141: Spring Derping
Karyn was used to Derpy arriving with only her saddlebag, so it threw her for a moment when among the grey, blonde, and brown, she saw a spot of white and yellow. It had been so long since she had seen a flower in bloom that she had to recall it from long term memory.
“Brought you a daisy,” said Derpy.
“Thank you.” Karyn dug in a kitchen drawer for a thin vase which she filled with water. “Spring is there in Equestria, huh?”
“Yes. In fact, I opened my windows today for the first time this year. It’s always fun to hear the cracking of the wood that’s settled in for all those months.”
“That would be nice. I still have to wait for it to be warmer.”
“Are you sure?” Derpy sniffed at the air near the glass. “It seems fine to me.”
“I’ve still got the heat on low, it could be throwing you off. But I’ll go ahead if you’re willing to risk it.”
The windows in Karyn’s apartment opened with a crank, and it did have the satisfying sound of separation as she pushed it to the left. But the cold air that came in pushed Derpy back and she said, “I was wrong. You can shut it.”
“Thanks,” Karyn reversed the crank. The window didn’t seal shut but it was closed enough that no wind would get in. “How was your week?”
“Good. Any jobs yet?”
“No, but I don’t mind if you keep asking. I sent out some letters and I kept hitting my schedule. The good thing is that I was planning on doing so even if I didn’t have to talk to you about it.”
“How is that good?” asked Derpy. “You should have been doing that anyway.”
“Yes, but, like, when my parents ask me about sticking to something, it’s like I’m trying to just satisfy them. That’s how it was when I was trying to pick schools. I was just going through the motions. But now, even if I lie and tell you that I sent out resumes, if I didn’t do it, then I’m that much further from finding a job.”
“You shouldn’t lie in any case.”
A twinkle came into Karyn’s eye. “Of course, but I do anyway. You wouldn’t, because you’re a sainted pony. They should have given you the element of honesty.”
“It’s not that, I just never had anything to lie about.”
“Like I said, sainted.”
During this time, they had eaten their breakfast, and Derpy, being the first done, took her dish to the sink and began washing it. “I’m really not. Besides, you’re much smarter than me.”
“No way. You always seem to know what to do.”
“That’s experience, not brains. When you’re my age, you’ll know more than me. No, the only thing I can claim to have on you is cleanliness.” She picked up Karyn’s dish as well.
“I concede the title to you.”
“For example, have you scheduled your spring cleaning yet?”
“Spring cleaning?” Karyn answered by reflex. Derpy seemed to be watching for that answer. If she had had time to think about it, she might have answered, “not yet,” which would have been true while also implying that she was going to. As it was, Karyn was aware of the concept, but considered it one for other people to worry about.
“Yeah, since spring is coming. I was planning to do mine today.”
“I’m surprised that you have to do any. Your house is always spotless.”
Shaking her head in shock, Derpy said, “No way, and I’ll show you.”
Karyn knew what that meant, and prepared herself for the trip to Equestria. The sun warmed her up and she slipped out of her jacket while trying to stay on Derpy’s back and not throw her off balance. When they entered the house, her instincts had her extend the jacket toward the couch, but she remembered they were here to clean, and instead hung it up on the coat rack.
Looking around the house, she still didn’t see much to clean. Just like her own weekly tidying sessions, no papers were out on the tables, nothing that should be in a drawer wasn’t. What more needed to be done? Sure, in her place, the closet could use some organization, but what was a closet for if not to throw things that you didn’t want to deal with? And where were you supposed to put things that just didn’t have a place? Or that you knew you would need in a few weeks, but didn’t want to forget about until then?
“So what are we going to do first?” she asked.
“Well, the couch is too big to move outside, so we’ll have to dust that here. But the coffee table will go.”
She picked up one end, and Karyn grabbed the other, not understanding why the cleaning couldn’t be done in situ. But she brought it outside and then took one end table while Derpy hauled the other. A brazier-type lamp joined the other furniture, where Derpy dumped the ashes onto the lawn. Soon the room seemed quite bare indeed, but then Derpy began rolling up the rug.
The carpet in Derpy’s living room was oval-shaped and had a striped pattern. Karyn had barely noticed it, but with the room empty it was the central piece. She took one end and made for the door, only to find Derpy pulling the other way. “No, bring this upstairs. We’ll do this first.” Asking no questions, Karyn complied. When they got it up, Derpy took it out to the terrace outside Dinky’s room and threw one end over the rail. “Normally I pin it under something, but if you can hold on, great.”
Karyn did, and Derpy took off. Using her wings in time, she was able to keep aloft while beating the rug with large, flat strokes. Each one sent a cloud of dust into the air, and Karyn had to turn her head to get a clean breath. She realized that they probably wouldn’t have vacuum technology in Equestria, so this was necessary.
After changing ends, Derpy continued to beat the rug, and Karyn was amazed how much dust it held. It reminded her of when she had to clean computers with canned air, and how she could hit the same spot in the chip fan or drive bays and get more dust each time.
“Is that it?” she asked once Derpy came back in.
“For the rug, yes. Now we’ve got to sweep out. Or, I’ve got to. Because I’ve only got one broom.”
The broom Derpy brought out looked like it had seen its share of years, but it did the job. Karyn showed her surprise again as Derpy managed to extract unseen dirt from the wood of the floor. Methodically she moved it toward the door and out where the wind would do what it will. After moving the couch she covered that area too.
Karyn thought about it. Unlike humans, who wore clothes all the time and washed them after one or two uses, Derpy would touch her body to her furniture every day. It might be that Equestrians were naturally cleaner and more free from germs, but the regular dirt of the world still clung to them, and so it would be more difficult to stay clean.
She had never considered how systematic cleaning was. By showering every day and doing laundry every week, they avoided living in filth and didn’t need to clean their environments as much. But even they needed occasional maintenance. It brought her back to her idea that Equestria had no vacuums, and that made her realize that they couldn’t have wall-to-wall carpeting. Was that true? Had that only been invented after the vacuum, just the way that tall buildings needed elevators first?
Although Equestria had magic, Earth had a degree of integration that they didn’t.
Karyn didn’t want to seem too petulant, but when Derpy started bringing furniture back in, she repeated her question. “Is that it?”
“For this room, yes. I’ll probably do the bedrooms and the bathroom and the kitchen over the next couple of weeks. It’s spring cleaning, so I’ve got some time left to do it.”
Karyn realized that Derpy thought it meant cleaning during the entire spring. That was even worse than doing it once.
“Well, then let’s get all this in so we can get back home and have fun.”
“Sure. Actually, I’ll make us some snacks and refreshing drinks first. Just one thing.”
“What’s that?”
Derpy put down the table. “Let’s have them in the kitchen.”
Karyn laughed, and they kept the living room pristene for that day at least.
Once they’d finished up, Derpy returned them to Earth. On walking back to the apartment, they caught the sound of a hose being sprayed, and Derpy diverted to look. Gayle had been washing her car, just finishing the final rinse.
“Hi, Karyn!” she said. “Derpy?”
“Afternoon, Gayle.” It still unnerved Karyn when Derpy spoke on Earth, but this was safe.
“Having fun?”
“Oh, lots. We just did spring cleaning on my house.”
Gayle uncoupled the hose and bled out the water. “Yeah? I was working on that too. I guess we’re all on the same page.”
“You need any help?”
Karyn wished it were she that was invisible, because she wanted to flash Derpy a look to go with her sentiment. Spring cleaning was bad. Doing it for a friend, so that it wasn’t even her place that got the benefit of it, was worse. For her landlady, though she liked her, it was a total waste.
“I don’t think there’s much you can do, but come on in.”
Gayle didn’t even use carpets the way Derpy did, having a bare wood floor in her studio. Though it was one big room she seemed to have it separated into a work and a living area. The work area in the back was the neater, but needed the stronger cleaning, as spots of paint or molding clay had gotten all over.
“This does look like it needs cleaning,” said Derpy.
“I’ll take care of out here today,” Gayle said, gesturing at the area by the door, “but the art part I need to use turpentine and all sorts of nasty chemicals. I’ll want to have the window open for that, and it’s too cold.”
“Yeah, we found that out this morning.” Karyn didn’t want to mess with Gayle’s stuff, but at the same time she wanted to extricate herself while have fulfilled Derpy’s offer of help. So idly she turned the handles of some coffee mugs to be parallel and bounced a stack of papers into rectangular shape, avoiding seeing what they were.
When that was done, she went over and sat by Gayle, as thought trying to indicate that the working portion of this visit had come to an end. But it was not to be. Derpy poked her head into a closet and came out with a feather duster. The mild surprise on Gayle’s face told Karyn that she might will have ducked back to her own home to retrieve it, leaving Earth frozen in time.
With a will, Derpy attacked the art side of the room. “If we clean all the dry dirt, then your scrubbing and chemicals will be more effective.” No one responded and Gayle took no steps to hinder her.
“So,” Gayle began, “magical pony. You know I’ve been bursting with curiosity about her and her world.”
“It’s not as different as you think. Apparently the reason the world exists is because someone dreamed it up, and magic pierces the veil between reality and fiction. The unicorns say that our world might be just as much ‘fictional.’ We just don’t have the magic to do it.”
“OK, pass that over. Tell me about Derpy herself.”
That gave Karyn pause. Where did she begin with Derpy’s personality?
“Well...” she began, then faltered.
“Start with this. Why does she seem so intent upon cleaning?”
“Is that such a bad thing?”
“Not at all. But I’m not, and she is. You understand something different about someone, you start to get to know them.”
Karyn filed that thought away for later use. “I’m not that neat either. But about Derpy. She insists on my place being clean enough as well. Not so much about being clean as being consistent week to week. She needs a familiar environment. She has to know where to find things.
“A lot of people—a lot of ponies, I mean—think she’s slow or stupid, but she’s really not. Quite the opposite; at times she can be brilliant. But not in the way that we think about genius. She doesn’t see what no one else sees. Instead, she sees what everyone else should see, but gets cluttered in all the minutiae of life. I don’t know if I’m making sense.”
“No, I think I get it. Because I have to do that a lot in my work. A lot of artists are so intent on creating something difficult or smart, but the ones that sell are those who show people what they want to see, what they ought to see.”
Looking over at Derpy flying everywhere and dusting cobwebs out of the overhead lights, Karyn grinned. “She’s definitely off-normal like that. I think it took her a long time to come to grips with that. So she’s a late bloomer. But here we are talking like she’s not in the room.” She got up and walked to the back. Again trying to avert her eyes from any projects that Gayle might not want viewed yet, Karyn tried to flag down Derpy. “Why don’t you go visit with Gayle for a while and I’ll do this? I think you two would be good friends.”
“I’m almost done here.” Derpy wouldn’t be stopped, and even with her one tool, inefficient in many cases, she managed to get a good pile of dirt and dust built up. “Do you have a dustpan?”
Gayle walked over to them. “Yes, but I’ll take care of it later. I want to sketch something out.”
Karyn read her implications, and said, “You’re not going to draw Derpy, are you?”
“Not all of her. I’m just intrigued by how her feathers and those of the duster work together. Parallelism is a thing in art.”
“Come on, Derpy. Gayle’s inspired and we should leave her to work while she’s still got it.” Gayle beamed at her for understanding this.
“OK, sure. I’ll talk to you later, Gayle.”
Beating a path back to her own apartment, Karyn flopped into a chair and effected fatigue. “Whew! That was a lot of work.”
“Yep!” said Derpy. “Only one more place to do.”
Karyn raised her head while the rest of her remained slack. “Huh?”
“If we give your place a spring cleaning too, we’ll have accomplished a lot today.”
It was a struggle to come up with any reason why she couldn’t. “Derpy, you don’t want to clean my apartment. It’s my responsibility to do that. I’ll take care of it during the week.”
“During the week you’re going to be looking for a job. Plus it can be fun to clean.”
“That’s a matter of opinion. Please, really, leave it alone for now. If you really want we’ll do it next week so I have a chance to get it in shape first.”
Derpy finally understood. “Please, just let me help. I promise that I won’t say anything about how you keep it. I won’t even think anything. And I’ll do all the work.”
Standing up like a zombie from its grave, Karyn said, “I can’t let you do that. Come on, let’s see if opening the closet will cause an avalanche.”
It didn’t, but there was still plenty of clutter in there, textbooks from back in Karyn’s freshman year that she’d been unable to sell and some odd computer parts that she’d never needed but still worked. “Do you have a trash bag?” asked Derpy.
“Yes, but I don’t know that there’s going to be a whole lot to throw out.”
“Maybe there’ll be some things that you know you don’t need. Even though you might someday it’s easier to get a new one then and have the space now.”
Karyn shrugged. She didn’t know if she believed Derpy but thought it might be a case of having more experience. They attacked the closet, when Karyn noticed they had different methods. Derpy was trying to move objects like a puzzle, while Karyn pulled them out into the middle of the room.
Scowling, Derpy said, “You’re making a bigger mess.”
“That’s how I do it. We’ll make a mess out here, and that’ll be easier to clean. In the closet something might be out of place, but on the floor, everything’s out of place, so we have to place it all. Either in the trash or back in the closet.”
“I guess. It’ll make it harder to clean the floor.”
Karyn decided to be firm. “Listen, Derpy, I understand how important this is to you, but I’m more concerned about getting organized than scrubbing this place down. It’ll be more useful.”
“I said I wouldn’t complain. So we’ll do it your way.”
There was gentleness in Derpy’s voice, so Karyn agreed and pulled more clutter from the closet. Finding a thick garbage bag meant for lawn clippings, she started throwing away things she didn’t want. “This is kind of fun,” Karyn said out of nowhere.
“Really? You’re getting into cleanliness?”
“Not so much that, but being as this is a transition period in my life, it’s fun to get something done that will help that. If I have to find some place closer to a job I get, we’re making it easier to move when I do. So it’s like when you work hard to have fun later.”
Derpy nodded approval, but something still seemed to be eating her. Karyn pursued it until Derpy said, “Can’t we at least do the rug? You know, since I did mine?”
“Didn’t you notice? The carpets here are nailed in.”
“No, I hadn’t. I figured it was just laid in the exact shape of the apartment. Which I approve of.”
“Well, it kinda is, but if you go to the edge, you’ll see.” She pulled the pile away to show metal. “OK, it’s stapled in, not nailed, but same thing.”
“So do you have to unstaple it to beat it clean?”
“No, we vacuum clean it.”
“Oh! I know what that is! Can we use it?”
Karyn blushed. “I don’t actually own one.”
“Maybe Gayle does. I’ll go see if I can borrow one from her...is that OK?”
“Thanks for asking. Yes.”
Derpy had gotten quite adept at quickly going invisible, then moving a short distance, and back to normal. So she knocked on Gayle’s door and went in to explain her errand. Gayle was only too happy to lend.
“It works on the wood floor, but should have a setting for carpet. Tell Karyn I appreciate her keeping the place up.”
She didn’t say anything to contradict Gayle, but returned to the apartment. Karyn had done a good job on the clutter, having the trash bag well loaded. Derpy said, “I’ll haul this out while you start on the vacuuming.”
“Why don’t I take out the trash so that no one sees it floating down to the trash because you’re invisible?”
“Good idea. I guess I can work around the furniture rather than move all that out as well.”
Karyn played with the settings until the vacuum raised up. “Yeah, no need to get crazy.”
“Besides, it’s not like dirt can get under there if it’s flush against the carpet.”
“You’d be surprised,” Karyn didn’t say, swallowing the words at the last moment.
Though the noise was ear-piercing, all the more so because of the small space, Karyn bore with it as she passed the vacuum over the rug. When she would hit some deeper dirt she would hear the satisfying crackle of something substantial being sucked up, and she saw the lines of the wheels making the carpet darker. She hated to admit it, but everything was looking cleaner, just from a trace effort.
Derpy came back in and took over, pushing it all the way into the corners and making sure each pass was perfectly square to the wall. “There,” she said, shutting it off. “We’ll call that a good job.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“I guess this doesn’t qualify as making each Sunday as fun as possible.”
Karyn didn’t want Derpy to feel bad. “The reason I said that is that afterwards, they’re not going to be. But I’ll have to find the good in them. I’d rather spend a Sunday cleaning with you than partying alone.”
Derpy smiled and thanked Karyn, then left for home. Once she was gone, Karyn realized that she hadn’t had lunch and was too hungry to go out for dinner. She made for the freezer to get something to eat, but then looked at the rug.
I can’t get crumbs on it. Not a one. Not tonight. I’d have to go ask Gayle for the vacuum again. Just for tonight, let it be clean.
She poured herself a glass of water to make sure something got in her stomach, then trudged outside to head out to eat. Taking one more look back at her apartment, she smiled at the clean floor, then shut the door.
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Yaay for Spring Clean.
One of these years Ive really got to get round to seein if I can discover if I have a carpet.
random quotations
Another good chapter!
5921724 D'oh! That's my hands' way of telling me I'm writing too much dialogue and not enough action.
5921901 The balance between action and dialogue must always be kept!
One day, we'll actually schedule in cleaning. For now though, it's mostly accidental when I don't want to do schoolwork...
Keep going! ;)
Her landlady, Gayle, seems pretty cool with Derpy these days despite the lack of interaction. It's been a long time since those two met or even saw each other in the previous year. I'm impressed with this chapter however, it's the first time I can recall there being a serious "disagreement" between Derpy and Karyn; not exactly an argument but it was getting close to one.
On a more realistic note, the dearth of Earth-based disasters being mentioned to Derpy is kind. One only needs look at the previous year's news to see what depressing thing has happened lately; earthquakes, planes going down with everyone lost, ebola, typhoons. tornadoes, and so on. While Equestria probably has it's own share of tragedy on a smaller scale, I guess the lack of a near-instant global information network insulates the common pony from such depressing news.
While such a thing is FAR outside the scope of this interpersonal relation story, I'd hope that for a opening of human-pony relations would begin with ponies showing up to help (as ponies tend to do) after some such disaster. We tend to flail and stumble a lot in these it seems, I mean, just look at the Nepal Earthquake; less than two dozen helicopters for the ENTIRE country? And most of them are military, too big and heavy to land in the mountainous terrain easily which only prolongs the suffering of the injured and those needing basic food/water supplies. I'm not certain how we'd take it if an army of pegasi showed up to haul stuff to otherwise-inaccessible towns where every building is nothing but rubble, rigging a sling to carry the wounded out, and other flightless ponies doing... whatever.
And what about flipping that scenario on it's head? I've seen more than one fic' where humans come to Equestria through superscience (ponies don't have the lock on portals after all, heh). Could have humans observing ponies for awhile, only to watch some disaster happen like a tsunami or some such thing and decide that it's time to stop hiding and help. With the lack of global communications, some city off at the edge of Equestria could take weeks to get proper royal assistance. Think of it happening at the turn of the 19th Century. Sure, you had the telegraph but that was it. It still took weeks to get a relief ship (or if you're lucky, a train near or wherever the tracks got wrecked) to where a city burned or an exceptionally powerful Earthquake razed a region. The human savior scenario could be interesting to ponder, don't you think?
5923582 Your scenarios are solid gold. I cannot help but feel, though, there would be some that would be opposed to them (ponykind and/or humans) on some oddball reason, rather than accept the aid for what it was.
5946951
I'd expect no less than a few barriers, at first. The most annoying is the language barrier but basic meaning can always get across until a more elegant solution is found. Second is a new alien race showing up out of nowhere, the tinfoil hat ponies (*ahem*-Lyra) going "I was right! Ha ha!" and xenophobic types trying to hide the wife and children in the basement.
Depending on how bad the scenario is (distance from Equestrian relief, magnitude of the disaster itself, and so on) the Princess (or Princesses) might find herself walking into a site a month old with humans and local ponies working together to rebuild and recover. First response triage centers replaced with more permanent medical stations, wrecked critical buildings getting replaced with those mobile home style ones until a proper one can be constructed (such as classrooms, police stations, fire stations), probably a good sized "tent city" for those homeless ponies, new infrastructure using
alien space-agehuman tech, and other stuff that develops with on-going international relief action.Yes yes, it's all very pro-human. I say why not a feel-good-about-yourself story.