Finding a Voice

by Discordia5


1. Poor, Poor Pitiful Me

Finding a Voice

Poor, Poor Pitiful Me?

I don’t know how it happened, neither did they. The multicolored faces pressed in on me and stared nervously at me. Looking up at their shocked and fearful faces all I could think was, ‘Why me?’

Life is unpredictable. This is a given fact that we learn throughout our life. Sometimes we forget that fact and then something jarring happens. This something could even change your life for the better or for the worse is also up to this crazy thing we call life. It's unpredictability hit me in a way that I never expected and I don't think anyone else would've expected it either. It definitely changed my life in fact my whole perspective on it changed. It didn't happen overnight, obviously, but over time I came to realize a few things about myself and about how I had looked at things before. I'm getting too far ahead though. Let me start with the basics. I was normal. The first thing you need to know about me is that I was pretty normal. I grew up in a small town with two parents who are still married relatively happily to this day, at least to my knowledge. I was an only child. I went to public school like most kids. Hated the entirety of my high school career. Things were better in college. Then I got to my adult life and everything went back to being suckish. I had a steady job, but it wasn't one I enjoyed at all. I think it would be best to start there.
It had been the worst day of a terrible week. The last few days I had woken up and known ‘today is going to be a bad day’. Monday was always my bad day though that was to be expected, but having no sugar in the break room, what was up with that?! Tuesday the pop machine ate my only dollar. Wednesday I had to deal with the laziest guy on my team, the one who also had to have a stalker-ish crush on me. The staff was split up into teams to cover more ground, I just happened to be saddled with the laziest and slowest guy on my team, he did nothing except watch me and listen to his iPod, the moron! I'm not gonna lie, but sometimes I fell asleep to him being savagely murdered and having his mutilated corpse scattered about in a dark, plain, concrete room with a bare bulb as the only source of light. I can assure you that I have nor will I ever act upon such fantasies ever. Thursday was when I was somehow scheduled to do everything myself. Today I could tell, today was going to be the topper. Too bad I’m never wrong when it comes to these things.
Waking up like that should always be warning number one, if ever anyone feels that way when they wake up, call in sick and roll back into bed! However I disregarded the feeling, I swung myself out of bed and staggered to the bathroom. Normally I wouldn't have bothered with things like my hair or my face, but today I felt like lingering. So I brushed my teeth as slowly and as thoroughly as possible. I brushed out every knot in my thick, blond hair. I washed my face and used my prescription acne medication. By the time I got out of the bathroom I had ten minutes to get dressed, have a semi-decent breakfast, make my tea, and drive out. I quickly tore on my uniform which was just a green polo and jeans. I grabbed a protein bar from the pantry before inhaling it almost whole and then nuking my Earl Grey tea. I didn't have cream either so I had to deal with really hot, and really flat tasting tea.
When I finally got on the road my mp3 died and I had to rely on my radio which was stuck on a news channel, I hate the news. I got caught speeding and the cop was apparently the worst hard-ass ever, slapped me with a ticket. Just for kicks he also gave me another one for the air-freshener I had hung on my rearview mirror. I ended up being ten minutes late for work. I pulled up to the building and parked my car in a way that I knew I was going to get a fender-bender and the dick-wad wouldn't be courteous enough to leave his insurance info. I honestly didn't care at that moment. I zipped through the empty hallways and did my best to avoid the boss, but seeing as how all my coworkers were colossal dick-wads I didn’t get very far. “Miss Lucine!” a booming voice called.
I sighed and turned toward my boss. She only ever used my last name when she wasn’t happy. My boss was a short and stout woman with long graying hair that she always tied back and thick round glasses. If I looked at her closely enough she reminded me of a roly-poly. As a person she was alright, not someone that I would have drinks with after work, but we got along relatively well as long as I didn't fuck up. This wasn't one of those times. “Please, come see me in my office,” she said.
I really didn’t want to get chewed out at the moment. When I looked behind me I could see that a few of the guys were standing in the hallway snickering and pointing at me. Of course they would give me grief that’s all they ever gave me. I was the butt of every joke here, mostly because I was such an easy target. I reacted to everything, but why shouldn't I? Every time I ignored them they would just get more pushy and more annoying until I snapped and they would find some issue with that as well. I was never the popular person in any social sense, so this kind of behavior wasn't new to me. I sighed and followed slowly behind her. I sat down across from her desk and looked at her with a frown. “Miss Lucine, your behavior these past few weeks has been deplorable,” she said.
Maybe I have been a little cranky during the weeks, but anyone else would be too if they were working in a job where they had to clean up everyone else’s mess. I’m a janitor after all, doesn’t get more dead-end than that. I only shrugged. “Miss Lucine,” she continued. “Considering the comments from your coworkers and your behavior in front of me now, I don’t think I have any other choice, but to let you go.”
I looked at her as if waiting for the punchline of a joke. I wanted to fight for it, really I did, but what was there to fight for? I’m pretty sure she was waiting for me to put up a fight as well, but I only asked. “Can I work today and be fired tomorrow?”
Taking it easy on me for the most part, my ‘former’ boss said yes. I left her office and headed to the back room to drop off my stuff and clock in. “Hey Ella,” a voice cooed behind me as I hung up my bag.
I shivered in disgust and turned around slowly to see Ferdi breathing down my neck. ‘Ferdi’ was the name we gave him, his real name being Ferdinand. I thought the nickname suited him better. Ferdi wasn’t quite overweight, but he wasn’t in shape either. A beer gut could be seen growing at the edges of his work shirt and he could always be seen snacking on Doritos. He had oily brown hair and a pizza face that could scare children. His breath was also thick with alcohol and Doritos. For some reason he found me attractive despite me trying not to have any contact with him and outright refusing his advances. He was persistent I’ll give him that. But it wasn't just his looks that I took issue with. His personality and the way he carried himself just didn't feel right to me. In all respects he was just some loser who could've been hot stuff in high school, but was now at a dead end job with no other prospects other than to buy lottery tickets or scratch cards to get rich. However, he seemed to carry that same teenage cockiness up to the present day, despite not earning a bit of it. Also he insisted on using a nickname for me despite me insisting that he use my actual name. “So, I heard you got canned after today anyway,” he said.
I only grimaced before brushing him off and pretending to be engrossed with something inside my locker. “So I think that means you’ll have plenty of time on your hands for a while,” he pursued.
I did my best to ignore him. I closed my locker loudly, trying to show him that I was not in the mood to talk to anyone at the moment never mind talk to him and I clocked in. “Come on, sweetheart, just one date that’s all I’m asking,” he pleaded.
“No,” I said and quickly darted passed him and down the hall to the closet where my equipment was.
Ferdi followed right on my heels. The incessant stomp of his shoes behind me was the most hateful sound I ever heard. “Just a no, I expected at least an explanation,” he said.
I rolled my eyes. I gave him an explanation. I gave him the same explanation every time. I was nice about it, of course, but right now I wanted to be anything but nice. I grabbed my cart, but he blocked my path. “Get out of my way,” I growled.
He didn’t move. Ferdi grabbed the other end of my cart and held it in place. “Come on, Elly, I have been nothing but nice to you,” he said. “All those compliments I gave you, you should’ve been grateful for them.”
My heart beat faster and at the same time plummeted downward. I hated him. I was supposed to be ‘grateful’ for a compliment?! Just because he was nice I should go out with him?! And there was the incessant nickname, this time he used the one that made me sound like a little girl! “I’ve been kind to you so far, I’m just asking for one chance,” he continued.
I gave him chances. I was kind with him as well, but apparently that wasn't enough of a hint for him. "I've been patient, I've been firm, and I've been as kind to you as I possibly could be," I growled. "But I can see now that it's not enough."
With a quick and hard shove I pushed the cart into his stomach and didn’t stop until he was up against the opposite wall. I forgot about politeness and my tact, now there was only anger and hatred. I glared at him with my teeth bared and all I wanted to do was to push against him until his spine snapped. "You are an insufferable pig with no sense of tact or when no means no," I snarled. "You're disgusting, filthy, vile. I should rid the world of a man like you!"
There must've been something in my face or my eyes, because Ferdi just stood there looking dazed and confused for a few seconds as I pushed the cart further into his stomach either waiting for his spine to snap or for his innards to spew out of his mouth. Then he started to push back against me. The force between us was too uneven and the cart slipped away from both of us. I stumbled, but managed to catch myself before slamming into Ferdi. He grabbed me angrily and slammed me into the wall instead. My head throbbed painfully so I barely heard what he said to me. “Fine, if you don’t want to give it to me willingly, I’ll just take it,” he hissed.
He gripped at my shirt and tried to tear it away. I screamed and kicked out. Luckily, I managed to dig my foot into his balls. He let go of me and crumbled to the ground. I looked down at him for a few seconds before taking off down the hall. I didn't want to run for fear of provoking Ferdi into action once again. I didn’t bother telling anyone where I was going, I was out of there before anyone could stop me. I grabbed my things and booked it back to my car. “I’m going now!” I called into my boss’s office before careening into the door and running full tilt toward my car. I opened the door, slammed it shut, and didn't bother with a seat belt as I pulled out of the parking lot, leaving skid marks in my wake.
Frankly I was glad to leave. The place had been a misery to work at and now I was almost raped. I should’ve called the police, should’ve told the boss what he had done, but survival had fully kicked in and I wasn’t going to spend another second near that place. For some reason the thought about how I had got there flashed in my mind and I hated why it did. I saw the ad in the newspaper, it paid good money and it seemed like easy work. So I signed on, hoping that I wouldn’t be there forever. I had taken the job while I was in college. Technically I had a Bachelors in Music and Writing, what to do with it, however, was another thing entirely. Ideally I wanted to be a songwriter and singer. I knew how to play piano and guitar, my voice was okay, but a few more voice lessons and it would've been great. I didn't want to go digital with my voice. All that editing and being able to make a song out of a voice that didn't know flat from pitched. However, I couldn't get my work out there and when I couldn’t find any other work I decided to stay on there. I fully regret it now.
When I got back to my two room apartment, I dropped everything and looked at my surroundings. Whitewash walls, pictures of family and friends, a bookshelf lined with only a few books, a TV set, and a plain looking bed in the bedroom. A few posters were taped to the walls, most of them of different television shows and video games (like I was still a teenager). Some knick-knacks and little toys lined a few shelves. It was the only personality I had to the place.
I walked up to a low hanging shelf and picked up a toy. Most of the shelves were lined with "My Little Pony" ponies most of them either from Generation one or Generation four, those shows were really the only ones worth watching in the franchise. The Generation one toys were more a nostalgic keepsake of when I was kid and pretended I was the fastest pegasus in all the land. Then Generation four came around and made everything better. The stories, the characters, and even the color scheme was so much better than any other Generation before it. I slowly made the pony in my hand start to trot from one end of the shelf to the other. It passed in front of all my other toys and knick-knacks. I stared at the pony for a while before realizing that I had picked up Luna. She was one of my favorite ponies in the show. I didn't have just one solid favorite, I had many. It was the same for every show. Luna was one pony that I gravitated to because she was an outcast. She knew what it felt like to be ostracized and left out. I always felt like the odd one out for most of my life.
For most of my childhood I didn't have many friends and everyone thought I was weird, because I preferred books and toys to makeup and texting. Looking at Luna made that kind of loneliness and hatred well up even more inside of me. Slowly my arm came up, reached far behind me, and then violently swung forward. The Luna toy snapped out of my hand and smashed against the wall, breaking into a few segmented pieces. A dam broke inside me and the tears came freely. I didn’t even know why I was crying. Maybe it was over the job, my childish apartment, the toy breaking even if it would've been easily fixed, the fact that I was almost raped, or just my life in general. My knees crumbled beneath me and I curled up on my side.
I had dreams and goals, bigger goals than being in a dead-end job and having a mediocre apartment as my only home. I had wanted so much, what had happened to that? I wanted to go on so many adventures like the ones I read about like the ones I always saw on TV. I wanted to spread my music. I didn't care about fame, I just wanted to let my voice be heard and hopefully have someone else understand that voice too. I had wanted to find love and happiness, at twenty-one I was so far from it that it was no wonder I woke up every day thinking that it was going to be a bad day. I wanted to crawl under a rock and die. It’s a stupid thing to think about, but I always thought that when someone thought it was cliché it was because they had never experienced it for themselves.
The tears kept coming, no matter how hard I tried to stop them. Despair, hate, fear, anger, every negative emotion imaginable flashed through me, but also seemed to consume me. Fear for the future and what I could or would do next, anger at my boss for letting me go after years of near perfect servitude, hatred towards Ferdi for making me feel like I wasn’t good enough, like I was a rock that was too hard and needed to be cracked. I closed my eyes and let the feelings come. I let them rage inside me and I cried wholeheartedly. I sobbed and screamed until my cheeks had a layer of water and salt and my nose poured out snot like a fountain. When I finally opened my eyes it was pitch black. I looked up and could see my ceiling, but everything below it was covered in darkness. I tried to sit up, but something had taken hold of me. I struggled against it, but the feelings didn’t cease. In fact it only seemed to fuel them. “Stop it!” I screamed. “Let me go!”
The ‘shadows” started to drag me in, I kicked and screamed and clawed, but they wouldn’t relent. Eventually I could feel that my screams were sufficiently muffled and I knew at this point no one was coming to save me. The ceiling soon disappeared afterward and I felt as though I were actually falling through the darkness. It felt like hours, but it could’ve been minutes or even seconds, and I don’t know if I blacked out or was just suddenly dropped, but then I could feel a floor beneath me. It was hard and cool and felt good against my heated face. I groaned and clenched my hands. So I was at least whole and relatively unharmed, but what had happened and where was I now? I didn’t want to open my eyes for fear of what I might see, but soon enough I didn’t need to. “How is it that she came to be here?” a male voice asked.
“I don’t know, she just was,” a female voice piped in. “I mean, I saw a hole open up and then she came through and I don’t know I sort of freaked and ran to find you before I saw anything else.”
“Well, it’s a good thing you ran into all of us then,” the male voice said.
“Ah reckon, she don’t look too good!” another male voice pointed out.
“Indeed, I mean just look at her attire, simply ghastly!” said another, this one sounded more snobby or posh.
“I hope she wakes up soon, we could have a welcome to Ponyville party!” said another.
Ponyville? It couldn’t possibly be! “I honestly doubt she’ll want a party, Berry,” said the posh voice.
“Aaaawww!”
“She’ll probably want to rest and to be somewhere quiet,” a soft male voice said.
I wanted to interrupt them, but at the same time I wanted to know more. If I thought I was where I thought I was then I wanted to know exactly what they would do to me. “We don’t even know if this thing is intelligent, Butterscotch!” a rough voice said. “How do we know that it won’t attack us on sight or that it’s here for some dark and evil purpose?!”
That stung a bit, but I was determined to keep my sleeping charade up. “Come on, Blitz, she hasn’t even woken up yet!” the southern voice said. “Let’s give ‘er a chance!”
“That’s another thing, how do you know it’s a girl?!” the rough one asked.
There seemed to be a kind of stiff and awkward silence before I heard one of them clear their throat. “Oh,” said the rough one.
I tried to think about what they could’ve been alluding too and I could feel that my clothes were still on, so nothing incriminating was exposed. When I thought about it more than I should have, I tried to hold back my embarrassment when I realized that they could’ve been signaling to my breasts! I thought it was time to stop them before they got too ahead. I groaned again and shifted onto my back. I could feel their footsteps as they backed away from me. I sat up and opened my eyes slowly. Why did it feel like I was getting over a hangover? My vision was a little blurry and I felt dizzy, also my head hurt like nothing else.
Finally my vision was cleared and I realized that I was staring into the faces of technicolored ponies! Not just any ponies, the ponies! The ones I watched on Netflix, the ones I read about in fanfictions, and also watched in many fanmade animations and music videos. The My Little Pony ponies! Except they were different, they were all boys or colts! I stared at them and they stared at me and all I could think as I looked at them was Why me?!