At dusk...
The Rope or the Box
In the end it always come back to the same thing. The silence. Oh, it isn’t perfect silence. The wind makes the branches skrrt, skrrt, skrrt, against the outside of my bedroom wall. Occasionally a storm comes with all of it’s sounds and lights. But it always ends in silence. I sit in that silence, on the thin razor edge of indecision. Waiting for a feather light thought to finally cause me to chose one or the other. The rope or the box.
For the hundredth time I cast my thoughts back into the past. I remember when this house was alive. Full of shouts. Some of joy, and laughter, but wails of sorrow as well.
It takes a family to keep a house alive. Sounds corny? Think about it. How many abandoned houses have you seen that set empty for a few years. How quickly do you see them fall apart. But if you got one right next to it, with a family in it, it just keeps right on going. Now you might think that they just keep fixin things in it. But how often does YOUR family do that? And an empty house, why there ain’t no pony to break stuff anyway, it should be in BETTER shape. But that ain’t how it works. And any pony can see it.
Heh, odd thoughts to put on this here paper, but it’s an odd thought that made me want to anyway. Should I state the obvious for all to read? My family is gone. Oh sure, I got cousins I hardly ever see, and even more I barely remember, but all of my FAMILY is gone. An here I sit, my back broke, an my legs hurt, and my time...well, let’s just say it isn’t all sunshine and rainbows.
I do what work I still can, earn enough ta kept me fed and a roof over my head. Too much hard living when I was younger the doc said. Won’t ever heal he said. All about managing the pain he said. Heh. He has no idea.
I been managin pain my whole life. The night when I was ten when I watched Pop die in front of me. Mom trying to take care of everypony and keep a home. Me quittin school ta help, and then her passin just as we started ta break even. An then it was just me an my sisters an Granny. An none of them able to work the farm. So yeah, I know a little something about managing pain... Just a bit.
I remember the farm. It was big, and pretty, and ours. And that meant somethin. I remember the sky at twilight, so very beautiful as the blue turned to orange and all the trees were black, and the light was just right. Not too bright to hurt your eyes, but still bright enough ta see by. I used to wish I could just make time stop right then, and leave it like that forever. That was a good memory.
Memories. Yeah, that’s all that’s left really. It’s funny, it was hard times all my life. Work and sorrow and more work, with a dollop or two of happy in between. Just enough to keep a pony going. And I look back on all that and wish so hard that it was still like that now. How was I ta know that THOSE were the good times? How was I to know I was going to outlive them?
I get up every morning before dawn. Have a quick sandwich with water. Walk a forty-five minute commute to town, where I work half a day for somepony else, for not even half of what I used to make back home. But I’m grateful for it. For two years no pony would even hire me. Too far past my prime. Injured back. They all wanted youngins. Well, young ta me anyways.
So I do what I can, for what I can get, take the pills the doc gives me once a day ta keep the pain from getting bad. Then walk the same forty-five minutes back ta where I live now. It’s about as far away from where the farm used to be as I can get. An that was another piece of luck, that some pony an old friend of mine knew, was willin ta let me rent has old storage buildin. It wasn’t much ta look at, but it was cheap. An cheap is what I need, considerin my finances. If I had any sense I’d be there right now. Getting ready for bed so I can make that long walk back to work tomorrow. But instead I’m here. An part of me doubts that I’ll be making that walk ever again. Part of me doesn’t want to.
I take a deep breath, and despite the mustiness, the ghosts of old smells greet me like a long lost friend. Apple pies, homemade perfume, Pop’s scent is there as well. All this time, an that’s one thing that hasn’t left my memory. Some night’s I’d wake up and that scent would be in there air. Like he was still there watchin over me. It’s been over thirty years... how can I still miss him so much? But he’s gone. Just like Granny, and all the rest. And I’m still here. And I’m so very tired.
The loneliness. That’s what none of my friends understand. Oh yes, I still have friends. Good friends. And they try. They try very hard with me. And we have fun and play games, and they are very considerate as to what I can and can’t do anymore. And when I’m with them, it’s still all worth it. But sooner or later I come home. Alone. And all that emptiness and loneliness is waiting there for me. Sometimes honest ta goddess, I just don’t want ta go home. It brings me ta tears ta let go of that light an go back to my darkness. But I can only delay the inevitable.
What no pony seems to understand when I try to tell ‘em, is about that empty place inside. I’ve asked other ponies before, just what is it? What makes you get up every day, what is your primal urge, the impulse, the incentive, the reason you have to go out and do, and be. Not once have I ever gotten a straight answer. It’s just inside them, they say, a part of them. It’s like breathing or their hearts beating. Here’s something I tend ta keep to myself. I can’t ever remember feeling like that. Not once.
For me it was always responsibility, my duty, what I had to do. It was never inside me. No little voice pushing me forward. Just duty. Duty to my family. And now they are all gone. And there’s nothing behind me pushing me anymore, and I just finally came to a stop.
I shift on my stool. The pain again. The doc gave me two kinds of pills. One to ease the pain in my spine, and when that don’t work, the other to make me able to ignore it. I try not to ever take that second pill. It’s a cheat. It makes me feel healed and strong again. And despite me knowing better every single time, it makes me feel happy. Not drunk, not out of my head, just happy. And then a few hours later it wears off. Just like everything else. And I come back to myself and feel disgusted that I let myself be tricked again.
I hate those pills, but I guard the ones I have left like a diamond dog guards his gems. Because sooner or later the pain will get so bad that I’ll be begging for it to stop, even for an hour, just so that I’ll be able to square my shoulders and be able to bear up under it again.
When I was a youngin, I developed a taste for strong drink. Well, naw, I just liked being drunk. It made me forget all the work, and the pain and the loss for a while. But I was quick ta figure out that it only put things off. That I would still have ta deal with them when I sobered up, an more often than not with a hangover. So I quit the stuff completely. Never touched a drop again till the doc broke the news about my back. (See what I did there?) Now I still ain’t a tee totaler, but I do have a social nip now and again, and it’s fair ta say I’ve gone overboard a few times as well. But now it’s just ta dull the pain, both in my head and in my back.
But see, that’s only body pain. It comes and it goes. It’s the other pain that I can’t ever escape from. The pain of outliving my family, my purpose. The pain of that empty lonely shed every single night. Thing is, I chose it. I could have done a hundred other things. But it seems ta me that I always made the best choices of those that I had left. The lesser of all evils.
The sun is still there, the sky is still there, beauty is still there. But I just can’t seem to find a way to reach it anymore. Every pony else has moved on, one way or the other, except for me. Pony can’t help but wonder, what else COULD I have done? I did what was right. I did my job. I took care of them until they could take care of themselves. I gave an gave, an if I had complaints I kept them to myself. An yet, every other pony was doing the same thing. And still somehow, they knew how to make it work. Better than me at least. If not, then where did all these new colts and fillies come from?
All that time on the farm, workin ta keep us square. Back when I was in my prime I could turn a mares head no problem. But I never had time. There was always more ta do. I never had the time it takes to find somepony. Somepony ta share it all with. The good and the bad. Would it shock ya ta know I wanted kids? A little filly ta dress up on Sundays and take into town? A colt ta name after my Pop, and teach him the ways of the woods? Yeah, I wanted that. But it’s too late now. A mare would have ta be pretty desperate ta take me in the shape I’m in now. And I may not have much, but I still don’t want no charity.
By now whoever is readin this knows why I’m here. I’m tired. Tired of making it all work. Tired of hanging on when I’m passed the point of it ever getting any better. Tired of living on memories that I play over and over in my head till they wear a grove in it. I was good at what I did. The best I should say, an that ain’t braggin, it was just the plain truth. But now I’m just some pony that used to be good at something. That used to be the best. A pony that except for a few friends, no one even thinks about, and after a few years I doubt they’ll even remember. Heck, if I were a gambling pony I’d reckon it’d be years before any pony even found me out here. We always were at the back end of nowhere.
I look up at the rope. It was one of her ropes. It’s hanging up there, waiting to lasso just one more varmint. I look at the stool under it. I sigh to myself. Why? Why is it always the same? No matter how much I try to build up my courage, no matter how much I just want to finally, FINALLY let it all go, I STILL can’t. Something always holds me back. Something, somewhere inside, just will not let me.
So I sit on the stool and cry. Not silently, no. Great wracking sobs. Wails and yells. I scream my frustration into the empty house. This house that knew so much happiness and joy. I keep going until there is nothing left. By now I look like a wreck. I don’t care. The house doesn’t care. The night doesn’t care. An eternity later I get up, and write the rest of this down.
This used to be my room. Before that it was Mom an Pop’s room. After they passed, it was given to me as soon as I got too old to share a room with AJ. When I was a young colt, I found a secret in this room that I never told a soul. Up under a loose floorboard I found an old box. Inside that box was nothing but letters that my Mom and Pop wrote to each other back when they were courtin. I used to read them when I was younger. I figured one day I’d put all them special words to use when I found my own special somepony.
In a moment I’ll be getting out that box, and putting this letter inside with all the rest. Just like the other ones I wrote. I know that all my sorrow and despair don’t rightly belong inside that box with all of their love. But it’s a part of myself I’m putting in there, along side a part of them. It makes me feel that at least in some way, we are all still together. And that won’t ever change. Even if one night I finally choose the rope over the box...
Epilogue
“I’m glad you called me Applejack. He was my friend too.” Twilight said, as they stood silently in the bedroom of Apple Jack’s once thriving farm house.
“I just couldn’t let any pony else see him like this. He had his pride, he wouldn’t want word getting out about this.” Applejack said, looking at the still, unmoving form of her brother. “Twi, How long...” she began to ask before breaking off into silence.
“I’d says weeks Applejack. If his old boss hadn’t ran into me at the market, I wouldn’t have even known to start looking.” Twilight says, moving around the side of the shrunken form of the once huge stallion. She goes over to the small desk and carefully lifts up a half finished page with her magic. Her curiosity compelling her to read what had to have been his last words.
I remember the first time Pop had me weed the fields. I asked him honestly why we had to pick all the flowers out of the ground, and throw them away. He patiently tried to explain to me that these ‘flowers’ were just weeds, and we had to get rid of them to plant our crops. It never made sense to me. Those pretty white and sometimes purple flowers were ‘weeds’ he said. They were hated by all these farmers, but those roses Granny had, she guarded like they was gold. They was both flowers, an they both smelled pretty, but Granny’s had thorns that made your hooves bleed. I liked my flowers better, but every year I had to kill them all.
Why could I never make them see, that the weeds were also roses...
“Applejack, you need to see this.” Twilight says, tears forming in her eyes. Beside where the letter had lain, there was an open box, Mac’s hoof was still resting on the lid. It was obvious for all to see that he was just about to put this letter on the stack that had already nearly filled it to the top.
It was some minutes before Applejack moved. She solemnly placed this last letter in the box with the others and shut the lid. She looked over at her best friend. “Remember back in the day when Celestia had us send her all them friendship reports? We didn’t know a thing. Not one damn thing. This box here, this is what she needs to see.”
Applejack sits down softly onto her brother’s bed. She reaches down and gently strokes his tattered mane. “It’s okay now. The fields have all been plowed, and the apples are all in.” Tears flow freely down her cheeks as her best friend sits down beside her and pulls her head to her chest. “Rest easy, brother.”