//------------------------------// // 4 – Backlash // Story: Analemma // by Miller Minus //------------------------------// She was a bit of a showoff, this one. I watched from the window for her to appear right on cue, and when she did, it was a ways out there. She warped in several yards in the air, spun around in a flourish of sparks and stars, and dove headfirst into the drink. When she emerged from the water she took a hefty breath of the salted air and grinned like a fool. She started to swim back to shore for all of five seconds, but something stopped her. I was fully expecting her to bust out the letters and the stick again, but after she found the sand again and walked uphill until the water was at her stomach, she decided something different that morning. She decided to just play in the water. For over an hour, she giggled, she splashed at nothing and she even swam out to the horizon and came back again. She had a very lovely time. Good on her. I was happy. No, seriously. Totally thrilled. Well, I suppose something bugged me just a little bit. Level with me for a second. I mean, she was a princess, right? Ruler of an entire nation or whatever? Didn’t she have, I don’t know, important things to do? Even last time she was here, all that stuff with the letters—that at least seemed like it was work. I mean, she even said she had to ‘get to work’! Why was she even back here if all she wanted to do was waste time? Time! Now there’s a word she probably hadn’t a shred of respect for. I bet it wasn’t even in her vocabulary. The guards and attendants or whoever worked with her probably had to remind her of time, well, all the time! See, there were these ponies that lived in a town near my home, and I’d heard them tell lengthy stories about this mare and others like her. They always had this common theme: It must be a wonderful life, being like her. What a privilege. But I knew there was a catch, because time meant nothing to this mare. ‘Living things die,’ my mum used to tell me. ‘It’s only natural.’ But not her. No, she gets to skip the whole process. She can put things off until she’s good and ready. There’d be no sense of wishing she’d done things earlier, because she can do things whenever she wants. There’s no slow and steady march to the finish line to take up all her precious time. My mum also said that she wasn’t that different from me. She said she may not look it, but there’s more in common with her and us than we can see. What an absolute load. I barely watched her that day. I had other things to think about, like what kind of sickness gives you a cough that gets worse so slow you barely even notice it. Like what to do about having less and less energy to even get out of your own tree house. Like what was I even still doing on that dumb beach! Like where everyone was! Friends. Family. Bunch of lazy wombats. Bet they couldn’t wait to be rid of me. I slept most of that day because I couldn’t shake the feeling that my hourglass was running out. She slept most of that day because hers was bloody broken.