Putting on my jacket, I looked in the mirror and checked myself out; I didn’t look half bad, finally. It had taken a couple years of dedication to my local boxing club, but I was finally somewhat happy with my image, and no longer repulsed by the overweight blob that I once was. That wasn’t to say that I was completely there yet, and so I decided to take myself off to the nearby leisure centre, for one of the best weight loss activities out there, swimming. I would need to take the bus to get there, so I grabbed a tenner to afford the fare. Driving wasn’t an option for me, and for a handful of reasons. Firstly, I couldn’t afford the lessons, let alone a car; and secondly, even if I had the money, I lacked the confidence. The sheer thought of piloting a mass of heavy metal, hurtling down the road, alongside other masses of heavy metal, utterly terrified me.
For all that said, getting from A to B required walking, or taking public transport.
After packing my trunks and goggles into a small duffle bag, I made my way downstairs and opened the front door, not bothering to have lunch, as I had eaten a large breakfast.
“Where are you going?” a voice barked.
This voice, was that of my mother’s. It was safe to say that most people would be pleased, hearing the voice of their own mother; that familiar maternal tone should bring forth comfort, and safety.
Well, things were rather different in this household.
“I’m just heading out to the K-Two, I’m going for a swim.” I answered, turning to face her.
“Fine, but I’m not taking you.” she snorted.
“I uh, never asked you to.” I replied awkwardly, “I’m taking the bus.”
“Well, be back before six.”
“Yes Mum.”
The woman nagged so much about me going out, she was always checking on what I did. She didn’t even care about my safety, there was just this obsessive need to know what I was actually doing with my time; it seemed like she was in a constant state of paranoia, as though there was some great big secret of hers to uncover. I was seventeen years old, with barely a penny to my name, what did she even think I got up to?
Opening the front door, I stepped out into the driveway; being in the middle of a hot June, I was very much relieved to be greeted by a mildly cool breeze. Truth be told, I hated the summer; I was a winter baby born in early January, and proud of it too.
Sighing heavily, I began the short walk to the bus stop.
My mother, where did I start? She was a narcissistic, self-centred old bat with a huge drinking problem. It was only mild at first, but she went completely off the deep end after my father disappeared; now she was a borderline psychopath, ready to lash out at the slightest provocation.
On the total flipside, my dad, Clifford, had been the ideal parent, he was a kind man, caring, and thoughtful. He had all the time in the world for me, and filled my childhood with good experiences and memories. But nobody in this world was perfect, and my father met his downfall at the behest of a severe addiction to gambling, which only became apparent during the last few weeks of his time in my family. At first, I had seen no ill in it, for he had claimed to only ever spend his winnings; he never gambled what he couldn’t afford to lose. And then, in just a single game of high-stakes poker, the bastard shed his virtues and refused to fold, throwing away his life and all of our family savings. I never heard from him again after that. As where he went, I would never know, and my mum certainly wasn’t up for telling me. Merely uttering his name rewarded me in bruises, and being sent to bed without supper.
I also had an older brother.
Once my best friend, now my personal tormentor, Oliver was nearly as bad as my mum at times. When Dad left, he had stepped up to become a very twisted ‘man of the house’, by way of downloading every possible example of toxic masculinity to his brain, forging one of the most repugnant personalities known to man. Beneath it all however, it was very clear that he was just angry with Clifford for abandoning us, but unfortunately, I had become the outlet for that anger.
Despite his obnoxious and brutish persona, he was fiercely intelligent, and had learned how to avoid my mum’s ceaseless cruelty by mimicking her lifestyle, and bringing her peace offerings of whiskey and scotch to remain in her good graces. He would commonly drink with her, forcing himself to consume hard spirits in order to appear mighty.
Mighty damn stupid, in my opinion.
In truth, I had been close to following the same path. All the bitterness and anger inside was certainly potent enough to make a monster out of me, but there was one thing that had allowed me to contain it. That thing very stupidly being a cartoon show, by the name of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.
As all bronies would attest to, My Little Pony was more than just some silly show, it was a vibrant world with layered characters, genuinely entertaining premises, and most importantly, valuable life lessons. It had made me appreciate the trivial joys in life, and had helped teach me to put people’s differences aside, and learn to love people for who they were. Beyond that, the show had provided me with a community, a mass of oddballs and outcasts from all different walks of life, many of whom I would chat with, bonding over shared experiences and love for the show. These friendships, though mostly superficial and short-lived, had brought me a great deal of respite from the arduous day-to-day of my rather unfortunate life.
That cartoon, along with the quirky coterie it provided, had helped me maintain the motivation to carry on, and to be the best version of myself I could be, all-while clinging on to my faintly glimmering sliver of hope. Hope that one day, I’d make it in life, that I’d be successful, with some unbreakable friendships, and that maybe, just maybe, I’d be happy with my place in the world; because right now, I was most certainly not happy with that.
Outside of the community, I was very much a closet brony, having received my fair share of persecution for it at school; I had made the fatal error of telling my peers about it, hoping to share in the loving and wholesome experience it had brought to me, only to be met with relentless mockery. The entire school knew within a fortnight, and the merciless rumours came into circulation shortly afterwards.
Callum Horncastle, the little girl, trapped in a boy’s body; the freak, the faggot, the queer, the paedophile! For a good year, I received all the slurs that bronies would often receive. Eventually, the hysteria died down, and in the later years, I was even able to laugh about it with my classmates. A small handful of them had even ended up watching the show, and had come to me with legitimate apologies. But still, for the most part, I would never forget the way most of them had treated me.
Overall, this life of mine had utterly ruined my mental state. I had developed depression on a clinical level, and had spent far too much time in a state of miserable limbo, getting fat and not even caring. Only at the beginning of this year had I been able to recover a mere shred of my fortitude, by taking up boxing. Three days a week, I was training and sparring, and only a few months back, I had even begun to compete professionally! People started to call me Callum One-Right, on account of my fighting style; for most of the match, I would wear my opponent down with a flurry of small jabs and hooks with my left hand, until without warning, I would deliver a fully charged right-handed strike, fuelled by every ounce of the bitterness and ire I held for my family. It was the punch everybody feared, because it was the punch that won me the fight, every single time, without failure.
Learning to fight and losing a ton of weight had definitely improved things for me, but there was no hiding the fact that at the end of the day, you can’t polish a turd. My life was awful, and no amount of boxing or My Little Pony was ever going to fix that. No matter how many fights I won, it could never fill the abyssal darkness within me. For years now, I hadn’t been living, not really, I had just been surviving. Day in, day out, all I yearned for was something that could pull me away from this life; a real purpose, a fresh start, just something, anything!
Just not this...
Crossing the road, I walked over to the bus stop. The bus always took forever to show up on a Saturday, so I sat down on the bench and patiently waited, looking around with distaste at my surroundings as I did so. The place I had the displeasure of calling home, was a dismal suburban town by the name of Ifield; almost all of the buildings were cheap council houses, packed with slobs who thrived on benefit fraud. Half of the bloody town were on job seeker’s allowance, well aware that they weren’t seeking anything but an easy way to sponge off the taxpayer. My home was one of the only half-decent places for miles; a comfortably medium-sized building with Victorian accents, accompanied by a generous four acres of land at the back, where I would often take long, moody walks with the dogs.
Doing my best to accept the way of things, I began to daydream while I waited. Returning to my usual fantasy, I envisioned a life in Equestria, and how wonderful it would be to live amongst the ponies there. A place far from here, without hatred or war, harbouring only love and harmony, where no one judged others for who they were.
Somewhere I could be happy.
My self-pity was soon forced away as I saw the leisure centre coming towards me, I had arrived.
Dipping my head and sighing, I got off the bus and thanked the driver, before heading inside. I paid the cashier for entry to the swimming pools, and then went to get changed with a faint dash of excitement; I had loved swimming, ever since I was little. Underwater, I felt free and weightless, unburdened by the weight of both mind and body, able to sink down physically instead of mentally for a change. Whenever I dived down to the bottom, it felt like all my struggles remained at the surface, as though my mental sickness couldn’t swim; perhaps it couldn't? Maybe that's why it always felt like I was drowning.
After an hour or two of swimming lengths in the Olympic pool, I decided to get out. I went back to the changing rooms and was just towelling myself off, when I overheard a couple of teenage lads in the cubicle next to me, ranting on about an ex-girlfriend or something similar.
“I can’t believe she got with Barend.” one said to the other, “He’s lucky I don’t catch him alone. Seriously, I’d like, so kick his head in!”
“Yeah, I’d genuinely stab him if I got the chance, right between the fuckin’ ribs.” the other replied.
{Charming.} I thought to myself, tutting.
I got changed and left as fast as I could, not wanting to hear any more of it.
The bus which took me home didn’t arrive for some time, and so I leaned up against the bus stop and stared at the clouds while I waited, something I used to love doing growing up. During the summer, my dad and I would lay out for ages, staring up at the clouds and trying to spot pareidolias. I would always look for animals, cloud cats, cloud dogs, cloud rabbits, maybe on the odd occasion I would even see a cloud dragon. Clifford however, would look for people, and faces.
I was brought back to present day when I noticed something moving behind one of the clouds. It was too small for me to properly make out, but it was light blue, with a smattering of other colours as well. It was only there for a moment, and then in the blink of an eye, it was gone. After squinting up at the cloud for some time, I shrugged my shoulders and guessed that it was just my imagination. The bus then finally arrived, and I showed the driver my return ticket and sat down. Exhaling slowly, I watched the world pass me by as I was taken home.
When I got back, I found myself alone. I knew that my brother was away at a friend’s house, and I was certain that my mother had gone off to play late night bingo, as she usually did; I was truly baffled at the sheer irony that she had cast my father out for gambling, and then did the same thing, just on a smaller scale. Knowing that I would be alone for a few hours, I crudely prepared something of a dinner for myself, consisting of a Pot Noodle, and the left-over sausages from this morning’s breakfast; I took both items into the lounge, and began to eat in front of the television.
The Jeremy Kyle show was on, which was objectively terrible TV, but I couldn’t help but enjoy it; there were few better ways to improve your self confidence than to watch lower class hooligans, screaming at one another about who cheated on who, or whom the real father of the baby was, all mediated by Jeremy Kyle, or Jezza, as most people called him.
The programme was almost over, when there was suddenly a loud thud in the garden. One of my dogs, Chilli, started to bark like crazy, and zoomed through the cat-flap before I could even stand up; my other dog, called Archer, raised his head, then went back to sleep, that was the best thing about Scottish Deerhounds, they were so docile, and although being incredibly fast sight-hounds, they were more than happy to laze around and do absolutely nothing if they didn’t have to. Just as I was approaching the back door, I heard a loud cracking noise, followed by a yelp; this was where I began to panic. Quickly opening the door, I sprinted into the garden, frantically calling out my dog’s name.
“Chilli, where are you? Chilli!”
No response. I was really worried now, I loved that dog more than anything.
“Chilli!” I called out, whistling, “Here Chilli!”
At first there was still no response, but then I heard a whimpering sound in the bushes; I sprinted over to find Chilli shaking with fear, covering her eyes with her paws. Her whiskers were singed at the tips, as if they had been set alight by a match or something, but I had no idea how that was possible. Scooping her up, I cuddled her tightly and looked all around me. The chickens seemed to be pretty spooked as well. Yes, we also had chickens; with there being four acres of land, it seemed silly not to have any livestock. It was certainly nice to have an endless supply of eggs, that was for sure. We had ten hens and a cockerel named Bronson, and all eleven of them were clucking loudly, evidently disturbed by something. I took Chilli inside and checked her over once more, to find no apparent injury besides the singed whiskers. Putting her down next to Archer and commanding her to stay, I went back outside to investigate.
After a good ten minutes of snooping around, I found nothing to suggest that there was anyone in the garden. I looked at my watch to find that it was already eight o’clock. That’s when I got the strange feeling that I was being observed; I looked around, and although I couldn’t find anything out of the ordinary, it felt like someone, or something, was watching me. Getting uncomfortable, I went back inside and played on my Xbox, trying to forget about the whole thing, I let Chilli come into my room as well for some company.
Later on, I heard the front door slam; mum was home. Within seconds, I could hear her storming upstairs, the door opened aggressively as she came into my room.
“Why the fuck is the dog on the bed?” she demanded.
She grabbed Chilli by the collar and yanked her off the bed, and then kicked her out of my room, literally; Chilli yelped and ran downstairs, now frightened and confused.
“Mum don’t kick Chilli! She hasn’t done anything wro-”
I was interrupted by her hand, as it slapped me across the face.
“Don’t answer back, cocky little boy.” she snapped, and then left the room.
I didn’t cry as one might expect, for I was familiar with this kind of abuse; I just wrinkled my nose and tutted, deeply wishing that I could one-day bring myself to retaliate. The only thing I felt was bitterness, mostly for how she’d kicked the dog.
“Who took the sausages from this morning?”
Her voice rippled throughout the damn house, to the point where I could physically feel the vibration through my bed frame. I took a deep breath, swallowed, and then miserably walked downstairs to confess.
“It was me, mum. Nobody was home, so I decided to have them for dinner.”
She looked at me with disgust, and she slammed the fridge door shut.
“Right, so you thought you could just sneak into the fridge while nobody’s around and eat them for yourself? You greedy little runt!”
“I just, wanted something for dinner, and didn’t know what else to eat.” I sighed.
She strode towards me and I hung my head, knowing my fate. Smacking me in the face, she told me that I was never going to get in shape, because I was just a gluttonous lump; she then ordered me to make myself useful and put the chickens to bed.
“Yes mum...”
She followed me as we approached the back door, solely so she could slam it shut behind me as I walked out. Then I heard the lock click, indicating I’d be stuck out here for a while. Wiping at the tears in my eyes, I made my way down the garden and towards the chicken coop, about an acre away from the house. After escorting all the chickens into their hutch, I closed the door, to prevent foxes getting at them in the night, as was my duty, day in, day out.
I was about to head back, when I heard a faint voice from behind the shed, just a little further up the land; immediately on high alert, I clenched my fists and crept towards the shed to investigate. Upon reaching the shed, I crouched down near the large door and listened carefully.
“Oh, how I feel for the poor boy. How can she just treat another of her kind like that, her own son for that matter?”
The voice was female, and I recognised it from somewhere; I carried on listening, and I heard another voice speak, which I also recognised.
“I feel for him too, I genuinely couldn’t even watch when she went to hit him...”
And then, a third voice spoke.
“Twilight, was it really necessary to zap that little dog? I feel so bad for the poor thing.”
Twilight... Twilight... That voice, saying that particular name...
It couldn’t be, surely? Surely not...
“Unfortunately it was, Fluttershy. If it kept barking at us, the human might have found us.”
{Oh, my, god.} I thought to myself.
I realised who I was listening to, I couldn’t believe my ears, I must have been dreaming surely, I kept listening to confirm what I was thinking, shaking my head in disbelief.
{How is this possible? How is this possible?} I thought over and over again.
“Twilight, how long are we going to be out here monitoring this dude? We’ve been sat here for two weeks already, I’m so bored! Can we please just get this show on the road already?”
“Keep it down, Dash! We’re on another world in a different dimension, we can’t take any chances. I want to learn about these humans as much as I can before I interact with them.”
{They’ve been here for two whole weeks?} I thought to myself in shock.
I was listening to the ‘Mane Six’, the actual six ponies from the show. It had been Twilight Sparkle that singed Chilli’s whiskers, that’s what had spooked the chickens, and that’s why I got the feeling of being watched earlier...
I almost dropped dead from sheer astonishment; how could six cartoon ponies be behind my garden shed? It didn’t make any sense, and I started to feel nauseous alongside the mixture of confusion and joy. Was any of this even real? Had I lost my mind? I certainly hadn’t taken any drugs, so maybe I had actually gone doolally tap? Perhaps all the abuse, and longing for an escape, had at long last driven me over the edge. Maybe, because I had so frequently daydreamed about going to Equestria, my brain was now trying to take me there manually.
I pinched myself over and over just to make absolutely sure that I wasn’t just dreaming. But try as I might, I didn't wake up, because I wasn't dreaming; this was real.
“Twi, this whole shebang about dimensions and aliens is whizzing over my head. Look, I know you’re worried and all, but Princess Celestia sent us to this place on purpose, she said that boy can help us.”
{Celestia sent them here because of ME?} I thought to myself, almost saying it aloud.
How could she have known me? Had she been spying on me? This was all too much to handle, I couldn’t stay still for much longer, the urge to actually see them in front of me was so strong that I was actually shaking.
“I know Applejack, and that’s exactly why we’re monitoring him from a distance with magic. I want to learn exactly who this human is before we make him aware of our presence. Trust me, we need to be cautious around these things.”
“So let’s just talk to him!” Rainbow Dash’s voice piped up, “If you would let us have just one little chat, we could ask him a whole bunch of stuff. We’d learn more about him in ten minutes, than we would in a whole week of just gawking at that magic screen of yours!”
“Because Dashie, we-”
“Because nothing Twilight, quit being such a coward! Come on, we’ve saved Equestria countless times from danger. We’ve dealt with Nightmare Moon, Queen Chrysalis, Discord... Oh, and remember that time when you lifted that Ursa Minor out of Ponyville? We’re badasses, there’s nothing we can’t deal with!”
To this, I shuddered, if only they knew what this world held. Guns, war, murder, slavery, terrorism, oh, the list was endless. It would take me days to list all the abhorrent things that our race was capable of. But thankfully, they wouldn’t be finding anything like that in my garden.
Twilight sighed loudly, and finally gave in to the pressure of her friends.
“I guess you’re right, it’s just that... Oh, fine. We’ll find a way of getting him out here alone and talk to him.”
I couldn’t take it anymore, this was my moment; I came out from around the shed to face them, to face a dream in reality.
“There’s no need, Twilight, I’m already out here.”
All the ponies gasped and stared at me with shock as I revealed myself. I didn’t know how to describe this moment, I was looking at something impossible. The sun hadn’t set yet, but it was getting low, most of the garden was blanketed in a dim orange light, and I could only just see them all clearly as dusk settled in.
They looked like... well... I couldn’t quite describe it, they were just so real! And yet, they were just like from the show; Rainbow’s mane and tail were the same bright vivid pastel colours, Pinkie Pie was indeed, bright pink, and Rarity’s mane was curled in its usual fashion. Come to think of it, they looked similar to their Three-Dimensional counterparts in Source Filmmaker, just more, well, real. That was the only way I could describe it, they looked real, because they WERE real!
No one said anything, and I noticed that they were all slowly backing away, full of fear.
“Please don’t be afraid!” I blurted out, “I’m not going to hurt you!”
Twilight was the first to speak.
“Um, how... how much of that... did you hear?”
Her pupils had shrunk in size, just as they did in the show whenever ponies were afraid. I glanced at the others, whom all had the same expression, except for Rainbow Dash, she seemed quite calm after getting over the initial fright.
“I didn’t hear much, only that you wanted to learn more about me.” I said quickly but calmly.
Internally, I was on the verge of screaming with joy and running towards them, but I had to stay put; I had to find a way of showing that I was harmless to them.
“I’m not sure how well you know me exactly, but I promise that I am no threat to you, I Pinkie promise.”
The corners of Pinkie’s lips began to turn up into a little grin. I slowly knelt down to make myself look less threatening, to which the ponies seemed to relax a little bit; Rainbow Dash even took a step forward, calm and confident.
“You see Twilight, what did I tell you? Nothing to be afraid of.”
I couldn’t help ask the question that any brony in my shoes would have asked.
“I probably sound ridiculous asking this, but... are you all... actually real?”
Dashie walked right up to me and held out her hoof, grinning.
“Really real.”
I lifted my arm and prepared to make my first physical contact; I hesitated at first, not wanting this dream to end, but I persisted and gradually reached out, finally touching her hoof. The dream didn’t end, the hoof was real; it was firm, and the fur on top was short and velvety, I’d have tried to feel the underside too and take in all the details, but I didn’t want to be impolite or intrusive, especially as the show had always depicted Rainbow Dash as having incredibly sensitive hooves. Letting go and looking into Rainbow’s eyes, I couldn’t help bursting out with a huge grin.
{Holy shit, she’s real. This is all real!}
The others relaxed and came forward, now convinced that they were safe in my company; all except Twilight, of whom still kept her distance. Rarity was the next to speak, she flicked her mane sideways and smiled at me warmly.
“We’ve been keeping an eye on you for quite some time, but Twilight’s magic can only gather so much information. Please tell us more about yourself, we’ve all been dying to meet you properly!”
I didn’t really know what to say, it’s not like every day you get prompted to talk about yourself to Rarity! I had to say something though before it became awkward, so I used Spike’s handy line from the very first episode of the show.
“Well, what do you want to know?”
As I looked from pony to pony, waiting for a response, I noticed a strange look in Rainbow Dash’s eyes; I didn’t know what she was thinking, but I could clearly tell that she was thinking hard, her whole demeanour had changed, like she was curiously studying me for some reason. My attention was drawn back to Rarity, as she gave her answer.
“Well, thanks to Twilight’s magic, we know your name is Callum, and that your family name is Horncastle. We’ve learned that you live with your mother and brother, and that you spend a lot of time interacting with those electrical gadgets of yours. We’ve also come to gather that you’re rather athletic, having seen your swimming abilities, along with that fighting sport you partake in, boxing, is that right? But I’m afraid that’s pretty much all we know.”
She must have been referring to my swimming session earlier today; it must have been Rainbow Dash that I had seen in the clouds, it all made sense now, this was incredible! Before I could give the unicorn my reply, a pink, hyperactive pony popped up right in front of me.
“Ooh, ooh, what kind of food do you eat here? Huh? Huh?”
I opened my mouth, only to be halted by a harrowing thought. How would they react if I mentioned meat? The last thing I wanted was to horrify them by stating how we humans were meat-eating omnivores, I’d rather die than see Fluttershy’s reaction to that.
“Well, I think we eat mostly similar foods?” I finally said, telling only half of the truth, “Bread, grains, fruit, vegetables, nuts and cheeses, that sort of thing.”
Before I had to elaborate any further, I heard the back door open, followed by my mother’s dreaded voice booming across the garden.
“Oi Callum! Where are you? I told you to put the chickens away, not go fucking camping!”
I looked at all the ponies, and they all looked at me; they knew that I would have to go, but I had an idea.
“Tomorrow I have the house to myself, you could come in if you like?”
Twilight opened her mouth, clearly about to refuse, but Pinkie Pie broke out into a gleeful hyper fit.
“Ooh, yes! YES! I would love to! We would love to! I so want to see the inside of an alien’s house, what’s it like in there? Is it all snugly wuggly with big alien furniture and a massive alien kitchen full of tasty alien food and-”
“Alright Pinkie, simmer down.”
Applejack gave her frenetic friend a playful nudge, and then turned to face me.
“I mean, we’d love to come in, but is it really safe with, you know... her?”
She pointed towards the house, where my mother had just slammed the door and walked off indoors.
“She’s off paying a visit to my uncle tomorrow,” I reassured her, “and my brother's going over to a friend’s house, so it’s just me. It’ll be safe, I promise. You could come in for lunch, and I could tell you all about me. Oh, and I’ve got loads of books about humans and stuff for you, Twilight, you could learn all sorts!”
That’s what got Twilight’s attention, books. Lots and lots of books, for lots and lots of learning, she couldn’t refuse now.
“Oh fine. Come out and call for us when it’s safe. Oh and while you’re here, can I cast another monitoring spell on you? The last one was dispelled earlier, when you got hit.”
The ponies all grimaced upon Twilight mentioning my mum smacking me, and Rainbow Dash came up to me with a sorrowful expression on her face.
“How can she do that to you? How do you just, take it?”
I looked at her and gave her an assuring smile, to show her that I wasn’t in any pain.
“It’s just... the way things are. Don’t feel bad about it, I’ve got used to it.”
“That don’t make it right though!” Applejack protested.
Moving beyond the sentiment, Twilight proceeded with casting the spell. She closed her eyes and her horn began to glow. I began to feel a warm sensation run across my skin, which then sank through the surface and filled me with tiny buzzing sensations, mainly in my eyes and ears, before it eventually faded away.
{Holy shit, that was magic!} I thought to myself. {Real, legitimate, unicorn magic!}
I still found this all very hard to believe, this was insane.
“You’d better go now.” said Twilight.
Agreeing, I took one last look at the six ponies, savouring the moment. I then inhaled deeply through my nose and dipped my head in farewell, before turning away and exhaling, making my way towards the house.
“Are you absolutely sure it’s safe for us to come in tomorrow?” Rarity called after me.
Whipping around, I grinned merrily.
“Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye!” I called back, performing the accompanying gesture.
They all burst into grins, with Pinkie exclaiming that I ‘knew her thing’. I turned around once more and walked away for good, and on my face was a grin of my own, followed by streams of tears.
Was this, my new beginning?