On being asked to write a forward for the first publishing of my uncles’ book, I must stress this much. This is not a happy story. Not many stories in life end up being happy. This story doesn’t have a happy ending, beginning or middle. It is a story of futility and waste. So before you think of picking up this book, remember these words with shrewd regard. This is not a story for happy ponies. This is a story for real ponies. For ponies that feel sadness as much as joy, feel hate as much love and feel crushing disappointment as much as uplifting success. Now that’s over with, I should tell you the tale of how I came upon this diamond in the rough. I remember it as clearly as I do the sun rising this very morning, or the moon cresting the clouds above my home the night before.
Standing atop the mound of dirt that stood just high enough to call itself a hill, I overlooked a small lake and a dilapidated house. Who am I? Just a pony. A pony dressed in black tie, standing atop a hill, overlooking a lake and a house. The house, once belonging to my uncle or as my father called him, brother. He had been laid to rest not three hours earlier. We had never spoken, him and I. I was entering my twenty-fourth year on this earthly plot of land, and yet, I had never spoken with a member of my close family. My father spoke of him well during my youth. He spun tales of a raconteur, a brilliant wordsmith and a broken mind. I was the first to arrive at the place where my uncles will was to be read. I stood for a while, allowing the cool summer wind to run through my mane. I thought, in one of my moments of narcissism, that I would have looked rather fascinating from a far off onlooker, as a lonely pony, standing alone, whilst overlooking a lake and a house did conjure up romanticized imagery. But that moment passed, and I made my way down a rocky pathway towards the house. The pathway was short, but well worn. I wondered, had my uncle made his way up to the same point I had looked out from? The answer would soon be revealed to me, as would so many other things about my reclusive uncle. I sauntered, not really caring for what lay beyond me inside that ruin. He, from my first thoughts and impressions of the pony, wasn’t the most responsible of sorts. The state of the house wasn’t helping cast doubt on my assertions. Peeling paint on the walls, a few broken windows, and, as I made my way up to the door, a broken door handle. This pony seemingly had no care for his domicile. I entered the home without any form of interruption, not even by doors. They just swung open for me in the wind, seemingly inviting me in at my own ease. It was nice.
Walking through the old home turned house, it was obvious to me that the ruin of the outside pervaded the inside as well. The wallpaper peeling, lights going un-replaced for what could have been decades, let alone years. Making my way up the stairs with upturning carpets, I found myself drawn to one room in particular. This one room was clearly where my uncle spent most of his time. The only room with a working door handle, the only room with fresh wall paper, the only room where the light bulb above my head actually shone. This room contained few things. A bed, clearly made each day with a disturbing regularity that I can see shining through in not only my uncle, but my father, myself and even my foals. The occasional unwashed glass, clearly there from some form of midnight foray out into the small town near the lake. How did I know this? The labels on the glasses were from the same little restaurant in the town. I had visited the place myself, and was very tempted to pinch a glass, but the thinly veiled sense of society watching me stopped me. This veil was clearly gone for my uncle, at least up to the point where stealing glasses didn’t become a problem. And, finally, there was a stack of neatly bound pages besides a cracked old typewriter. It was odd, considering, as a foal and as an early fully matured pony, I had never seen a typewriter. I didn’t know what to call it back then, so I just let it be, concentrating on the stacks of paper beside it. I untied the top bundle, and began to read.
From the pen of Rusted Dawn.