying, or the right opportunity just hasn’t come along yet.” He jabbed a hoof at me. “But what are you doing for change? You complain to me every day about getting out of this place, so why don’t you just get up and do it? There are no opportunities coming, nopony is going to drop a big bowl of happiness into your lap. The customers aren’t going to suddenly become interesting to you. Change won’t happen unless you make it happen.”
I clapped my hooves together sarcastically. “Thanks, doc, real inspirational. They teach you that in med school? Or did you flunk out before that lesson?”
Caramel’s face darkened like a cloud had passed over him, but he didn’t say anything. I knew it was a low blow, but I didn’t care. All I cared about at that moment was making him feel as miserable as I did. Why should he get to be happier than me, look down on me, when he was in basically the same situation? What was he doing that I wasn’t that made him so happy? It made perfect sense at the time to alienate the only pony who was trying to help me.
“Whatever,” Caramel said, ending the conversation. We both fumed, filling the air with tension.
You’re being really stupid, the rational part of my brain told me. If you don’t want your life to get worse, apologize.
I’m not apologizing until he does, said the angrier, stupider part of me.
You’re hopeless.
Shut up.
As the sun began to touch the horizon, the brass grandfather clock on the far wall chimed seven times, signaling closing. I poked my head up from the couch to find the store empty. Caramel had already put his vest away and was heading for the door, no doubt eager to leave my company. The look he gave me on his way past told me that most of his anger had dissolved, and my anger had settled enough for me to apologize.
“I’m sorry,” I said. Not the most eloquent way to put it, but it got my point across.
Caramel just nodded and kept going. I figured he needed more time to cool off, so I let him go.
I slumped back down on the couch, thinking about what Caramel had said.
Change won’t happen unless you make it happen.
I tried to pull his argument apart, to find some flaw with it, but it defeated me. I knew in the back of my mind that he was right, of course. But what could I do? How was I supposed to change my life, just like that?
The bell above the door interrupted my thoughts for the second time that day.
“We’re closed!” I called from behind the counter.
“Hello?” It was a mare’s voice. I heard her hoofsteps approach the counter.
I sat up and she jumped back, clutching her chest. “Geez, do you scare all your customers like that?” she asked.
I smiled a little. I knew I recognized her from around town, but I couldn’t think of her name. Her mane was a dark magenta, her coat was a lighter shade of the same color, and she had some berries adorning her flank.
She’s cute.
I blinked. Where did that come from?
“We’re closed,” I repeated.
“But your lights are on, and your sign says open, and you’re here.” She bobbed her head a little. “That kinda means you’re open.”
Damn, she had me.
“Damn, you got me,” I said, surprising myself with how cheerful I sounded. I made a wide gesture with my forelegs. “Welcome to Quills and Sofas, where we sell quills and sofas.” I narrowed my eyes at her. “You’re not going to ask me how much quills are, are you?”
She glanced up at the sign. The light hit her face and I felt like I was looking at another insomniac; it looked like stress was literally pulling at her features. There were bags under her eyes and a few crow’s-feet forming, but she couldn’t have been any older than me. “You’re kidding, right?” she asked.
“You would not believe how many ponies ask,” I said, leaning back on the couch. “So, what can I get you?”
“I’ll give you two guesses,” she said, cracking a smile. I guffawed like an idiot. Finally, somepony with a little personality.
What was her name? It was Berry something. Berry Soda? No, that was dumb. I think we even graduated at the same time, so why couldn’t I remember her name?
I pretended to be deep in thought, rubbing my chin with my hoof and rolling my eyes to the top of my head. She smiled again. That thought from before was right; this mare was cute, despite the kind of haggard look. It gave her character, I reasoned.
“Alright,” I said, pointing a hoof at her, “but if I get it on my first try, you have to tell me your name.”
Her jaw dropped. “We graduated together! Are you telling me you don’t remember my name? I remember yours, Davenport.”
“I’m wearing a nametag,” I said, pointing the the little piece of plastic adorning the front of my vest.
I could swear she blushed a little. “That’s not my fault,” she said. I raised my eyebrows. “Fine,” she relented, “one guess.”
“Quills,” I said.
She rolled her eyes. “Oh great and magnificent Davenport, however did you guess why I was here.” I was starting to like this mare. She rustled around in her saddlebag and put four bits on the table. “I’ll take twenty quills, please.”
“Ah ah ah,” I said, waving my hoof back and forth. “Name first.”
She gave me a flat look. “You seriously don’t remember my name?” I shook my head. “It’s Berry Punch.”
I thumped myself on the head with my hoof. “Of course, Berry Punch! How did I forget that?” She shrugged. “So what’ve you been up to?”
“Oh, you know, I’m trying to buy some quills, but this total doofus is stalling for reasons unknown.” She stared at me.
“Okay, okay, I get it,” I said. I reached up and took down one of the jars of quills, counting out twenty and laying them on the counter, sweeping up the bits and depositing them in the register.
Berry Punch turned and started for the door.
Change won’t happen unless you make it happen.
I opened my mouth to say something. “Um.” Yeah, real smooth, Davenport.
Berry turned around. “Yeah?”
“Uh, bye.” Was I some kind of idiot?
She gave a small wave. “Bye, Davenport.” Then she was gone.
I sighed and started for the back room, going to put my vest away for the night, but something stopped me. The smile Berry Punch had left on my face had already faded, and I was prepared to just go through my routine like I always did, like she had never even been there. The back room seemed to take on a sinister appearance, like it was inviting me to just keep things the way they were. If I went back there, if I did just what I was programmed to, nothing would ever change.
I left my vest under the counter and hurried out of Quills and Sofas without turning the lights off, and without a single look back.
I just walked. I didn’t know where I was going, and I didn’t care. Anything that was different was good, so I went wherever my hooves took me. My thoughts soon drifted back to Berry Punch. Conversation with her had been so much more interesting than it was with other ponies. She was real, her face told a story, whereas everypony else I dealt with seemed like machines, doing the same thing every day. I mean, Caramel was my best friend, but we never really talked about anything. I found myself hoping that Berry Punch would come into the store again.
When I looked up, hooves aching a little, I found myself back in front of Quills and Sofas. Sighing, I went inside. Of course I couldn’t just leave the lights on all night; that would be gratuitous and unnecessary. I put my vest away and extinguished the lights, but not because I was programmed to. Now, it was because I wanted to.
The short walk home was made even shorter by my thoughts on the day. I resolved that from now on, things would be different. Change would happen because I would make it happen. I got to my house and was greeted by its absolute silence. Sighing, the darkness inside seeming to sigh back in greeting, I went into my bedroom and lie down for another sleepless night.
I was out like a light the second my head hit the pillow. For the first time in years, it seemed like I would actually get a good night’s sleep.
