I was alone, Jimmy Jack was gone and it was just me, wandering around with no pants in the dark with a bunch of rapist horse monsters. I could hear them all around me. Those that could still talk were whispering vulgarities that even made me squeamish.
That was when I saw her again, her pink glow barely a candle in the darkness, her mane painfully straight and her face set in a frown of near despair.
“I can’t lead you out if you keep lying to yourself,” Pinkie shook her head sadly, “You have to realize where you are, and that means you have to realize how you got here.”
“The text…” I muttered, “The damned words…”
As she turned to leave I could see a single tear, the last of her glow fade as it fell to the floor.
“I ran away!” I screamed, she stopped fading but didn’t turn around, “I ran away from the hospital!”
Pinkie turned, her face still sad, but a small glow of hope burned in her eyes, “And then what did you do?”
“I- I got on a train,” I tried to clear my head, but the dream fog would have none of it, “I got on the first train out of town. I didn’t even ask where it was going.”
“That’s good,” a ghost of a smile played across her ghostly pink face as we rounded a corner into the bright sunlit lobby, “Now all you have to do is just realize where you are and wake up.”
“I’m on a train,” I said shakily.
“Now just wake up.”
-=-=-=-=-
I felt an odd poking sensation and heard a familiar buzzy voice, “Ki, Ki wake up! You gotta wake up!”
I rolled over and opened my eyes to find a very familiar changeling looking down at me with excitement. Z chittered happily as my eye’s opened and I found myself sleeping on the bench seat of a Marta rail car.
“Z? What are you doing here?” I asked, honestly confused at how exactly events had progressed to this point.
“The tracks only go where they lead,” Z smiled with a cute little shrug, “That’s destiny. Where the train stops and who get’s on or off, that’s more like fate.”
The darkness of a tunnel flashed by outside the window. A few changelings, despondent and filled with the holes of corruption, lounged near the back of the car. In the operator’s booth I saw a familiar blue unicorn, wearing the shirt and hat of a Marta operator.
“Jimmy Jack?” I asked incredulously.
“That’s the Great and Powerful Jimmy Jack, mother fuckoo!” The unicorn grinned, “Ima operate the fuck outta this train.”
“Why aren’t you wearing any pants?” Z asked curiously.
“Well, they took my pants away from me at the hospital,” I said sheepishly, rubbing the back of my head with one hand.
“Why were you in the hospital,” the little changeling cocked her head to one side.
“I…” I didn’t want to tell her, I really didn’t. When you tell people about that… that’s when they don’t want you around anymore, “Ask me again later.”
“Oh, okay,” she said with a nod, “Tell me about your friend in New York then.”
“Yeah,” Pinkie Pie appeared across the aisle and gave me the eyeball, “By all means, tell us about the friend in New York you wanted to go see so bad.”
“I lied to you Z,” I couldn’t tell that story, not again, not to her, “I didn’t ask the words to take me to see my friend in New York. I told it I just didn’t want to be a part of the world anymore.”
“I… okay,” Z said, confused, and Pinky gave an encouraging smile and nod, apparently still invisible to everyone but me, “Do you want to tell me why? It’s okay if you don’t.”
“When the text took me, I was in the hospital,” I hung my head with shame, “I had tried to kill myself, and they’d locked me up for my own safety. In a way, my deal with the writing on the wall was just another form of suicide. I didn’t try to get to my friend in New York. I abandoned her, and my family, and my friends… all on one crazed whim. After that the words seemed to make it a sport of shifting me from world to world. From one impossible test to the next. But then one day, I found a world that didn’t immediately try to kill me, or throw me in a dungeon, and I found a job, and I met you, and then that Hearth’s Warming I found out how you felt and I was happy. And then…I guess you know what happened then… That’s how I knew I was in hell. I knew then that I was being punished for throwing away my life.”
“Twiggs Depot!,” Jimmy Jack announced as the train pulled into the station, “Exit here for the last day on Equus!”
“I- I don’t want to see this… not again,” I looked helplessly at Pinkie Pie for support, but she just shook her head saddly.
Z nuzzled my side gently, “Please, I know it’s hard, but this is the last day I’ll ever get to spend with you. Even if it’s the end of the world. Just let me have this one last time that we can spend together, even if it’s only the dream of a memory.”
How could I say no? I wanted to. I knew what was on the other side of that door. I never wanted to see that day again. I never wanted to even think about that day again. But I knew that after that day she was going to be gone forever, so how could I say no?
I said with a nod - She said with a nod
*****
MARTA! I've been through Atlanta once or twice ^_^
I almost expect the lathe of heaven to be outside those doors....
6886265 Glad somebody caught that reference. I'm proud of my city. Best tourist thing to do is come in for Dragon Con and spend a weekend day-time drunk riding the train to the high points. Advised stops include:
Decatur Station: High end eats in every direction. Personal Favorite, Victory/Paper Airplane, pick a sandwich, any sandwich. They're all awesome.
Little Five Points: It's not the punk-rock haven that it was in the 90's. But if you wanna little taste of something off the menu, still the place to go. Take the east bound train from Five Points to Inman Park station and either take the bus or walk the mile and your there.
Varsity: You actually HAVE to go to the varsity and clog your arteries with deep fried goodness or your visit's not official. Exit the train at north avenue station.
Five Points: The center of everything Atlanta. You've got the World of Coca Cola, the Georgia Aquarium (we've got whale sharks!), Underground Atlanta (over-rated, but still worth a look), and enough to see that I promise you've never seen it all. Make sure to go by the CNN building and pay homage to what was once The Fantastic World of Sid and Marty Croft. They literally just gutted all the fun out of the building and replaced it with CNN stuff. It's a giant tombstone of "Here Lies Fun". Kinda depressing, but it deserves respect!