Pessimism and Sarcasm
Chapter 5
....And Night
Now that it’s just me, Spike, and Twilight, things calm down quite a bit. I walk down to Twilight's basement to grab my stuff, which I stashed there during the party.
"Well, since I'm stuck here, and you offered, I guess I should take this time to set up whatever quarters you decide I should stay in." Hopefully I'm not bunking in your room.
"Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Uhm, follow me." Her horn lights up with her bright purple aura and an extra bed in the corner is illuminated and raised. She trots back up the basement stairs with it floating behind her. I cross my fingers, but she still opens the door to her room and heads in. Crap.
"You're not having me stay in your room, are you?"
"Yeah, why not?" She carefully sets the bed onto the floor and turns to me. She has confusion on her face, accompanied by a slight annoyance. I saw this coming; she's not exactly knowledgeable about things like social protocol. Though I suppose it could be different here, somehow I doubt that.
"Because I'd kind of like some privacy." Even if I got that though, I'd still probably change in the bathroom. No need to get caught changing by a pony - that'd be a new low.
"Oh." She blushes for a moment, realizing what I mean. But then she stares off in thought. After a moment she looks down, sighs, and turns back to me with an apologetic look. "Sorry, but I really don't have room anywhere else." Crap baskets. I cringe when I realize that this means I'm going to miss a lot of DBZ Abridged.
"Fine then, I suppose I can deal with it. I'd still feel better if we each had our privacy, though." She moves the bed across from her own. Then she leaves to retrieve extra sheets and another pillow. As long as she doesn't think of this as one big slumber party. Why must I be living some brony's odd fantasy? WHY?
Twilight returns with some plain white bed sheets and a violet quilt. Ah, purple: the theme of the place. She sets the blankets down own bed and starts unfolding each one and tucking it over the mattress.
“I can do that myself, Twilight,” I sigh, defeated.
“Oh, I was just being a good host." She starts clapping excitedly. “Isn’t this exciting? It’ll be like having a slumber party every night!" There it is.
"How about this instead: I'm your first roommate." I then look at Spike, who’s actually already fast asleep in his basket. "Or maybe second."
"Second roommate?” Twilight looks at me and sees what I mean. “Oh, Spike’s actually more like my little brother than a roommate." She glances up, lost in thought again. She rushes back through her door, stopping to pop her head back into the room. "I'll be right back.” As she skips down the stairs, I can hear her ask herself, “Do I have a roommate guide?" I facepalm. Here we go.
I walk over to my bed and stoop to untie my shoes. Too bad I don't have my pajamas; it’ll be uncomfortable sleeping in my clothes. But I’m sure not taking them off if I’m sharing a room with Twilight. I do take off my socks and shoes, however. I place the socks inside the shoes and slide them under the bed, then move to the other side, where there happens to be a small desk with a lamp on it. I follow the lamp's cord to the outlet. Thank you, whoever invented the power strip. I retrieve mine from my laptop bag and plug it into the outlet, then plug in the chargers for all my devices. I'm still just glad that I had randomly decided to take all this with me - or was it random? Did I see this coming without realizing it?
After plugging it all in, I decide to turn on my laptop and take a moment to unwind with an old anime. I turn the volume down so as not to wake Spike, and then go into my folders and open up the one labeled “The Big O”. Nothing like the classics. I double-click on the first episode and pause it to set it to fullscreen. Then I press play. I sense awkward moments in my future. Then again, I’ve been sensing that since I got here.
A mass of yellow-orange lava appears and starts to roil and form a face as a piece of classical music is played. "Cast in the name of God ye not guilty." I love this show! It cuts to a shiny black car driving down a road in a dreary looking city, while in the background a 1920s-30s jazz theme plays. "My name is Roger Smith. I perform a much needed job here in the city of amnesia." Steve Blum, this is probably one of your best roles, besides Tom or Grunt. The music continues as he heads to an old warehouse and parks the car.
"What's this one?" I jump slightly, and look behind me to see Twilight sitting on the bed, looking over my shoulder, a book floating nearby. Seriously, they have hooves. How are they this stealthy? She continues to watch, clearly curious as to what is occurring.
"This is an old show I used to watch called ‘The Big O’." I pause it. "So, you found a book on roommates I see." It'd be hilarious if it were titled “Roommates for Dummies”.
"Yup, it's called ‘Roommates 101’." Too bad. She offers me the book and I accept it. I flip to the table of contents and look through the chapter headings.
Chapter 12: Romance. I cock my eyebrow. Seriously? I look to her with an expression that screamed 'I am not amused'. "Skip that one."
"Which one?" I point to the chapter heading, shaking my head. I know they probably have some knowledge of those things, but this is NOT going to happen. Or do they have more knowledge of it than I think? Oh crap, I forgot about the episode where Pound and Pumpkin Cake are born. I scoot a little farther away from Twilight.
"Oh, don't worry about that, I'm definitely not going to follow this one to the letter." Right, five bucks says you will. I've seen the show, I know it's only a matter of time before your OCD kicks in. That's when I run fast, and far.
"Well, how about we forget about the book, and I just let this play?" The episode goes its course, ending with the familiar 'to be continued'.
"Ooh there's more, can we watch more?"
"Sure, why not?" I set up the next episode and let it roll. I figured that she'd got used to death at least a little bit, since she didn't seem too freaked out about the part in the last episode with Wainwright, and then of course there was the bit of violence just afterward. But then she saw the older man claiming to be Dorothy's grandfather get shot and killed.
"How could someone just do something like that, with no second thoughts?!" She almost looked like she was crying.
"Don't worry, Twilight, this isn't real. It's just a T.V. show. Besides they'll get what’s coming to them." I keep my eyes on the screen so she can't see me cringe.
Episode two comes to its end and Twilight calms down a bit, glad that Beck and his men were arrested. Then I notice another file in my videos folder. I wonder how she'd react to my little bro's school video. "Hey Twilight, want to see my little brother and his friend? My brother shot a short film he called ‘Drake and Re's epic adventure’ in high school for a class. I'm even in it."
"Ooh, really?" Her face has an eager look to it. Hook, line, and sinker.
"Okay, rolling the film." I double-click the video and let it play.
"Agh, really?!" She sees the film’s introduction shot, where my brother and his friend look like they’re going to have a sword clash, but then my bro pulls a gun and just shoots him. Yeah, really. "So which one is your little brother?”
"The one who drew the gun. His friend is the one who dropped to the ground. That person there is his teacher. Oh, and there I am: the world's worst film pickpocket." The video keeps going, and Twilight screams when the person in the skull jacket shoots himself just as the scene cuts. "Don't worry, the guy's still alive. By the way, Spike is probably the heaviest sleeper I've ever seen, or is it just that he's got earplugs?"
Twilight just lets out a deep exhale and flies over to her bed. "Well, I think that's enough of that for today. Good night." As she gets under her covers and goes to sleep, I shut down my laptop and decide to do the same. Good thing I'm kind of used to sleeping in the same room as a stranger.
"Good night, then." I tuck myself in under my own covers and try to fall asleep.