The mechanical picker rumbled under Cogs Analog as the whirling blades picked the fibers clean off the plant. The dry dirt, kicked up by the wheels and the blades, tickled his throat and made him sputter and wheeze, much like the engine that rumbled under him. While he wore goggles to shield his eyes from the minor dust storm, he faced the consequences of forgetting his rubber mask at home.
Before him was a vast field of cotton, the combined acres of many old family farms that had no other ponies to care for them. The bright white fields were consolidated during the war by the government and the banks. Cogs figured that many of the previous owners died fighting in the Great War. After the banks gathered up the land, they would bundle it all together and sell it off in an auction for another company to do the farming.
That is where Cogs came in. His employer was one such organization that purchased a bundle of farmland. Since the war started, the nature of farming had changed. No longer did families own acres to farm with entire families to work the land with their hooves and with simple tools. With the need to produce more goods with less ponies, mechanization was used to fill in the gap. The Great War ended a few years ago, but that doesn’t mean everypony is fit to go back to work, and it doesn’t mean goods can go back up in price. Cogs figured and hoped this would pass, however. Just a small bump on the road back to normalcy.
The gray earth pony took a hoof to his forehead to wipe the sweat off. The sun mercilessly shot its rays upon the land. It was harshest at noon, especially without any clouds hanging in the sky. He tilted down his wide brimmed hat, but it did little to stop Celestia’s blazing sun. He wanted to do his plowing and planting another time, but quotas to meet made that impossible.
His job as a picker was not a glamorous job, but it paid him well enough. It was enough to send some bits home to his mother. She subsisted primarily off a meager survivor’s pension, and Cogs volunteered to help supplement her income. His brothers and sisters have all moved on to live their own lives, off to college or to make it in the big cities; he was the mama’s colt of the family anyways.
The engine under the pony sputtered and whined as it slowed down in the middle of the line of cotton. He groaned and tapped the fuel gauge; it didn’t move, gas wasn’t the problem. He muttered under his breath in frustration, “Damn cheap hunk of scrap…” and gave the machine a light kick. As if it took offense, the machine gave a big cough before letting out a loud bang, frightening Cogs. The picker’s engine died, crawling to a halt. Groaning, he pressed on the ignition a couple of times, but it was to no effect; the engine died.
He banged his hoof on the steering wheel in anger, bested by the broken machine under him. Grumbling, he had to consider his next moves carefully. Normally, a broken down machine would require a report describing the issue which would be mailed off to the office; then a pony would come out to fix or replace the machine. The issue is that this would take about a week to complete, if not more. A week would be cutting it too close, he was behind as is.
After some quick mental math, he determined that missing the quota this month would cost him his job. Waiting around for the repair pony was not an option afforded to him. He pulled the brake and leaped off the picker’s seat. While he had strict orders to not attempt repairs without a certified technician, his boss also gave him strict orders to complete the harvest. Conflicting orders were always so fun to mess about with.
The moment he lifted the hood, the acrid smell of the engine told him everything he needed to know. The horrid, burning rubber told him that the belt needed to be replaced, likely snapped or melted under some strain. He held his breath as he tried to visually confirm the damage, but the smell still seeped into his nostrils.
The smell was more than enough to confirm the nature of the damage. He quickly shut the hood before he began dry heaving from the smell. Perhaps he should also replace the fuel line, just in case.
Tools and a new belt, that's what he needed. He'll have to go into town to get it though. With a grumble, he yanked his saddlebag, filled with all the bits he possessed at the time and his lunch pail, from the side of the picker and strapped it around his back. He sighed and began the long walk into town as the winds began lifting the soil from the ground.
Cogs left the auto parts shop in a huff. His wallet was too many bits lighter, and his saddlebag was weighed down with substandard parts and tools, but there were few other options in this dying frontier town. After he was practically robbed by the shopkeeper, he looked for some place to rest. It was much too windy now to try to walk back, his lungs would get all clogged up from all of the whirling dust in the air, and despite the obstruction the mild sandstorm provided, it was not enough to shield him from the sun.
While wandering around for some place with shade to loiter, somepony shouted at him. “Hey new guy, take your goggles off!” It was at this point when Cogs realized that he wandered into town, looked for the only auto shop in the near-abandoned town, argued with the shopkeeper, got practically scammed, accepted his change, and searched for a resting spot with his goggles on. Like a weirdo.
With an embarrassed smirk on his face, he quickly pulled his goggles off of his face, letting it hang around his neck. He turned to look at the pony who informed him of his attire, and saw a middle-aged earth pony. His mane was a long, dirty brown while his fury was a golden fur that was roughed with age. His beard was not excessive, but it also was not maintained well, with patches and knots visible and prominent. While Cogs’ wide brim hat was relatively new, the other earth pony wore a well-worn one, with its color fading with time and bleached by sunlight. On the porch next to him sat a shallow pan, with a few bits that gleamed with whatever light it caught, with the image of one of the princesses imprinted upon it.
A twinge of pity filled his heart. The begging pony’s eyes were heavy with weariness, with a stare that went on for miles. Sympathy, combined with the loneliness from working in the fields alone, drove him to shout back. “Thank you sir!” He paused for just a second, wondering if he should reconsider, but he continued pressing on. “You mind if I sit and eat my lunch with you?”
The begging pony stared for a moment, pondering why somepony would ask him such a question, before shrugging. As soon as he did, Cogs lowered his flank to the porch and took his lunch pail out of his saddlebag.
The light tin rattled as he placed it on the porch between them, and he popped the latch of the lunch pail. In the pail was a zipped plastic bag with a sandwich. By no means was it a culinary work of art, it was loaded with the cheapest vegetables and condiments that could be found at the corner store. Next to it was a canteen of lukewarm water. After pulling the sandwich from the plastic bag, he ripped it in half, trying to keep the halves even as the internals spilled out. With an extended hoof, he offered one half of the sandwich to the other pony.
They both took a bite of the sandwich, wincing at the sour combination of cheap vegetables and not quite spoiled mayonnaise. The bread was too dry, but the condiments were too wet somehow too.
After an uneasy swallow, Cogs introduced himself to the other pony. “Name’s Cogs Analog, by the way.”
“Gold Hills,” he replied.
After a brief few seconds, he opened with his own question at an attempt at small talk. “So, you’re the cotton picker this month?”
Cogs raised his eyebrows at his question, “What do you mean this month?”
He shrugged, not quite understanding his confusion, “A new one of you folks come in every month or so, don’t you?”
“Well, I came in at the start of this month, and I haven’t been told my position is temporary, so I imagine I’m here to stay.”
“Right…” Gold said, voice dripping with doubt. He went back for another bite of his sandwich, trying to avoid further conversation.
They sat there, munching away at their sandwiches, their maws rhythmically churning the food into mush. The aftertaste lingered far too long for Cogs’ comfort, it was a combination of brine from the pickles and mayonnaise. When he finished his half, he dug out the canteen from his lunch pail. The light sloshing of the water inside made Gold look up as Cogs uncapped the bottle and took a large gulp, swishing it in his mouth before swallowing to clean his mouth.
Cogs noticed the other pony side-eying his canteen. He figured that the other pony was thirsty, but when he turned his head, the other looked away. “It’s real hot out, you want some?” he asked. He shook his head, but he insisted. He held out the canteen towards him and said “It’s sweltering, c’mon. Gotta hydrate and everything, don’t ya?”
Gold groaned and snatched the canteen out of Cogs’ hoof. He peered inside it with a single eye open while swishing the water around, and he took a sniff of the water. Cogs chucked at the sight but otherwise did not interrupt him. Finally, Gold took a few big gulps from the canteen, as if he had been in the desert for days. With the sun beating down on them both, he may as well have been.
When he hoofed the canteen back to Cogs, its weight told him that the canteen was nearly empty with only a few drops left. He silently huffed to himself in mild annoyance that he no longer had a drink to go with his sandwich, but the bright side is that he felt that it would obligate Gold to speak to him.
Cogs tried his luck and asked him a question. “So when you say ‘cotton picker this month’, what exactly did you mean?”
He simply shrugged, “You’re not the first cotton picker, nothing more than that.”
The two sat in silence for a few minutes. Cogs was unsatisfied by the answer, but his laconic statements and aloofness made pressing the question difficult. He watched Gold as he leaned back on the porch, tilting his hat down to block the sun as it began its descent to the horizon.
Gold’s eyes wandered upwards as he began mentally recounting a conversation he had with the previous cotton picker.. He wasn’t sure, but he could have an answer to his question. This time, Gold spoke first. “Say, how many bits are you getting paid?”
Cogs once again raised a brow to the question. “Awful personal of a question, is it not?”
“It sure is, but it’ll help me answer yours.”
He thought about it for a moment as he tried to decipher Gold’s motivation for that question. His read on the pony was murky, he could not get a sense of him, but he didn’t feel any dishonesty from him at least. So he took him up on the offer. “I make about thirty bits a week working for the farm, why?”
He made a tsk-tsk and shook his head. “The last picking pony, real nice fellow, he stopped by town every so often for a drink or a bite. Stopped by for lunch every so often and we jawbone for a bit. He lasted just over a month.”
“Huh.”
He paused, reflecting on his previous conversation with him. “Our last drink together, his boss fired him for not meeting quotas or something. Fell short by a bit, but they weren’t cutting any slack.” He turned to Cogs to make sure he was paying attention to him. “You know how much he made? Thirty-five a week. That’s what I was trying to figure out with your pay.”
It didn’t take much longer to make the connection that he implied. Cogs was skeptical though. “Now you’re meaning to tell me that they hire and fire ponies on a near monthly basis to save five bits?”
Gold easily nodded as if there was nothing more to it. “Why wouldn’t they? It’s worked so far, otherwise they’d stop.”
“Dunno, just don’t make much sense to me.”
“Maybe, but ponies nowadays are clamoring for any job nowadays. I see your cutie mark, you ain’t a farmer, ain’t you?”
He pointed a hoof at Cogs’ flank, depicting two interconnected gears, one larger than the other. His talent was not in farming, but rather in machinery and repairs. He shrunk where he sat, feeling very self conscious about his cutie mark.
Gold chuckled at Cogs’ sudden shyness. “Now, I don’t begrudge you for getting your bread anyway you can, but you ain’t the only pony that’s looking for work, and machines make work so easy you don’t even need the talent for it.”
“Well, yeah but you can hardly blame anypony-”
He held up his hoof to silence him, “I never said I’m blaming anypony, not one in particular, but just think about it. Everypony is looking for a job, and the jobs they can take are easy enough for everypony to take. Too many ponies chasing too little jobs.”
He let a hoof drag along the dirt, kicking up dust from the ground. “No pony appreciates a cutie mark no more, not when machines can do your job better, quicker, and cheaper.”
They both were silent after that. The cutie mark system of employment was a standard of Equestria which was set aside during the Great War; at a certain point, you just need a pony to get on the line and start putting guns together, no matter their particular talents. Many hoped, Cogs included, that everything would go back to normal after the war. But the prospects of a return to a time before the war seemed firmly in the past now.
Too many ponies chasing too little jobs, those words echoed in Cogs’ head. He thought that was a curious observation. The kind of pony that makes that observation must be either one that’s well-read or had to personally deal with it.
“Say, what did you do?” Gold looked up at Cogs’ question with a tilted head. “You know, before doing this?” he continued while waving his hoof at the pony and his pan.
Gold snorted, blowing off the question easily. “Ain’t one to talk about myself?”
“But you were just prying about me just a bit ago.”
“And you obliged, I didn’t.” His expression turned into a tight frown. He resumed reclining on the porch with a foreleg folded behind his back. The other hoof tilted his hat down to cover his eyes. “Now get going, sun’s gonna be down soon.”
Cogs sat there, stunned at the stern rejection from him. Gold shut his eyes as if he was trying to fall asleep, but his brows were furled. The question clearly bothered him, but now Cogs was curious.
He looked down at the pan with a few glistening bits in it. A pattern with his conversation so far was that gifting Gold seemed to obligate him to talk for a short while. Cogs dug into his saddlebag once more to pull a bit out, and he dropped it into the pan. It clattered as it landed, ringing against the metal.
The sound made Gold stir, and he opened his eye to see the golden bit sitting in his pan. “A bit for your thoughts then, sir?”
“Fine,” he said with an exasperated sigh. “What do you want to know?”
“What did you do? You know, before doing this?” Cogs repeated.
He looked down, thinking about how to approach the question. Eventually he shrugged, not seeing much reason to continue avoiding the question. “Fine, I was a farmer. I used to own a farm, along with every other pony in the valley, back before the war, back when the dirt would stay on the ground.” He looked down at the painfully dry dirt, letting a hoof drag along the surface. His hoof easily kicked up some dust as it was caught by the breeze. “Every one of us in the valley, we had a nice little thing going.” He allowed himself a small smile, remembering his time with his community.
However it did not last long. His grin turned into a scowl as his recollection progressed. “The war changed that. Farmers were given an exception for the draft, y’know.”
“Really? I thought these farms were bought up after the farmers died in the war.”
He shook his head, “That happened to some of ‘em. Some volunteered but never came back home. Those farms, those went up for auction if the family didn’t want to keep it. All the other farms though? They were stolen from us.” he said, seething venom under his words.
Cogs was shocked at his words, “Stolen how? How do you steal a farm?”
“You steal it with papers, that’s how. You need to spend bits to make the harvest, and that means loans from the banks. But farms have been failing, we can’t keep up with the prices the big planters up north can make. Normally the banks make some plan with us, but not anymore, they see the writing on the wall. When we had no more to give, we had to give them the farms, and that’s that.”
He pointed a hoof down the road, out to the open field of cotton. “That’s where my home was, down there. My great grandpa was a homesteader, fought buffaloes for it. He and my grandpa built the farm themselves. My grandpa, my pa, and my uncle, they built a barn just next to it. Just behind the barn, we buried them all.” His voice cracked with a squeak as tears welled in his eyes. He took a heavy, strained breath before continuing. “We built the land, we lived on the land, and we died on the land. N-now, me? I lost the land. Had to tear all of it down myself, or they’d bill me for it.”
Cogs was stunned by the emotion of the normally laconic pony. He opened his mouth to give him words of comfort, but none came; not before Gold continued his tirade. “The banks, those thieves and vampires. They bulldozed homes to plant cotton, they bleed the land dry, and when the land’s got nothing left for them, they’ll leave us behind.”
Drained of energy and emotion, he sank down on the porch. “Now I gotta hop the freight outta town, there’s nothing left here for us. The train going north slows down enough to jump on when it turns the curve.” He turned to Cogs and finished, “I suggest you start practicing too, if the pattern of picking ponies is any indication.”
Cogs tried to reply, but Gold ignored him as leaped off the porch, picked up his pan, and walked off into town. The breeze picked up behind him, obscuring his departure with sand. Only Cogs and his thoughts remained on that porch.
The sun began to sink behind the horizon, so he began his journey back to the farm. He arrived just as the moon rose. By lamplight, he fixed the tractor’s engine, replacing the belt, changing the radiator, and replacing worn fittings in the engine. By morning, he resumed driving the picker in straight lines from the combined acres of the community that used to live there. And by the end of the week, the combined harvest of the consolidated farmland was stored away, driven away by big trucks after being measured out. The quota was met.
When the next month rolled over, the boss came and presented him his pay. His envelope of bits was wrapped in a pink slip. To the boss’s credit, he was apologetic. “Too many ponies chasing too little jobs”, he said. If the farm owners didn’t take advantage of the prices, their competitors would. There was no use fighting the math. He suggested moving up north, they’re always looking for working ponies for the factories, for the mines, for the mills, for everything up north. There was nothing left in this town, so Cogs would leave by taking the train north.
The next day, just before the sun rose, the freighter came by the town. It went around the curve going north slowly, due to the poor, bumpy terrain and tight turn. He didn’t even have to gallop to match the speed of the train. As soon as he spotted a boxcar with the door ajar, he leapt in.
Cogs Analog joined the thousands of ponies, all on their own little journeys north. The thousands, traveling whether by hoof, train, or car, needed to find some place to live after the war changed their way of life. Whether it's the farms failing, the shop shuttering, the rents getting too high, the pay too low, or the opportunity too little, they must move north. They move up north to the factories, the mines, the mills, the docks, and the plants, but they still won’t have enough jobs up north. The indistinct mass of ponies wanted to live, but there was not enough for them all.
But by Celestia, they all wanted to live. Every one of the dispossessed thousands wanted to see the princess's sun rise and fall, wanted to see Luna’s stars in the sky, wanted to love each other, and wanted to be friends with one another. And with every step of a hoof, every beat of a wing, with every pull of a lever, every crank of a gear, and every turn of a wheel, their determination to live to see all of them grew.