//------------------------------//
// New curtains, same old window 
// Story: Friction fitting 
// by Hope 
//------------------------------//

chapter 6[title: New curtains, same old window]/

“Your childhood?”

“Yes, I would like to talk about my childhood,” I say cheerfully.

The psychologist is rightfully skeptical, judicious in the trust she doles out like the little cups of pills they tip down our throats, washed down with stagnant water, washed down with the silence after the question. 

“What has brought about the change of heart?” she asks.

I label her female in my mind. She has a flat chest and broad shoulders and a beard, but she behaves softly, like a mother, and she stated I could call her whatever I wished. So I have made her a she. Like the holy sisters, anointing truth upon someone even if they wish not to bear it’s weight.

“I realized I couldn’t remember parts of it, and I don’t want to forget,” I explain, leaning back against the armrest of the couch, my tail flicking as though flies are buzzing around my ass. 

It is a neurotic and frenetic motion that only stops when the dosage of the drugs is upped. It always comes back. They call it a tick. Nervous tick. Like a clock, without rhythm. I like that quite a bit.

“Doctor--”

“I’m not a doctor, Scraith.”

The sound of my new name, like nails on a chalkboard, is uncomfortable to everyone but me. It is a beautiful lie. I am not one. I am still three in perpetuity, but the sharp names in their soft mouths makes me smile.

“George. I read the books you gave me. Dee Ess Emm… If I display no outward signs of my darkness, then there is no darkness, that is how it works? Your society doesn’t care about, cannot even detect what is below the surface?”

She nods gently.

“That is how it works, though everyone in my profession would prefer that the inside of a person or pony be as whole as the outward apperance. We don’t want suffering to continue, even in quiet.”

“No, you don’t want to See suffering. So horrible, isn’t it? Watching someone obliterate themselves in public? Much better to put them away in a locked building, out of sight, so the pretty people with all the depth of morning dew can continue their lives untroubled.”

She raises an eyebrow and leans forward.

“You can deconstruct our society, and that’s fine. From what I’ve heard you come from one with a much deeper emotional connection to it’s citizens. But it is the society I live in, and I have to work within it’s confines. I can’t let you run free.”

She reminds me terribly of Celestia. Doting eyes, serious expression hiding emotional turmoil. Gentle behavior and an aggravating awareness of her own faults. If only I could crack her open, rip the good out and pour my darkness in, fill her up with my black soul and watch her eyes lose their shine, and her mark burn like her world. If only.

“Screw Loose grew up in a small town in Equestria. She had two loving parents who provided her with everything she could have wanted. Their names were Steel Miller and Milli Spec. They were machinists, and they manufactured everything made of metal that our town or the Equestrian railroad system needed. They were fairly wealthy and raised her like any other filly.”

I smile. The good part is coming up.

“She was named Screw Loose because that’s how screws are binned, when they are free. Loose. It meant free, to her father. Not the brightest stallion. Names in Equestria are prophetic. When Screw was ten, she developed a habit of taking things apart. If her father needed something disassembled, he could give it to her and have it in pieces within the hour. After a while she got bored and started taking other things apart. Things she wasn’t supposed to. A lathe, a drill press, a set of shelves…”

I look up at the ceiling, remembering all the little bolts and washers falling to the ground like treasure. Bouncing off concrete and rolling away. A rain of chaos.

“One day, when she was twelve, she found a special box on a locomotive. Almost as big as her head, she wanted to know what was inside. She opened it up and some springs popped out, but all she found was a big tank of water inside. For once, she had to put something back together. She wasn’t very good at that. She made all the parts fit and bolted it back on, before running away.”

The smile keeps getting bigger. The payoff of the story on the way, the release of that memory of destruction.

“The overpressure relief valve for the steam locomotive. I put it back in wrong, and the steam tank was sealed tight. The explosion destroyed the workshop, killed my father, and shook the entire town. At first I cried. I was sad. I was normal. But when all the town was so kind to me… So caring and gentle… When I was given gifts and made new friends so easily, I was the star of the town. I was happy.”

The psychologist looks worried, but I ignore her. I’m too deep into the story, and it consumes me.

“I killed my mother by taking out half of the screws that held up her loft where she painted. I held her hoof as she bled out, and she figured it out before she passed. My first foster family, I got rid of by putting a screw through the overpressure valve on their pressure cooker. That was too obvious, the government figured me out, and I was put into a place like this. I was twelve. I’m now twenty two. At least, I think so. Having a human shoved in my brain makes that somewhat blurry. Ten years of being in a psychological institution. What do you think that does to a pony, George?”

/chapter 6