Seriously. Pureed carrots? Which I have to eat with a plastic spoon? Are they afraid I'm going to go crazy and stab someone with a root vegetable if they don't mash it all up?
Anyway, the doctor interviewed me a few hours ago. It was the same Mister Stabby Needle guy as before, the one who injected sedatives into my butt. And, I thought I was done with these fourth-wall reports, but... well, something happened that made me think that I'd better give this another try. Things might be worse than I thought!
I was brought into a little room with a table in the middle, and a chair that I was made to sit in. Oddly, they made me sit in it human-style, which isn't as uncomfortable for a pony as I thought it would be (maybe Lyra isn't so nutty, after all!). After a few minutes, the doctor came in, floating this big accordion-folder with him, as well as a pen and a clipboard.
He stood across the table from me, placed the folder on the table, then looked up at me over the top of his half-moon glasses. Then he sat down, took out the clipboard, and started writing, apparently paying me no further attention.
I just sat there, waiting for him to say something. But no, he just scribbled more on his clipboard.
Finally, I'd had enough, and said, "Soo... You gonna let me out of this straight jacket, or something?"
The writing stopped, and he put the clipboard aside and looked at me.
"Do you think I should?" he asked
"Well, I have a wicked bad itch on my nose, and I can't scratch it. It's kind of driving me..." I cut myself off there, because I didn't want to say "crazy" while I was in the looney bin.
"Yes?" he asked.
"Nevermind," I said, and he went back to writing on the clipboard.
A minute later, I sighed and said, "Look, I really want to go home. Can I just leave?"
"Leave?" he said, putting the clipboard aside. "I can't let you leave while you're still sick! You're a danger to yourself and others!"
"No, I'm not!" I protested. Honestly, I was the least dangerous pony with a human brain, like, ever!
"You smashed up half of the market stalls in Ponyville. I think that's pretty dangerous," he commented.
"Half?! No way!" I was outraged by the injustice of that statement! "It was more like... ten percent, tops! Maybe even more like eight percent!"
"That's still a considerable amount of damage. Plus, you think you're an alien."
I'd had some time to think about this. There was no advantage in telling the truth to these guys, because, to be fair, the truth sounded pretty crazy!
"No no no," I said. "All of that was just a joke! I was playing with Rainbow Dash, and I got... well, a little out of hand."
"Out of what, now?"
"Hoof. I got out of hoof."
"But I heard you," he reminded me. "I heard you say it when we came to you in the market place."
"Well... yeah. It was all part of the game, right?"
"I don't think so, Miss Pie. You seemed pretty convinced. Not to mention all of the witnesses you had told throughout the day that you were an alien."
Argh, of all the ponies who could have listened to what I said, it has to be this guy? Nopony else could be bothered to listen to what I was saying other than the guy who was convinced that I was crazy for saying it!
"My friends told you that?"
"No, I wasn't able to talk to them. I think they're avoiding this situation. You've caused them some considerable trauma with your actions, after all," he said, and I flinched as I felt the guilt well up. "But I did talk to the ponies in the market place. Apparently, you'd made quite a spectacle of yourself earlier that morning, shouting about being an alien stuck in a pony body."
"Fine. I'll level with you, doctor," I said. I was already tired of the game. "I really am an alien. But here's the thing... you think I'm crazy for thinking that, but how do you know it's not true?"
"Well, we don't like to use the word 'crazy', here. We prefer... 'confused'. And, frankly, Miss Pie, it's very obvious that it's not true. I'm looking at you, and I'm seeing a pony."
"Well, duh!" I said. "I told you, my brain got stuck in Pinkie Pie's body!"
"Then, where is Pinkie Pie?"
"What?"
"If your mind is in Pinkie's body, then where is Pinkie's mind?"
That's a pretty good question, don't you think? the little voice in my head asked.
I felt a chill run through me, as I realized that the most likely place she would be is... in my own body, back on Earth!
"Oh, no. No no no!" I said. "This is bad! This is the most super-awesomely baddest thing that could ever happen!"
"Please settle down, Miss Pie," the doctor said.
"You don't understand! She's probably in my body back home! Oh, she's going to get me arrested, I just know it!"
"Why do you think so?"
"Because, by the standards of my people, Pinkie Pie is kinda crazy!" I said. "Oh, man, I can see it now..."
And this is what my imagination came up with:
"Everypony needs to party" Pinkie Pie said, cranking up the music in the electronics section. "Come on, people! Shake your groove thangs!"
"Hey, get your hands off of me!" one of the Target employees said, as Pinkie tried to start a conga line
"You seem crabby!" Pinkie said. "I know, I bet it's your clothes! My friend Rainbow Dash gets crabby when she wears clothes for too long. Here, let me help you take them off!"
"Hey, get offa me! Security! Security!"
"Who's Security? She sounds like a nice pony! Do you think she'd want some cupcakes?"
A police officer rushed up, taser in hand.
"Oooh, what's that? It's all... aaaagh!"
Or, maybe it was more like:
"Okay, you say you're a pony from Ponyville, your name is Pinkie Pie, and you were just trying to throw a big party?"
"That's right! They had all that cake just sitting there, I thought it would be fun to have a big old celebration!"
"Well, I guess that would explain this charge of 'assault with cake'."
"I wasn't assaulting them with cake! I was giving them cake!"
"You were "giving them cake" using a homemade cannon made from a leaf-blower and various parts from the hardware section!"
Anyway you look at it, it was bound to be pretty bad!
"Trust me, if Pinkie is in my body, it won't end well! She's probably locked up, most likely in a psych ward... exactly... like... this one."
Hmm. For the first time, it occurred to me that I probably had made a huge mess for Pinkie to clear up, if we ever managed to switch our bodies back.
"Yes, just like this one," The doctor said. "And here you are!"
"Look, I'm not crazy, okay?"
He just looked at me, raising one eyebrow.
"Okay, 'confused', whatever. I really did get brain-swapped with Pinkie Pie. I mean, come on! After everything that's happened here, this can't be that unusual!"
"What do you mean by that?"
"Oh, I dunno," I said, slightly sarcastically. "How about the return of Nightmare Moon? How about the Ursa Minor ripping up Ponyville, or the parasprites eating most of it? How about Chrysalis and her changelings at Canterlot? And, oh, I don't know, how about fricken' Discord making clouds out of cotton candy that rained chocolate milk! After all the weird stuff that's happened around here lately, you think me being an alien is really all that odd? At least consider the chance that I'm telling the truth!"
"Yes, an amazing number of very odd things have happened here. And the latest is that you now believe that you're an alien. When did you say this happened again?"
"The same day that you sedated me and brought me here!" I said, exasperated.
"Exactly," he said, making a note on his clipboard. "And yet... you know about all of these strange things which happened around here, some of which were almost two years ago?"
Oh. Drat.
"We aliens watch you guys on T.V.," I tried to explain.
"On what now?"
"Television. It's... like a magic box, and it shows us stories. And some of those stories are about you ponies. So, I know all about Pinkie Pie and her adventures."
"I see. That's very inventive. " he said, scribbling. Then he pulled something out of the folder and showed it to me. "What does this look like to you."
"A piece of paper with some ink spilled on it," I quipped.
"No, I know what it is, I want to know what it looks like."
"Oh, well why didn't you say?" I asked, then I leaned in to look at it more closely. "Hmm... It looks like a Rorschach test!"
"Do you mean 'Horseshach'?" the doctor asked, and I sighed and nodded. A perfectly good joke ruined by an unexpected equine-related pun! Such is my life...
"I meant," the doctor said, sounding cross (and I was glad to have finally gotten some kind of emotional reaction out of him, I admit!) "what does the ink on the paper look like to you?"
"Ohhh," I said. "It looks like... a waste of perfectly good paper!"
The doctor sighed and put the paper away.
"I can see that you're not going to help me at all with this," he said. "But I'll tell you what I think. I think that you're a very smart, sensitive pony who has been through a lot in the last couple of years. All those terrible things that kept on happening to you and your friends, I think they made you just stop wanting to be Pinkie Pie. I think this 'human alien' thing is just a rather clever invention, to avoid dealing with the hard realities of your life."
"That is so not true!" I complained. "I had a perfectly ordinary life back home! A job, a girlfriend, everything!"
"Interesting. You were male, as well?"
"Yah-huh!" I said, and he scribbled some more on the clipboard.
"Well, Miss Pie. If you remember this other life of yours so well, tell me: what was your name?"
"That's easy! It's..."
I trailed off doubtfully. Where my name was supposed to be, there was a hollow space. I couldn't remember! I could remember my whole life, my childhood... I could even remember what I'd had for breakfast that morning! (It was scrambled eggs, sausage and hash browns). But my name was gone!
"It's very simple, Miss Pie. You are, by all accounts, a very clever and inventive young lady. And your life has been pretty horrible lately. And, you said it yourself, earlier, when I brought up where Pinkie Pie herself might be. You said, 'Pinkie Pie is kind of crazy'."
Oh. I had said that, hadn't I?
"So, you used that imagination of yours to invent a life for yourself out of whole cloth. One where you no longer needed to be Pinkie Pie. Where you didn't even need to be a pony. You just forgot one thing: to give your new identity its own name."
He stood up, leaving me sitting there completely stunned. Could it be true? I mean... I was even acting a little like Pinkie Pie! No, a lot like her!
"I'll have the orderly bring you to your room, all right? I want you to think about it, Miss Pie. You have friends and family who love you, and want you to get well and come back to them. I'll talk to you tomorrow, Pinkie."
The orderly came to take me back to my room, but I barely noticed. My head was a churning cauldron of doubt, denial and fear.
I sat in my little room for hours, just working it over in my head. Could I really be Pinkie Pie? This whole thing, could it just be a delusion? I was on the verge of accepting it, when the little voice popped back into my head.
He said "human alien", did you notice? it said. But you never actually said the word "human" around him. Just "alien". That's pretty interesting, don't you think?
I blinked. Oh my gosh. That was right. I'd never said "human" in front of the doctor. Maybe he'd heard it from some other pony, but...
I played that day's events back in my mind. I'd said the word "human" to both Twilight and Rainbow Dash. But the doctor said he'd never talked to them!
And, somehow, he just seemed to know that the one piece of information you'd be missing would be your name. the little voice pointed out.
I felt a chill run down my spine. That doctor knew something that he wasn't telling me!
And there was something else. He'd said that "my friends", meaning Twilight Sparkle and the others, had refused to talk to him. But how likely was that? They were Pinkie's friends, they'd want to help in any way they could! And, why hadn't they visited?
And that's when I realized that one thing I didn't have of Pinkie Pie's was her self-doubt, that thought that maybe her friends didn't really love her. I knew Twilight and the others would have come to see her! I'd been here for three days! Some pony was keeping them from seeing me, and my bits were on Doctor Liar-pants!
Something is wrong. Something is very definitely wrong! And I am going to get to the bottom of it, Human Stuck in Pinkie Pie's Body style!
So, that's it. I'm busting out of here, tonight. I'm going to find Pinkie's friends. I'm going to find out what happened. And I'm going to put it right!
But, if I fail... well, I'm hoping this message reaches someone who can help me. Or, even someone who can help Pinkie Pie. If I can't figure out how to reverse it, and she really is stuck in my body, well... please find her. Help her get out of whatever jam she may be in, and be her friend. She'll need as many of those as she can get.
And that's it for me for now. It's time to make my great escape!