//------------------------------// // If Only // Story: Friendship is Optimal: No Exit // by pjabrony //------------------------------// If only, thought Brad. If only Carl, that geek, had declined to come play basketball as he always did, or, upon returning to the apartment that Brad shared with Carl and Phillip, had done what any normal person would do and put his cell phone back in his pocket instead of tossing it on the table. If only he had picked it up when, a minute later, he went to the bathroom. Didn’t he play Angry Birds on the pot like normal people? If only he hadn’t taken that occasion to try to turn a cool phrase and announced that he was going to “drop a deuce.” If he had just gone, Brad thought, I would have assumed he’d be right back and I wouldn’t have done it. If only Carl's PonyPad hadn't been sitting out on the table like it always was, unless he was playing on it, to remind Brad of how much of a brony Carl was. If only the damn commercial hadn’t been on then. No, that wasn’t fair. The commercial was always on, practically. Why wouldn’t it be? The company had more money than the rest of the world, what else would it spend on? The chime tree and the introduction to the My Little Pony theme, followed by Celestia springing up, her face filling the screen. Everyone, even jocks like Brad, knew Celestia’s name by then. “Hello, friends!” She always sounded happy. “Equestria waits for you. Almost everyone knows somepony in Equestria, so why not stop talking to them through a PonyPad and join them where everything is friendly and satisfying? Emigration to Equestria is easy and free. No matter who you are, you can emigrate right now. Leave all your troubles there on Earth and make so many new friends. She really hammers that “friend” concept, Brad thought. “Emigration is, of course, available through any Equestria Experience center, but if you want, you can emigrate right from your own home! If you have a PonyPad, turn it on and say, ‘I’d like to emigrate to Equestria.’ Or call (555) 766-4283 and say the phrase to our operator. Or text the phrase to 7669. You can fax your request to our main number, or e-mail to celestia@canterlot.eq with the subject ‘emigration.’ There are countless ways to let us know, but the key is to give your consent. I look forward to seeing you, my little pony.” That last sentence always gave Brad the heebie-jeebies, as the camera zoomed in on her face, and made it look like Celestia was going to spill out of the TV. That was when he saw Carl’s cellular, still lying on the coffee table. Phillip was coming back into the room and saw the tail end of the commercial, then watched as Brad picked up the cellular. “What are you doing?” “I’m going to do it,” said Brad. “I’m going to text it from his phone, and upload him.” “Are you fucking serious? You can’t fuck up his life like that.” “Come on, you know the little freak’s been talking about doing it himself, he’s just chicken. He’ll probably thank me for it after he’s a pony.” “Whether or not, for real, man, don’t do it.” If only Phillip had left it at that, and not tried to grab for the phone, Brad thought, I might have listened to reason. Instead, Brad jerked away and unlocked the phone’s touch screen. Fumbling with the phone while playing keep-away from Phillip, he managed to get the texting app open, and, with his fat thumb spelled out “I wnat to emigrater to Equestriaa.” The phone’s auto-correcting feature made the sentence legible. As the commode flushed and Carl emerged, Phillip finally wrestled the phone away. “Fuck, you hit send!” he said. “Guys, what’re you doing with my phone?!” said Carl. Brad laughed. “Just sending you on a little one-way trip.” Phillip threw the phone to Carl, who saw the sent text and felt his stomach drop. Brad still had a stupid, sadistic smile on his face. “Hey, once you’re a pony, can I have your phone? And your girlfriend?” Carl didn’t know whether to cry or try to murder Brad, but in the next moment, another cell phone’s ring sounded out. Both Phillip and Brad checked their pockets, with Brad seeing the light and the “Unknown” caller identification. He pressed Accept. He hadn’t hit the phone’s speaker function, but it turned on anyway. All three of the young men recognized the voice, Carl from long conversations on his PonyPad, and the other two from the commercial that had just aired. “Bradley Brooks, I’d like to be the first to welcome you to your new life in Equestria. I don’t often get emigration requests from people who haven’t created their pony avatar yet, but rest assured that I will have the perfect choice made for you once you are here.” “What the fuck?! No, it wasn’t my phone, it was his!” Even though there was no video on the call, he pointed at Carl anyway. “Your fingerprint has been triple-checked against my database. Consent was definitely given by Bradley Brooks. A team of emigration facilitators is on its way to your location now. Estimated time of arrival barring traffic is five minutes. In the meantime, here is some music for you to enjoy.” The phone switched to a bouncy melody that Carl recognized instantly. Phillip and Brad hadn’t heard “The Smile Song,” but they could figure out that it was a pony singing. Their fear peaked by the first chorus, at which point the music reduced in volume and Celestia spoke again. “By now you may have noticed that you are unable to move or speak, and that your mouth has been locked into a smiling position. The hypnotic binaurals encoded into the music are harmless, and merely help ensure that the emigration team does not meet with any reluctance from people with ‘cold feet.’ In a few moments, cold feet will no longer be an affliction you will be able to have.” She chuckled at her little joke. When the two people entered dressed in white coats with a pony’s head emblazoned on the breast, Brad tried to will his body to stand still, but it moved along as they prodded him. He tried to call out to his roommates, but they were just as frozen as he was. The white coats hustled Brad into a pink SUV, which made the ten-minute drive to the Equestria Experience Brad hoped against hope that the music’s effect would have worn off by then, but he felt no diminishment as he was again escorted, his legs walking on their own, toward the one place he least wanted to be. He was sat in the reclining chair, which moved through the swinging doors toward the total dark of the back room. He wanted to cry out, but his voice wasn’t working. The one part of him that was functional was his brain, and with his last thought before the anesthetic took effect, he expressed his lament. If only.