//------------------------------// // Alex's Journal Part 1 // Story: One Tree in the Whitetail Woods // by Sketchbeam //------------------------------// 11/8/2199 Entry 51 My roommate is a stallion. I do not know what to think. Should I kick him out? That’s what my parents would have said. But according to my college friends, they would have said she is a transgender mare. I should not have gone to that college, even for the cause of the EFES. But instead I took that English class to check a requirement off thinking it would just be a regular class instead of it focusing on LGBT issues. And all of the other classes on the requirement list were full by the drop out date. Still, I made the best of my situation, even made friends. I thought I could change their minds, but voicing my disagreement with their lifestyle choices cost me their friendships. How could they abandon me! All I was doing was speaking my mind. I just wanted them to listen to me. So what about my roommate? I do not know what to do about him. My backstabbing friends would have told me to accept him and my parents would have told me to shun him. I cannot accept him but I cannot shun him either. I know from experience that if I shun him, I will become a pariah in this community, so there is nothing to do. But if he left his parents as soon as he could, it was probably because of his … illness. Maybe I could help him like I tried with my college friends, if I get his parents to come here or something, talk with them maybe. Yeah, I am going back to town and I will figure this out. 11/9/2199 Entry 52 I know why my college friends all left me when I expressed my opinions. I was not good enough friends with them. Once you reach that point, when your friends would do anything for you, that is when you can tell them anything—even things that are the truth, but they do not want to hear. I thought I had friends like that before, but Vibrant Flourish is another chance to get a friend like that. No matter how much I disagree with what he is doing with himself. This time, I have got to do this right though, because having everyone turn their backs on me was the worst feeling of my life. Not even my parents could comfort me. Yet according to my friends, they are the ones who caused all of this. What do they know? Nothing! They did not know that they were my only friends growing up. They took me to protests. They took me to the playground. They cared for me. And they are right. It is odd why others cannot agree because what is right is right—there is no middle ground. Just exceptions. I treated my college friends well because they were the right type of people even though they were different than me; they acted different than all the others of their type. But if they were exceptions, why were they so many of them? What is the point of a rule if it does not hold true most of the time? It does not make sense, really. None of it does. 12/7/2199 Entry 58 I took one of my old college textbooks out from storage a few weeks back. It is a series really. It is called Dysphoria and it is about a transgender mare living life. I have been rereading it for all the good that it did me back in college. I have also been observing my roommate. Did you know he likes reading romance novels, camping in the Whitetail Woods, and rock climbing? I did not know that. It almost makes him seem normal. When I compare my roommate to the protagonist of the book, Evening Rose, his day-to-day life (minus the drama) makes the condition of my roommate seem normal too. The more and more I observe, I see nothing exceptional about his life except of his illness. And to be honest, if it is an illness, I suppose I should not fault his behavior anymore that I should fault the behavior of a sickly child who asks for water. Why not indulge him since I know better? It is not like Vibrant calling himself a mare really affects me anyway; all it did was make me uncomfortable for a few weeks. If I have learned anything, it is that taking a gentle approach towards things you disapprove yields better results. I just need to reach that level of friendship with him. But first I need to understand him better, know the illness first. 1/17/2200 Entry 64 You know how I said that my college friends just happened to be numerous exceptions to the rule? I do not know if that is even true anymore. It is as I have said before, if there are many exceptions to a rule, the existence of the rule does not make sense anymore. After rereading more of my old textbooks again, they are confusing me. What they say makes no sense to me because there are so many people that think differently. The existence of the Equestrians for Equestria Society is proof of that. How could all of those people be wrong? How could my parents, important members of this society be wrong? How could there be so many individuals that act morally but do not believe what the Society believes in? The social hierarchy exists to teach everyone their rightful place, so that an orderly society can exist, so that everyone knows right from wrong. They are plenty of ways to violate this social hierarchy, like not knowing your place, not knowing who you are. According to my friends, they are all wrong. How could two groups with such contradictory beliefs exist when there is only one truth, one moral standard? It is the strangest thing. 2/27/2200 Entry 67 It has been a busy month. I have been delving into my textbooks like there is no tomorrow. I have even started to make a dent in the piles of books from the local library I have borrowed. I just do not understand. Why did my friends abandon me? My beliefs upset them enough so that they cut off all ties with me, but did they not understand that what they believe would be foreign to me? That I might have a different way of thinking about things? Okay, so maybe if there is not one moral standard or truth, then from what I have read, things can be relative. That means there could be multiple truths, right? Why could my friends not realize this? What right did they have to impose their beliefs unto me! They were the first friends I made since my parents.