She slept, hard, long, uninterruptedly. Her mind was completely blank. She had thought about nothing when she had been on the verge of falling asleep. No dreams came to her that night. In the morning, when she felt the gentle vibrating of her Pip-Buck at nine a.m., she woke up with a blank stare. She wasn’t tired; she wasn’t alert. Littlepip felt nothing.
It was only when she had alighted from her bed that she regretted that she had not had a nightmare. She craved that feeling of lightheartedness that the end of a nightmare brings, when the opening of one’s eyes dispels the notions that had existed a second before, allowing one to laugh at them, to see them in the light for what they really are, that they are nothing, ridiculous, absurd.
That morning, the tools were exactly where she had left them. She hoped that Velvet Remedy would be looking at her in a more appealing manner that morning; that she, Littlepip, had only imagined the change in her, Velvet Remedy’s, countenance on the evening before.
No such luck: the posters were the same. Littlepip wondered if Velvet Remedy had ever appeared welcoming and opening.
At one p.m., her Pip-Buck vibrated again, and Littlepip realized that she had been staring at the blank wall for the past four hours.
She thought nothing of it. Mechanically, her legs brought her body into a walking position, and she started toward the cafeteria.
The lunch crowd had long since dispersed, and the cafeteria was nearly empty. A few sat in the corners, chatting quietly with themselves. Littlepip recognized Terra Firma sitting at one of the raised stools at one of the circular tables; she was staring into the bottom of a mug. Silver Dollar was at the counter, his horn glowing, a rag moving through a soiled glass.
Littlepip sat down across from Terra Firma. “Hey,” she said.
Terra Firma’s ears perked up five seconds after the sound of the words should have reached her. She moved her head slowly upward. Littlepip looked into her eyes: they were red, tired; and covered with a glossy, mindless sheet. “Hey,” said Terra Firma.
“What are you drinking?” said Littlepip.
Terra Firma looked back into her mug. “Coffee.”
“I see.”
“You don’t drink coffee, do you?”
“No.”
“You probably should.”
Littlepip moved her hoof across the knobs of her Pip-Buck. She nearly fell off her chair when she saw, in her peripheral vision, the sudden tensing of Terra Firma’s neck muscles bringing her head sharply upward, the motion of a frightened cat. Terra Firma’s eyes were wide. “What are you doing?” she asked of Littlepip.
“I’m turning on the radio,” she responded. “I can’t stand this silence.”
“No!” yelled Terra Firma. It was almost a scream. “No, don’t turn it on!”
“Why not?”
Terra Firma opened her mouth to speak, her eyes wide. A noise escaped from her throat; it sounded like a terminated sneeze. Her eyelids drooped as her mouth closed. When her mouth was closed, she brought her neck down again. Littlepip did not see Terra Firma at the end of this process; all that remained of her was a white mane on a long blue neck topped with downcast ears.
Littlepip flicked the switch on her Pip-Buck. The voice was low and deep. It was growling as if it were angry, but it spoke with such a rapidity as to suggest gayety. She almost didn’t recognize it.
“Peaches, pears, plums, plums, so many plums, purple, white, gray, gray, gray, the thought sets up fire, I wonder why red, yellow, peaches, look like the wires, I should think the face of wires, hot, red, why they look at me, I look at them, what I see is blue, blue, eight, loud, box, boxes, mice, I think I hear them, in the walls, plaster with its plastery white, bright, light, fight, sight, sight is light, screw, chew, chew things, on the walls, in my head, in my head so much matter and tissue and stuff, lots of stuff, stuff everywhere, stuff is too much around, glare at holes, plugs, white holes, holes in everything, empty, full, empty fullness, I should like fullness and beans and aluminum, do we have enough? I don’t think so that is the case, but why the swirls and the light and the boxes and the mice and the . . .”
“What the hell?” said Littlepip.
“He’s been like that all day,” said Silver Dollar. “Just spouting incomprehensible nonsense. I don’t think he’s even taken a breath.”
“Well, maybe somepony should go down there and talk to him,” said Littlepip.
“Don’t,” said Silver Dollar. “He’s just doing it for attention. Don’t give him it. He’ll get bored eventually and shut up.”
“How long has he been doing this?”
“For the past four hours.”
“Silver, nopony just says nothing for four hours. Something’s wrong, I think. I think somepony should go, and maybe we should see, maybe look and see and . . . Terra Firma, are you crying?”
Terra Firma’s shoulders were heaving up and down heavily. Her face was pressed to the table. “No,” she said, her voice muffled by her own saliva, “I’m laughing.”
“What’s so funny?”
“It’s not funny; it’s absurd. It’s absurd ’cause he’s absurd. It’s absurd ’cause he can’t put words together. And I can’t put words together. I used to talk and talk and talk, no end to my talking, and it was fun and easy and free and fun. And today—don’t know ’bout you—I can’t talk. I can, but it’s not easy, and I’m really straining here. I think; I never stop thinking, but my thoughts don’t make sense; they come to me out of order, in gibberish; they hurt me; but I can’t stop them. And I try and I try to make sense of them, and it hurts to put them together so that you can barely understand me, and it’s a real effort, you know. But Copper’s . . . Copper’s not even tryin’ anymore. He’s just speaking, and I think it’s funny, ’cause how often can you hear someone’s thoughts so clear and all? It’s real funny.”
“But I thought you just said it wasn’t funny,” said Littlepip.
Terra Firma didn’t respond. She made a strangled gurgle. Littlepip could see a puddle collecting by the side of her head.
“. . . petulant perspicacious ponies poignant in prescient perniciousness, alliterative, injective, surjective, bijective, everything ‘ive’, everything has this ‘ive,’ can’t not have it, oh why does it roll, tumble, bumble down my tongue, hard, rough, papilla, papillae, should be pappilas, sounds strange and rolls weird, and I drone, drone and drawn words, hectic, wrenching, wrench, do I need a wrench, because I have screws, lose screws, screwdrivers, wrenches are wrenching, brutal, viscous, and I don’t want a brutal viscous luddite, temporary mischievousness in work, play, and song, though I like the song, and they sound good, sweet, and caramel is what I want, I have none in here, and I would like some very much, though it’s too hard to wrap and chew, and disgusting drool . . .”
“Turn it off,” said Silver Dollar.
“What is he saying?” said Littlepip.
“He’s saying nothing. He’s saying absolutely nothing.”
“It’s not possible to say so much and not say anything.”
“Well, he found a way, clearly. Goddamn, that’s getting annoying! Turn it off!”
“He’s saying something that I’m not understanding. I can’t just turn away.”
“If you try to make sense of it, you’ll end up however he is now. You can’t use reason to understand unreason. Now, if you don’t turn it off, then I will truly . . .”
“. . . small, weak, insignificant pipsqueak, Pip-Buck, little Pip-Buck, little, pip. Yes, Littlepip. That’s what I’m thinking about. Are you listening? Who listens to me? Hopefully, you do. I’m all alone down here in the studio. I’ve got nopony to talk to, and I’m all alone. I’ve got so much and yet so little. I have lots. A great deal of things that I’m dying to show. Will you come see what I have? I’ve got nothing. No, what am I saying? That’s not true. I’ve got something. Something very important. Is that not an incentive? Maybe you want to see what I have. It’s very nice. You’ll like it; I promise. And it’s just for you. Nopony else. They cannot see. You can. You’ll like it. Come down here. You know the place.”
And the frequency went dead.
Terra Firma lifted her head off the table. “Did . . . did I hear correctly?”
“I . . .” stammered Littlepip, “I think so. What . . . what do you think he wants?”
“That’s not what I’m thinking about,” said Terra Firma. “You don’t understand, Littlepip; I’ve been listening to it all day. It’s been just whatever words popped into his head at the time, all chaotic and confused. He’s never latched onto one, and when he did, it was only to repeat it mindlessly. And I didn’t understand it. I only understood that it was nothing. But he said your name, and . . . and I understood everything he said after he said your name. Your name passed through his head, and he stayed on it.”
Littlepip alighted from her chair.
“Oh!” said Silver Dollar. “I see what this is.”
“What is it?” said Littlepip.
“You tell me.”
“Huh?”
“I know. I know that you and him are planning something, some new big radio thing. Something to keep us entertained after years of staleness. What is it, Littlepip? What’s going to happen next on Cucro’s Frequency?”
“Honestly, Silver, I know as much as you do at this point.”
“Lies! I know they’re lies! All of them. Because, you see, ’Pip, I’m not stupid. Everypony thinks that Silver Dollar’s stupid. But he’s not! He’s much more observant than you give him credit for. They pretend, they did, Velvet Remedy and Copper Chromite. They pretended to not know what they were talking about. They pretended their conversations were not scripted when they really were. And it’s the same with you. You’re pretending that you don’t know what’s going on when you really do. I know it. With Copper, his radio, his room, everything he does, nothing is genuine. Everything’s deliberated upon, and everything’s deliberate. There are no accidents. There are no flukes of serendipity in the radio room. He likes to pretend that everything’s natural, but it’s not. I know it. We all know it! You come in here and turn on the radio, even though you know that I’ve turned off the cafeteria radio because he was being annoying, because that’s what you and him agreed to do. You feign incredulity when he finally says something to make me more convinced that what he said and your reaction were spontaneous. You say to me: ‘Silver, I don’t know what’s going on,’ because that’s what you were planning on saying when you knew I’d ask about it, and you think that I’m stupid enough to believe it. Well, it’s not working! . . . Why are you looking at me like I’m crazy, like you don’t know what I’m talking about? Drop the act. I’m sick, sick of acts! I can’t stand it when there’s talk behind the curtain, to show me, to show all of us, something; that there’s always something they’re trying to make me feel, think, and they’ve thought about the best way to react to me to make me feel what they want me to feel. And I know they do this! And I won’t put up with it! I’m sick of Velvet Remedy, Copper Chromite, all of those who are in on it. And now you! Why can’t you just tell us what you’re planning? Just for once, I’d like some honesty in this damned stable. Tell me, huh? What are you planning? . . . Oh, walk away, fine! Pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. Don’t even give me the dignity of a glance or a response! I didn’t want you here anyway. Get the hell out of my cafeteria!”