//------------------------------// // Fourth Entry // Story: You've Got Mail... // by Kiue Jin //------------------------------// Fourth Entry Dear Party Mare, I feel compelled to tell you about something mystical that has happened to me in my life; something that I cannot even explain, or fathom. Life tends to do that do you though, there are all kinds of odd mysteries that one may never be able to explain or make sense of. This is my story though: Now to give you a little background to my story, there are a few things you should know about me. The first thing is that I’m actually an electrician, which is someone who works with electric equipment, which I feel is necessary to point out as I’m not too certain as to how Equestria handles their energy needs, I always assumed it was harnessed magic of some sort. The second thing that you should know is that I was recently hired by a very big company; I can’t name them as I don’t wish to put myself in jeopardy but I can tell you that they’re a big hush-hush kind of place. Government funded, keeps everything hidden under tarps, the works. Anyways, I’ve been working there probably about six months, and something truly out of the ordinary has been happening. See I have this partner; well I had this partner anyways… Let’s call him Frank. The two of us are generally assigned to fix certain pieces of machinery around the facility and we usually did and didn’t ask questions about it. The pay was right, and the benefits were there, so we really had no room to complain. It wasn’t until a couple of weeks ago though that we started hearing rumors around that some of the repair staff were disappearing. I recall over three engineers that I haven’t seen in days. No one was telling us anything; they were acting as if they had just got up and went on vacation. Well Frank and I were working on a machine, same as always, and he gets shocked by a stripped wire. I laugh at him and tell him next time he should wear his safety gloves. Frank however seemed a little more disoriented that I expected he would be. He started complaining that he couldn’t breathe, and that he had this pain in his heart. My reaction is to rush him to the medical center. When I get there and explain what happened, the doctor just seems so calm about it, like this was a common occurrence. I had to admit I was a little bit suspicious of them then, but I really had nothing to go on. Well a few days passed by, and I thought for sure that Frank was going to be another one of those workers that mysteriously “disappeared,” however I was more surprised that he returned about a week later. The only problem was: something about him was different. He acted very nonchalant about the whole ordeal, and the way he was acting was as if his personality had been drained clean out of him. I suppose the weirdest part about it is that he doesn’t seem to have any recollection of ever being hurt. He says it is all a blur, but how could you forget something like that? He was crying when I brought him in, and Frank doesn’t just cry over anything. This was something big. I had asked around after that, and I started to notice something similar to all these cases. Every single one involved the electricity somehow. One spark and they’d go into a fit just like Frank did. Now I know magic doesn’t exist within our world, so that drew me to only one conclusion: it’s alive. There’s something living in the circuits in this place. What it is, and why it’s here I cannot answer you that, but I do know that it wants something, and I’m certain that the higher ups know it’s there. They’re just keeping us in the dark about something so dangerous, but why? I understand I may sound a little crazy here and you really have no reason to believe me, but I am telling you this all is truly happening. I don’t even know why I’m writing this to you, you don’t even know who I am, but I felt the need to get this off of my chest to someone. I just don’t know what to do anymore, or who I can trust is all… Sincerely, Electrical Repair Associate #85 ........................................................................................... Dear Mr Electrical Repair Associate #85, Wow that's a long name. I'm just going to call you Mr Ed from now on for short. I knew a Mr Ed. Big stallion, rather smart guy who was always throwing out one liners left right and center, sort of didn't know when to stop talking. He would just prattle on and on and on and on and on and on like there was no tomorrow. The poor guy just couldn't take a hint about when he should stop talking and listen to other ponies. Speaking of other ponies, I went and asked my friend Twilight what being an 'Electrical worker' must have been like. She started to talk and talk and talk about all kinds of things in huge, ginormous words and I sort of entered pinkie space around that point. Oh, have I ever told you about pinkie space? Oh wait, of course not because we've only just started talking to each other over letters and we haven't even met each other in pony yet. Maybe I should start planning a 'Welcome to Equestria' party for you Mr Ed! Won't that be fun? Anyway, back to Pinkie Space. I discovered Pinkie Space one day when I saw Mrs Cake discussing new curtains with Mr Cake. While Mrs Cake was droning on and on about curtains, Mr Cake was...there but not there. His head would nod or shake at key points in the conversation, he would mumble the correct 'Yes dear' or 'No dear' at the right times and if he was called out on what Mrs Cake had just said he would reply perfectly. But he didn't appear to be there mentally. When I asked him about it later, he took me into the kitchen and told me about how he had developed a trick so that his body could handle whatever is happening at the moment while his mind is working on something else. Thinking about how this would help me better plan parties, I asked him to teach me how to do it too while making my eyes all big and innocent looking... He folded like one of those fancy pastries from Prance when exposed to just about anything. Now what was I writing about... oh yes. While pretending to listen to Twilight talk about how 'Electricity' was really Lightning wearing a funny hat and a pair of rubber booties, I was busy making some last minute small but vital changes to some birthday parties I had planned for the next day when an idea shaped like a large, heavy book falling from the sky struck me with all of its booky goodness. When I regained consciousness later on, I got off of Twilight's sofa, told her I was perfectly fine and that I would put some fresh ice on the bump on my head when I got home and then came home and started writing this letter. And that is the story about my day. ...Wait... Silly Pinkie, I almost totally forgot my brilliant idea! It sounds to me like all you and your friends do is work, work, work. Maybe you should take them somewhere outside of the office and throw a party in their honor to celebrate all the hard work that you have all been doing. If nothing else, it might put everypony in a better mood and that simply cannot be a bad thing. As for your lightning creature, you should do what I did when Twilight accidentally-on-purpose brought that large machine thingy she calls a 'Thinking-engine' down in her basement to life. I threw it a birthday party and gave it a nice, big fluffy teddy bear. It now sits down there all do, doing strange things to/with pie and cuddling it's teddy bear. Twilight tried to take it's teddy bear once because she didn't want to have to tell the Princess that one of the greatest thinking-engines in the whole world needed a big fluffy teddy bear. Turns out all that does is make it have a temper tantrum and causes Hex to refuse to do anything until he gets his bear back so Twilight simply labels the bear as a vital component labeled the 'BFTB' whenever she has to write it in a report. Hope this helps you out with your problems. And of course there is magic in your world. You just have to go and find it. Signed, Pinkie Pie. PS: If you throw a party for the as yet named lightning creature, try not to spill anything on him. That's just rude.