A lonesome man fast walked down the empty sidewalk of his home city’s downtown streets, he felt the heavy pitter-patter of rain fall down on his umbrella. His destination was lit up by a street lamp, the dull glow from the light created something like a spotlight down on the simple covered and likely dry bus stop. His swift walk turned into a light jog when the thought of finally having some better cover over his head from this god forsaken rain came over him. As he jogged down the sidewalk he mistakenly stepped into a large puddle, the resulting splash soaked his right pant leg. The man cursed but kept going, no sense in fretting over something that was going to be washed when he got back home anyway.
The man felt immense relief flood over him as he finally stepped under the bus stop’s roof. He felt lucky, despite the fact he was caught by surprise from the sudden and heavy downpour, that at least the rain was falling in the opposite direction of the open end of the stop. The man sighed and folded his umbrella back up, there was no sense in shaking it out, it would only get wet later anyway. He heard a small noise from his right and turned his head to see what it was, when he looked over he honestly wasn’t surprised to see a homeless man sleeping on the bench. These were tough times, and not everyone would get out of it unscathed. And some had it worse than him.
He felt pity for the homeless man before him. The man himself had a well enough paying job working at an office building. A simple cubical farm with rows upon rows of others just like him, all grinding the day away with little in the way of fulfilling dreams. A depressing reality it was, and it was thanks to that reality that he felt the need to tune out the world and just think about what it would be like to live out his many childhood dreams.
“You a dreamer?”
The office worker jumped at the sudden inquiry coming from what he supposed was the sleeping man. He looked down at the man on the bench, who had now rolled over on his back and cracked open a single tired eye, he was covered in dirty clothes that had rips, tears, and an odd stain here and there. The office worker didn’t answer as he studied the homeless man before him. He had a sleepy expression on a face that could be considered very handsome, and looked oddly dry considering the downpour around them.
“You a dreamer?” The homeless man asked again, this time with the barest hint of annoyance at having to repeat himself.
The office worker blinked at the question, it was an odd one in his mind. He answered the man back, “Yeah, I suppose you could say that. I mean, everyone dreams right?” Well that was not strictly true, there are those out in the world who don’t dream at all, but they are a rarity.
“Those are one kind of dreams, but I wasn’t asking about those.” Yawned the homeless man.
The office worker considered his statement, if he was not asking about the kind of dreams you’d have when you fall asleep at night, then he could be asking a more philosophical question. Did he have dreams? For all intents and purposes he did and always will. From the time of his early childhood when he dreamed of being some heroic firefighter, to his teenage years of some of his favorite superheroes, movie stars and characters, and… more private ones of his favorite actresses, the list went on. Even now in his adult years he would still lay in bed, or stand in the shower, and just dream of what his life could’ve been like had he chose to go down any other paths.
With an answer in mind the office worker nodded at the homeless man, “Yeah, you could call me a dreamer.”
The homeless man hummed in thought and the office worker thought that was the end of the conversation. An odd conversation coming from a sleepy homeless man at a bus stop, but the office worker paid little mind to that fact. Instead he opted to try and shaking some water off of his soaked leg. It was to little effort as the continuing rain managed to make a sizable puddle in front of the bus stop.
The air was quiet between the office worker and the homeless man for a few minutes as one waited for the bus to come. Eventually the homeless man spoke up once more, “We’re all dreamers to some extent. But many people out there never get to realize their dreams. Sad don’t you think?”
The other man couldn’t help but agree, he muttered his agreement as he thought about what he said. There was still silence choking the atmosphere, and so the office worker decided to ask the homeless man a question. “My name is Daniel, what’s yours?”
The ghost of a smile adorned the homeless man’s face as Daniel looked down at the prone form. “I don’t really have a name, but for now just call me ‘The Dreamer’.”
Daniel rose an eyebrow, it was an odd ‘name’ to call someone. Odder still was the fact that in this day and age, or really any day and age, someone didn’t have a name. Even a homeless man would have a name, but Daniel simply shrugged and brushed it off. For all he knew it could just be some odd quirk the man before him had.
Daniel figured that was the end of their conversation, but ‘The Dreamer’ didn’t seem to think so.
“Off the top of your head, what dream of yours would you like to be turned into reality? I can make it come true, at the small cost of taking you from this world and placing you into another.” Said The Dreamer.
Daniel snorted. There were many dreams Daniel would’ve wanted realized into his reality. But he knew nothing could come of this, placing someone into a different world was unheard of. Magic and such things like that didn’t exist beyond fantasy and great feats of science like that belonged to Sci-Fi. So Daniel went for one of the more ‘off the rails’ kind of answer as he replied, “In all honesty? I’d love to be Zeus, King of the Gods. Greek mythology, or just mythology of any kind, has always been a favorite pastime of mine.”
The homeless man chuckled, “Zeus then huh?”
Daniel smirked back at him. “Yeah, kinda childish eh?”
The Dreamer shook his head, “Not at all. I think it’s natural for anyone of any age to want to be someone or something else. Especially if it’s being a higher power.” He paused to let what he said sink in, the storm raged onward growing increasingly in power. “So, how about it? Want to be Zeus?”
Daniel laughed as the rain grew even heavier, nearly encasing the street in complete darkness despite the lamps, “Yeah. I’d love to be Zeus. Whisk me away.”
The Dreamer smiled at him, “As you wish.”
A particularly loud clap of thunder shook the small bus stop, lightning flashed in the sky and illuminated the surroundings. Daniel looked into the sleepy eyes of The Dreamer in that instant, they almost looked to be glowing a soft blue. Daniel didn’t get a chance to think much of that as lightning flashed once more, shooting down from the sky in an impossible arc. The lightning dodged around the roof of the bus stop, coming in through the opening and striking Daniel in the chest. He knew no more.
“And so, Zeus fed his father a mixture of mustard and wine, which caused him to gorge up his siblings. After that-”, Mr Doodle was interrupted mid sentence as the final bell of the day rang. High-schoolers rushed to shove things into their backpacks and finally head back home after a long day of school, the fact that it was a Friday made the chaotic frenzy messier.
Mr Doodle raised a finger into the air and called out to the mass of students trying to force themselves out the door, “Don’t forget to study for the quiz next Monday! It’ll be over all we talked about today!”
Sunset Shimmer idly noticed her teacher sit back at his desk and finish a few papers as she slowly packed her backpack. She was not in any sort of rush, she was going to meet her friends in the music room and get together before heading to Sugarcube Corner anyway.
“Hurry up Sunset! We’re gonna be late!” Urged Rainbow Dash as she stood by the door.
Sunset rolled her eyes as she stuffed the last of her school supplies into her bag before getting out of her seat and walking to her friend, “Late for what? We’re just getting together before going to eat sweets. What’s the rush anyway?”
“Sugarcube corner has their yearly Zap Apple smoothies going on right now! I don’t want to miss out on them! They get out of stock really quickly!” Rainbow was practically jogging in place just outside the classroom door as Sunset finally crossed the threshold.
“They can’t be that good.” Sunset remarked as the two walked down the slowly diminishing crowd of students.
“Trust me, once you have one you’ll never want another smoothie again.” Rainbow said as they turned a corner. They were forced to stop short as Rainbow bumped into the assistant gym teacher.
“Oof!” Rainbow grunted. She looked up at the large red man as he glared down at her. “Sorry Mr Tirek.”
He didn’t say anything as he continued to stare at Rainbow, narrowing his eyes as he seemingly, from Sunset’s perspective at least, gave her a critical once over. After a moment he simply gave Rainbow the evil eye and continued his trek down the school’s corridor. Sunset and Rainbow stared at the man before looking back at each other.
Sunset pointed a thumb in his general direction. “What’s up with him?”
Rainbow just shrugged and looked nonchalant, or at least tried to, “No idea. Now c'mon, we gotta hurry!” She quickly ran down the hall to the music room area just on the opposite side of the school, occasionally waving frantically at Sunset, as if it would make her move all that much quicker.
Sunset looked at the multicolor haired girl curiously as she slowly disappeared from sight, she rubbed her chin with a finger as she thought over what just happened. As far as she knew Mr Tirek, or as some of the students call him, Mr T-Rex, was just another teacher here at school. He never showed any kind of hostile interest like that before.
“Weird,” Sunset softly said outloud, finger still on her chin.
Sunset hurried down the hallway to where she knew the other girls were at, perhaps not as fast as Rainbow but she was quick enough to get there in a respectable time-frame. She stopped just outside the door when she heard an interesting conversation coming from the room. Sunset pressed her ear against the door and listened in, curiosity piqued, “It’s Mr T-Rex. He’s the one.” Said the voice that was unmistakably Rainbow Dash, she sounded completely sure of herself but for what Sunset didn’t know.
“Are you absolutely sure darling?” That voice was certainly Rarity.
“Yeah! He gave me this really intense look when I bumped into him by accident.” Replied Rainbow.
“Well, it could just be the fact ya bumped into him Dash.” Said Applejack.
“I said I was sorry!” Rainbow said, sounding mildly annoyed now. She groaned and after a moment said, “Look, just trust me on this one. The way he looked at me… it was evil, like he knew exactly what I was, what we are. He can probably smell all of our scents! For all we know he could be grabbing some buddies!”
“‘What we are? Smelling scents? Just what on Earth is going on?” Sunset thought.
“Buddies don’t sound very good…” Mumbled Fluttershy.
“Exactly! I say we just take him out right here and now!” Yelled Rainbow.
“Now wait just a second! We can’t just rush in without knowing what we’re dealing with!” Exclaimed Rarity.
“What?! Take him out?! Is she planning on… and Rarity isn’t going against that?!” Sunset Shimmer didn’t get to continue her horrified thought process as the door swung open and she fell face first down on the floor. Sunset looked up and saw the face of a surprised Rainbow Dash. She looked forward to see the same expression matched on each of her friends.
After a few moments of silence Applejack swallowed and asked, “Uh, sugarcube. How much did you hear?”