Goodbye, Everypony...

by UniqueSKD

My Last Words (Looking for Work)

If I thought school life was bad - and trust me, it was - then going out into the big wide world was like jumping head-first into the pits of Tartarus.

Of course, I didn't know that yet. I had only just graduated from that Luna-be-cursed school, no friends by my side and a lot of bad memories. And the worse part that neither the teachers nor my parents knew anything about it. That was my own fault, since I could have, should have, said something. But it was too late now, and it was no longer a problem I was concerned with. I was out of that hellhole, and I now needed to find my place in the world.

I had graduated from that school with high marks and grades. Funny enough, I owed it to the lack of friends during my time in that place, since with no ponies to hang out or converse with, I ended up devoting my time to studying. I had documents to prove my competence, and many a good word from my tutor, so you'd think I would have had no trouble at all finding somepony to employ me, right?

Have you forgotten I didn't have a cutie mark? I still didn't have one when I graduated. My precious documents were proof to anypony I showed them to that I was a competent and determined character, but ultimately, here in Manehatten at least, it is one's cutie mark that decides one's career in life. It was that image, that symbolic representation tattooed upon our flanks, which spoke volumes of our destinies, of our 'special talents'. I never had the chance to look for mine. I was always worrying about what cruelty I was going to be subjected to the next day of school.

Without a cutie mark, I had no clue at all about where to go, which direction I should go in my life. My parents would tell me to take my time, that I would always have a place at home until I had found a job. My parents, they were so caring and kind. I always thanked the princesses each day and night (respectively) for blessing me with a mother and father such as them. After the horrors I faced during my education years, my parents were pretty much my lifeline, proof that there really was some good in the world, a reason to endure all the crap I received.

I accepted their offer, though reluctantly. I did not feel comfortable with having to still live at home. I loved my parents, and I cannot make that any clearer, but I just felt like a burden to them, a jobless son relying on his mother and father for shelter and food. I did not want that lifestyle. I wanted to find myself a job as soon as I could, and begin working to earn enough bits to rent an apartment, so I could move out of my parent's home and release myself from the shackles of dependence and reliance on others.

For most ponies, it's not that difficult to find a job here in the bustling metropolis that is Manehatten, where there is always somepony looking for a new shop assistant, or to advertise their company's newest product. Heck, even my parents tried to help me along, suggesting I looked into entering their line of work, which was nice enough of them, though I politely declined as I wanted to find employment my own way. But then, most ponies have a cutie mark. I didn't.

I would spend hours upon hours searching for 'WANTED' ads in newspapers and window signs. I would find out about a company or some small business looking for workers, and I would immediately set about making arrangements to attend an interview or meeting with whoever was in charge. I would make myself look presentable as best I could, and head out of my childhood home to meet with what I would assume was my destiny, confident and hopeful.

And I was always turned down, told that I was not who they were looking for. Why? Take a good bucking guess.

Each and every time, the moment the pony in charge saw my cutie mark-less hide, he would immediately ask me to leave, and they all said the same thing; that they weren't sure that I was cut out for whatever job I had tried to apply for. It turned out that they weren't convinced that I could do the line of work I tried to get into. One pony who interviewed me, an old greying earth stallion as I recall, turned me down simply because he disliked pegasi!

Without a cutie mark to show that I had the competence and potential that they were looking for, they just weren't convinced that I was worth giving a chance. I ended up in a routine where I left my home in the morning to attend an interview, confident and sure of myself, only to return home that night in great disappointment, and even greater annoyance as I thought of the time I had wasted for nothing, and all because I lacked something which I never had the chance to find.

I suppose what made the whole thing worse was how my parents would wish me luck as I embarked on my journey to those interviews, and how they would always be waiting for me when I returned home, with hopeful looks on their faces, as though they were sure that I had managed to find employment this time. Those looks quickly turned into expressions of disappointment and sympathy when I gave them the same answer each night. This same cycle continued for several months, and each day that passed by saw my hopes of ever standing on my own hooves and starting my own life becoming more and more of a fantasy than a possibility.

It was, however, at the end of those several months that I finally did find a job. I was looking through a newspaper as usual, and I saw an ad placement from a packaging business by the name of 'MANEHATTEN PACKAGING CO', located on the far end of Manehatten. At this point, I had almost given up on ever earning my own money, but nevertheless I tore out the ad, and made an arrangement for an interview.

The location of the workplace was, to say the least, a shithole. I had never really been anywhere around the far end of Manehatten before, so this was my first time visiting this part of the city. And it shocked me just how bland and colourless it looked. The whole area was nothing but a poor image of industry at its worst, with small factories pumping smog from towering chimneys, and graffiti sprayed all over the walls and on the sides of buildings, and even to this day I can still recall the smell of raw sewage masking the stench of urine and Celestia-only-knows-what else. The atmosphere here was...well, actually, there was no atmosphere here at all. It was grey, dull, and depressing. I remember feeling relieved at the fact that the lack of any housing or residential structures meant that nopony was living in this awful place.

How I had never known that such a horrible environment like this existed in Manehatten was beyond me, but I could understand why such a place was located so far away from the brighter, more cheerful-looking part of Manehatten that I knew.

Despite how bad the appearance was though, I had come here for a job, and if I had to put up being in a place like this, then so be it. It wasn't hard to find the workplace which turned out to be a small building with a large sign upon it that read, 'MANEHATTEN PACKAGING CO', and it, like the rest of the buildings around here, looked just as grey and bland. Still, it was probably my last chance to find employment, so I swallowed my pride and proceeded forth.

The interior of the building was no different than it was on the outside. Dull, colourless, and severely lacking in atmosphere. There were a couple ten ponies here and there, fiddling around with machinery and conveyor belts, or sealing up large cardboard boxes and wheeling them away on trolleys, probably to some shipping area I had imagined. And everypony wore an emotionless expression on their faces, their eyes tired and exhausted. I got the feeling that most of them were actually younger than they looked, wrinkles and creases in their facial features likely caused from working in such an awful environment.

And they moved from place to place in an un-nerving zombie-like trance. Like they weren't of flesh and blood, but machines in disguise. They didn't even bother to acknowledge my presence. It was as though they didn't even care about anything other than their mindless servitude to the maintenance of the machinery, and to the preparation of whatever supplies were being sent out. It was creepy. It was as though their souls had been drained from their bodies, leaving behind mindless, unthinking slaves.

I was soon greeted by the stallion who owned the place, somepony by the name of Serious Business. I remember him as a grey-coated stallion with a darker grey mane and tail. I think his cutie mark was of a stern face or something like that. It was hard to see it clearly beneath that suit he wore. He took me aside and into his office, and I basically told him the same stuff I told the other employers before, and showed him my graduation papers when he asked to see them.

As he was examining them, it was only then that I realized the newspaper ad never actually said what sort of work was going to be given. When I asked Mr Serious about what I was applying for, it turned out to be a janitorial position. That's right. Cleaning other ponies messes and waste.

Needless to say, after all of my hard work back in school, I felt very much insulted, especially when he told me what my wages were going to be. Ten bits a week! I was never going to move out of my parent's house with that kind of money! I wouldn't even be able to afford an apartment!

But I needed work. I needed to make my own money. And nopony else had wanted to hire me. Serious Business was offering me a job and a wage, regardless of how crap it was. What else could I have done?

I took the offer. He shook my hoof. I was told I started work first thing tomorrow morning. After somehow managing to swallow my pride, I was able to bring myself to thank him for giving me the job, but it took every ounce of my willpower to keep myself from complaining about the poor pay. So that was that. Despite all my hard work back in school, and after searching for so long for somepony to employ me, it came down to me with a mop and bucket. Need i say how i felt about that fact?

On the (somewhat) brighter side though, at least i got to leave that foul-smelling place. I dreaded to think if and how the awful stench of the environment would affect my sense of smell. Guess it was just good fortune I was born a Pegasus, otherwise I would have had to walk the way home, and starting with going through that nostril-offending shithole. I still couldn't believe a place like this could exist in Manehatten, and in such a state. But i suppose that is industry for you.

One thought occupied my mind during the flight home; how was i going to explain this to my parents? How would they react upon hearing that their son, a competent and young graduating colt, ended up becoming somepony whose responsibility was cleaning the floors and making sure that the staff toilets weren't clogged up with Celestia-knows-what? I feared they would be disappointed, or worse ashamed, and if I were them, I would have been myself. I cursed myself for ever taking that job now, despite knowing why i did anyway.

I felt like as though some higher deity had just played a cruel joke with my life, like it had decided that the suffering i put up with in school wasn't amusing enough, and that i had to be humiliated further. That i was the unlucky pony in some messed-up comedy sketch show, a toy for some twisted puppeteer pulling all the strings.

If this day had been some kind of a sick joke, nothing could have prepared me for the punchline when i finally arrived home...

Author's Note:

In the next Chapter, we'll see how Happy struggles to deal with his greatest loss yet, and his descent into depression and madness.

If you guys are keeping up with this story, then I have to say that first of all, well done for enduring this crap I'm producing, and secondly, thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading this crap I'm producing. I know I'm not the best story-teller, so just seeing the view count go up by even just one point lets me know that somebody out there decided to give my story a chance. My only hope is that my story was worth your time, because i don't like wasting people's time.

Be Unique and stay Unique, ya'll!

Comments

[UniqueSKD]

Thanks for viewing my story thus far, everybody! I hope you will still stay with me until the climax. Sad as it will be.

(Perhaps...)