//------------------------------// // The Longest Kind Of Waiting // Story: Mail It In // by re- Yamsmos //------------------------------// He'd dropped it on the floor. The cloud floor. Was that still a floor? It was up high in the air, which meant it was in the air, because he'd just said that and so it was. But it was the bottom of his house, what he stepped on every day he made the mistake of waking up. Clouds made up part of the sky though; if they were on the ground, they'd be fog. That's how that worked, right? Fog was just a collection of thick clouds close to the ground? Gods, no wonder he wasn't part of the weather team. He didn't know what fog was even made of. Actually, there were a whole heap of things that marked him unfit for the duty of kicking clouds and moving them around. What little he could stomach of that letter from the weather company was pretty much full of such things, but he'd thrown it away and hid in his room as far away as was possible from the envelope, so he didn't get to see the full, two-maybe-five-page list. His mind, scurrying about like a squirrel of some aerial kind which didn't exist as far as he barely knew, rushed back to him with the ferocity of a train, and the force of one too. High Flyer promptly fell to the floor. The cloud floor. In the sky. It was maybe sky fog. His forelegs were stuck to the sides of his body. It was like he'd gone outside, stretched out his wings, and careened toward the cold surface below, creating a long, fat line of a trench in his wake. If one were to take a look at his figure, the comparison to a scurvy-ridden pirate ship—and more specifically its dreaded plank—could be easily made, and the victim would only be able to frown and stare at his sky fog cloud floor in silence. His vision, blurry, dazed, and confusing him to no end in sight, focused on the pen now lying next to him. It took awhile for his mind to properly register just what he was looking at, and even then—with first one eye blinking slowly, almost deadly, and the other struggling to follow suit—he could only stare, and stare, and blink and stare until he suddenly realized he was crying and wiped his wet cheeks with a furious hoof. Now was not the time of day, place of day time or place... of... day, to be reliving and acting out his early days after high school on his floor, now was the time to take action, and suck in a deep breath he'd regret later and do what he'd set his mind on course for. He unfolded his left foreleg—his weaker one, but, then again, all four of his limbs kind of held similar titles—and poked the pen. It moved up about half a bare millimeter and quietly cursed him out for his disturbing it. At the same time, the other very much inanimate but still very much alive, grumbling, and bumbling adversary of his leaned its wooden head back as far as it could—probably the same, record-breaking distance of its new friend newly on the old floor fog cloud thing—opened its mouth—probably... hm, probably the little windows he always wanted to board up, or maybe the mail slot he'd glued shut and couldn't pry apart—and laughed at him with the ferocious, mind-gobbling, mind-boggling silence of every class presentation he'd ever given. "Hahaha!" It, essentially, being a door and all, didn't laugh. What was a door? Besides the thing newly in front of and above his deep, deep scowl, that is. What, really, was a door, but a gateway to the sun, and the moon, and the grass and the trees and the hills and the streams? What, really, in the end, was a door, but the beginning—the start, so glorious and tremendous—of a winding, wondrous path leading to a happy, bright life? What was a door, but the answer to the things that so ailed him day in and day out and sometimes day upside-down if he tossed and turned the right way (wrong way?) in his sheets the night prior? What, really, was a door but something to quickly slam shut, tightly lock closed, cover with awkwardly nailed boards, and hide from as far away as was possible in one of the tucked-away corners of his much-too-big house, pushing aside a nice drawer and spilling the lamp previously atop it into pieces onto the floor thing to achieve his desired gap? What was a door, but something to be ignored? He crinkled up the end of his muzzle and narrowed his eyes, still lying like a worm on the floor. Sky worm? A staring match, then. He knew what a door was. An enemy; an opponent; a threat. His current opposition in a battle rivaling the almighty Gods regretting their observations above him and behind him in terms of intensity. It was like a Wild West duel he'd always fetishized and been hopelessly enamored with when he was younger and thinner, with tumbleweeds blowing through the middle of their proving ground and rolling across the plains, never to be seen and looked at again. Which sounded kind of nice, to be honest. Eyes—not the door's, his, if that wasn't made clear—darted around the battlefield. He rose a bit off his stomach and brought up both forelegs, collecting a small bit of his floor into a ball that kept uncoiling and unwinding in his hoof as he stared at it quietly. Perfect. He belly-flopped back onto the ground, held his right foreleg out like the L shape he'd always seen those griffons in school give him, and lightly tossed his little cloud poff between him and his opponent. Because of the cloud isolation and cloud layers and cloud everything, the wind blowing and kicking outside didn't enter his home and help the little cloud-tumbleweed-demon-spawn roll across the "town". He pressed his straight frown against his cheeks and bunched it up. Leaning over, cracking a few muscles in his neck, and pursing his lips, he sucked in a large breath and expelled it the same way it came in. Swiftly settling back into position, he couldn't help but crack a grin as the scene was finally complete. The cloud stopped about halfway, a complete neutral-party just trying to keep the two participants from going to blows. Okay this was enough now. He lightly crushed the cloud poff beneath his hoof and lifted his chin with a grunt. He would win this battle. The door was a door, and even though he acted a bit like the mat lining the front of it many times, he wouldn't be lying down this time! DING DONG! OH GODS HIDE! He reverted—devolved—to a turtle shooting straight back into its shell in the wake of a massive explosion. His eyes darted around left and right in a panic. His heart was beating out of his chest, and then it was crawling up his tight throat and trying its hardest to burst out and leap from his mouth and look up at him and, with a top hat and cane, do a little dance to let him know he was probably losing it. He looked about frantically, feeling his breathing catching up to his head and sending his surroundings in a spinning, discernible, rapidly unintelligible blurry mess. On one side, his coat rack with one jacket, no hats, and actually that was a sweater not a jacket. On the other side, which was his right, a wall. He had no options. It was time for desperate measures. Measures he wished he'd never have to take as long as he barely lived. He slapped his ears back against his skull, grit his teeth, and hid his eyes behind his forelegs. Nopony would ever be able to see him now! In the corner of his eyes, a blurry object materialized in between the various glass pieces fixated against his door. It leaned to and fro, then stayed. From what little he could see, it appeared to be waving at him lightly. Oh Gods what if it wasn't her? Oh Gods oh Zacherle oh no no no no no no what if it was that super talkative mailpony and he wouldn't be able to find an excuse to get back inside his house this time and he'd have to nod and make little noises barely resembling actual coherent answers and he wouldn't be able to find peace and quiet and have to shower again because of the contact and he always hated showering because after all the nice heat against his body he'd have to step onto his floor again all cold and miserable like usual but this time he was literally dripping with water and even his towel wouldn't be enough because he couldn't reach all his parts and– DING DONG! "I'm not here!" he croaked hopefully. The figure in the glass cocked its head. It was wearing a little cap. "Are you sure?" His heart promptly stopped. He'd read about this kind of thing, and had actually experienced it already, and, by this point, it should have been starting back up by now to continue its duties. ... ... Was he alive? A giggle, muffled but still easy to place. "Well, if the pony who lives here shows up at some point, could you give this to him?" His eyes dwarfed those dinner plates he hadn't washed in his sink. He sprang to all fours and, in his attempt to very coolly, very pleasantly, very politely, very gentlecoltly, very smoothly coil his hoof around his doorknob and pull the whole thing open, he completely pancaked against the wooden entryway, slammed his head against the glass as if to hammer a screw into it, and, the sound ringing in his eardrums, could only mutter, "Uh." He realized that he was experiencing a sudden influx of wind, and turned his head to find a beautiful pair of golden eyes blinking at him quietly. He swallowed a lump down his throat and pulled himself from the evil clutches of his main enemy. He landed on the floor—well, his front porch, now—and scratched his mane. I need to act cool. "..." You're doing terrific. Thankfully unable to see the storm brewing in his head, the angel in front of him burst into a huge, unrivaled grin, a pretty large box in both her hooves that she proudly presented him, like those crayon drawings that never made it to the fridge and always ended up in the garbage bin for some reason by some kind of mistake. "Hello!" she chirped, beautifully befitting her perfectly-chosen race. Her brown cap was fitted snugly over her head, and her gorgeous blonde mane spilled out like a breathtaking waterfall and made a gentle wave in the soft gust. Her soft, gentle gray hooves fidgeted again, and the box jittered in place like he was probably doing right now. "Special delivery!" ...! Special delivery?! Like, special as in him?! She thought he was special?! Huh huh huh huh huh huh huh huh huh...! He blinked. Special Delivery was stamped on the top of the box in bold, black letters. He barely blinked. Then he shot up, whipping out one of his own forelegs and showing her the object teetering atop it before he could stop himself. "I, well, that is to say, this is your, we, but, this is your... I think it's, um, you left it, um... y-you too?" The mailmare tilted her head, then transferred the heavy-looking box to one hoof and let him drop the blue pen onto the bottom of her other one. She was quiet for awhile, as if studying for a test without crying or hyperventilating or hiding in a corner, and then, for a split second, she appeared to be looking at both it and him at the same time. Taken aback, he shook his head and, turning back, realized it had all been in his head as she continued glaring at her pen. Suddenly, the sun broke through the clouds; the rain stopped falling; the grass stood perfectly still; the lake became a mirror; the storm ended; the stars and universes and galaxies and cosmos aligned. She smiled. "Oh! My pen!" She looked back at him, nodding wildly. "Thanks!" She clutched the pen in both her teeth, brought out a little bag on her right side, opened up one of its flaps, and stuffed the writing tool inside. Craning her neck over to her left, she pulled out a clipboard with her mouth and, with a wing, pulled out another pen that dangled a string from the top of the metallic clip. He suppressed the urge to scream. "Just need your signature, if you don't mind!" She passed the clipboard to him and, waving her newly free hoof, added, "And don't worry, it's right-side-up this time! I promise." It was not. He still scrawled his mark on the provided line as if it was, though, even if the action proved to be more difficult than he'd thought. He gave it back to her and idly placed his hoof atop his boxed-up coffee maker. She took a few seconds, and then a few more, and then more than that, and then about thirty seconds to verify everything, then perked up and saluted him cutely. "All right! Everything looks good!" Unfurling her wings with a flex of her foreleg and a grin, "Take care now!" She parted the winds with her lazy flaps; she scooted through the air with ease; she gracefully bumped into his mailbox at full speed, then, after hurriedly trying to close it again to no avail, laughed to herself without looking at him, and tip-tapped her two front hooves together. Realizing he was still looking her way, she shrugged her shoulders to nopony in particular, droned a low note, then waggled a hoof at him in a wave. He returned the gesture, not even realizing it. His body seemed to be on unstoppable auto-pilot. Her smile became more genuine as she dipped her chin and seemed to shrink between her bunched-up shoulder-blades. Flapping her wings a bit harder, she sped away across the sky. Left in the middle of his expression, he watched as she zoomed away at a breakneck speed toward Ponyville in the distance. He suddenly noticed his very labored breathing, and placed a hoof against his heart to quiet it down. After what felt like hours, it fell back to a gentle drumbeat, and, feeling oddly tired, he caught sight of his mailbox as it cooed to him with ear-shattering creaks across the way. It was at a bit of an odd angle, but, despite the fact that the front slot seemed to be irreversibly bent outward and left the insides to the mercy of the wind, it looked to be okay for the time being. It suddenly swayed with a roll of the breeze, then snapped in half and disappeared beneath the cloud it sat on. Daring the motion, he leaned forward and peered over the edge of the front of his house. A small, very mailbox-esque figure was getting smaller and smaller and smaller as he watched it until it faded into the dark greens and browns of the dense forest below. Blink. He'd need a new mailbox. A smile met his face. He'd be seeing her again soon.