With A Little Help From My Friends

Gather round, children! Your uncle Jimmy’s got a story for you all today. I bet you guys like My Little Pony, don’t you? Yes you do! If you say you don’t, stop lying because you’ve got the worst poker face in existence and you’re only gonna hurt yourself defending the fact you don’t. Now, today’s story is all about how me and my friends wound up in the magical land of Equestria! Now, I bet I know what you’re thinking:

“Aw come on! Not another one of these stupid, overdone Human in Equestria stories!”

But you see; that’s just where you are wrong! Unlike all the other ones, this is the only one that’s true! Don’t let those other guys fool you, this is the real deal. Don’t question how, don’t question anything about that, hell, don’t even try to guess where this story’s going! You see, this story’s got everything a good story should have:

It’s got big adventure and tons of fun! Plenty of jokes and tales of love! But you must understand something about the land of Equestria: Not everything is sunshine, smiles, Sonic Rainbooms and magical ponies! Oh no, not at all! You see reader; there are always two sides to every coin, just keep that in mind. Oh dear, it seems I’ve started a ramble, I bet now you’re asking yourself:

“Just when the hay is this story gonna start?”

Well patience is a virtue, and it’s one you better get right now!

Ha-ha-ha! Aw, don’t be so serious, reader! Every story’s gotta have a beginning, and every story’s got a hero, right? Right, so, we’re gonna begin our by telling you about our great hero… Me! That’s right! I’m the hero! Why wouldn’t I be? Oh dear, looks like I’m still rambling!

Anyway! Without further ado, just sit back, relax, take a nice cold beer from the fridge, grab some chips from the cupboard while you’re at it, get your girlfriend to give you some head and most importantly: Enjoy the story!

I awoke to the sound of my phone’s alarm, which had been ringing since 8 this morning. I had simply been ignoring the damn thing because I was too tired (meaning lazy) to extend my arm to pick it up and turn it off. I was lazy as hell in those days. I eventually decided that the blaring alarm had become hindering to my sleep and thought that now may be as good a time as any to shut it off. It was morning. Well, what was left of it anyway. 11:53 a.m. That was what time it was when I finally turned off the alarm. As I rose from my bed, I looked forward to another day of absolutely nothing to do other than browse the internet and practice my guitar like the bored high school drop-out I was. That’s right; I was a drop-out. Typical, I suppose. School just wasn’t for me. My life had become no more than browsing the internet and falling asleep intermittently throughout the day taking my official night’s sleep somewhere near five or six in the morning. Day in, day out, I was living in repetition, content in the same old shtick again.

What’s my ASL? I was 16 years old and male at that time. I’m still male now, but anyway: I had light olive skin. My hair was black with some brown in it, I never dyed it, for some reason my hair just did that. I was told that was because the sun had dyed it after spending so much time in it. I weighed something around 200 pounds, sadly, that wasn’t in muscle and I was nearly six feet tall. I didn’t really keep track of my exact weight or height mainly because I didn’t care, all I needed was an estimate and that was good enough for me.

I lived in Barbados back then. Yep, I lived in the Caribbean, the world’s island chain of ‘paradise’. Think living here is all lounging on the beach, getting a tan and drinking fruity alcoholic beverages? You better redeem your coupon for a free reality check. In fact, I'll do that for you right now: No matter where you live in the world, it’s the same shit, just a different setting. Not that I’d know anything about life, I’m sixteen and practically living only in my tiny bedroom of my grandmother’s house where I lived with her, my mother and sister. But I did know enough about life that it’s practically the same wherever you are in this world.

I suppose by now you’re wondering if this teenage internet troll had any kind of aspirations or talent at something other than lurking message boards and criticizing people. Well, as a matter of fact I did. You see, I was a musician of a dying breed. One that was dying when one looks at the most recent ‘evolutions’ of the music industry. I played guitar and I was a pretty good singer. I had been playing guitar a little over two years and I was better than several people I knew who had been playing for five and six years. My voice was not always that of an angel’s own, nor will it ever be. It took many months of solid vocal training on my own for me to be able to sing a song without going out of key or just shouting the lyrics pretending that I was following a melody with my voice.

Did I ever get to perform anywhere you ask? Well actually, yes, I would occasionally play at a local bar where a friend of mine performed. He would let me take the mic to do a set while he took a break. I’d play with some of my friends when I went up if they were available. There was my friend Matt who played saxophone, he was my best friend who I’d known since I was six years old. His main passion was science though, not music, he wanted to be an electrical engineer. Then there was my friend Paul who played drums, I had met him through Matt a couple years back and the three of us had become a group of brothers over a year of playing music together. Paul had left to go to University in England to study literature so he could become a journalist. After he left, it was just me and Matt in our little group of musically inclined friends. None of us had grown apart emotionally, only physically where we wouldn’t see each other for an extended period of time. Even longer in Paul’s case seeing as he now lived several thousand miles away.

Every night I’d lie in my bed wishing I could be somewhere else. Somewhere that I could make something of myself, start fresh, make friends, that kind of thing. However, this was just the same wish a billion more people had too I told myself, I’d always shrug off the idea like that. For once it didn’t take long for me to go to sleep, and it was early. Well, earlier than my usual five or six in the morning. By the time I had turned off my laptop for that night it was around one in the morning. I must’ve been out cold hardly five minutes later…

The sun was beating down on my face. What? Sunlight? That’s not possible. There’s no way the sun could be coming through my window. I thought to myself. I opened my eyes and saw the bright blue sky. I sprung up and looked around, I found myself on a lush, green hill. Nearby, there was a dirt road that led to a village up ahead. There were mountains to on the right side of the village ahead that had a large castle on the side of them.

“Where the hell…?” I said to myself in shock.

How did I get here? Was I really here? Where is here? Is this a dream? This must be a dream. A memory came to mind:

It was a calm day near the beginning of summer. I was at a band practice with Paul and Matt. We had gone through a couple songs that we were able to practice without a bass player or lead singer and were awaiting the arrival of the two members of our group who held those titles. During our wait, Matt and Paul had started to watch a show. I wasn’t paying attention to what it was because I was busy trying to rehearsing one of the songs I had learnt the night before. My patented Give-a-Fuck-O-Meter was running a flat zero. Until…

“My little pony, my little pony, aah-aah-aah-aaaaah…”

“Wait, wait, are you serious?” I asked getting up from where I stood and walking over to the two to confirm what I had just heard. On the screen of the laptop were six ponies with the theme song to the show wrapping up as Matt and Paul hummed along. I was quite dumbfounded. Really? I asked myself. They’re watching MY LITTLE PONY?!!?! WHAT?!!?!

“Is there something you guys wanna tell me?” I asked.

“Oh right, wanna watch with us?” Replied Matt, I smacked my forehead with a palm a bit harder than I intended to.

“No thanks man… You can keep your… Ponies to yourself, I’m quite content without them.” I stated sitting back down across from them.

“Come learn about the magic of friendship with usssss!” Paul exclaimed.

“Join the herd!” Matt also exclaimed.

“Become a brony!”

“Acquire muffins!”

“How about no…” I replied as I started soloing randomly starting on a high A# to block out the 'brony' band members convincing argument to make me become one of them.

“JOIN THE HERD! JOIN THE HERD! JOIN THE HERD!” They chanted. I turned my amp louder and kept playing…

This can’t be the same place! I screamed in my mind. But it looked so much like what I had seen from the little glimpse of the show I had. The castle in the distance looked just like the one in the intro of that show!

“How do I get out of here?” I asked myself out loud “I know! I’ll fall down, that’ll wake me up!” I then threw myself face first into the ground as I felt my face rebound off the hard ground keeping my eyes shut tightly. After a few moments, I opened my eyes, the soft grass was still there, along with the rest of the scenery.

“Oh God, this can’t be happening, I…” I notice a guitar case next to me. I open the case to find my cherry sunburst Epiphone Les Paul that I had named Amy. I look around and see more of my possessions strewn around on the hill.

I picked up my wallet which no longer contained the $443 I had before, however, it now contained a large amount of small golden coins. My backpack which contained my laptop and my guitar equipment as well as my iPod Touch which no longer had the ‘white screen of death’. I found an amplifier and effects pedal on the ground, both of which were not mine, but both were items I had wanted to buy for quite some time. After much reorganising of my backpack, I managed to fit my newly acquired effects pedal inside.

I sat down and took out my wallet to count the number of gold coins I had, it was not the best idea because of where I was, but I needed to know what I was working with. Several of the coins had the number ten or fifty inscribed on one side of them. The ten was thicker than the ones without numbers and the fifty was thicker than both of those. There were six coins inscribed with the number fifty, fourteen coins with the number ten and three without any inscription. Four hundred and forty three coins. Okay, at least I haven't been swindled. I put the coins I had taken out back into my wallet and stuffed the very full wallet into my left pocket. I collected my guitar case, backpack and new amplifier and set my sights on the village ahead.

“Alright, you know what?” I said out loud to nobody in particular except maybe whatever gods ruled this place, and by gods, I meant my subconscious “I’ll play along with this shit. I mean, yeah, good job brain. You got all the fine details right! Right down to how grass feels! Good job, but I know this isn’t real, so I’m just gonna play along until I can wake up and go post this story on 4chan so they can make some sense of what fuckery is happening!”

I was right. If I had an internet connection, I would ask 4chan about where I was and how I got here. They’ve got an explanation for everything, no matter how ridiculous. Usually the first answer is always right, I could imagine the first response: “OP is a faggot and clearly sucked so many horse dicks that he now thinks he’s in Equilivia.” And the next post would probably read “/thread.” Either way, it didn’t matter. It seemed for now I was here, wherever here was exactly. Equinia or some shit, I don’t remember.

I should probably go into town and hope I don’t get chased around by a big pony with a chainsaw or some shit. I chuckled to myself at the thought. Oh, that’d be priceless. Resident Evil 4 and My Little Pony, instead of Ganado, Leon’s gotta fight pony villagers. That’d be a cool mod, I’d use it.

“Alright, enough fucking around.” I said to myself out loud. I took a deep breath and exhaled.

“Hi!” A perky, high-pitched voice said. I jumped and quickly looked around to find no one close by. I decided to pass it off as my brain fucking with me more. I turned to face the village again when a pink pony with a very puffy mane hung upside down in front of me looking into my eyes and said “I’m Pinkie Pie, what’s your name?” I proceeded to fall on my backside and let out a small yelp. I am quite pathetic when I am scared.

“Wh-wh-who?” I asked as I held my right arm in front of me in some silly attempt to keep her at bay.

“My name’s Pinkie Pie.” She said looking at me with a slightly confused look “What’s your name?”

“M-m-my n-n-name’s J-Jimmy…” I sputtered trying to inch myself backwards. Oh God… I thought. Not THIS one! This is the one they wrote that fucked up fanfic about!!! Oh God don’t kill me, don’t kill me… I was shocked and scared and every bad feeling possible all at once. I had read Cupcakes because I had seen a few ‘bronies’ raving about it and wanted to see what the fuss was about. I shouldn’t have done that...

Wait a minute. I thought. If she was gonna kill you, and this is your subconscious, wouldn’t she have done it by now? I presented a valid point. My subconscious hated me. I hardly ever had good dreams. Every dream I remembered always involved me dying at the hand of one of my friends or them dying as well as me or generally, just death.

You’re right. I replied. She might be friendly.

I hope you’re right, for your sake.

Me too.

Hey, she’s saying something, focus up.

“Jimmy?” She asked looking confused as I snapped out of my internal conversation “That’s a weird name for somepony.”

“It’s a p-perfectly normal name from w-where I come f-f-from.” I said standing up, still trembling, I attempted to regain my composure, which is difficult when you’re trying to talk to a pink pony who may or may not want to turn your horribly naïve ass into cupcakes “Pinkie… Was it? Where am I?”

“You’re on a hill, silly.” Pinkie replied giggling.

“No, no… I mean, what country am I in? More importantly, what country you from?"

“Whaa?”

"'Whaa'? 'Whaa' ain't no country I ever heard of, do they speak English in 'Whaa'?" I smirked at my clever Pulp Fiction reference. I may as well have some fun with this. This is a dream after all.

"I don't know, I haven't been there!" She replied smiling, my face went from a smirk to a frown in less than a second. She giggled "You're funny, Jimmy. Where are you from?"

"Err... I asked you first."

"Oops! Silly me! I'm from Ponyville! What about you?" Ponyville? Oh Jesus.

“Oh… Umm… Alright, alright, lemme try and reason this out for you. Sit down, let me try and talk this out with you, maybe you can help me.” I said sitting back down, putting my hands to my face while trying to think of what to tell her exactly.
She sat down on the grass and I told her what little had happened leading up to how I got here and what little had happened in the time I’ve been here. She asked quite a few questions about things I had talked about like the internet and some other things that she wouldn’t have heard of in this world.

“Hmm… I think I know somepony who might know about where you’re from and might even know what you are!” she said as she jumped to her fee- Err, hooves. I know what I am, I don’t need someone to tell me I’m human. I thought “She’s back in Ponyville, come on!”

She skipped along down the dirt road towards ‘Ponyville’, as it was called.

“Well, don’t have much of a choice, do I?” I asked myself as I picked up my things and followed the energetic pink pony into Ponyville.

Don’tmakemeintocupcakesdon’tmakemeintocupcakesdon’tmakemeintocupcakesdon’tmakemeintocupcakes…

As I walked through the town next to the prancing pony, many other ponies gave me odd looks. I expected it though. I suppose they’d never seen anything close to what a human looks like before. Hell, I was giving them the same looks they were giving me. One particular mint-green pony stopped me and poked my hand, it then proceeded to squeal and run off somewhere. Well, it's not the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to me. I thought to myself.

We eventually reached a large tree with a door on it which I had recognised from a picture, this was the library where one of the main characters lived. Pinkie knocked on the door, which was quickly answered by a unicorn with a lavender coloured coat; she had a streak of pink in her dark mane and an odd sparkle shape on her rear. I then glanced to Pinkie and noticed she had three balloons on her rear, wait, I know what those are, they’re called… Cootie marks… Or something like that. Until I heard their real name, I was calling them ‘arse tattoos’, which I think sounds much better.

Heh heh, hey Jimmy, Jimmy, dude, they’ve all got tramp stamps! Hahahaha!! That’s glorious! It’s funny cuz they’re all whores! One of my inner voices shouted. I was beginning to doubt this entire thing being a dream state. I never hear my head-voices when I’m dreaming.

“Hi Pinkie Pie” the lavender unicorn said cheerfully, she then turned her gaze to me and jumped “Pinkie! What is that?” she said after backing up slightly, raising one hoof and pointing it at me. Nice to meet you too, horny-head.

“Oh, his name’s Jimmy, he’s a… What was it called again?” She looked up at the sky as though the word would be floating in the clouds.

“I’m a human.” I said answering Pinkie’s and the purple unicorn’s question at the same time “Pinkie said you might be able to tell me about where the hell I am, how the hell I got here and most importantly: How the hell to get back.”

“A human…? I was reading something about humans a little while ago…” she thought out loud “Come inside, I’ll try to find that book for you.” She said motioning her hoof for us to come in.

I walked in while Pinkie… Bounced, inside the tree or library or house… Thing. A purple light covered the door and the door closed after I entered, I looked over to the unicorn and saw her horn glowing the same purple. I held back the temptation to ask the unicorn if she was a wizard while maintaining a wide-mouthed expression with diverging eyes.

“Oh, I’m sorry; I didn’t even introduce myself to you.” The unicorn said with a slightly embarrassed tone. Yeah, you should’ve done that before screaming in disgust or whatever it was when you saw me, you know? Would’ve been nice. You don’t see me flipping my shit at multicolour ponies, do you? “My name is Twilight Sparkle, what was your name again?”

“My name’s Jimmy.” I said looking around the library at the many books and papers on the ground. Every pile pertained to a different subject and not a single sheet of paper that had not been written up completely could be seen. I picked up one specific paper. It was written in English, but it might as well be Greek. To me, it was all complicated words and numbers that made no sense. The pile of books and papers I had picked it out from seemed to pertain to astrophysics.

Huh, no wonder. I thought. Twilight levitated a book down from a high shelf.

“Here we are.” She said “The Formation of Old Equestria.” She rested the book on a pedestal and read from it.

‘Several thousand years ago, the land we now know as Equestria was controlled by creatures called humans. These creatures were intelligent like the ponies of today, however, humans seemingly had no knowledge of magic and relied on technology to do most of the tasks we use magic for today. The human territories were constantly in conflict with each other. Eventually, after thousands of years of seemingly constant conflict, there was a great war which nearly destroyed this planet as several of its land masses were reduced to nothing. At the end of this war, the human race had become extinct.’

“The rest of the book just talks about how pony-folk took control of their territories and such.” Twilight said “So Jimmy, it seems you’re not from another dimension, but from the very distant past. I wish I could help you get back, but the only time spells that do exist are temporary, they hardly last a minute. I’m sorry.”

Dude, hey dude… Seriously, dude…

What is it?

I think this is real man… Like… Really real…

Fuck off, this isn’t real. Come on, are you retarded or something? Talking ponies? Directly from My Little Pony?

Do you really think your subconscious could make all this up? Look around you! This is way too Goddamned real! You want proof? Go read the passage from that book. If it isn’t all jumbles of random letters and numbers, then this is real.

That seemed reasonable. I walked over to the book and found the passage. The words were exactly as Twilight had read.

Told you.

No fucking way. Fuck you. We’re not here.

No, fuck you. We’re here. We’re ACTUALLY here. This isn’t a dream. No waking up. The bottom line is that this isn’t a dream. There isn’t any afterlife, so don’t even try that shit. We’re here. Cope with your circumstances, and start coping NOW.

I sometimes hated my head-voices. They were brutally honest. All. The. Time. So, Equestria, was it? Talking ponies, was it? Can’t wake up, was it? Cope with the circumstances… Was it? Time to cope with it then.

“I can’t ever go back?” I asked. Twilight shook her head. Pinkie looked saddened by this too. Pinkie seemed very concerned with my well-being. It wasn't something I entirely expected. I expected everyone, or, everypony, to be either hostile or for them to just ignore me.

“So… What do I do? I don’t know anyo- Anypony here. Except for you two as of the past half hour or however long ago it was I met Pinkie… I’ve got nowhere to go… What do I do?” I asked.

“You can stay with me!” Pinkie said regaining her happy expression. She then started to jump around the room “Come on Jimmy! I’m your friend! Ooh! And you can make new friends! I’ll throw a party welcoming you to Ponyville and you can meet our friends! That’s a great idea! Come on! Let’s go to Sugar Cube Corner!” I looked at her with a puzzled expression.

“But… You just met me… You don’t even know me, why would you go so far for me?”

“Because Jimmy! I can’t stand to see anypony without a friend!” Pinkie replied “And I want to be your friend!” I paused for a moment.

I think Pinkie’s a pretty cool mare, she throws parties and doesn’t afraid of humans. I like her!

No horse-fucking for you.

DUH!! God, what the hell man! Really? Look, you may be a teenager with overactive hormones, but fucking hell, we’re not going after a horse!

Alright, alright, just checking.

Fuckin’ right you were just checking.

What do in this situation?

Express gratitude? Give her a hug? Both? I dunno.

I snapped out of my internal conversation and looked to Pinkie. I smiled at her. I walked closer to her.

“Thank you, Pinkie Pie.” I said holding my arms out to hug her. She then stood on her hind legs and swung her fore legs around my neck embracing me tightly, a little too tightly, she smelled like cotton candy, which surprised me quite a bit, but I didn’t mind.

Mmm… Cotton candy…

“Twilight get in here!” She shouted as she grabbed Twilight and pulled her into the hug as well.

“You can consider me your friend too Jimmy.” Twilight said “I hope we’ll become the best of friends!”

“Thank you Twilight.” I said with slight strain in my voice from the lack of oxygen due to the two ponies embracing me tightly.

“Come on Jimmy! We’ve got a party to set up!” Pinkie said breaking the embrace and hopping out the door.
I said goodbye to Twilight, picked up my things and followed Pinkie.

What a day this had been so far…