Jokes and Fake Smiles

"Hey, Kaoss." Said a friendly voice I can always recognize. Fluttershy.

"Oh, Hey Fluttershy, how are ya?" I greet.

"Oh, I'm fine." She replied. "Are you going to the Festival after school?" She asks.

"Yeah, definitely. It will be quite a MARE a-thon!" I joke making a joke face after.

She laughs. "Oh, you!" She said.

I forgot about the festival. It's something they do for artists and musicians to promote themselves. The food is affordable, and water is free, so no one has to be dehydrated. I love the musicians that perform there. They only have it in Ponyville once every year. It's usually in Canterlot, or Manehatten, or somewhere a little more populated. Fluttershy and her friends go to. In fact, that's where I met them. In fact, I brought my own guitar. I had an acoustic. I wasn't set up like most people were. They had business cards, and more fancy equipment. I just sat on a bench with my guitar, and played for awhile. No one really noticed or anything. In fact, Fluttershy was the ONE pony who talked to me. My friends didn't come. Or at least I didn't see any of them, with the exception of a few ponies I knew of, but didn't really talk to. I got to know Fluttershy pretty well. She's very kind. She's a little older than me, but those are the people who talk to me anyway. I'm a 16 year old colt, and it's tough to find colts my age who are anywhere near my personality. I like fine arts,  and writing, and science. I'm extremely nerdy,and my friends are too. I don't have many friends at school, and I get picked on a lot.

When I'm with people that care about me, I'm an open book...well, kind of. I'm talkative, and, well a lot of them tell me I'm hilarious, and random. Fluttershy's friend Pinkie Pie is random too. I don't talk to Pinkie, or many of Fluttershy's friends often, but Fluttershy talks to me a lot. Ponies who I talk to think I like her. I mean, she's very cute, but she's a little too....shy. It's almost... boring. I make her laugh a lot. It seems to be the only time she even gets close to exceeding 2% of normal voice volume. But she's nice, and when there's others around, it's hard to know when she's talking. I still like talking to her. When we do talk, it's usually about deep thoughts. Like "I wonder what's beyond life" or something I like to be thoughtful and creative about.

We lay in the grass, near the festival grounds. We were having our usual "what if" conversations. We get into these a lot. Our views differ slightly, so getting different points of view enlightens me.

"What do you think is beyond this place? What do you think may happen when you or I die?" I ask, contributing to the conversation.

"If there's anything beyond this world, I wouldn't really wanna try to know what it is yet. Then there's no surprise. If it's beautiful and like heaven, then I'd like that one to hit me by surprise.  If it's something horrid,, I wouldn't want to know, because then I'd spend my entire existence knowing I'd be there afterwards. Then I'd never really accomplish anything, because I'd think that it doesn't mean anything. So, living without either for now is a good balance." Fluttershy's point of view is very simple. I do agree with her with the surprise, and that it would be worth it. I notice the 'balance' concept comes to mind when I think of her. She's always about evening things out.Balanced relationships, balance of kindness to being assertive, balance of life in general. It fits her.

"But if it WAS good,  wouldn't you wanna, maybe know what you're capable of at that point?" I say. "If you can come down back here and watch over all your relatives, or the next generation...the future, how we progress, and what people think of us, and what people think of us when  we're gone? I think that'd be awesome to know."

"It would." She nods. "But then you'd spend too much time looking forward.  You might not pay attention to little things, or things you should fix. Or worse,  you may be in a tight situation, and hurt yourself to get to that world, leaving your loved ones behind too soon. I'd say it's selfish, but you know me. I don't point my hooves at anyone." I nod when she finishes. I like conversations like this. I can only have these with her for some reason. My other friends and I don't really get to subjects of these, so I don't bring them up.

"So, the festival will  be starting any minute. You wanna head in?" I ask.

"Oh, sure." She agrees.

As we head in, I feel the artistic energy flow into me as I hold my old acoustic guitar in my hooves. I smile widely as the stomach twisting anxiety strikes my gut. I mean, I know it's only a festival, and it's not life changing, but I just love going here. I like the knowledge that I met a dear friend here, and maybe I'll meet another. I love playing guitar, even if it's on a bench when no one is really paying attention.

The festival was fun as usual. However, It didn't feel the same. I felt like I wanted to be happy, but there was a wall in front. It was...different. I saw some painting by a pony name Picasso Brush. It was a stallion who was sitting in some sort of corner, with his head down, and the amount of blue was in your face. A deep blue. Like my eyes.

The artist comes towards me. "You're observing this one pretty hard." He said.

"Oh, yeah....I feel different about it though. Like it's forcing me to think of things I wouldn't want to really think about. I mean, I've seen bright yellow colors and Pinks, and Red's all day, and this sudden dose of blue was...interesting, and eye catching to me. It's forcing me to...remember what's wrong with me."

"What's wrong with you exactly?" He asked.

"I don't know...Personal stuff I guess." I reply.

"Oh, don't want to talk about it I guess." He suggests

"No. I don't think I would at a place like this....I wish I could afford the painting...It's very nice."

"Oh, thank you." He says, slightly bowing. "You know, usually, I don't allow this, but I will take a picture of it for you...It seems to mean a lot to you, and I feel it could be an eye opener for you someday." He pulled out an old polaroid camera. I haven't seen those in forever. He takes a snapshot, and hands me the photo as the ink fades in.

"Thank you." I pull out a few bits, but he stops me.

"No, no. Don't worry. It's on me. You can't buy motivation." He tells me.

"Oh, well thank you." I reply appreciatively.

..........

The rest of the festival was almost.....boring... I think Fluttershy was noticing. She gave me slightly concerned looks every now and then. I eventually told her I needed to go home. She didn't question, she just hugged me goodbye.

"Kaoss! Where were you?" My Dad asks  me in his chair,  drinking a beer. His cheeks were blush red from the alcohol in his system, as he was drunk like usual.

"I was at the festival, Dad. I go every year, and I told you yesterday." He said with slightly slurred speech.

"Well I don't remember that! You should stop trying to rebel!" He said. His sentence was completely stupid. I'm not rebelling, however he was drunk, so arguing the legitimacy would be worthless.

"Of course, you don.t...drunk piece of shit." I say under my breath. I get the worst, irritated vibe when he's drunk. It makes me more irritable. Just seeing a beer in his hooves makes my stomach flare a bit with displeasure.

"WHAT DID YOU SAY?!" He yelled.

"Nothing...Don't worry about it." I mutter.

"Yeah, right! Just go the fuck to sleep you worthless colt! Why the hell did your mom name you 'Kaoss' anyway? Did she know you would be useless?!" My hooves shook with rage. I teared up a bit, but I bit my teeth to hide them.

"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" I shout. "MOM ISN'T LIKE THAT! And she sure as hell is a better parent than YOU!" I reply.

He growls and trots towards me and raises his left hoof to strike me in the eye, "JUST GO TO YOUR ROOM ALREADY! YOU FUCKING WASTE OF SPACE!" I get up from the floor and go to my room, and slam the door, plopping in the bed, feeling the bed's motion move me back up a little in the air. I don't cry or anything. I kinda just sit there and pout. I breath heavily with anger.

Within my constant pacing in my room, I saw a piece of square paper fall out of my saddlebag. I picked it up, and remembered that it was the picture of the painting I was given, It was deep blue like my eyes. It reminded me of something else that was deep blue. I look to my dresser and see my lamp first. Under the light, is a dusty picture of my mother, framed in a fancy glass frame. I sat on my bed and picked it up. Her white mane, and yellow eyes are so different looking from her deep blue fur. The yellow in her eyes was so vivid, and happy looking, which complimented her smile. Her name was Acrylic Blue. She was also a painter. I guess that's why the painting reminded me of her so much.

I looked at it for awhile. Looking at it made me remember events. I remember when she helped me roller skate when I was a young colt. I didn't like it. I guess I acted too silly, because she laughed a lot when I tried to skate. I laughed too after awhile. I also remembered the time she tried to help me make cookies. She let me do most of the work, which I made a huge mess, and burnt the cookies. She was alright with it, and very nice about it. She told me you have to mess up before you succeed.

Some random words popped into my head. "I love you, Silly." She nicknamed me silly. It felt weird, but I guess she thought that since my actual name is Kaoss, it wouldn't be a bad nickname. I began to smile. As my smile slowly formed, my eyes began to water, soon going into drops of tears rolling down my face, which then continued as I hugged the portrait to my chest, trying not to actually sob.

I soon felt myself drifting to sleep...having to wake up and go to school tomorrow. As if I wanted to do THAT everyday. Ugh... Tomorrow will probably suck.