//------------------------------// // Chapter One: The Most Average of Days. // Story: Would Chaos Really Be So Bad? // by CosmicAfro //------------------------------// You’re ready and set to go. Before opening your door from the other side, you almost forget to pour coffee into the water pot for when your lively wife would fall back awake. You push the side of the door near the hinges only to fall through a panel in the floor and get trampolined to your mailbox. Oops, it’s sunny outside today. You pull the mailbox out of the ground to fetch the morning mail and then place the wooden spoke back in the hole. Humming, you trot back to your door, knock three times, and it generously gives you your umbrella. You push your umbrella open with your left hoof and hold it above your head to let the water fall up. You always thought that was nifty, water that fell up from your umbrella. It certainly made gardening easier. You know, when the pumpkins weren’t fighting with the zucchinis. That demanded a trowel almost every time. It’s a short walk to your job at the flower shop. The traffic is unusually bubbly today. Oh right, Discord had issued a bubble transport system for the week memo. It wasn’t mandatory, but from the way ponies were aimlessly floating along, some desperately trying to bash their heads against the veil to move in one direction, but it at least appeared interesting. Maybe even fun. You duck, as usual (one of the rare moments of predictability) as a strange pony, always bubbling her lips, flew on by. Behind those swirly eyes was the mind of evil… or maybe just confused corruption. Still, that beanie hat would be nice. But you don’t wear hats now, nopony does. Not since that incident. No one trusts them anymore, not even Discord. The bell above the door plays like a trumpet for a moment as you walk inside. The smell of roses and the Honey Bee Mafia led by Jerry Springer in a bee suit that was black with yellow stripes (as opposed to yellow with black stripes for copyright reasons), permeated your nostrils. One had to ask, what was the deal with Honey Bees? You spray him with comedy repellent. Ha, of course it doesn’t work. Insect repellent works too. Thankfully there’s a bottle of that right next to your comedy repellent near the door. He leaves without much of a fuss except for asking the same question. Another dose of the spray and he’s out of your shop. You take in a deep breath. The morning hadn’t gone so badly in all honesty. You close the umbrella and leave it outside, propped up against the front. Your turn around and press your hoof against the “Open/Close” sign. It wasn’t budging. It was going to be one of those mornings, wasn’t it? A frustrated grunt escapes your lips. Discord always had a knack for making ponies problem solve, but sometimes it was more aggravation than anything. You attempt to turn the door around. Nope, that’s stuck in place too, much to your dwindling patience. A puff of smoke leaves your nostrils. You step outside and walk around to the back of your shop. You stand yourself near the left corner of your rectangular building and begin to push. It manages to slide with ease across the ground, thankfully, and through one of the side windows you notice the sign is remaining in place as if glued to nothing in mid-air. You guessed you’d be serving customers on the other side today. You walk back in, the bell jingles like a harp, and you go behind the counter. Unfortunately, business is slow for your little flower store. While Discord didn’t demand taxes because he could, y’know, do whatever he wanted and bend reality infinitely, other stores still demanded Dracons. Money. Not a lot of ponies want, or need, flowers during these hectic times. Despite them being a rarity and a sign of stabilization (it was difficult to grow healthy plants when the sun and moon rise and lower “whenever they feel like it”), few cared for them. You get one customer. It’s enough, really. He buys practically a bush’s worth of roses and then runs off. He meets with a nice mare a few minutes later and they go off to do whatever it was young lovers did during Chaos day. Every day was Chaos Day. Except when it was Discord Day. But every day was also Discord Day. Most ponies just called it Day. So, they went to go do whatever young lovers do during Day. During the rest of your eight hour shift of watching the shop, during which the sun and moon transition a record twelve times in an hour, you get one other customer. She’s really timid and she asks you some awkward questions about what to get for… another girl. You roll through the routine questions of her favorite colors or things. Awkward? Yes, but nothing you were opposed to. The situation just didn’t come up that often. Eventually you find her an appropriately priced and sized bundle and she’s on her way. Just outside of the shop, you see that mare and the stallion who came in earlier outside. Your recent most customer is giving the flowers to that stallion’s special someone. You go wide-eyed as she accepts them, sheds a tear, and they share a romantic kiss. The pour soul who just got dumped gallops away. The one who accepted the flowers holds a hoof out to maybe call for him, but she looks saddened as he didn’t stop. There was probably going to be some kind of awkward explanation. Darn. Maybe you should serve to this side of the street more often, the drama here at least helps you pass the time. At the end of your shift, you turn the shop around to close it once more, and then key the door with the lock. Since it was the third Day of the forty second month during the Autumpring season under exactly four of six visible stars, that meant you should either cartwheel or jump rope home. You look up at the sky. Thank goodness you double checked, there was actually five stars out of six visible. That meant you got to roll home in the gyro ball! Somedays had its bonuses. At least it wasn’t the seventeenth day of the eighth week of Discord month when the Candy Volcano was erupting… nopony likes that day. Too many kittens if you were asked. Because randomness worked in your favor as much as it hated you, a gigantic gyro ball rolls up to the front of your shop. You pick up your umbrella with your mouth and step inside. The seatbelt looks incredibly confusing. Surprisingly enough, Discord enforced safety so there was always the handy auto-leaver at the cost of a pie in your face. Today’s pie was cherry. Awesome. Your friendly neighborhood Spider Bat gets behind you and pushes you along, and you childishly let out “Weeeeee!” in giddy joy all the way home. Poor Spider Bat, your home was an uphill journey both ways. Not your problem. Weeeee! You tip the Spider Bat when you get home and give him a slice of the not-ruined face pie. You also tip him, just for good measure, and he moves on to the next pony who was about to go home. As was tradition, you knocked three times to get inside. You step through the door portal and end up in your bedroom, just as you had programmed it to. Apparently Discord didn’t mind that bit of predictability because… portals are cool. Your wife, a beautiful white Pegasus with a dark blue mane, lifts her head from the covers. “So honey, how was your day.” “Nothing out of the ordinary.” She sighs as if a huge wave of relief came over her. “That’s good. I went to the doctor today. Good news. I’m pregnant, but I'm not the mother.” Better words of relief were never spoken before so. “That’s great!” She pauses and looks at you with those concerned, alluring eyes if hers. “That’s great… right?” “I guess… but what if I wanted a baby?” You pull the covers over you, rest your head on the pillow and look at her. She does the same. “Then, I guess we’ll just have to keep trying.” You wiggle your eyebrows. “Want to do the honors?” You say in the sexiest voice you can, “I’ll get the dishwasher started.”