Sticky Notes

by Windy Scamper

Chapter 4 : North Arrow

My day was less productive than most days. And that's saying something, considering that I barely do anything anyways.

But all day, only one thing was on my mind; the board.

The notes, the other pony, all of it flooded my mind. I mainly thought about who the other pony was. Was it a mare or a filly? What did he or she look like? What happened to them that made them suicidal?

I knew that I needed to just forget it, that they probably had already taken their life. And yet, the words of the sticky note ran through my mind. One week. One week from now, they take their life. One week from now, the other pony, whoever he or she is, will not exist anymore.

Not if I can help it.

I kept thinking about how I could stop this, when, on my way to dropping off a finished map to my boss, I noticed a display put around a cubical. I backtracked a few steps and looked at it. There were pictures of a mare smiling, and overall having fun. And there were pictures of her and her coltfriend and such, and then some messages written around it.

Ones like "We'll miss you," or "I wish you were here," and such. The odd thing is, I don't remember River Shine, this mare, ever announcing leaving the office. And when ponies leave the office, everypony knows it. A huge commotion is thrown over it, and River Shine I would especially know about; after all, she was one of my close co-workers. Before the Griffon War was beginning to break out, we would travel together and work on maps together. Even now, we would still share information and coordinates on our seperate projects.

And, not to mention, I had a small crush on River Shine...okay, a big one, but I'd given up a few months ago after she told me that she and her coltfriend were starting to get really serious.

So, in other words, I couldn't help but wonder how I didn't know she was leaving.

I kept scanning the display when I noticed one of the last messages and gasped.

I hope you're in a better place.

No. No, it couldn't be. I shut my eyes, trying to fight back the tears, not wanting to cry. She's just moving offices, she's not dead, she absolutely, is not dead...

I was knocked over suddenly, and looked up to see my boss staring me in the face. He was quite a strict stallion, and nearly everypony here was afraid of him.

"North Arrow," he said in his monotone voice.

"Yes sir," I mumbled.

"Your map better be done, because it is due in precisely one minute. Thirty seconds now, actually." He then held out his hoof, waiting for me to place my map into his hoof.

"Yes, sir. Here it is, sir," I stuttered as I pulled out the map and placed it in his hoof.

He quickly scanned over it, then shook his head. "I've seen better from you, Arrow. You've been distracted all day, and now, you've turned in sloppy work. What has gotten into?"

I gulped. What was I supposed to say? There's this pony I've been talking to, but not really, that's about to commit suicide, and even though I don't know him/her, I have to save them, and I've been trying to figure out how all day. I quickly thought up of a half-lie to get out of this situation.

"What happened to River Shine?"

My boss narrowed his eyes, looked over at the display, then stared at me with an ice cold glare. Is he suggesting that her death is my fault? I didn't even know about until three seconds ago...

"She died last night in the hospital. She had two third-degree burns on her forehooves, and had inhaled a lot of smoke in her lungs. They tried to save her, and she was making a slight recovery, but her lungs had just suffered too much damage at that point."

"Wait, there was a fire? When? What happened?"

"Her coltfriend took her to see a magic show, and the magician had no idea what she was doing during a fire trick and burned the whole place down. River's coltfriend made it out with only a few first-degrees and a second-degree burn, but he's almost recovered."

I was shocked. Not only was River gone, but he coltfriend had been selfish enough to just leave her behind in the fire. Why, if I had been there, I would have gotten her out first before myself, and she would have realized how much she loved me, and then we would have kissed under the stars...but none of that is possible now, because some stupid magician screwed up in the biggest way possible...

"Arrow, you seem shocked. Didn't you hear about the fire?"

I blinked my eyes a few times and snapped back to reality. "What? Oh, no sir, not until now. I just wish I would have been there too..."

"We all wish we could have saved her, but what's done is done." He then surveyed my current state, and added, "Arrow, why don't you take the day off, recollect your thoughts. I can fix your map for you."

I was shocked. Why was he being so generous all of the sudden? I figured I should just enjoy his generosity for now and accept it, while I still could.

"Thank you, sir. I promise, I'll be better tomorrow."

He nodded. "Go rest up, Arrow."

I walked back to my cubical, gathered up my things, and left, head hanging down. I passed River's display, and stopped. "Goodbye, River," I whispered, and then I moved on.

I could only think of one thing to do; talk to the pony. Because now, I was starting to fall into the same situation. My job had fallen down to a much lesser pay, my job sucks in general, and the mare I have been loving for nearly three years died without ever knowing I wanted to be more than friends.

For the first time, I fully understood what giving up was like, and why somepony would do it.

So I figured that I needed to talk to one pony I knew could understand me.

I made my way through Sugarcube Corner, and noticed how much darker and sadder everything seemed now that my life was dark and grey. Was this how "the pony" felt everytime they walked these streets? Was this how life felt to them each day?

I saw the board, and walked over there. Usually I would care about how other ponies would notice that I was only here for the board, but I honestly didn't care anymore. I just needed to talk to this pony, regardless of what others thought.

I knew exactly where to look for the note, and found the newly placed one.

What is the point in waiting when I am currently living a life that is not mine? I wouldn't give up so easily if it was possibly for me to be...me. But I hope you find your new life, as I tried. But my new life is not my own life, and I feel it is not right for me to go on longer pretending.
But I wish you good luck.

I read through the note, understanding the feeling of it all. I pondered what to write, when I remembered what my life was like before I found out about River Shine.

My sole purpose had been to save this pony. And maybe by doing so, I could bring some purpose to life, and save myself.

But now I faced the challenge of deciding what to write. Because I wasn't just going to explain all of this to somepony I barely knew, especially when others could read what I was saying.

What I needed to say needed to be said in a face-to-face conversation. And it needed to be soon.

And thus, I finally decided what to scribble out on my note as I took it.

A lot has happened to me lately, and I need to talk to you. For real, this time. Not through these pieces of paper. If you really are you, then if you search hard enough, you will find the date and the time., I will wait for you only thirty minutes. I believe this conversation has the potential to decided whether we live or die.

I posted the note, and then scribbled out; Thurday, 8 o' clock p.m.

Thursday. That was two days from now. That gave the other pony a full day to see this and find where I hid the date and time. Not to mention, they had the majority of Thursday as well.

Now I just had to hope that they found the meeting place and liked me enough to show up.

Author's Note:

Sorry, life hapenned, so I couldn't post a chapter for a while, so I gave you a good one! Please continue to rate and comment, and hopefully I can crank out the end of this story pretty quickly.

Also, if you like this story, after I finish this one I will be making another one! I will release a blog post on that one soon!

Comments

[The DJ Rainbow Dash]

Hi, this is a review from the Authors helping Authors group.

Name of Story: Sticky Notes
Grammar score out of 10: I'd give a solid 8 or 9.
Pros
- The OCs are well developed here, and there is reason to care for their problems. I feel bad for what both North Arrow and Windy Scamper are going through.
- The chapters flow quite nicely, and are a pleasure to read thanks to the good formatting.
- I really enjoy the overall concept of using a message type board to have the two communicate without actually knowing who the other is. Its a pretty original idea, and I found it clever and done well so far.
Cons
- Sometimes you tend to over do it when it comes to comma usage. Its quite alright to use commas and all, but don't be afraid of short sentences.
- Might be more personal preference on my part, but I would have liked some more insight into the relationship between River Shine and North Arrow. Would have made that scene of her discovering her death so much more powerful
- A couple of spelling errors. In Chapter 1 you misspelt souvenir and one other word although I can't seem to find it now. A quick spellcheck before submission does wonders
Other Notes
Overall it was enjoyable and I find a lot of promise in the story. The overall plot and ideas I can see so far are very good and I'm interesting in seeing where you'll take this. This is my first time reading and OCxOC story, so it was a pretty new situation for me actually. Just a little side thing, perhaps you could give the chapters different title names? To maybe give the reader a hint on what to expect perhaps? Just a personal preference thing
Enjoy your review! Please help me out by looking at my story: Journey to the Center of the Rainbow