//------------------------------//
// A Stomach Without Food 
// Story: Peanut Butter Without Jelly 
// by Brony_Fife 
//------------------------------//

	I'm in the kitchen. Outside my apartment is Manehatten, a devil's playground where the swingsets all have needles on the seats, the sandbox is full of glass, and the slide is so hot you'll arrive at the bottom as bacon. Outside, night is about to fall like a curtain on the worst circus act you could imagine--the clowns all forget their lines, the midgets have shown up drunk, and the fat lady had lyposuction recently. Except I don't think circus acts have curtains. 

Anyway.

My name is Rose. You probably remember me from where you saw me last. Where was that, you ask? How the Tartarus am I to know? I was talking to somepony all throughout my life after I started my life as a vigilante. Maybe it was you. Maybe it was the mildew on my wall. Maybe it was the drunk midgets. Either way, I'm talking to you, and my name is Rose.

Wait, hang on, I just remembered something. Be right back.



Yeah, there we go.

Anyway, as I was saying, my name is Rose. You don't know me? What are you, retarded or something? I'm the Celestia-damned Mare-Do-Well. At least I am when I put on the costume. Right now, I'm Rose, and I'm hungry as a bear that hasn't eaten anything besides its own shit. I'm tired of eating shit, so tonight, before I go bust some heads, I'm gonna eat myself a sandwich.

So I'm in the kitchen now, searching the cupboards for some bread. I find some, along with a jar of peanut butter. I turn to my refrigerator, only to remember that refrigerators don't exist in the pony world. We have arcade cabinets and trains, but no refrigerators. Strangely, I still have the warranty for the refrigerator I never bought because it never existed.

"Redheart!" I call into the next room. She's my marefriend or something. Sometimes it's hard to remember.

Manehatten outside starts getting noisy. The sounds she makes are like a lover who just arrived on your driveway and honks his horn for you to hurry your ass up.

"Redheart!" I shout again, this time heading into the living room where she usually is. She looks up at me from her couch with that look of maternal consternation. For a second, I think she's going to send me to my room.

"Hey," I tell her, "have you seen the jelly?" She looks at me a little longer, like I'd asked the question in a foreign language that she only knows the swear words to.

"Look, don't just sit there. Dammit, ever since I dug you up, you've been sitting on that bucking couch staring holes into everything. You smell like a fart that farted. You don't even wanna have anything to do with me anymore, do you?"

She stares.

I stare back. 

"Fine, be that way, Junebug." I turned and went back to the kitchen before I realized my mistake. I'd called Junebug Redheart. Uh, Redheart Junebug. Is that the reason she won't talk to me? 

I rush back to the living room, and hold onto Redheart's hoof and it breaks off like stale bread again. No matter how much duct tape I use, the damn thing keeps coming off. "Look, I'm sorry, Crest! I promise I'll get your name right! It's not like I've forgotten you or anything! I promise!"

In the meantime, I got a sandwich to make. 

But a peanut butter sandwich is nothing without some jelly. It's like breathing, without air. Swimming without water. Shitting without shit. Eyes without a face. It don't make sense, and it's just wrong.

Anyway, I'm out of jelly. Looks like I'll have to look for some.

I think about putting on the costume, giving his shapeless, formless body a body for... shape and... form. But then I realize, why should I be the Mare-Do-Well when I'm looking for groceries? I would... He would... We would become the laughingstock of Manehatten's underbelly. 

And nopony laughs at Roseluck Winky-Wink O'Chylde. Not even at my name. Because they don't know my name, oh no. All they know is that I'm one tough, crazy bitch. And I always get what I want, and tonight I want me some jelly.

So I just throw on the old equipment. The boots. The gloves. The batons. The kevlar. The grappling hook. The hoodie. The hood to hide my face, all of my face except for my smile. The last thing a badguy sees before he gets knocked around.





I close my eyes, and the knife glides gracefully into the jar of peanut butter as if they were made for each other. The blade cuts through that creamy spread like a not-blade through something not-creamy. It picks up a nice chunk of the peanut butter, and spreads it along the bread, carefully layering it, making sure it's not too thin and not too thick, like they're having the kind of perfect sex everypony dreams of but never receives.

If I do not open my eyes, the jelly will not be next.

I open my eyes and I am greeted by the sounds of Manehatten. Manehatten. She's that fat, saggy broad next door who keeps asking to borrow stuff she doesn't intend to return. And man has she borrowed a lot from me. Things she'll never return, things I can't replace. They were one of a kind, these things, and I never considered a replacement plan. That's all Manehatten is: a taker, never a giver. Just taking and taking, hoarding her house with shit that doesn't belong to her.

Tonight, I aim to take something of hers. I aim to take the jelly.

I find a bunch of gangbangers in a warehouse. They're all wearing white suits and funny, tall white hats, probably to signify their unity. All criminals. Criminals. They're a terror. Even when they wear ugly hats, they're terrifying. I hide the terror I feel by hiding behind this hood. Only I'm under it. So I'm not doing a good job.

I analyze the situation. These guys, all wearing white, are all around a single table. There's bags of equally white powder. White powder in bags marked "flour." Clever. Drug dealers. Feeding Manehatten with all the wrong kinds of food, poisoning her more and more, and she just eats it like a greedy Trick-or-Treater. 

This is a situation that calls for stealth. I smirk as I shatter the glass with my face. I knock every Celestia-damned cardboard box out of my way as I stomp through the shadows. Those white-clothed fools will never know I'm coming, especially not if I start screaming like a bitch giving birth to a baby twice her size.

For reasons that are beyond me, the drug dealers somehow figure out I'm there. Suddenly, there's a lightning storm in that warehouse: the bolts come down like rain, and the thunder is loud enough to wake up Thor and have him wondering who the Tartarus is playing with his shit. Teeth fly. Blood splatters walls. Corrective lenses go flying. What can I say? I'm such a party girl.

I slam a hoof down on the ground next to the head of the last conscious thug. It hits the ground so hard, the concrete starts crying like a bitch. I hold out a photograph of my sandwich's missing ingredient. "Jelly," I demand. "Where can I find it?"

The goon starts blubbering like an idiot. I repeat myself with the help of a hoof. "Jelly! WHERE. CAN. I. FIND IT."

"...I-In a supermarket?" he timidly offers.

I think this over a second. Of course. It was so obvious. I apologize to the goon with a hoof to his mouth. On my way out I look up and see the sign above the main entrance of the warehouse.

"Uncle Petey's Bakery." Funny name for an abandoned warehouse.






I run across building tops, leaping, using my grappling hook as I fly all over Manehatten. I'm still kicking myself. So stupid. Of COURSE the jelly would be in the one place I wouldn't think to look! As I land in front of the grocery store, I steel myself for all the bad things I've done, and all the bad things I've still gotta do.

I walk by the grocery store, and into the Super Marquette, the seediest dive in Manehatten, run by the seediest gangster in Manehatten. I breathe hard as I remembered what I'd known about him. Sick guy. Practically lives in a jar full of jelly. It's been said that he keeps jars full of foals he's kidnapped and drowns them in the jelly he loves so much. I make a promise right then and there, how I'm gonna break his body: one bone for every one foal he's drowned.

The Super Marquette's lighting is dark. Perfect for ponies who sneak off the dance floor to have sex and shoot up in the corners of the room without anyone else noticing they're gone. I try to keep to the dark, expecting maybe to trip over somepony getting a quickie, only to find that the ponies in this joint share the same weird interests as its owner. Everypony is snorting jelly like it's the only thing they're willing to breathe.

The deep bass of the awful disco music shakes my teeth as I make my way around the place. Quite a few beautiful ponies here. I'm honestly not surprised that ponies with such impressive features waste their lives snorting jelly like weirdoes. Watching ponies wiggle around spastically on the dance floor with jelly running out of their noses is amusing, but they're not the reason I'm here.

Some of the faces I recognize. That one is a guy from the Discord's Daughters, a big dude with a big mane and a big mouth. Can't remember his name for the life of me. Let's call him Big Mouth. He recognizes me right off the bat. It doesn't help that I double-crossed the Daughters and ended their pony-trafficking scheme the last time he and I saw each other.

Topics go from one to the next like there isn't a breath between them. How ya doing. Haven't seen you in forever. Love the hoodie. Are those boots real leather? Crest misses you terribly. Hey, you wanna go grab some Neightalian? Maybe catch up on old times? 

His mouth starts talking a million sounds a second, and I shove a hoof in there to stop the noise. Unfortunately, that just draws attention from all the jelly-snorting assholes around us. All of a sudden, I'm surrounded by guys with switch blades and clubs. One comedian even tries to intimidate me with an ice cream cone.

The action is fast enough that even I get whiplash. Some guy's face becomes attracted to my hoof and I introduce the two intimately. They make love for a second and it's sloppy and coarse, his blood coating the dance floor. A knife the color of blood-curdling screams cuts through the air.

I close my eyes and I see the knife cutting into the peanut butter. I remember why I'm here.

The knife meets a black baton, and the two dance about, one pressed against the other like we're gay lovers fencing. I get the guy in the neck with a well-placed hoof and knock him into his friends. A few more blows are exchanged, more blood, more teeth. Before I know it, I'm licking an ice cream cone and sitting on a pile of exhausted, panting goons like we just had an orgy.

I look up. Up there, watching the whole thing from his cozy little jar like he's got a front-row seat to a movie the grownups wouldn't allow him to see. The asshat I'm looking for. Looking at me with those weirdo eyes and that unnervingly creepy grin. I finish my cone. I ready myself.

The muscles in my hind legs coil like snakes, and I leap with the kind of power and precision only an Earth pony can possess. In a single bound, I clear the floor and land on a table. In another single bound, I clear the table and grab onto the second floor's edge. After some awkward struggling, I hoist myself up. Clearly, two single bounds are proof of my heritage.

I was born an Earth pony, but tonight I am an Earth pony.

I close in on this jelly-bathing sack of shit and sadness. My batons are ready. He continues to stare. Grin. Like he's excited to see the climax, no matter what happens. I stare straight in his eyes, attempting to read him the way Whooves taught me how. Trying to find something. Anything. Anything remotely resembling what may pass for a soul in those jelly-fucking, empty eyes.

Finally, when we're only inches away from each other, he says something. The words are tinier than my uncle's dick. "You jelly?" he asks.

I bring a baton upward. "No," I shoot back, "YOU jelly."

I bring the baton down. One bone for every foal, I remember. 

Then I remember I don't remember how many foals he's killed. Or even if he's killed any foals at all. So I just make an estimated guess.





The sounds of Manehatten at night are louder than they need to be. The sounds of hooves clattering on poorly-maintained streets. Police sirens. Manehatten continues to snore, unaware that her jelly is missing and that I'm not giving it back.

I forgot my apartment keys so I settle for jimmying the lock. After finally getting inside, I set my jar of jelly on the counter and come up to Commissioner Sparkle. She's on the couch where I left her.

"I'm back, Baritone," I tell her. "The LEAST you could have done is just open the door for me or something. And no, we're not having another conversation." 

Feeling that was the end of it, I take my jelly and head to the kitchen. I see something terrible. 

I'd left the bread and peanut butter out. The bread is stale. Roaches and other filthy vermin have raided the peanut butter. The refrigerator still doesn't exist.

It's gone. My beautiful jellyless sandwich is gone.










ATUHOR'S NOSE: This silly little parody fic is based on Eyes Without A Face, by theycallmejub. He's a fantastic writer and a supportive friend of mine (No matter how much we like to argue and squabble), so I suggest you read that story, especially if you are really into film noir or dark stories.