“No, no and no! Ditch not happy!”
Well, sometimes words were just not enough to show irritation. In these few, desperate moments, such nonsense as grammar, sentence structure and logical expression evaporated like pure booze from a bottle left opened. Usually Ditch would be there to stop such a terrible fate and just chug the contents before even a whiff was lost, but at that moment? Oh, he was furious just enough for his thoughts not to even follow a metaphor and make a witty observation on life properly.
And he hadn’t even started meditating properly that evening!
“Neither am I overjoyed that I am back here! Again!” the newest Phantom of the Cemetery added his own complaint, following Ditch despite his non-grammatical protests.
“What do I care, just pass the point of no return! That’s all I ask of you!”
“Oh, are you convinced you were not wishing I was somehow here again?!” the ghost teased. Like, actually teased. And Ditch would even be appreciative of the banter, but not with a see-through specter!
And one insistent on following him, like a stalker too! Why oh why? Ditch was an innocent, uniquely shy pony, one that did nothing wrong, was a pillar of society and gave of the aura of a good heart and a soft soul! Why would a stalker ever be interested in somepony like th—
Actually. No, that made far too much sense.
Still an unpleasant fascination to be the receiving part of! And when your pursuer was supernatural, nonetheless. At least, as Ditch hoped, he would not be dead by daylight.
“Are you just going to keep running away?” Free Verse asked like the world’s most exasperated murderer, with his voice echoing all over the necropolis. “This gets us nowhere!”
“At least stop wailing, would you?! If I get a noise complaint, how am I going to explain it to the Royal Guard, huh?” Ditch declared, turning around with enough momentum to have gravel fly about like he was flaring a geomantic cape. Yes, he was good at earthbending, but not that good. He still needed the shovel, which he planted like a stop sign into the pathway. “ ‘Oh, excuse the spooky noises officer, I had a recently departed rhymer materialize out of nowhere and, for the love of Harmony, the schmuck could not shut the... schmuck up.”
Free Verse floated to a stop, obeying the recently implemented Law of Shovel... which all looked as ridiculous as it sounded in Ditch’s head. He then gently hovered a few trots away. His expression was definitely unpleasant, not that apparitions could look that alluring anyway.
“I’m sure they would write that off as your drunken imbecility,” he hissed through his see-through teeth, which strangely only made the words more biting.
“You...!”
Ditch paused and squinted one eye in thought... Ding-dang-do Don Q, that was not inaccurate. How did he know that the Royal Guard was so disinterested in listening the plights of Equestria’s inebriated citizens? It was borderline discrimination, it had to be said! Anypony from that special, temporary societal group approaching an officer of the law was treated as a second-grade national! The outrage! So what if they sometimes behaved like deviants, even?
Thankfully, like in Detrot, they started doing something about it! He had heard the campaign was called “Become Pony” or something. About damn time!
So, Free Verse was at least correct in his insult, Ditch had to admit. “You, as I already started saying, you are not wrong, no.” He then shook his head, his clay mane reaching a whole new level of unkempt and chaotic. And so perfectly reflecting the state of the thoughts buried deeply underneath it. “Alright, alright... praise the jewel in the bottle and all that jazz,” he uttered, trying his best to focus. “We had this talk before, it gets us nowhere, right?” He pointed before him, at the hauntingly obvious. “Chase in point.”
“It is ‘case in point’... but I respect the pun. No, not even that, but you’re right anyway,” the wraith agreed begrudgingly. Did he really have any choice, the spook? “I, myself, overreacted. So, for what it’s worth... I’m sorry I’m again bothering you.”
“Yeah, yeah, apology accepted,” Ditch waved his hoof around. Kind of hoping that he could shoo the haunt away like an annoying mosquito, but that was wishful thinking. At least this nuisance did not seem to be out for blood. “So, you’re really still here... Again. But where were you during the whole day? For a moment I did think I just went nuts yesterday night and, as you can imagine, it was like a dark night of the soul! ... only it was day. And it was quite bright actually, since, you know, sun and stuff.”
The dead poet furrowed his brow, thinking intently. “I’m... I don’t know. You weren’t much of a conversation partner after you passed out, so I just... stayed around at first...”
Ditch grimaced, rolling his eyes. “Do you like watching me sleep? Is it fascinating?”
And, hysterically, causing Free Verse to back away just like that. “N... no? Where did that come from?”
“Some silly book I’ve tried reading once. A poor filly stuck with just one facial expression in a strange romance triangle with a hot timberwolf and a cold, though somehow still hot, walking corpse. I think it was called... ‘Sparkle’? Like the Princess?”
“I think I heard of that one...? But I really don’t want to know,” the ghost protested, ironically frightened.
“Yeah, I was more than happy to toss whatever that one was into the supermassive black hole of the nearest sewer gate. Maybe a clown will find it there!” Ditch mused with intensity that seemed to have mentally scarred the wraith.
“At... any rate,” Free Verse continued, trying to materialize the correct topic once more. “The sun was rising and I just... I’m not sure. It felt like I was falling asleep against my will.”
“And not in the, how to put it, really-convenient-because-permanent-way-that-we-both-hope-for-but-me-even-more kind of way?”
The apparition took a moment to comprehend but finally did shrug. “Yes. Seems like that.”
“Shame, I’d say. Not only about you not resting in peace. I think you could really use some sunlight. Does wonders to the coat,” Ditch proclaimed, showing off the grey of his legs, tempered by work under Princess Dyslexia’s very sun. “You’re thinning out more than a Trottinghamian accountant.”
“Urgh, no. Those are usually a bit more monstrous than me, even in this state,” Free Verse pointed out, looking over himself. “I don’t have scales anywhere, do I?”
“At least that’s a transparent ‘no’,” Ditch replied, leaning against his shovel. “So, the light of day made you go ‘poof’ until the sunset? Oh!” He slammed his forehead. “No, I don’t mean it in the way they mean it there.”
“I sure hope not,” Free Verse shook his head. “It’s rather uncouth otherwise. But, yes, I suddenly opened my eyes—”
“You don’t have ‘em.”
“... fine. Opened my ‘eyeholes’ and I was next to my very own grave. So I thought I would go and find you for the lack of a better solution. Or a better thing to do.”
Ditch rubbed his chin. His tools warming presence definitely helped deal with this continuously bizarre stumper. “Right. Right... Riiiiight...”
“Are you thinking of something specific, or trying to remember what we have established last night about me appearing like that in your cemetery?”
“Riiiiiiiiight...”
Free Verse sighed, the sound of which could chill to the bone. “You don’t remember at all, do you?”
“What?! Nah, nah, I remember, it just feels like it has been two and a half years,” Ditch admitted. “But! I’m sure a swig or two of good ol’ hooch will freshen my memory!” he declared with the tone of an expert on the matter. One that he was, certainly. He got the flask out from his coat and was about to take a gulp... but stopped himself. This could have been better. “Mind being a refrigerator again?”
The ghost groaned with the accompaniment of sounds straight from the depths of Tartarus... but obliged and moved his foreleg forth. Ditch gently submerged the flask in the whatever substance Free Verse was currently made of and soon a deliciously chilled liquor was making its way down his parched throat.
Wasn’t that better than just wailing and whining? This at least affected drinks, not frame of mind!
“Not that I’m complaining... which I kind of am, but that’s beside the point – couldn’t you have haunted a restaurant? Oh, or an ice rink? They could have used a cold piece of work like you there!”
Free Verse tried rolling his eyes which did less than nothing. He really needed to pay more attention to his predicament!
“This wasn’t much by choice, I remind you. But, that... is a good question. Do you think I can just... leave from here? Float away freely?”
“That... is a very good question!” Ditch admitted, grabbing the shovel and putting it over his shoulder, like a soldier ready to march out pronto. “How about we test it? See if you can just mosey out of here! But! But! But!” he waved his hoof about, seeing Free Verse ready to follow. “Let’s... find the more secluded part of the cemetery wall, alright? Not that I would not want to see somepony outside suddenly being subjected to you, Macabre Manifestation, but... do we really need that kind of notoriety, M&M?”
“Well—”
“Wait! You were a poet, right? And you can tell me on the way – didn’t you have that already? The fame, the fanfare, other f-words?” Ditch asked aloud, pointing in the safest direction from prying eyes of the living. Well, living outside of here, not living in general.
He didn’t want to sound too inclusive, after all! He was happy, being tolerated by the local populace of dead and buried... and, as it happened, one reckless, buoyant malcontent, but he understood his position. He guided others to the leisure he could not possess.
“So?”
Free Verse diligently floated by, his expression as transparent as inscrutable... which would have been a delicious irony if it hadn’t been for the ghastly obvious.
“I... don’t think I gathered any of that in the last year which I cannot quite recall. Before that?” He clicked with his tongue, which was enough to make a nearby raven, that had nodded, nearly napping on a tombstone, panic and fly beak-first into another grave. “Poetry is... not really about gathering fame and a following. It’s more about expressing oneself, searching for, not even finding, one’s own truth. Life, a river that flows, untamed and free, knowing not where it is going, yet glad to just be...”
Ditch grimaced as if he had drunk herbal medicine through his ears. A non-alcohol based one, nonetheless. “Well... not to be unpleasant, but was the river hitting a concrete, Hoofer dam of a pavement an epitaphy you sought?”
“It’s ‘epiphany’.”
“Bless you.”
Free Verse groaned hauntingly. “And, again, I don’t know. Last year is all fogged up in my mind. I suppose I must have had a reason, but...”
“Would dying of no income be too mainstream for you?”
“I always had enough to get by,” the ghost shrugged. “Never cared for... for riches...”
He again stopped in midair, considering something.
Huh, maybe he did start caring! Ditch took that pause for a good sign, taking the chance to subject himself to another, rejuvenating swig. The power of powers would refresh his mind before clouding it wonderfully!
“Alright, looks to me like we just got another piece of your final swan dive puzzle. Something about money.”
Free Verse shook his head, awakening from the stupor. “Seems... so, yes. Though it’s perplexing. The allure of bits never really spoke to me.” He glanced at Ditch curiously. At the old coat. And the frazzled mane. And all. “I suppose you also don’t really care for that? With all due respect back.”
“Nah! Who cares? Enough to have over your head a roof and in your work a hoof!” Ditch announced, then blinked. “Oh, for Guinness’ sake, it’s contagious! In your hoof a work! Gah!”
He took the shovel and swirled it between the two of them like a baton. His orchestra played the overture of parting earth and the opera of shifting soil, but the music was beautiful nonetheless. And, hopefully, a salvation from Free Verse’s dreadful influence!
“One thing I don’t like,” Ditch tried to return to the question to dispel any bewitchment of balladry, “it’s them stuck-ups that see their only reason for living in bits. Let me tell you, their crypts might be fancy, but a rich stiff is still just a stiff. And I know a lot about stiffs! Of all kinds!” He accentuated with the final jingle of that most unique of instruments, the hip flask.
Free Verse nodded, keeping social distancing. Mostly due to the swinging shovel, but still! “We... are in a rare enough agreement, so I’d say I am quite happy about that...” he admitted and something of a smile danced on his lips.
“Hey, hey, I know we’re all buddy-buddy, but I’m still trying to get you going... or, to put it more elegantly, ‘help you out of the goodness of my heart to find blissful, eternal rest in the embrace of Harmony’. And it’s not poetry!” Ditch warned outright. “Just something that padre would say. Though I need to warn you, that is some depraved stuff!”
“I don’t know. I feel something lyrical in those words.”
“I rescind that fancy statement, you need to get going,” Ditch corrected himself. Such aberrant ideas as, like padre Last Rights put it, ‘joining with Harmony in perfect, profound unison’ were seriously offending his sensibility and putting his tolerance to the test. And poetry was permeating those?! Reprehensible!
Thankfully, he had a way out of that twisted topic! “Now’s as good time as ever to see just that! We’re here!”
Indeed. Their talk had lead them swiftly alongside a number of the cemetery quarters and they found themselves before the distant wall of the place. The very far end, quite away from the nearest city district. An old set of sturdy bricks covered with plaster and pampered to look presentable. A border between the final and the going-to-be-final eventually.
But Free Verse stopped for a moment, looking to the side and not precisely at his target. The orderly set of wooden boards, making their way from the old gravel path caught his fleeting-floating attention.
“What are those?”
“Those?” Ditch looked after the wraith’s non-existent gaze. “Ah, yes, this is the Beggar’s Row. Interesting crowd, you know? Origin-wise, character-wise, wisdom-wise,” he revealed... and something of a soft, peaceful smile danced on his lips, he felt. He wasn’t surprised.
He pointed at the first grave. “Here’s Mr. Milksop, first to start the brawl and first to get out. Then there’s Eight Ball. ‘Better living through chemistry’ kind a colt. And that’s Dust Bunny, she cleaned the streets for years, not a word of complaining. And Two Times, worst smuggler in Equestria, I heard. But he didn’t care, cause ‘glory to Equestria, the greatest country’.
“There, with that little pinwheel in the grass? That’s Humdinger, inventor. They called him ‘Trash Panda’. Lollygag ‘Lulu’ right after, heard she was a sweet, charming filly, even though she trotted the streets. Speaking of which - Hocus Pocus, performer, magician, lovable rogue. Then there’s Bushwhacker, he was a veteran, lost a wing. Rubber Stamp, clerk, had a thing for theater once. Carte Blanche, nopony knew what he was about other than that he was Prench... I could keep naming them.”
Free Verse listened with utmost care. Or at least it appeared so. “You... know all of them? And you said this is ‘Beggar’s Row’?”
Ditch chuckled a little, taking a hearty swig from the flask. To their health. “A little bit about everypony, you know? Poor chums, all of them. Either had no family left, or it couldn’t even spare the bits to afford a proper burial. Anypony like that ending up here is given a small, simple resting place thanks to city funding and yours truly,” he explained, though he didn’t fill his voice with pride. It was just a job. Important one, but... come on, how could he compete with a war veteran, an inventor... any of them, really. “You know, even the lowliest of the low should get due rest, right? Especially when their whole life was a struggle?”
Free Verse said nothing at first, simply nodded his spectral head in deep thought. “That... also sounds almost poe—”
Ditch chuckled lightly, his expression that of elation and deep satisfaction over his place in the world.
“I will slug you with this here shovel,” he proclaimed serenely. “I like this place, don’t you ruin it for me.”
Ditch actually liked this place a lot. And not only for the reasons of otherworldly fairness manifested in even the smallest burials. He honestly thought that all those residents got the best seats... well, beds in the house. A unique opportunity, being positioned as they were. For behind the concrete curtain, that frontier between life and expiration date, the slope of the Canterlot mountain did start. And the view, especially if one had the indecency to climb up a little and sit on the edge of the wall... Oh, it was to die for.
Quite literally, as it could have been foreseen that falling off this perch and rolling down the decline at high speed was not the most survivable of ideas. And yet, on the way down, one would have a most splendid view of the valleys surrounding the capital and its faithful mountain. At that time, the early moonlight was turning the landscape positively eerie, as Ditch imagined, recalling the sight quite vividly. The distant towns and villages with their lights illuminating the space. Just like clusters of lively, warm fireflies underneath clusters of starry, cold fireflies.
Ten million fireflies.
You’d think Ditch rude, but he would just stand and stare.
He’d like to make himself believe that Free Verse too would have the unique pleasure of witnessing the imagery as soon as he would get his see-through rump outside.
But he was rather keen on just standing nearby. Well, “remaining” nearby. Standing was for the living, definitely.
“Well?” Ditch spurred him on. “Go, try it. It’s just a wall.”
“I mean... I did not really try to fly in this... form,” Free Verse revealed, looking terribly uncertain. Kind of understandable, his last taking to the air went down rather clumsily. “I supposed I could get some height and go over, yes?”
“Yeah. Or you could stop over-thinking it and just drift on!”
As if nervous to meet a sweetheart, the expired poet looked at Ditch and then floated forth a little. He stopped an inch from the solid surface and tried to take a deep breath, despite his lungs not really being there to cooperate.
Ditch rolled his eyes. “Oh, come on! It cannot be hard. Both metaphorically and literally, I guess. I already cut you in half with my door once!”
“Y... yes, that is true, but it was sudden and now I...” Free Verse hesitated. Far too much for anypony’s taste. “It’s... it’s like I don’t want to, but... The more I... I think... This... is so bizarre.”
He even chuckled like a panicked colt.
Ditch rolled his eyes. What was about to happen was bound to definitely be bizarre.
He just hoped they were away enough from anypony awake. Awake and breathing. One exception to the general, existence’s Rule of Dead and Done was enough.
“Boo!”
Free Verse yelped aloud and sprang forward, urged so masterfully by Ditch’s best attempt at a switcheroo with the wraith. One that resulted, definitely, in merging the wallflower with the actual wall. Social engineering at its finest!
“Well, that was easy!” came to Ditch the natural conclusion, expertly followed by a victorious swig.
That is, until Free Verse’s form suddenly reappeared from the obstacle with quite the speed and the two of them collided hard. Or they would have so, if not for the issue in transparency. Both of intentions and the essence, as it happened.
It was like diving straight first into cold water. Dreadful. Shocking.
Sobering.
In protest over his values of Boozeism being so contemptuously challenged, Ditch decided to hold firmly to the truth by losing his grip on consciousness.
Papa would have been proud.