//------------------------------// // Day Two(Ki): A Memory to Guide a Dream // Story: Awkward Conversations And Other Stories // by No one is home //------------------------------// We were well into interior of the hospital when my now quite fuzzy companion dropped and screamed in pain. I could hear bones pop in his legs and arms as his body collapsed in on itself. “Talk to him, you jerk,” the dull pink mare scowled and snapped testily, “He was your last friend on earth, and you haven’t even asked him his name!” “Dude,” I placed a hand on his… shoulder? they were shoulders a minute ago, “Stay with me man, you gotta hold it together!” “Man,” the blue fuzzy pony-man-thing squinted through the pain, “I don’t wanna be one of those rape-crazy retarded horse things!” “Just stay with me,” I talked as soothingly as I could, “I’ve got a lot of experience losing my mind, I can talk you through this. What’s your name?” “J...James,” he said between gasps, “James Jackson… friends always called me… Jimmy Jack...” “Alright,” I nodded and smiled, “Jimmy Jack, we can work with that. Hell you won the name game. That’s a pretty damn cool name. Do you have any family, Jimmy Jack?” “I got….arrgh,” his words started becoming unintelligible again and I realized I was losing him.” “Focus Jimmy Jack,” I squeezed his hand to reassure him, and realized I wasn't squeezing a hand anymore, “Stay with me. You gotta make it through this. You gotta hold it together. You have a family out there. Tell me about them.” “I gotta a brother in Afghanistan,” his pain seemed to be fading, and his eyes hadn’t taken the glazed inappropriate glee of so many of the ponies we had tried so hard to avoid, “Moms died last year. Dad when we was both kids. I got a niece and nephew… A sister in law… all in New Mexico. A few friends around the apartments I used to drink beers with. If they’re smart or lucky, they’re already headed out of town. I think it might be over. My forehead’s kinda sore…” I didn’t doubt it. I had been too focused on keeping him talking to pay any attention to the transformation itself. Now that I started to pay attention, it wasn’t any wonder his head was sore. His face was covered in blood from where his horn had apparently burst through the skin. He was covered in light blue fur, and had sprouted a silvery mane and tail, the latter having burst through his pants. “The good news dude,” I smiled a little, “Is that you are great and powerful unicorn.” “The bad, news,” Jimmy Jack scowled, “Other than I’m a goddam horse?” “Might… uh… wanna check your dangly bits,” I said awkwardly. "I’m pretty sure you're a girl horse…” “OH FUCK NO!” He began desperately pushing at his pants with his hooves, “No no no no no….” “You know this isn’t right,” Pinkamena said from behind me, what was she doing here? “Yeah, this isn’t right,” I replied over my shoulder. “You damn right this shit ain’t right!” Jimmy Jack yelled, thinking I was responding to his plight, “I just got raped by a horse until I turned into a fucking unicorn and my dick fell off!” “It normally doesn’t happen like this…” I continued to muse to myself. “What the fuck are you talking about? How fucking crazy ARE you?” Jimmy Jack demanded. “This keeps happening, over and and over,” I shook my head, “I start back in the observation cell. After four days the writing on the wall asks me where I want to go…” “I ain’t got time for this crazy shit,” the newly minted unicorn shakes it’s head, but I continue just the same. “It’s always the fourth day,” I drone on, lost in my own thoughts, “And I say I want to go to upstate New York…” “I really wish you’d stop telling that lie,” Pinkamena says with a heavy sigh and fades back into the nothing. “But it always sends me to Equestria,” at the former humans confusion I explain, “The place where these things come from, but they’re not like this there. There just like… I dunno… people…” “Okay, maybe we should have picked you up some meds,” Jimmy Jack tries to laugh it off, “Look, this shit’s enough to unhinge anybody. I think we’re near the east entrance. We should keep moving before more of those damn horse things come around. Come on...oh shit…” And of course the lights went out. Everything went quiet, and we began to hear panicked horse noises all around us. Suddenly a pink light illuminated the space in front of me and Pinkamena was there with a dull expression of impatience. “What are you doing here” I asked, honestly confused at the pink mare’s presence. “I’m not talking to liars,” she snapped and began to walk down the hall, turning when I failed to follow, “Well, come on.” “Can you even see where you’re going?” Jimmy Jack asked from behind me in a light feminine voice, “Because I can barely see you.” “I’m following Pinkie Pie,” I said simply, “She pissed, but she’s not gonna lead us wrong.” “Pinky Pie?” the unicorn questioned and then dismissed, “Fuck it, I’m following a nut-job and his imaginary friend through a hospital filled with rapist horse-monsters. I’m a magical unicorn girl now. It is what it is.” We walked in silence for a few moments, before Pinkie finally began talking in a slow careful monotone. “Of course I won’t lead you wrong,” she said sadly, “I’m mad, but that doesn’t mean I’m just gonna leave you in a place like this. I have every right to be mad. Everything you told me was a lie. And in the end you were willing to follow that lie all the way down until it killed you rather than just tell me the truth. Now you’ve made a new pony friend, and you’re telling her those same stupid lies. What’s next, the Legend of the Mohawkians?” “Okay, there’s no such thing as Mohawkians, Pinkie,” I said irritably, “I’m just a forty two year old man with a mohawk, and a taste for cheap beer and satanic imagery.” “That’s some pretty fucked up shit to lay on a mother fucker in the dark while you’re surrounded by rapist horse monsters, man,” Billy Jack said from behind me, “I hope you know that.”