//------------------------------// // Perfect to You // Story: Near and Far // by TheMareWhoSaysNi //------------------------------// "It's one in the morning. I really wasn't expecing it. I was all alone and thought it was going to be this way all the time. Windy told nothing to me. Nothing at all. Usually, she warns me and I'm prepared. I know it's going to happen. Inevitably. But this time, she probably forgot. How could someone be so irresponsible? I think I'll never understand her. IOnce again, he waited for me to go to bed. It shouldn't hurt me anymore. But it does. Are we nothing but marionettes? Ragdolls that can go through everything with no consequences? As if there were no substance inside of us. No soul. Also he should have grown weary with time. There's nothing more to steal. I don't need this to be aware that I'm a decaying wreck. In these moments I know I am not strong. I'm only pretending. If I really were strong, I would have found the courage to make it stop. I would have taken the bull by the horns and face my demons. If I don't do that it's because, in fact, I'm nothing but vulnerability. I'm protecting myself with arrogance. I've built walls between the world and myself. I know it, somehow... The world doesn't care. Nights like this, even more than during any other nights, I wonder... Why am I staying? Why do I keep on hanging on to life? Everything seems to be so pointless. I've been repeated that each more day you take is a chance. I should know it more than anyone else. And yet, I don't understand what's pushing me to get out of my bed every morning, doing the things that I'm doing, killing time by any means. It's not as if I was expecting something. Or maybe am I expecting a good reason to live? Something, anything, that I could cling to. A lifeline to keep my head out of the water and to allow me to breath again, on top of my lungs. I say it but I'm not even looking. That's so pitiful. If someone finds this diary, one day, I surely will sound like a poor little thing always complaining. And maybe that's what I am, deep down. All the same, I'm not asking for charity. It would be too much." *** To take one step after another. Getting somewhere. To take one step after another. Going somewhere. His eyes still clouded from sleep, hands in his pockets, Soarin was walking unconvincingly in the corridors of the school, full of a vain restlessness. Cries of a simulated and exaggerated joy. He was making every move with a weariness that grew bigger and bigger. He made his way through his classroom but he couldn't see. Uniformity stinged his eyes, digging a deeper feeling of boredom. Though all the faces were different, in the end, the spirit of said faces seemed to be the echo of their clothes. Similar... Uniform thinking haunted them and they didn't even know. Suddenly, one face... A presence that was different from the others, despite the clothes, still similar. Pretty much. They all wore their summer uniform, short sleeves and no blazer, a jacket for those who were more sensitive to cold. Not her. Her soiled sneakers, one sock always higher than the other yet her hair shiny and freshly curled. A winter uniform on. Their homeroom teacher was busy lecturing Rainbow Dash. Surely not for her nonchalant attitude nor her grades, since they had accommodates with this. It had to be because of the uniform. Appearances reigned as supreme masters in this universe. She looked down, pretending not to hear the reproaches yet she took them with a demeanor... something almost melancholic. What a strange vision. Reluctantly, he finally went past Rainbow Dash and stepped in his classroom. Sitting on a table, popular and loud boys were drinking cans of Coke, just like every morning. The smart girls gathered together to exchange notes, the Elvis fanclub was busy gossiping about their idols in front of a magazine. It was pointless, maybe, but at least they had found a piece of dream in the middle of the dark world... The princesses, with their Alice bands and their perfect hair, were talking about recipes and movies. Sunset Shimmer and her heterogeneous bunch of friends were planning their "after school" and weekend activities. Days went by, seemingly different, but they always were the same. Of a cold dreadful routine. The bell rang. Sitting at his desk, his school supplies in front of him, he watched the students as they came in, patiently yet hypnotized, only expecting one person, though he wasn't sure why. Rainbow Dash was the last one to enter the room. She was fed up. Thrice a week, she was asked to come with her summer uniform. How important was it that she had long sleeves? Since she yield to wearing the same thing than the others though it deeply annoyed her, there should have been no problem. The teacher started to write something on the blackboard and Rainbow Dash sighed. Here they went again... All the students started to stare at the blackboard, straightening their backs. Lovely little robots of discipline. She turned away, to look through the window. The endless sky, the white clouds moving slowly, the screams of girls in gym in the sports field... What for? She went back on Earth. In front of her, only another back was slumped, ensconced in the back of his chair. He was also wearing his winter uniform but no one lectured him. Probably thanks to the advantages of its sex. "How digusting!" she whispered for herself. Yet she couldn't take her eyes off this back. Leaning against his chair, hands in his pocket, hair always styled in a quiff, he brought out something which reassured her, though she didn't understand why. This back made her want to snuggle against. Of all the other persons present in this room, he was the only one she felt close to, but the reason eluded her. She wanted to touch his back, but didn't find a consistent logic to this move, she restrained herself by taking her book out of her bag. Their teacher was still talking and she listened while thinking of something else. Her mind had grasped everything, recording and digesting it and she didn't even have to make endeavors for that. The advantage of a superior intelligence. "This assignment is of an extreme importance," he said in a clear and loud voice. "Thus, I'm expecting you to try your hardest. It is going to be a chance for you to show you're able to go to the depth of things. But also that you're able to work in group. It's essential for you, as in the future, you'll probably have coworkers." A dull life of office worker, Soarin thought with irony. It was the best expecting those working the hardest. An endless renewal of boredom and little exciting routine. Yet, he knew, there had to be another way... Their teacher kept on talking. "This is why I'll ask you to work in a group of two for this project. Find someone who you would like to do this with, or else, I'll assign someone compulsory to you because you don't always get to choose your coworkers. You have the chance to do so and I advice you to make the most of it." Quickly, a restlessness took place. Each was trying to get a partner. Group of girls were looking at each other, attempting to determine which of their friends to pick without upsetting the other. It was a little easier for boys. In the middle of the racket, Soarin was feeling he wasn't wanted since he had no friends at all. But suddenly, he felt a hand against his shoulders, shaking him. "Hey, good-looking!" When her hand clasped around Soarin's shoulders, Rainbow Dash felt an awkward satisfaction taking over her. The excuse was too tempting, and anyway, she didn't want to end up with any brat, too glad to get the gifted girl in order to help them to have the best grades without a sweat. Surprised, Soarin turned around but his face betrayed no emotion. Yet in his own stoical way, Rainbow Dash had been able to detect his astonishment. He straightened and turned in a twitchy manner. She smiled at him as he asked a nonchalant "what?". "Do you want to work with me?" "Why yeah. That could be great." Without another word, he went back to his first position on the chair. Rainbow Dash's satisfied smile widened. For the first time in years, some kind of excitment that she couldn't explain took over her, just like everything about him. No heart could be alone forever. *** That day went on with the most dreadful slowness of the world. Even slower than the previous ones. During the first hour of class, Rainbow Dash proposed Soarin to work together for the History assignment. To be waiting for something... A strange sensation that Soarin had already forgotten. And so, each event of the day were like slackened by anticipation. The long hours of class: students at the blackboard, sounds of the chalk, pens tracing words, the clock's tik taks, everything going down like drops of honey. During lunch break, he hoped she would speak to him but Rainbow Dash went outside, alone, just like she did every day. He didn't have the guts to follow her. On the afternoon classes, they went to the amphitheater. Slides about reptiles. Boring like hell, like the rest. And of a frightening slowness. Worst than the rest. And finally, it was over. Soarin was putting his things away in his bag, an ever so huge weariness weighing about his shoulders like an avalanche of rocks falling over him. Behind him, echoed sounds of steps then a shadow stopped right in front of him. He looked up. Rainbow Dash. "Shall we go?" "Where?" "I don't know. We have that assignment, you know..." "You mean right now?" "Yes..." "I can't right now. I have baseball." "So what? Don't go!" "My father's going to kill me if I do that." It finally was the moment he had been waiting for all day long with such a feeling of lassitude and it was already too late. She probably thought he was boring because he yielded to a demand from his father. He feared that now she wouldn't think he was much different than the rest of the human beings peopling their class. He got up and went down the steps of the amphitheater, sure she would never follow. But she followed. He didn't know that she was perfectly able to understand him. "Is your father strict?" "Yes, I believe he is." "Too bad, then! I'm going to wait. I hate waiting but I will." "Aren't you part of any club?" Rainbow Dash burst out laughing. A school club? No way! "Are you kidding? They don't want girls to take part in the cool sports like hockey or wrestling. I don't want to be a f*cking cheerleader!" "I didn't know. Isn't there anything else you'd like to do?" "Plenty. Only not in this school. They're too... conservative. Like the war never happened or anything and we're only good at baking cakes and sewing ball dresses. I'll be waiting for you outside, alright?" "But it's one hour long. What are you going to do?" "Don't worry about me. See you in one hour!" And she went away, running, leaving him here. Soarin didn't want to go to baseball now but he had to pretend he did. During his practice, he thought about her freedom, about how she didn't weighed herself down with yielding to anyone's demands, about how she had a mind of her own. She followed her own rules in life and he seemed to have a lot to learn from someone like her, since he refused the mold determined for him by others while ceding to it, thinking there was no other way, enduring it all with weariness. He went out one hour later, tired of running after his own boredom. Soarin was starting to wonder why he liked baseball so much until then. When you couldn't find a flavor in anything, what was the point of holding on? To know someone was waiting for him was a good reason. In front of the school's gate, Rainbow Dash was waiting, sitting on the floor with her back against the red brick wall, a comic book in her hands. She now wore a pair of high-waist jeans, with a white shirt and a scarf tied around her neck, with her signature ballet flat shoes. Her skin was covered almost entirely, even dressed as a civilian teenager, even with the blooming warmth of Spring. Actually, how did she change clothes? Seeing Soarin in front of her, she closed her comic book and put it away in her bag with a smile. "You're no longer in uniform." "Yes, I always bring clothes with me in my bag. Why do you think it's so big?" "Shall we go to the library?" "What?" "For the assignment, you know." Dusting invisible traces at her jeans, Rainbow Dash had a sardonic chuckle which surprised Soarin a lot. He didn't understand what was so funny about his words. Like he didn't know the girl in front of him yet. "There's no way I'll go to the library. Let's go downtown Canterlot, I'm hungry." She grabbed him by his uniform's sleeve and dragged him with her. It wasn't a simple snack Rainbow Dash bought at the nearby grocery store but a whole feast. He didn't think she would have such an apetite. In reality, he didn't know a lot. But today who the real Rainbow Dash was started to be revealed before his eyes. Deep inside, Soarin had always known there was a huge part of self-protection in her behavior but this intuition was turning into a certainty. The cold-shouldered and almost obnoxious young woman she was in school was nothing but a thick smokescreen. As soon as the cumbersome aura of school was far behind her, another face appeared. Of course, she didn't change at a hundred percent. In her behavior remained something unique and irreverent. At the grocerie store's counter, the cashier, barely older than them, started to stutter as he told her the price and appeared clumsy when he gave back her change. Soarin looked, amused, how the young man followed her with her eyes as she walked towards the exit and still did when she was behind the window front. The Olympia Park was a few miles away from Crystal Prep. Yet it was the first time Soarin stepped into this huge expanse of greenery in the heart of the city. To mock him, the rainbow-haired teenage girl advised him to get his nose out of his books on weekends. They were settled on the lawn and quickly, Rainbow Dash ended up scattering the content of her grocery's bag. This she couldn't do with her school supplies. In her bag there was nothing much except comic books, one single textbook, a fountain pen and a notebook covered with scribbled drawings with uncertain shapes. "For the assignment, can you give me your notes? I'll start with it." "Aren't we supposed to do it together?" "Don't worry. I'm taking care of that." Without further questions, he took his small notebook out of his bag and gave it to her. She stuffed it carelessly inside her own. And then, silence made its appearance... Was it all there was to them? They couldn't have ran out of topics already. Soarin turned to look at Rainbow Dash. Her lips weren't painted with red or pink yet her lashes were enhanced with black, like the outlines of her eyes. That was all for makeup. However, she kept on radiating something complicated and cheeky. When she didn't glare or stared at people with contempt, the cold aura floating about her turned into a sort of juvenile mischief. And when you looked a little closer, you could see something else... like a crack deep into her eyes. Rainbow Dash was a puzzle he liked to try to piece together. It was so attractive. Attraction... Soarin had never been attracted by anyone yet. Until she came his way. "Do you believe in destiny?" When she asked, she was smoking a cigarette, her eyes staring in front of her at a mother and her daughter trying out a small kite. Right before, there had been a long while of silence between them and Soarin almost jolted at the sound of her voice. She brought him back to reality. It wasn't a bad thing, actually. The way he had been staring at her was nothing appropriate and he knew that. It all started when Rainbow Dash tied her long rainbow hair into a ponytail. Like hypnotized, he admired its soft and shiny texture. Naturally, his eyes deviated towards her nape, gracious and delicate, with a porcelain skin. As for whether or not he believed in destiny, he wasn't quite sure of what to answer. It didn't matter much, because even before he could say anything, she did... Or at least, partially. "It's nothing rational to believe in something like destiny. Thinking there's some kind of superior entity, up there, deciding for us and we have not grips on our own future. Everytime I think of this, I got chills down my spine. Because if that's so then this superior entity owes me some serious explanation." If destinies were determined beforehand, she wondered why was she afflicted with so much pain along her yet short path. Nothing proved that things were going to change in the right way. It had never been the case until then. "I think there are no unexplained events," he finally said. "What brings us here are the choices we make and the choices those around us make for us. No superior entity determines what we do beforehand. It all comes from us." "Then, some people would better make better choices. Because it can bring consequences that aren't always good for the persons around." She added nothing and only kept on staring at the mother and her daughter and the kite, exhaling puffs of smoke. They looked so happy. Rainbow Dash was envious. She wanted to be happy as well, one day, though she always repeated she didn't care much about her future. Secretly, she hoped things would change for her and soon, she would be able to leave the past behind. Once at university, always, she thought, once at university... "In some Eastern culture, they think meetings never happen by chance. It's close to the soulmate myth but deeper... They say some persons are bound together by the red thread of destiny. Did you know?" she asked, looking at him and finally away from the mother and daughter. "No, I didn't." "Well, you should as well forget about it. The red thread of destiny. It sounds so sappy! And I sound sappy everytime I say that." Pause. "But it's true. Nothing can explain why we choose to go to someone in particular. Maybe there truly were persons who were meant to meet. What do you think?" A strange certainty suddenly took over Soarin at that very moment. In his heart it seemed clear that, following this logic, Rainbow Dash and him were meant to meet. "Well, I think you're right. But what if people you meet are also consequences of the choices you make?" "Gosh, that's so unromantic!" If there was something Soarin never thought he would hear from Rainbow Dash, it was romanticism. She had a way of seeing things that was rather rational and mature for her age, apart from her theories about how people met, theories he shared for a while. She looked so jaded by life, so full of uncertainties about what to do about it that he never thought the notion of romanticism would move her. And yet, it moved him. And he wasn't much more enthusiastic about what role he would play in the huge comedy of life. *** "It seems like there's finally someone on Earth that I think is interesting. I mean, a lot of historical figures were interesting people, but never someone I had to rub shoulders with. All the more so everyday. All the more so at Crystal Prep. His name is Soarin Skies. Yes, it's a boy. Just like me, he doesn't have any goal in life. He only prentends. This is already a good point. With him, I felt... good. I didn't feel as if I were some fair freak of intelligence. Just a human being. You can have real conversations with him. His mind is sharp and witty, I know it, I can feel it. I can't wait for tomorrow, when we'll go downtown like today. Yes, I can't wait for something. Yes, I want to talk with someone. Another human being. Of flesh and blood. Of oxygene and thoughts. Because he knows how to think outside of the box, this too I know. I like him. This means it's possible for me to like someone. I've always thought I hated humanity. But I like someone. Call this a miracle."