Lily

by KitsuneRisu

Reasons

Lily woke to her heart beating once.

Before it could beat a second time, however, she quickly changed her heart for a new one.

Each heart, she reckoned, could only take one beat at most. Otherwise, it might start to hurt, and hurting wasn’t a thing she was interested in at the moment.

What she was interested in was being at the swimming pool that day, and so there she was — floating in the middle of a sea of depth, the winsome wind pushing up waves so black that you couldn’t quite even tell they were there, did they not spill over the sides of the pool and slightly moisten the towels.

“One should not put towels on the floor,” Lily remarked, looking at them soaking up the black and squishing slightly together. “Especially in a stack. Wet stacks of towels tend to fall. Down and down they go, tumbling over, until they become one with the floor.”

“Do they, now?” Daisy yelled from the side of the pool. She hadn’t decided to join Lily in swimming just yet, and sufficed herself to raising her voice to compensate for distance.

“Indeed they do,” Lily said softly, as she bobbed up and down on a small inflatable grey cube. “Water is a sticky liquid, don’t you know?”

“I suppose under some circumstances!” Daisy yelled.

“Do you know what’s a stickier liquid than water?” Lily asked.

“What?”

The waves kicked up, pushing Lily toward the far edge, where the deep bits were.

“Where are we?” Lily asked.

“Seems like a swimming pool!” Daisy called.

“Indeed. And when did we get here?”

“Just a while ago!”

“Correct.”

Lily dipped her hoof into the waters. They spread apart, moving their bleakness out of the way, letting Lily slip in and out.

“It’s quite cold,” Lily said.

“Is it?”

“Very cold. Almost freezing. Quite comfortable indeed. I’ve been dying for a cold shower, but all the water in the shop is hot. Did we ever fix the heater?”

“Not sure it was broken!”

“It must be.”

The sky turned blue. The air turned fresh. The bleachers remained empty, except for a few noises that were drowned by the wind.

“What am I floating on?” Lily asked, thunking the box with her hoof. It rang out, tinny, hollow, pushing the clouds away with its cry.

“I don’t know! You brought it, didn’t you?”

“I did. It is, in fact, an inflatable oven.” Lily declared.

“What did you say?”

“It’s an oven!”

Lily bobbed up.

“Well, that’s good!” the reply finally came.

Lily bobbed down.

“Doesn’t really work as a floatation device, I don’t think.”

“Probably not, but at least it’s there!”

“Would rather much an ice cube, I think. After all, every cold drink has to have an ice cube, and if one were to be perched on something square and cold, it might as well be an ice cube, don’t you think?”

“Logically, yes!”

“But this seems quite more right than an ice cube. Ovens must be kept cold, after all. They have no reason more than an ice cube to be hot. But ice cubes already keep themselves cold, so ovens need the help.”

All around, the water turned pink, and started smelling of carrots.

“Ah! The pool agrees!” Lily smiled, chortling. “One more thing I have defeated. I’ve defeated many things in the past few days, haven’t I, Daisy!”

“Yes and I’m very proud of you!”

“Are you being sarcastic?”

“No!”

“I can’t tell, you see,” Lily furrowed her brow. “It’s the yelling. Everything sounds like sarcasm when you yell it. I don’t quite know why, but it does. I think it has to do with the modulation. So sometimes when you scream, ponies don’t believe you.”

Lily licked her lips.

“Remind me to buy a new packet of hearts before we get home, Daisy.”

“I’ll get them for you!”

“And stop yelling. I can hear you just fine. The wind’s helping, you see.”

“Oh,” Daisy said. “Sorry.”

“Distance doesn’t matter when two friends are talking. It should never matter. That’s why when I say ‘Rose! Rose!’, she should answer, but she doesn’t. What does that mean?”

“What do you think it means?”

“I think it means she’s being rather rude.” Lily snorted. “I think it’s rather impolite. If you call someone, they answer. That’s the rule. That’s always been the rule. Have you never answered when someone’s called you?”

“Well…” Daisy thought. “There have been times…”

“Rude!” Lily cut Daisy off, shrilly squeaking. “How preposterously rude!”

“Is rudeness the only reason, though?”

“It is the only reason. Except for other reasons.”

Daisy tilted her head once more, eyes flicking upward out of habit even though she didn’t need to.

“How about…” she said very slowly. “How about we try to think about these other reasons?”

“Absolutely not!” Lily said, clambering off her floating oven. It tossed and turned in the waves, for a box was not a shape made for the water, but Lily finally clambered down the side and strode roughly towards Daisy, stamping all the way. “Never! Never shall we consider what we have not already considered, and never will we consider what we don’t need to!”

The wind swept up, kicking up the dust and the waves, as the water once more turned dark and the skies turned off.

The edges of Lily’s mouth jerked up like a snake darting here and about, her face itchy from some wild, tense muscle.

Daisy never broke her gaze. “I cannot change your mind, but I hope that you will.”

Lily frowned.

The counter to the shop was bare once more, and the air wavered as it danced back and forth like an invisible jelly.

“It’s hot in here,” Lily stated, huffing, taking a seat behind the counter where she belonged. “Too hot.”

Daisy followed. Slowly, stepping quietly, not a single show of any sort that her face would perform. There was only patience, and patience was always and forever a thing bereft of emotion.

“I can’t handle this rudeness.” Lily folded her hooves across her chest, blowing a stray lock of hair out of her eyes.

The phone rang.

“See here!” Lily cried, snatching up the receiver. “Yes! Hello!”

She nodded.

“Rose?”

Humming, she placed the receiver back down upon the cradle with a soft click, almost as if her sudden anger were drained away.

“Who was it?” Daisy asked.

“Not Rose,” Lily said softly, eyelids dropping. “It was everyone else.”

“Everyone?”

“Yes. Everyone else, all at the same time, altogether at once. It was quite hard to make it out, but after a while I could hear everyone’s voice altogether. Well, except for Rose.”

“Why not Rose, I wonder?”

“What’s important,” Lily said, her eyebrows narrowing as her lips pursed. “Is that I answered the phone. What’s important is that I’m here. And I will always be here to answer the phone. There will never be a case where I won’t be here to answer the phone forever.”

“If that is what you want, then…”

“I have to! Unlike others who… who…” Lily repeated, eyes shaking, voice trembling. “You know, you know! It is the most basic, the most necessary…”

The wind picked up the waves that lashed themselves upon the side of the pool.

“Where are we?” Lily muttered, throwing a hoof toward Daisy’s face.

“In the store, I reckon,” Daisy said, taking a quick look around.

“Right…” Lily continued, breathing out with all due purpose, staring at the counter as everything vibrated around her. “Of course, and we are… of course, and the phone… I have to answer the phone. I have to answer the phone when it calls.”

“Why?” Daisy asked.

“Because no one else will, will they? I have to do what no one else wants to.”

“Maybe they want to.”

“Then they should, shouldn’t they? They should. It’s only polite. It’s only polite.”

“Is it about politeness do you think?”

“Yes! We’ve been through this, haven’t we? Back at the pool three… three and a bit hours ago, we already agreed that it was just impolite to not answer a phone when…”

“I thought there were other reasons.” Daisy stated, looking at Lily.

“Stop!” Lily rammed her hoof down on the counter, as all the plants rattled in the store. “Alright? Stop! Enough! I told you already, I told you, and you still won’t listen! Rose is rude, alright? I can’t stand her! She never picks up the phone when I call! She never calls for me to pick up the phone! And she won’t tell me why she isn’t calling! It’s got nothing to do with your stupid rationales of ‘other reasons’ or anything of the sort! She’s just rude and a horrible friend! Can’t you accept that?”

The shop froze. The only thing that moved was a trickle of sweat that dragged its way down the side of Lily’s face, and her heaving chest as she breathed in, laboured, sucking in puffs of air into her lungs.

Daisy blinked, eventually, as she nodded to herself. It took her a moment to respond, as if lost in thought of her own, as Lily blinked the fuzz out of her eyes and shook her head at the floor.

“No, I’m afraid I can’t,” Daisy said, musingly. “I’m just surprised that this is what you feel, really. Although it makes sense.”

“Sense? What in the hell are you even talking about?” Lily croaked, drained. “Nothing you say makes sense, Daisy. Did you know that? Nothing!”

“I’m… sorry,” Daisy said, sighingly. “I know. I’ll… try harder.”

Lily rested her head against her hoof for a while, as if it gave her a tiny bit of comfort from the throbbing heartbeats that wound their way into her skull. “Look, just… leave me alone. Rose is gone. You’re gone. Everything is gone. I don’t know what’s the point anymore.”

She squeezed her eyes, droplets of moisture pushing their way out from between her eyelids. Not enough for tears, but more than enough that her tiredness demanded.

“We’re not gone,” Daisy said. “Not one of us is. But you will need to find a way to believe that Rose isn’t being rude. Can you do this?”

“Then why… why won’t she call?” Lily choked, a tear hitting the countertop. “She’s supposed to call. She’s supposed to call!”

“But she didn’t.”

Lily cradled her face in her hooves. She shut her eyes, allowing the darkness to engulf her world.

“I… I… I just… I just don’t—” Lily stammered. “I just… I want Rose to call. You know? I love Rose. I love her and she hasn’t called for three days and a bit, and it’s killing me. It’s killing me that she isn’t calling and I just… I hate her for it but I can’t hate her because I love her, Daisy, and I need… I need to know she’s okay and I want her to know that I’m okay but she hasn’t called, why hasn’t she called?”

Lily coughed, swallowing heavily.

“And… I will wait here. I will wait here forever for her to call and when she does I’ll be the first one to pick up the phone and say hi Rose, I missed you and everything will be fine, you know? And I don’t… I don’t know why, Daisy. I don’t know. I just don’t know why she isn’t calling.”

“Lily?” the voice of Daisy came.

Lily sighed. “What?”

“I want you to think about what you’re going to say real hard, okay? Do it for me.”

“Okay.”

“Why isn’t Rose calling?”

“I don’t know,” Lily said weakly.

“Would you like to know?”

Lily hesitated. Thinking. Thinking hard about what she was going to say next. For Daisy.

“I would like that very much, Daisy.” Lily sniffed.

And then the spines returned.

Lily teetered, wobbling, and only a hoof scraping hard against wood stopped her from falling off her stool.

Her eyes forced themselves open.

Everything was different.

She looked around at the shop.

The shop with needles.

Her lips flapped open and shut, as she struggled for the words to come.

“D- daisy?” Lily whispered.

“Yes, Lily?”

“Where… where are we?”

“The store, I would imagine.”

“Why is… why… um…”

“Do you see the stains, Lily?”

“I… I think so. What’s going on?”

“Thank goodness,” Daisy said, breathing a sigh of relief. “You’re finally here.”

Comments

[Cynewulf]

Yikes.

[Ice Star]

9040739
Oh boy. Well this will be interesting.

[hypervelocity]

Uh oh

[Silent Whisper]

I've always been horrible about figuring out these kinds of stories, but as far as I can tell she turned into a cact- oh, wait, umm... are the needles not needles... why was there an oven? I have a great many questions and I dont know if I want their answers.

Excellent work, as always! This reminded me of theatre of the absurd, for some reason. Had to do a few scenes of it in the theatre class, and the scripts were disjointed just so, and it was fun to read.