//------------------------------// // Rock This Town // Story: Not\e/worthy // by YarnWeaver //------------------------------// Not\e/worthy Part of the PonyEarthVerse By: YarnWeaver Chapter 5: Rock This Town Someday - Sometime Someplace Confusing - Somepony Challenged It's a door to anywhere. A portal of indeterminate destination. Through all the times I've opened it over the past several minutes, I've seen the Moon, the center of maze of mirrors, the inside of some guy's tooth cavity, and the D.M.V. of some county I didn't stay long enough to identify. None of them were places I wanted to go. It was all just random. It also didn't seem to have any limits on where it could take me, however. I wonder... Up 'till now, I haven't really been thinking about where I want to go. I saw a door, I puzzled at where it would lead. I guess I found out. Well, I did have some fun with it there with those last few, but that's beside the point. All I want to see on the other side of this door right now is my home. Wait...why not? I grin, wondering if it could really be this simple, and I open the door to find... ...space. There's a familiar-looking galaxy floating perfectly framed in the doorway. It matches up perfectly with what I remember from telescope pictures of the Milky Way. Uh...well, it's technically right, I guess. Apparently it responds to my desires. Maybe I just need to be more specific. I immediately brought to mind the image of the white three bedroom, two bathroom trailer with blue trim that my brothers and I are renting from my folks back at Superior Mobile Home Park. Then and only then did I open the door. And there it was, in all its glory... ...in a JPEG image file supplied by a search engine imbedded in a webpage being viewed by a browser maximized on a monitor attached to a computer sitting on a desk in a room that looked like it belonged to a hyper-accurate viking weaponry reproduction enthusiast. -SLAM!!!- The door safely latched once again, I turn my back to rest against it and slowly lower to my haunches (yet another thing I'm not completely comfortable with yet) as I try to rein in my runaway pulse. "I certainly hope...whomever looked that up...either...wasn't that serious about it...or...lives too far away...from Santa Fe...to even look into it." I choke out between raspy gasps. At least this pony's not having an asthma attack over this. Thank you, God. Once I've calmed down sufficiently, I get back to my hooves and face the door once again. I narrow my gaze, hoping to pierce through some hidden cache and plunder the cheat codes within. Okay, what have I learned? Not thinking about where I want to go can get me anywhere, but it'll be just that: not where I want to go; trying to influence where I'm going with my desire will lead me as far away from where I actually want to be without technically failing to show it to me; and being as specific as I can possibly be about where I want the door to take me...isn't something I want to try again. Maybe... Am I being too literal? Well, it's worth a shot. The Abstract, nuances, feelings, descriptions from the heart, not the mind. "I want to see an inviting glow, a light of warmth, a gathering of family, a safe haven; I want to see my home." I open the door to find... ...it's cold. I see a marquis fallen into disrepair. A barely flickering arrow above it points to a heavily snowed-in building with a tall steeple, a cross barely visible at its apex. Several large, unidentifiable lumps litter the area in front of it. A large illuminated rectangle is visible through the mountainous piles of white. As I stare at it, I realize it's slowly dimming. I can't turn away. Even though I can feel my eyes sting, I can't turn away. I just stand there, transfixed, as that one rectangle grows fainter, and fainter, and fainter... ...and then vanishes. My eyes turn back to the sign. The whole thing is so caked with snow that I can't make out a thing about it but the weakly blinking arrow. I pass through the doorway. There's something I need to see. I trudge through snow that reaches my shoulders over to the dilapidated thing. There's a drift piled up on its opposite side, but I don't feel any wind. Getting up on my hind legs again, I push against the bottom edge of my side. I see a bit of snow fall off from the violence, but it's not enough. I push away from the sign, but just before my center of balance reaches what I remember it being for my old two-legged stance I tilt my neck and head forward, allowing my motion to reverse. The sign also sways form the sudden action, and soon, its motion reverses as well. I coil up my forelegs... ...and strike! "That did it!" I cry. And then...I read the contents of the marquis: "MY HOME FO T E OLIDA S " -GOD The blinking stops. Ishutmyeyesandruntheotherway! The trail I trudged toward the sign offers little resistance, and the piled up snow on either side of it guides me back to the door. My hooves suddenly are no longer crunching through old powder but sinking into wonderfully plush carpeting yet again. -click- I collapse to the floor in a fit of whimpers. I just lay there for a while and cry. Sometime Later The carpet is warm, but I still feel cold. I lost track of how long I laid there mourning, but I eventually ran out of tears to shed. After a short prayer to God for everyone who was there to be delivered into His Hands and a whispered "Amen," I slowly opened my dry, crusty eyes. The door had apparently latched itself back closed behind me. Whether it was from the air pressure change of me rushing back through the doorway or...whatever, it didn't really matter. Once again, I found myself leering at the door. I think it's safe to say that this thing is actively trying to use its own properties to torture me. Then it hit me. When I tried to use my mind to beat it, it retaliated against my mind. When I tried to use my heart to beat it, it retaliated against my heart. A PATTERN! "It's been turning my every strength into a weakness and mocking it." I conclude. I now realize that if I try to direct it in any way, it'll undermine and attack the source of those directions. I smile. There might just be a way. I rear up once again and ready my left hoof on the handle like I did each time before. Then I put my plan into action. I declare, "I just want to go the one place it makes the most sense for me to be." I open the door. Okay, I know I hadn't tried to expect anything, but I certainly didn't expect this! What I see through the doorway is the same closet I'm in right now, but rotated 180 degrees so that their respective doorways meet! No...wait. Hold on. Something's wrong here. I notice that the light's off in the other closet. Then, I look over at the shelf in the other closet and find that it's empty. Finally, I look at the floor... ...THE CEMENT FLOOR!! I think...I did it. I walk through the doorway into the other closet... ...and close the door behind me. Suddenly, a hissing, crackling noise gets my attention. I turn around to see a purple wavy field of energy that's sporting checkers motif, to top it off, attached to the door I just closed. Then I see it start to collapse in on itself. It's disappearing. Within seconds, the door that's been getting in my way for the past several hours now looks little more than an ordinary, white-painted oak door. I did it! I WON! GAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!! Yeah, don't mind me. Busy ROTFLing. Day ?? - ???, ??:?? I eventually pull myself together and get to my hooves. I've still got a stupidly giddy grin on my face at my victory. I turned that door's own properties against it. Oh, there was no doubt that it'd give me what I asked for, that was the one thing that was consistent with each attempt I made. However, it twisted my request into something that would take me as far away from where I really wanted to go as it could. Then whenever I tried to manipulate the parameters of my request in order to force it to take me where I wanted to go, it lashed out at the source of those directions. It was a classic "Genie's Conundrum". So all I had to do was make the door supply its own directions. Now the only thing standing between me and finding out where I really am is one completely mundane and ordinary door. As I size it up I notice that the handle for this door is actually positioned so I'll have to use my right forehoof instead of my left to work it. Makes sense, I guess. I'm on the other side, now. Just like before, I hook the bottom of my hoof around the handle, turn it 'till it clicks, brace the tip against the surface of the door, and push. Nothing happens. "No..." It can't be. I push harder and harder still, throwing my whole, admittedly lesser, weight against the door, but it still doesn't even budge! "After all that..." I pry myself off of the offender and back onto all fours before turning back to level it my best glare. "...the darn thing's DEADBOLTED!!' THAT'S IT! I'VE HAD IT! I'M DONE! DONE! DONE! DONE! DONE WITH THIS!!! I'm not even thinking anymore at this point. "I!" I turn away from the door and drive my forehooves into the cement floor, cracking it. "WANT!" I coil up all of the muscles in my body at once as my hind legs lift off the floor behind me. I shut my eyes in rage. "OUT!!!" All of that condensed power and emotion is released. -KA-BUCK!!!!- The entire door assembly, including doorframe mind you, explodes off the wall, flies through the room behind me... -KA-CRASH!!!!- ...and defenestrates itself. It takes a lot longer for the next impact I hear than I was expecting, so out of curiosity, I follow the trail of carnage to the window it destroyed just in time to hear the symphony of crushed concrete and rebar followed by a flurry of car alarms. I then become acutely aware of another curious fact. I'm in a skyscraper. "HOW IN THE WORLD AM I IN A SKYSCRAPER?!" And then I look up. The cityscape stretches out for miles before me. Then when I look to the right, I spot an unmistakeable landmark, and I dread what its presence implies. The Statue of Liberty. Somehow, I'm in New York City... ...in a pony body I don't fully recognize. How...? I don't know anyone here. How will I get home? Then I feel something that makes everything worse. The building shifts beneath me... In an instant, I find myself back behind what's left of the closet wall, desperate to get something between me and the wall with the blown out window. Somebody... Anybody... Help.