I wake up feeling quite refreshed. I try thinking it was nothing but a dream, but there’s a nagging feeling that everything that happened last night actually happened. In the film Inception, Leonardo DiCaprio said, “Dreams feel real when we’re in them, but it’s only until we wake up that we realize that something was actually strange.”
I fully agree with this. But nothing felt strange about this “dream.” I can remember every little thing about it. The taste of my tea, the cold of the rain, the warmth of the fire, and Cadance’s soft fur. It really makes me glad that it was real, because despite my comfort in living alone in my house, it does feel nice to have company occasionally, even if company is a pair of unicorns from a different world.
One would think that having a bunch of unicorns in my house would bring out the worst in me and make me feel quite stressed. On the contrary, these ponies are the most interesting thing in my life since my dad died. Maybe that’s why I was so comfortable with talking to them. I certainly didn’t want them to feel scared in the presence of a strange alien creature, but there’s something more to my ease around them than just that.
Last night, I learned that there’s a whole other world beyond my own, inhabited by equines of supposed myth; two of which are sleeping in my parents’ old bedroom. I’ve always had thoughts about the possibilities of different worlds, and it certainly helped the blow of two otherworldly inhabitants coming into my life like they did. The thing about it was, it felt like I was supposed to be unafraid by them. During our conversation, it was like they were emanating an aura around them that let me know that they meant no harm. It’s like my mind could instinctively trust them.
I think I’m going to leave the shop closed today. There’s still a lot about our world that they’d love to know about I’m sure, and I can’t let them be alone in my house with all of the different things in my world that must be foreign to them. Then again, I’m not sure what was foreign to them. They didn’t explain much about the technologies of their world; maybe their technology is more advanced than ours. Now I have more questions again. I can hardly wait for them to wake up again.
I go downstairs to pour myself a glass of milk, tiptoeing past my parents’ old room to prevent waking Armor and Cadance up. I walk quietly down the stairs and into the kitchen. It seems that for as quiet as I hoped to be, I’m not quite quiet enough. I hear the bedroom door open. Outside comes Shining Armor. He looks to be treading quietly, hoping to not wake Cadance. I can see that his eyes are red.
Was he tired or was he crying?
He doesn’t seem to notice me as he makes his way to the fireplace. As he lays down, he finally looks in my direction. My appearance gives him quite a scare. I put my arms up and tell him that I’m not going to hurt him.
“Are you alright?” I ask.
Shining Armor sniffs.
Yep. He’s been crying.
“What’s the matter?” I soon realize that’s a stupid question and decide to be more direct. “You miss your friends and family, don’t you?”
Shining Armor’s tears begin to fall again after I betray his emotions. I walk over to him and sit next to him. I try to stroke his mane in an effort to make him feel better, but the stallion still cries.
“I’m scared, Ian,” says Armor. “I may never see them again. I’m stuck in a strange world taking solace from an alien.”
Ouch.
I ask him about Cadance.
“She let everything out last night. I hope she didn’t wake you.”
Now, I’m feeling like a jerk. I was happily asleep in my bed while my two guests were scared and alone.
“I’m sorry,” I say, “I was sound asleep. Please believe me when I say that I would have tried to help you if you were feeling scared. I’d know I’d be if I was in your situation, even more so. Unlike me, you and Cadance have familiar arms to cry into. I would have been all on my own if I was in your situation.” These words help Shining Armor a little bit, but he’s still sad, and rightfully so.
“Listen,” he says, “I appreciate all that you have done for us, but we don’t want to be a burden on you. I’ll get Cadance and we’ll leave to go find help.”
“Where do you think you’ll go?”
“I don’t know. But Cadance and I agreed that we would be happier trying to make progress on getting back home than causing you any more trouble.” I rest my hand on the side of Armor’s neck. Like Cadance, his fur is also soft.
“No,” I say. “Your being here has really brightened my spirits. I know that you have friends and family to get back to, but I won’t be able to feel comfortable knowing that you’re out there looking for help that may or may not come.”
“What are you telling me?”
“I’m saying that if you wish to stay here until help finally arrives, I would not object to that. Mi casa es su casa.”
“What?”
“My house is your house.”
Shining Armor’s smile comes on. He nuzzles his head into my chest as I gently hug his neck.
“Thank you,” he says. “You really are a true friend.”
Hearing our conversation, Cadance comes down the stairs shortly after. Shining Armor tells her about my proposition to let them stay, which I confirm for extra clarity. She becomes excited and wraps her arms over my shoulders and putting the bottom of her head on my back. I return the embrace.
“Who wants breakfast?” I ask.
I ask Cadance about the diet of a pony from her world, namely what one would eat for breakfast. She says that a good breakfast can include pancakes, potatoes, fruit salads, basically anything a human would eat that wasn’t meat (minus eggs, strangely). I don’t want to tell them about the diet of a human… yet. I won’t tell them before breakfast for fear of having them lose their appetite, nor will I tell them afterwards for fear of making them sick to their stomach. If the question is popped, I will then discuss it. For now, I have to make a nice breakfast for my new friends.
“How does eggs and pancakes sound?” I ask.
“That sounds awesome,” states Shining Armor.
“We like our eggs scrambled,” says Cadance.
I acknowledge her request with a smile and nod. I begin heating the two pans for pancakes and eggs. Using almost all of the eggs I had in my fridge, I mix five in a bowl with some milk, salt, and pepper. I then crack three more eggs into a bowl of flour, sugar, and milk with some cinnamon for the pancakes. I could have used the pre-made batter mix to make it easier, but if the mare was really a princess, she would get better than Hungry Jack.
I pour three medium sized pancakes onto the hot pan. As the pancakes cook, I cut up a mixture of strawberries and kiwis for a nice little fruit salad. I flip the pancakes, revealing a wonderfully golden brown top. I cut the remaining strawberries and kiwi into a bowl. I put each of the finished pancakes on a plate for the three of us. I pour the egg mixture into the other pan. Next, I make three more pancakes in the original pan. I begin stirring the eggs until they coagulate into yellow, fluffy mounds. I flip the next round of pancakes, which look as perfect as the first.
I give the eggs another good stir, and then I stack the next round of pancakes on the first round. I then push the finished eggs from the pan to the plates. Butter and syrup has been placed on the dining room table where Cadance and Armor are sitting. I hand my guests their plates and put the fruit salad on the table. As they put their syrup and butter on the pancakes, I grab my plate and refill their cups of orange juice.
“I never really got an answer,” says Armor, “what kind of creature are you?”
“I’m what is known as a human.”
“Heeooman?”
“Exactly.”
“Are you creatures vegetarian too?” questions Cadance.
Darn. I was hoping to avoid this.
I don’t know what to do. I either could delay the inevitable until the end of the meal, but if it was to be so disturbing that it would require a wait for the answer, then I would certainly ruin breakfast with their worry. I act in a spur of the moment.
“I’m an omnivore,” I admit.
I picked my poison and was prepared with the worst. As expected, Cadance and Armor stop eating and look at me with worried looks on their faces.
“You eat meat?” gasps Armor.
“Not pony meat, I promise you.”
"What kind of meat then?”
I didn’t know how to answer this either. I run the risk of admitting that I eat beef, pork, fish, and poultry, all animals that could be sentient in their world. I knew that if I tried denying anything, they would certainly find the package of hot dogs or deli turkey in my meat drawer in the fridge. Seeing no better alternative, I tell them the truth.
There is a bit of agonizing silence. I thought of saying that the animals here aren’t sentient, but that would just come off as an excuse. Cadance begins to bow her head.
“Fine,” sighs Cadance, a bit harshly. She then gets really close to my face, causing me to sweat a little, but she still talks quite calmly. “I can understand that your kind has meat in their diet, but please understand that it pains me to see the meat of any animal be devoured by another. Where we come from, all of those animals you said are all sapient like us; it would be like watching a friend of yours being eaten. If I can ask you just one more favor, please promise me that you won't eat meat in my presence. okay?"
I knew it.
I can certainly empathize with her and have no reason to be angry at her. If I were to be sent to a place where it's inhabitants ate dogs, cats, or any other animal that could be considered a human's companion, I wouldn't feel comfortable around them either. I decide to take the civil approach.
“You have my word," I state, raising my hand up like a boy scout.
Cadance sits back down and continues her meal.
I need to get out of the house to clear up some of the tension.
“I need to leave,” I say.
“Where are you going?” asks Shining Armor.
I respond, “I need to put a notice on my shop telling them I’m closed for the day.”
“What for?”
“I want to give you guys a tour of my house so you can be more acquainted with what goes on here, and I don’t want you two here alone in my house while I’m out with all of this technology here.”
“Wait,” queries Cadance, “this isn’t about breakfast, is it?”
“Partially,” I admit, “but you had every reason to be frightened. If I was in your shoes, I’d be wary of me too.”
“I’m not frightened. A little disturbed and disgusted sure, but you promised that you wouldn’t eat meat here. As long as you keep that promise, I won’t be scared of you.”
I couldn’t believe her. I just admitted that I was practically a barbarian, and yet she still accepts me as a friend that she can trust. Now it’s my turn to hug her. She jumps a little at my action, but my tender grope lulls her back into ease.
“Thank you for still trusting me,” I whisper in her ear.
She pats my back with my hoof and says, “Yeah. No problem.”
As I’m walking out the door, I remember something.
“Oh right,” I state, “I should also go to the store. If I’m going to have two more mouths to feed, I’m going to need to get some groceries. Is that okay?”
“Sure thing,” responds Shining Armor.
“Please don’t do anything dumb while I’m gone okay?”
With that, I leave the trust of my house to two unicorn ponies, getting in my car and going.
I first stop at my shop. I go to the desk and begin writing my note. I merely write that my house is having electrical problems due to the previous night’s storm and that I needed to be at my house while a technician fixes the problem. Easy. As I’m writing the note, I look up for a second. I notice the girl from last night pacing outside the entrance.
She has to know I’m in here. But I can’t just ignore her or shoo her away. I suppose if I let her wander the store for a few minutes, that wouldn’t be hurting anything.
I then turn the lock on the door, open it and let her inside.
“Hi,” I say.
“Hey,” she answers back.
“I’d love for you to stay, but I’m actually closing the shop today.”
“Really? What for?”
“My house is freaking out because of the storm last night, so I need to hang out there while a technician fixes it.”
“That’s cool. I was just going to buy some strings and be on my way.”
Wait, she actually wants to buy something today?
“Strings?" I query, "What kind?”
“For my bass.”
“A bass? What kind of bass, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“A Rickenbacker Model 4004L Laredo.”
“Nice bass that is."
“Yeah. It belongs to my dad, but I’m really the only one that uses it, so it technically belongs to me.” I open the back of the glass display case and pick a set of strings that would best suit a Rickenbacker.
“These are some of the best strings I have available,” I state, “but they are a bit pricey.”
“I don’t mind,” she answers with a shake of her head.
“Alright then,” I say, ringing her up. “That will be $38.24.” She hands me a fifty from her wallet
“Keep the change,” she says.
“Really?” I reply.
“Well, all I usually do is come in here and fiddle with the instruments, so I figured this was worth your trouble.”
“It was no trouble at all. Please, let me give you your change.”
“Okay," she groans, "fine.”
I activate the cash register, put the fifty dollar bill in its proper spot, and take out $11.76. As I turn to hand the change to the girl, all I see is her walking out the door and down the street.
“Well,” I sighed. I put the eleven dollars under the drawer and pocket the 3 quarters.
I lock the front door back up and place the "Closed" sign on the door. I turn off the lights and lock the back door. My next stop is the grocery store. I always like shopping at the Jewel-Osco because I can always go after work since it’s on my way home. Plus, sometimes I can grab a movie from the Redbox before I shop. I don’t think it’s time to introduce Shining Armor and Cadance to movies just yet. I’ll wait until they become more accustomed to this world.
Once I get inside the store, I grab a cart and spend a good portion of my time in the produce section. Ponies that I know like apples, so I make several bags of those. I also grab some lettuce for salads. I also would like to make something special for my guests, so I get the ingredients to make my tomato salsa: eight tomatoes, two red onions, six jalapenos, a bunch of cilantro, and two limes. I have plenty of garlic back at home since I use it in a large amount of my cooking. With the salsa in mind, I decide to get some peppers, a sweet onion, and tortillas to make vegetarian fajitas for dinner tonight.
I then head to the canned vegetables section for black beans and then to the dairy section for cheddar cheese and sour cream. Another reason I shop at Jewel is because they have the absolute best fajita marinade on the shelves. It’s in a rectangular plastic bottle with a blue label with gold borders and a drawing of a desert; you can’t miss it. I pick up a bottle of that. While I’m at it, I pick up some more limes.
As you can tell, I’m a very haphazard shopper, never combing through an aisle one by one. I just get what’s on my mind. Then I remember something. I haven’t had cucumber sandwiches in a long time (I rest my case). I pick out a couple of cucumbers from produce, a couple more tomatoes, and some carrots for the salads. I then go to the deli for some swiss cheese, then for croutons, parmesan cheese, and dressings (I got italian and raspberry vinaigrette) for the salad, and some white and rye bread for my cucumber sandwiches.
Lastly, I go to the liquor aisle for some Budweiser Lime-a-Rita’s and beer (who knows? Maybe they’ll like it. If not, more for me). The lines at self-checkout are always non-existent and take less time, which makes me wonder why no one goes there. In about five minutes, I ring up all of my items and bag them. I’m finally able to get into my car and drive back home to hopefully not find my house in a state of total disarray.
As I walk into the house with the groceries, I find Shining Armor and Cadance cleaning my house.
“Oh hi, Ian,” calls Shining Armor, “let me get those for you.”
He levitates both bags to the kitchen with his magic.
Man, I’m never going to get used to that.
“Are you…” I begin, “…cleaning my house?” I ask.
“Well, just this floor anyways,” chimes Cadance.
“I figured since you are being nice enough to let us live here indefinitely, we’d help clean up for you," answered Shining Armor.
“That’s very nice of you," I speak, "but you might as well leave the kitchen be. I’m going to make dinner right now.”
“Dinner at eleven in the morning?”
“It needs to marinade.”
“What does?”
“I got peppers and a bunch of other things. We’re making vegetarian fajitas.”
Shining Armor helps me unpack my grocery bags when he asks, “What’s a fajita?”
“Fajitas, in our case at least, is grilled onions and peppers in a tortilla. I’ll also be making some fresh salsa to go with them.”
“That sounds really good,” says Cadance with a bright smile.
“Just let me chop and marinate these veggies and we’ll begin that tour, how does that sound?”
“Great,” call the two in tandem.
“You can go rest now. Thank you for all your work.”
They decide to go to the living room and lie on the couch. I take my iPad out of my cabinet and switch it to my list of Santana songs. I like listening to music while cooking; it puts me in a whole other mood. However, the music I listen to depends on the meal I’m cooking, in this case, Spanish, so Santana seems fitting. Oye Como Va by Santana comes on. The music instantly alerts Cadance and Shining Armor. They walk into the kitchen and look at my tablet in confusion.
“Hey Ian,” wonders Shining Armor, “where’s that music coming from?”
I explain to him my iPad and how it can play music electronically though files known as MP3s.
“We still use records back home,” Cadance replies. “How many songs can that hold anyways?”
“Well, it’s a thirty-two gigabyte machine, so I’d say about twenty-four-hundred songs.”
Shining Armor’s mouth can’t help but drop, causing me to giggle. “Alright,” I laugh, “Please let me get back to work so we can start the tour." The two ponies walk back wordlessly.
After about fifteen minutes of slicing peppers and onions into a bowl, I pour the marinade over them. Once I put the bowl into the fridge, I notice that my meat drawer was replaced with the fruits and vegetables that I just bought.
They must have cleaned me of all of my meat. It’s best I don’t bring it up. Plus, if they're going to live here indefinitely, it would've gone bad anyways.
I call Shining Armor and his wife to the living room. It’s time to begin my tour.
Having been acquainted with the middle and top floors, I show them the more foreign places of the house. I begin by showing them the bathroom, to which Shining Armor responded he figured out already, causing my face to turn bright red. I tell them that they can use my shower if needing to be cleaned.
I take them out to the back deck, which they seem to like, as it gives them a nice view of the forest and valley. On the back deck, I show them the grill where I’d cook tonight’s dinner. Out on the other side, I show them the Jacuzzi, where they can go any time to relax.
Once that’s done, I take them to the best room (in my opinion) in the house: my basement. It was arguably much bigger and better furnished than most of the other rooms in the house. The basement was separated by the stairway leading to it. On one side, there was a big screen TV with a Blu-Ray player, a shelf with a collection of movies, a few couches around the TV, and a small bar.
On the other side is where I keep all of my instruments. Hanging on the wall is around five six-stringed and five bass guitars. In the back center was my drum set. To the right of the drums was an eighty-eight keys, state-of-the-art keyboard. Finally, on the left of the drum set was a peculiar looking instrument. It was simply a large fretboard with ten strings and a diagonal shaped pickup at the bottom.
“What kind of instrument is that?” observes Cadance.
“It’s called a Chapman stick,” I answer. “This was my father’s choice instrument. All you do is tap the strings and they make the sound. Watch.”
I plug the machine into an amp and turn it on. I begin playing the opening riff to Rush’s Xanadu on the right side of the instrument.
“The lower strings are for bass.”
I play the bass solo from Dream Theater’s Metropolis Pt. 1 on the left side, dazzling Cadance and Shining Armor.
“The point of the instrument is to play both guitar parts and bass parts at the same time."
I play Stash by Phish using both sides of the instrument. The two, again, were impressed. Strangely, the concept of electricity didn’t seem to be an issue with these two. They’ve seen me flip lights on and, just now, to turn on my amp and play my instrument, but they don’t say anything.
Perhaps they have it as well? I’d like to ask them about that, but maybe during our salsa appetizer.
I head back up the stairs after putting my instrument away.
“Wait,” cries Shining Armor, “aren’t you going to play some more?”
“Perhaps,” I respond, “but right now, I need to make salsa.”
Recipe for my "Famous" Salsa:
4 On-The-Vine Tomatoes (stems removed
3 Jalapeno Peppers, seeded
1 Large Red Onion, peeled
1-3 Cloves of Fresh Garlic, peeled
Juice of 1 Lime
Fresh Cilantro to taste
Salt to taste
1/2 teaspoon Lime Zest (optional)
1. In electronic food chopper, add tomatoes, jalapenos, onion, cilantro, and garlic and chop until all vegetables are chopped equally. The size of the pieces will be very small, so you could say that this is more of a picante recipe. If you don't own a food chopper, dice or mince tomatoes, jalapenos, and onion and mince cilantro and garlic.
2.Add chopped vegetables and spices into container which can be sealed.
3. Add lime juice (and lime zest, if applicable) to container and stir until fully mixed.
4. Add salt, stirring until mixed.
5. For best results, store in fridge overnight for flavors to meld.
