//------------------------------// // *100th Chapter Special* *Alternate POV* Codfish // Story: Living in Equestria // by Blazewing //------------------------------// It was the dawn of a new day. The air was slightly chilly, but the inside of my house was as warm and toasty as an oven. I was still fast asleep, my eyes dry from watching myself sleep all night. I was lying on top of my bedsheets, my head facing the end of the bed, my favorite beanie resting on my belly, and my back hooves on my pillow. My snoring stirred my beanie’s propellor, sending it spinning in opposite directions as I breathed in and out, creaking like a rusty weathervane. The ceiling was copying the early-morning sky outside, growing slowly brighter minute by minute. The room was full of the sound of my alarm clock ticking away softly, almost ready to signal the start of the day. I was standing in the midst of mountains of staples. Sometimes it was staples, sometimes it was buttons, and sometimes it was raisins. Just mountains and mountains of them. I sighed. “Just look at all these staples. The tower of mashed potatoes will be snowed in if it rains any more of them.” There was a pebble at my hoof. I gave it a kick, and it knocked against one of the staple mountains. It quivered, then collapsed, revealing a giant mustache underneath it. “Another one? Honestly, no wonder ponies always say it’s like trying to find a mustache in a staple stack...At least, I think that’s what they say. Ah well.” I trotted on, kicking my little pebble at more staple mountains, making more mustaches come out. Did they always have to be handlebar mustaches? Why not walrus or pencil? Everything vanished as my alarm clock went off, my whole bed vibrating. I gave my clock a kick. As always, that made my bed stop shaking and ringing. I stretched and yawned, my joints cracking loudly. Sitting up so that my beanie slipped off, I scratched my stomach sleepily, making a sound like a glissando across a xylophone. I then looked over at the wall housing the photographs of my bowling pals: Lyra, Bon Bon, Cheerilee, and Pearl. I smiled as my eyes roved over their faces. (Good morning, friends.) Then, I hopped off the bed and headed into the bathroom. I felt like orange juice and a cup of bread for breakfast today. As per usual, I put a drinking glass under the faucet and turned the tap, watching as fresh-squeezed orange juice poured out, filling the glass to the brim. I took a big swig of it, drinking the whole thing down in one. Ahh, that really hit the spot. Next I went to the bathtub, stepped inside, turned the faucet, and held out my cup. There was a rattle in the pipes, then a full piece of bread shot out of the showerhead, landing right in my cup. Unfortunately, it was rye bread, instead of my favorite pumpernickel. Darn. The bread was soon on its way down into my belly, while I licked the crumbs off my face, still wishing it had been pumpernickel. Then, I hopped out of the tub, rummaged in the cabinet under the sink, and pulled out my scrub-brush. I slipped it on over my hoof with the strap attached to it, hopped back into the tub, then began running the brush over my mane and coat. Some of the suds went up my nose, making me cough and sneeze. Plus, since I hadn’t used any soap yet, I hadn’t cleaned anything useful. Finally, I was scrubbed, soggy, and shiny from head to hoof. Placing the brush down, I shook myself dry, and my mane and tail got poofy again. I didn’t mind, though; I liked my hair that way. Stepping out of the shower, I headed to my wardrobe, looking for work clothes. Today was a work day, after all, and I didn’t want to be late. I never was, of course. As a matter of fact, I was always the first one to arrive, bright-eyed and ready to start a new day, while everypony else was still trying to shake off sleep, drowsy-eyed and moaning for a cup of coffee. At last, I found my silky blue dress shirt, patterned with red and yellow spots: one of my favorites. I put this on and topped my mane with my beanie, gazing at myself in the mirror set in the wardrobe door. I liked this mirror. Depending on how I looked at myself in it and what I did, the reflection changed. It was really funny! I puffed out my cheeks, and my reflection ballooned all around, looking like I’d gained 20 pounds. I sucked my tummy in, and my mirror made me look thin and scrawny, more like a deer than a pony. I gave my mane a toss, just like I saw Rarity do so often, and the mirror made me slender and curvy, with pretty eyes and a flowing, glimmering mane. I even turned around and wiggled my rump at it, and my reflection grew so large that it nearly filled it up completely, shaking back and forth like an elephant walking ahead. Feeling a bit more cheerful after doing that, I closed my wardrobe, trotted downstairs, and headed out the door.. *** I don’t know why, but no one ever talked about the Ponyville accounting offices as a fun place. I always had fun coming into work. I liked the ponies who worked there, even though they weren’t quite as good company as my bowling buddies. I liked the work, which always got my mind buzzing with numbers and jargon, and I liked the click-clicking of my typewriter. Today, like always, I was the first to arrive, the rest of the office’s employees taking up the rear, the sleepyheads. I smiled and waved as they passed be, and most of them returned it with a smile of their own. “Good morning, Screwball.” “Hello, Screwball.” It always made me happy to hear them greet me as they came in, tired though they looked and sounded. One thing I found odd, though, was the fact that they were always dressed in stuffy black or gray suit-jackets and ties. Why couldn’t they be more expressive with their outfits, like me? I’d never gotten in trouble for wearing different clothes. Once, I came into work wearing a bathrobe, and nopony said anything about it. Ah, well. It was their loss. As I sat at my desk, I saw a big pile of papers awaiting for me, and a big smile came over my face. It was going to be another full, absorbing day, riddled with lists of figures and numbers. I  pulled out, from a drawer, a pair of spectacles with red and blue lenses, ornamented with fake jewels in the frames, and fixed them on my snout. They were my work-glasses, the ones I wore when I got down to business. The trick is getting them off afterwards; you gotta yank ‘em off like a bandage Then, pulling the stack towards me and glancing at the first sheet, I set to work, my hooves clicking away at the keys. It almost sounded like I was making music! My job was something of an odd topic with my friends. They didn’t seem able to believe that I’d chosen to become a tax accountant. Lyra had told me that I’d have made a good clown, before Bon Bon shut her up with a glare. She needn’t have worried, though. I wasn’t about to compete with Bon Bon at her best skill. Pearl had said, since I like baseball as much as bowling, that I could have been a professional baseball player, while Cheerilee said I could have been a baseball coach. However, being silly and playing baseball were more like hobbies to me. I’d known, ever since I’d gotten my cutie mark, that my specialty lay in accomplishing the incomprehensible, and so I set myself to working at what many ponies were unable to make heads or tails of: taxes. It was right up my alley. My clients always had the most interesting questions (and complaints) for me to deal with, and I turned to my handy-dandy whiteboard to help spell it out for them. Today, for instance, a stuffy-looking old mare came to me to complain about a zoning regulation against owning houses shaped like marshmallows. “It’s an outrage to stifle creative tastes!” she said. “What is the world coming to when a pony isn’t allowed to accommodate herself in a domicile simply reeking with that certain je ne sais quois?” She had a good point. Who wouldn’t want to live in a giant marshmallow? Still, regulations required that I had to explain why she had to pay more for that kind of thing. She wasn’t happy, but at least she didn’t storm at me, like what always seemed to happen to poor Murphy. His luck seemed to dictate that he get the most irritable, bad-tempered clients. One of these days, he’s gonna have a nervous breakdown. I’ve been recommending the room with the extra-bouncy padding for weeks now. I played in it with Screw Loose just yesterday, and the lift you get when jumping is something else! Before lunch time, a unicorn stallion came in to complain about a new tax bracket that had just been instituted, in the event that a pony’s foal was, by some means or other, turned into a lobster. “I told my wife it was a foolish spell to meddle with, but did she listen?! Now my poor son’s having to learn how to use claws instead of his horn and hooves! Honestly, who dreams up these ridiculous taxes? What are the odds of a foal turning into a lobster?!” In my experience, not as far-off as this guy imagined. Still, I spelled it out for him as only I could, though I did have to use Spell Check for the word ‘Metanephrops’. I should get Spell a wheel of cheese as thanks later. The stallion left in a huff, taking the time to yell over his shoulder that it was distracting to squeak when I wrote. What was he talking about? I wished I got more visits from one of the nicer customers I’d helped out, like the pegasus who was super-happy when I explained a new tax break if the cloud you lived on was a nimbus. I looked at my empty desk. So boring! That was something else about my work that I noticed was different with my office chums. Most of the other accountants took almost the entire day to get through the stacks they had on their desks. They plunked and clicked away at their keyboards monotonously, mumbling figures and equations to themselves as they went. I, on the other hoof, usually had my morning stack completed by lunch time. Even when I was reading through tax code that nopony else could decipher, I always had it down exactly as it was needed, and in record time. Some ponies also took all day with just one client, while I was done with them within minutes. If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought they were hogging all the clients, but every time end-of-month tallies came up, I was always the one who lead the company. Still think it’s rigged somehow. The first few times I did this, everypony seemed really impressed, but by now they didn’t even bat an eyelid. Sometimes, though, I wished I wasn’t so quick. It didn’t leave me with much else to do after lunch but wait for sparse additions to be added to my workload, and those were finished in seconds. Still, I never complained, and by the time the clock on the wall showed 11:30, the stack had moved completely from my left side to my right, everything taken down and calculated. I yanked off my spectacles, left my desk, and trotted off to get some fresh air and lunch. Work was over, and today, I felt like something from Sugarcube Corner. *** “Next, please! Oh, sannu, Screwball! Kana lafiya?” Pinkie Pie was beaming as I headed up to the counter. I enjoyed Pinkie Pie’s company. In a lot of ways, she was like me: fun-loving, silly, fond of sweets. It had been a while since I’d come to Sugarcube Corner for lunch, so I figured I could get in a visit with Pinkie as well. I had no idea she spoke Horsa. “Ta yaya ne abubuwa a waya?” Pinkie asked. I shrugged, just to say ‘Eh, same as always’. “Same kamar yadda a kullum, jikin mutum? To, abin da zan iya samu a gare ku?” I took a good, long look at the stuff on display, then found what I was looking for. I pointed out a poppy-seed bagel to Pinkie. “A poppy iri Bagel? Lafiya! The saba baza, ya yi yawa ?” Oh, yes! I nodded eagerly. “Okie-dokie-lokie ! Wannan za a 4 ragowa!” I took off my beanie, rummaged around inside it, and took out four bits, placing them on the counter before putting my hat back on. Pinkie grabbed a bagel from the display counter, split it into its two halves, then slathered a heaping helping of strawberry cream cheese on them before handing them to me. Yummy! “Akwai ka tafi! Labari ne game lokaci na dauki hutu, ta wata hanya, don haka zan zauna tare da kai!” We both took a nearby table, me with my bagel, Pinkie with a heavily-iced cupcake. I couldn’t help laughing as Pinkie stuck her muzzle straight into the icing, slurping it up greedily and leaving some at the end of her nose. She spotted it, however, which made her go slightly cross-eyed, and she kept flicking her tongue at her nose to try and get it, not quite reaching. She was so goofy! Finally, she succeeded in getting it and gulping it down. I clapped for her, and she beamed. “Pinkie, dear!” Mrs. Cake called from the kitchen after some time. “Do you think you could lend me a hoof with these gingerbread ponies?” “Sure thing, Mrs. Cake!” Pinkie called back, then turned to me. “Ina mafi alhẽri samun faruwa , amma zan ganin ka daga baya, Screwball.” I smiled and nodded to her as she got up from her seat and trotted off to the kitchen. I finished off my bagel, got up myself, and departed from Sugarcube Corner. *** After that, I felt like some ice cream for dessert. I still had time, so I went on ahead toward the ice cream parlor. After talking with Pinkie, I’d begun to feel a little more cheerful. It wasn’t possible to sit with that pony and not feel better. All of a sudden, I felt something sticky underneath my hoof. Lifting it up, I saw a wad of chewing gum plastered to it. Gross! I tried to scrape it off, but it just seemed to stick harder than ever. I tried to go to the fountain to wash it off, but as I went, the gum started picking up loose leaves and pebbles along the ground. I tried to shake them off, but they wouldn’t go away. It made me want to scream! Instead, I just stamped my hoof down...but that was a mistake. It just so happened that somepony was walking their dog past me, and my hoof accidentally slammed down at the end of its tail. With a yelp, the dog bounded forward, dragging its owner with it by the leash, and leaving me with a big clump of dog hair to add to the yuck on my hoof. The pony dragged by his dog tripped up a mare carrying groceries, which sent apples rolling everywhere. A big fat stallion walking by slipped on them and fell rump-first onto a plank of wood, sending the bucket of paint balanced on it flying. The bucket sailed through the air and struck the middle of a billboard a sign painter had been working on. A big white blot splattered it right in the center, and boy did he look mad! He started yelling at Fatso, who had no idea what just happened. Things were bad enough as they were, so I washed off the gunk on my hoof as well as I could with water from the fountain (I wasn’t crazy enough to actually soak it in the fountain), then slunk off, before anypony guessed I’d caused all this. I wasn’t in the mood for ice cream anymore. *** Once I was out of reach of the ponies still clamoring over what just happened, I calmed down again. I still had some time to waste before the next item on my agenda. Maybe I’d check in on Lyra and Bon Bon, see how they were doing. Bon Bon was a funny clown, and Lyra was always talking about the candies she made for everypony. I didn’t even know clowns made candy. I loved candy, but my weight always stayed the same no matter what I ate. Well, except that one time I ate a single hay-fry, and came home weighing a ton. I had to use 3 beanies to get around till I lost the weight. Never found out where it went to, though. “Screwball! Hello!” Ah, there was Bon Bon now, with a big smile on her face and a pair of saddlebags slung at her sides. “How are you today?” Bon Bon asked. “I hope you’re excited for bowling tonight.” Bowling. Right. I nodded, though half-heartedly. She looked slightly taken aback. “Don’t you like coming to bowling?” Uh oh. I think I hurt her feelings. I nodded more energetically. I did like it, really. I loved bowling! But… “You’re still worried about something going crazy, aren’t you?” asked Bon Bon. “Because of what they say?” She read me like a map. I nodded. She put a foreleg around my shoulders. “Screwball, you shouldn’t listen to what everypony says. You do not just cause havoc wherever you go, and you’re definitely not a troublemaker. All of those things were just accidents. It wasn’t your fault that cart of carrots went rolling down the hill road, or the petals on Daisy’s sunflowers just burst off. Nothing but accidents and circumstance, Screwball, so don’t let those bog you down. You’re still a good pony and a good friend.” I swear, sometimes Bon Bon was as sweet as her candy. The way she put it made me feel a whole lot better. I finally smiled, which made her smile too. “Atta girl,” she said, giving me a squeeze. “I’ve got good news, too. I talked with Big Macintosh, and he’s inviting Dave to come to the alley. Won’t it be interesting to meet a real human?” The human? I didn’t know humans bowled. Now I was interested in meeting this ‘Dave’. I thought I’d seen him walking around once or twice with Pinkie Pie, kinda like a big monkey with clothes on. “Well, I’ll see you tonight, ok?” I nodded, and Bon Bon trotted off on her way, while I went on my own way, with a new spring in my step. *** It was that time of day again: my favorite time next to being at the office. Feeling tingly with glee all over, I headed off toward Ponyville Hospital, cuz a day wasn’t complete without visiting my friend, Screw Loose. As always, Nurse Sweetheart was sitting behind the front desk when I came in, and she smiled as I stepped up. “Well, good afternoon, Screwball,” she said. “Come to see Screw Loose?” I nodded eagerly. “Oh, she’ll be pleased to see you,” said Nurse Sweetheart. “Nurse Snowheart says she’s getting much better these days. At least she’s stopped barking at all hours. You know the way, dear.” I trotted on past the desk and down the hall. I knew the way to Screw Loose’s ward by heart, having visited her many times before. I liked Screw Loose; she was affectionate, energetic, and was amazing at impressions, even though the only one she ever did was a dog. Unfortunately, this was why she was in the hospital, and she’d been there for months already. What was even worse was that, as far as I knew, I was the only one who ever visited her. She needed a good friend, and luckily, I was just such a friend. Some ponies had asked if we were related, but we’re not. All we had were similar names, so I didn’t know why else anypony would draw that conclusion. I pushed open the door to Screw Loose’s ward, and there she was, lying on her bed, wearing her usual white jacket. She was staring up at the ceiling, but she turned her head over when she heard the door. The instant she realized I’d come in, her face lit up like Celestia’s sun, and she hopped up into a sitting posture. She held out a hoof, and I clacked my own against hers. It was part of our usual greeting. I climbed up onto the bed to sit beside her, and no sooner had I done so than Screw Loose flung her hooves around me, nuzzling me from under my chin. Smiling, I gave her a big hug in return, then released her to get a good look at her. Her mane was less messy than usual, and she wasn’t panting like a dog this time. She still looked as eager and curious as a puppy, though. Nurse Sweetheart had been right when she said she was improving. I put a hoof to her shoulder, my way of asking how she was. In answer, Screw Loose picked up a slate and bit of chalk sitting at her table, then started scrawling in a way that set the slate squeaking and screeching. I couldn’t help giggling; the sound tickled my ears. When Screw Loose was finished, she held up her slate, which read, in clumsy letters, ‘I FEEL GREAT’. I smiled at her, then held up a hoof to make sure I had her full attention. I took off my beanie, held it upside-down in my hoof, reached inside it with the other, and pulled from it a bouquet of pansies. Screw Loose looked delighted, and without further ado, devoured the whole bunch. It made me so happy to see her happy, munching her flowers, petals sticking to her lips. After that, the two of us just sat there, side by side, Screw Loose nestled against my side. We never really talked, and Screw Loose never spoke anyway, so words weren’t needed. It hurt my heart to think such a sweet, affectionate pony had to stay confined to this hospital with little chance of visitors, all on account of liking to make dog impressions. What was Equestria coming to? Much too soon for my liking, Doctor Stable came by to usher me out. Now, I didn’t dislike the doctor, but I couldn’t help feeling annoyed with him whenever he cut my visits to Screw Loose short. Nevertheless, I supposed he knew best, being a doctor, and I ought to head to bowling anyway, so I gave Screw Loose a hug goodbye. She hugged me back, adding an extra squeeze that made my heart melt a little. Then, I hopped off the bed and headed off. However, as I was going, I heard Dr. Stable telling Screw Loose, in a kind voice, “You’ve got a wonderful friend, Screw Loose.” Now that made me feel warm and toasty inside. *** It was nighttime, and almost time for bowling, to boot. Coming home, I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth before dinner. I took out my tube of toothpaste, squirted some into my mouth, rolled it around, then spit it back out. I gave my mirror a toothy smile, showing perfectly white pearly whites. Even Minuette was jealous of my smile. She never said so, but I know better. For dinner, I made myself a bowl of salad from the shower, with fresh dressing from the sink. Vinaigrette tonight. Shame; I was hoping for Thousand Island. Ah well. At least the grape juice from the faucet was good. Once that was taken care of, I was ready to head off for the alley. I gave one last look at my wall of photos, bearing the images of my best friends, smiling at me from their frames. “See you soon, everypony,” I said, wondering where that humming sound came from. Then, I blew a raspberry to the ceiling. With a short raspberry of its own, the bedroom light winked out, and I left the room. I was about to meet this human everypony had been talking about for the past few days. I wondered what he was like. I wondered...what he’d think of a pony like me.